For centuries, Egypt dominated Nubia and the Nubian kingdom of Kush, which lasted for about a thousand years, between 2000 and 1000 B. C. During this time, Egyptian armies raided and even occupied Kush for a brief period. But as Egypt fell into decline during the Hyksos period, Kush began to emerge as a regional power.

Nubia and Ancient Egypt had periods of both peace and war. It is believed, based on rock art, that Nubian rulers and early Egyptian pharaohs used similar royal symbols. There was often peaceful cultural exchange and cooperation, and marriages between the two did occur.

— New bioarchaeological evidence shows that Nubians and Egyptians integrated into a community, and even married, in ancient Sudan, ing to new research from a Purdue University anthropologist.

Since Nubia depended on Egypt's grain and Egypt depended on Kush's gold, Nubia and Egypt had interdependence, or dependency by each group on the other. This trade began a close relationship between Egypt and Nubia.

In the southern valley of Egypt, Nubians differ culturally and ethnically from Egyptians, although they intermarried with members of other ethnic groups, especially Arabs. They speak Nubian languages as a mother tongue, part of the Northern Eastern Sudanic languages, and Arabic as a second language.

During the Egyptian Middle Kingdom (c. 2040-1640 BCE), Egypt began expanding into Nubian territory in order to control trade routes, and to build a series of forts along the Nile. The “Medjay” were people from the Nubia region who worked in the Egyptian military.

Ancient Nubia had a complex series of political interactions and cultural exchanges with Egypt, largely based on its position as an intermediary between the Mediterranean world and sub-Saharan Africa, which made it a key transit point for luxury goods such as ivory and exotic objects (fig. 2).