Napata was a city on the west bank of the Nile river, some 400 km north of the present capital of Sudan. It was built around 1450 BC, by the Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose III, when he extended his empire to that region and considered Gebel Barkal, the nearby mountain, its southern limit. Some 300 years later, Napata became the capital of the independent kingdom of Kush.

In 22 BC the Roman governor of Egypt, Gaius Petronius Pontius Nigrinus, marched along the Nile with legions XXII Deiotariana and III Cyrenaica and destroyed Napata.

Today, Napata's ruins include at least 13 temples and 3 palaces, that were for the first described by European explorers in the 1820’s. The larger temples, such that of Amon, are even today considered sacred to the local population.

For these reasons, the mountain, together with the historical cities of Meroe and Napata, were considered by UNESCO, in 2003, World Heritage Sites.

See also

• LearningSites.com - Gebel Barkal
• UNESCO World Heritage - Gebel Barkal and the Sites of the Napatan Region
• List of World Heritage Sites in Africa

History of Africa | History of Sudan | World Heritage Sites in Sudan | 22 BC disestablishments

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