Kush and Meroë
Nubia and the Nile cataracts, the Kerma kingdom, Egyptian conquest of Nubia, the rise of Napata and Jebel Barkal, the Kushite 25th dynasty (Piye, Taharqa), the move to Meroë, iron working, the Meroitic script, Nubian pyramids, the candaces (queens) who resisted Rome, and Kush's decline in the 4th century CE.
Africa's other pharaohs
Kush is one of Africa's oldest and longest-lived states. Sudan has more pyramids than Egypt, most of them at Meroë, smaller and steeper than Giza's. Kushite queens called kandake (Greek and Roman sources wrote "Candace") ruled in their own right; Queen Amanirenas fought Roman forces in the 20s BCE, leading to a negotiated treaty with Augustus. Meroë's iron industry left large slag heaps, once taken as evidence it was an African centre of iron spread, a view now considered too simple but a sign of its industrial scale.
Derek Welsby, The Kingdom of Kush (1996); László Török, The Kingdom of Kush: Handbook of the Napatan-Meroitic Civilization (1997); UNESCO General History of Africa, vol. II.