The most perfect example of Egyptian poetry left to us is a celebration of the prowess of Usertesen III in confining the turbulent Negro tribes to the territory below the Second Cataract of the Nile.  The Egyptians called this territory Kush, and in the farthest confines of Kush lay Punt, the cradle of their race.  To the ancient Mediterranean world Ethiopia (i.e., the Land of the Black-faced) was a region of gods and fairies.  Zeus and Poseidon feasted each year among the “blameless Ethiopians,” and Black Memnon, King of Ethiopia, was one of the greatest of heroes.

“The Ethiopians conceive themselves,” says Diodorus Siculus (Lib.  III), “to be of greater antiquity than any other nation; and it is probable that, born under the sun’s path, its warmth may have ripened them earlier than other men.  They suppose themselves also to be the inventors of divine worship, of festivals, of solemn assemblies, of sacrifices, and every religious practice.  They affirm that the Egyptians are one of their colonies.”

The Egyptians themselves, in later days, affirmed that they and their civilization came from the south and from the black tribes of Punt, and certainly “at the earliest period in which human remains have been recovered Egypt and Lower Nubia appear to have formed culturally and racially one land."[13]

The forging ahead of Egypt in culture was mainly from economic causes.  Ethiopia, living in a much poorer land with limited agricultural facilities, held to the old arts and customs, and at the same time lost the best elements of its population to Egypt, absorbing meantime the oncoming and wilder Negro tribes from the south and west.  Under the old empire, therefore, Ethiopia remained in comparative poverty, except as some of its tribes invaded Egypt with their handicrafts.

As soon as the civilization below the Second Cataract reached a height noticeably above that of Ethiopia, there was continued effort to protect that civilization against the incursion of barbarians.  Hundreds of campaigns through thousands of years repeatedly subdued or checked the blacks and brought them in as captives to mingle their blood with the Egyptian nation; but the Egyptian frontier was not advanced.

A separate and independent Ethiopian culture finally began to arise during the middle empire of Egypt and centered at Nepata and Meroe.  Widespread trade in gold, ivory, precious stones, skins, wood, and works of handicraft arose.[14] The Negro began to figure as the great trader of Egypt.

This new wealth of Ethiopia excited the cupidity of the Pharaohs and led to aggression and larger intercourse, until at last, when the dread Hyksos appeared, Ethiopia became both a physical and cultural refuge for conquered Egypt.  The legitimate Pharaohs moved to Thebes, nearer the boundaries of Ethiopia, and from here, under Negroid rulers, Lower Egypt was redeemed.

The ensuing new empire witnessed the gradual incorporation of Ethiopia into Egypt, although the darker kingdom continued to resist.  Both mulatto Pharaohs, Aahmes and Amenhotep I, sent expeditions into Ethiopia, and in the latter’s day sons of the reigning Pharaoh began to assume the title of “Royal Son of Kush” in some such way as the son of the King of England becomes the Prince of Wales.