750–650 BCE: (Napatan Political Strategy in Egypt — Recent Scholarship Indicating That Two Kinds of Cultural and Political Considerations Predominated During…

750–650 BCE: (Napatan Political Strategy in Egypt — Recent Scholarship Indicating That Two Kinds of Cultural and Political Considerations Predominated During These Eras, During Their Conquest and Rule Over Egypt from Around 750 BCE to the Mid-600s the Napatan Kings Seeking to Consolidate and Gain Acceptance of Their Rule Over Their New Territories by Undertaking Practical Measures Expressive of Respect and Reverence Toward Particular Egyptian Gods Most Notably Amun and Their Key Places of Worship): Recent scholarship indicates that two kinds of cultural and political considerations predominated during these eras. On the one hand, during their conquest and rule over Egypt from around 750 BCE to the mid-600s, the Napatan kings sought to consolidate and gain acceptance of their rule over their new territories by undertaking practical measures expressive of respect and reverence toward particular Egyptian gods, most notably Amun, and their key places of worship. The Napatan embrace of Amun was not the act of backward peoples imitating a superior civilization. It was the calculated political strategy of sophisticated conquerors managing a diverse empire. When the Napatan kings rebuilt Egyptian temples, patronized Egyptian priesthoods, and displayed reverence for Amun, they were doing what every successful imperial power does: legitimizing their rule in the cultural language of the conquered population. Augustus did the same when he restored Roman temples after the civil wars. The Mughal emperors did the same when they patronized Hindu institutions in India. The British did the same when they adopted the trappings of Mughal court ceremonial in colonial India. To mistake political pragmatism for cultural subordination is to misread the dynamics of empire entirely — and it is a misreading that Western scholarship committed, for generations, because it could not conceive of an African state operating with the same imperial sophistication that it readily attributed to Rome, the Mughals, or the British.