Why did Taharqa build his tomb at Nuri?


G. A. Reisner, puzzled to find Taharqa’s pyramid located at Nuri and not at el-Kurru, proposed that the king may have selected the new site because he was not of the main line of the Napatan royal family. Dows Dunham, alternatively, suggested that Taharqa may have selected Nuri for his tomb because el-Kurru could no longer accommodate the huge pyramid he wished to build for himself. Neither proposal could account for the choice of Nuri itself, which was not only far from el-Kurru and on the other side of Gebel Barkal, but also on the opposite bank of the Nile. Likewise, neither could account for the unusual form of Taharqa’s tomb, which, as recognized by J. Leclant, was a virtual duplicate of the Osireion at Abydos.
In 1998, while considering the positions of the sun at sunrise with respect to the monuments of Napata, I realized that when the sunrise was viewed from the summit of Gebel Barkal on what would have been the ancient Egyptian New Year’s Day (now, about July 30), Taharqa’s pyramid occupied the very point on the horizon where the sun rose. Since this day coincided with the beginning of the annual rise of the Nile and the start of fertility, it was considered to be the birth and re-birth day of Osiris and was also the day on which the living king was crowned and the state was thought to be reborn. Taharqa’s choice of Nuri, thus, seemed to have been dictated by religious considerations having to do with his posthumous identification as Osiris and the perceived reviving powers of sunrise on New Year’s Day – beliefs that would have been held by all the kings buried after him at Nuri. The form of Taharqa’s tomb seemed to guarantee his transformation to Osiris.


In 2006, I realized that the ancient Egyptian Khoiak festival, which marked the “death of Osiris”, the end of fertility and the harvest, and the falling Nile, occurred about four months after New Year’s Day, and I began to suspect there might be a corresponding relationship between Taharqa’s pyramid, Gebel Barkal, and sunset on that day. Being in Sudan in November, I discovered that when viewed from the summit of Gebel Barkal between November 11 and 14, the Gebel Barkal pinnacle casts a long shadow, like a sun dial, that points precisely to Nuri (10Â km distant). On November 13, when the same phenomenon is viewed from the top of Taharqa’s pyramid, the sun appears to set directly behind the Gebel Barkal pinnacle, making the monolith appear in silhouette within the disk. Since the pinnacle has the vague form of a human figure wearing a tall crown (white crown of Osiris or double crown of Atum), I have long suspected that the pinnacle was identified as a figure of Osiris and/or Amun-Re-Atum. This can now be confirmed by two texts: Chapter 162 of the Book of the Dead, which likens Osiris to Amun and Atum, and a Hymn to Osiris, found in fragments in Barkal Temple B 700 (directly beside the pinnacle) and recently published by Priese, which refers to Osiris “in his name as Pillar”. It now seems clear that the site of Taharqa’s pyramid was determined by the one point (Nuri) where both solar alignments were possible. On New Year’s Day at sunrise, Taharqa’s pyramid, originally 68 m high, cast a shadow to the Barkal pinnacle (“the god”), which waked him. At sunset during the Khoiak festival, “the god”, 75Â m high, cast a shadow to his tomb, which symbolized his “death”. This Napatan “time machine”, which fixed the year, may have given rise to the Nubian legend, quoted by Diodorus (3.2.1.-3.6), that Osiris was a native “Aithiopian” (Ethiopian).

http://www.nubia2006.uw.edu.pl/nubia/abstract.php?abstract_nr=69&PHPSESSID=472ec4534c78263b6d4a0194e6349d8b

An interesting article. Too bad it does not have any pics of the pyramid.

Napata, circa 650 BC. after the Kushites abandoned their reconquest of Egypt and began developing their own culture, must have been a real toddlin’ town. Their technology was probably at a higher level than Egypt’s was. They made advances in iron smelting and spread the technology south and east, where the Egyptians (for the most part) imported their iron from Asia and Europe. When the Kushites began mining the gold for themselves, they were able to bankroll an explosion of their own culture.

Michael wrote:
An interesting article. Too bad it does not have any pics of the pyramid.



Napata, circa 650 BC. after the Kushites abandoned their reconquest of Egypt and began developing their own culture, must have been a real toddlin’ town. Their technology was probably at a higher level than Egypt’s was. They made advances in iron smelting and spread the technology south and east, where the Egyptians (for the most part) imported their iron from Asia and Europe. When the Kushites began mining the gold for themselves, they were able to bankroll an explosion of their own culture.

This is Taharka pyramid.



His Pyramid was most interesting due to the fact that there was a smaller pyramid in the outer larger pyramid. Taharqa subterranean chambers are the most elaborate of any Kushite tomb. The entrance was by an eastern stairway trench, north of the pyramid’s central axis, reflecting the alignment of the original smaller pyramid. Three steps led to a doorway, with a moulded frame, that opened to a tunnel, widened and heightened into an antechamber with a barrel-vaulted ceiling. Six massive pillars carved from the natural rock divide the burial chamber into two side aisles and a central nave, each with a barrel-vaulted ceiling. The entire chamber was surrounded by a moat-like corridor entered steps leading down from in front of the antechamber doorway.