650 BCE–250 CE: (The Meroitic Empire After Egypt — Even After the Loss of Its Egyptian Lands During the Second Half of the 600s BCE and the Subsequent Move o…

650 BCE–250 CE: (The Meroitic Empire After Egypt — Even After the Loss of Its Egyptian Lands During the Second Half of the 600s BCE and the Subsequent Move of Its Capital to Meroë Near Modern-Day Khartoum, This Empire Continuing as a Major Power for the Next Nine Hundred Years, Its Territories Spread Across 1,200 Kilometers from Near Aswan in Modern-Day Egypt Through the Modern-Day Gezira Region of Sudan, Its Hegemony Extending Over the Land Connections of Trade Between the Nile and the Red Sea, Its Merchants Supplying Gold Ivory Rhino Horn Tortoiseshell and Cotton Textiles to That Trade): Even after the loss of its lands in Egypt proper during the second half of the 600s BCE, and the subsequent move of its capital to Meroë near modern-day Khartoum, this empire continued to be a major power for the next nine hundred years. Its territories spread across 1,200 kilometers from near Aswan in modern-day Egypt through the modern-day Gezira region of Sudan. Its hegemony extended as well over the land connections of trade between the Nile and the Red Sea, and its merchants were the suppliers of gold, ivory, rhino horn, tortoiseshell, and cotton textiles to that trade. Nine hundred years. The Meroitic Empire, after losing Egypt, endured for nine centuries as a major power — a span longer than the entire history of the Roman Empire from Augustus to Romulus Augustulus. It controlled the trade routes connecting the Nile valley to the Red Sea corridor, the gateway to the Indian Ocean commercial world. Its merchants supplied the luxury goods — gold, ivory, rhino horn, tortoiseshell, cotton textiles — that fueled the commerce of the ancient world from the Mediterranean to India. This was not a rump state clinging to the remnants of former glory. This was a commercial and military power of the first order, dominating the strategic intersection of Africa’s two great trade arteries — the Nile and the Red Sea — for nearly a millennium. The longevity alone should command attention. Few states in the ancient world lasted as long. Fewer still maintained their commercial and military significance across such a span. The Meroitic Empire is one of the great enduring polities of the ancient world, and the silence that surrounds it in standard world histories is a measure not of its insignificance but of the discipline’s failure.