Religion, Pyramids, the Candaces, and the Fall of Kush

The god Amun, adopted from Egypt, remained the supreme deity of the Kushite pantheon throughout the Napatan period and much of the Meroitic period as well; Gebel Barkal was considered his southern residence, and according to classical sources his oracle at Napata had the power to appoint, or even depose, kings. Apedemak, a lion-headed warrior god of genuinely Meroitic rather than Egyptian origin, became one of the kingdom's principal deities alongside the creator god Sebiumeker and Arensnuphis, a god associated with Isis, whose own cult — centered on the temple at Philae, on the Egyptian-Nubian border — drew Nubian pilgrims even in Roman times.