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====Ancient Nubian Culture====

[[File: Nubia.png|250px|thumbnail|left|Map of Egypt and Nubia: The Numbers Represent the Cataracts of the Nile River]]

The term “Nubia” is actually a modern word, which may be derived from the ancient Egyptian word for gold – <i>nebu</i>. To both the Egyptians and Nubians, the Nile River was the source of their lifeblood. It brought yearly floods that allowed their crops to grow, so both peoples were geographically orientated along a north-south axis. The Egyptians referred to anything south of the first cataract (cataracts are rocky portions of a river unnavigable by boat) as “Wawat,” and anything south of the second cataract was called “Kush.” Collectively, Wawat and Kush comprise the region that modern scholars generally refer to as Nubia. <ref> Morkot, Robert. <i>The Black Pharaohs: Egypt’s Nubian Rulers.</i> (London: Rubicon Press, 2000), p. 6</ref>

====The Height of Nubian Power====

The height of Nubian political power in the region came during Egypt’s Second Intermediate Period (ca. 1750-1650 BC), when a foreign dynasty known as the “Hyksos” people were in control of northern Egypt. Though, the Nubians had extended their power from the Dongola Reach region around Kerma all the way north to the first cataract. <ref> Morkot, p. 62</ref> and were apparently not content with that as they were involved in an alliance with the Hyksos. <ref> Welsby, p. 12</ref> The Nubians probably had their eyes set on acquiring the region around Thebes, which also happened to be the home of the only native Egyptian dynasty at the time, but quickly had their plans destroyed when the Egyptian King Ahmose (reigned ca. 1552-1527 BC) came to power, initiating the Eighteenth Dynasty and the New Kingdom and putting Nubia once more into an inferior political position.