It's the ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Shuse your host and in today's podcast

we are continuing our theme of ancient Egypt. But in this podcast we are going to go forward

in time from our previous chat on the remarkable Hatship Set because we are going to the

eighth and seventh centuries BC when an extraordinary royal family ruled Egypt. And what is

remarkable about this royal family, this dynasty is that they did not come from Egypt proper.

They came from further south, they came from modern day Sudan. These were the Kushite

or the Nubian pharaohs. And in this podcast we are talking about a key royal cemetery for

the 25th dynasty. Situated in modern day northern Sudan it is called El Kuru. And it is

from this royal cemetery that we have some remarkable archaeology surviving. Now joining me to

tell us more about El Kuru, I was delighted to be joined by Dr. Rachel Dan from the University

of Copenhagen. Rachel has been excavating at El Kuru for several years, she has been working

alongside a brilliant team. So it was great to go on the show to learn more about El Kuru and

the extraordinary archaeology that survives. Here's Rachel.

Rachel, thank you so much for joining me today. That's a pleasure.

Now El Kuru, I mean this is an extraordinary site, the final resting place for one of the most

astonishing extraordinary dynasties to rule ancient Egypt.

Yeah, it certainly is, it's the burial place of what we know as the 25th dynasty who ruled Egypt

between about 750 BC and about 650 AD, I said that wrong, between 750 BC and 650 BC. That

would be a terribly long time otherwise. That would have been very impressive. Yes.

Despite the fact that these newbie and kings, these Sudanese kings ruled Egypt and made their

administrative centre in Thebes, the old Egyptian hotland, they continued to return home to be buried.

And so they maintained in a sense a two centre double kingdom as it's been called in which they

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