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Napata

File:Jebel_barkal_rock.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

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Napata (, ; ; and ) was a city of ancient Kush at the fourth cataract of the Nile founded by the Egyptian Amun cult for Egyptian pilgrims given by its, as suggested, Egyptian name. It is located approximately 1.5 kilometers from the east side of the river at the site of modern Karima, Sudan.

OverviewAI-generated

Napata is a city and archaeological site located in the Northern State of Sudan. Associated with Ancient Egyptian culture, the site is also referred to as Barkal. It sits at an elevation of 286 meters and is situated within the administrative entity of the Northern State.

The location has a population of 0. It is described in the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary.

Synthesized by Vinony from 36 facts across 7 sources: Wikidata, Open Meteo, Openweathermap, OpenStreetMap, GeoNames, Vinony graph, Geo. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

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Place details

Locality
الدهيسيرة
Region
الولاية الشمالية Northern State
Country
السودان
Population
0

via OpenStreetMap · GeoNames

Air quality

79US AQIModerate
PM2.5
15.9 µg/m³
PM10
36.8 µg/m³
As of 2026-09-14 04:00 · Open-Meteo

Wikidata facts

Country
Sudan
Located in
Northern State
Image
Amun in Barkal.jpg
Show 3 more facts
Commons category
Napata
Sources (4)

via Wikidata · CC0

~11 min read

Encyclopedic overview

8 sections
Contents
  • Early history
  • Napatan period
  • Assyrian invasion and end of the Twenty-fifth dynasty
  • Late Napatan kingdom
  • Archaeology of the site
  • Cultural references
  • References
  • Further reading

Napata (, ; ; and ) was a city of ancient Kush at the fourth cataract of the Nile founded by the Egyptian Amun cult for Egyptian pilgrims given by its, as suggested, Egyptian name. It is located approximately 1.5 kilometers from the east side of the river at the site of modern Karima, Sudan.

Napata was the southernmost permanent settlement in the New Kingdom of Egypt (16th–11th centuries BC) and home to Jebel Barkal, the main Kushite cult centre of Amun. It was the sometime capital of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt and, after its fall in 663 BC, of the Kingdom of Kush. In 593 BC, it was sacked by the Egyptians and the Kushite capital was relocated to Meroë. Even after this move, Napata continued to be the kingdom's primary religious centre. The city was sacked a second time by the Romans in 23 BC but was rebuilt and continued as an important centre of the Amun cult.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Napata” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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