Tirhaka continued to resist the Assyrians but he was defeated by Sennacherib's successor, Esarhaddon, in 670. The Assyrian pressure was maintained and nine years later Tandamane, Tirhaka's nephew and the last king of the Ethiopian dynasty, was overwhelmed by Assurbanipal, whose armies penetrated as far south as Thebes and Karnak, where the main Egyptian treasure was ransacked and carried away to Nineveh.

The Kingdom of Judah had stood alone for 136 years after Israel had fallen and the ten tribes had been taken captive. The Babylonian Empire replaced the Assyrians as the dominant power and in 586 Nebuchadnezzar succeeded where Sennacherib failed and the inhabitants of Judah were driven into exile to lament by the waters of Babylon. But they did not all go. Some Jews preferred to follow the prophet Jeremiah and fled to Egypt where a community already existed.

The domination of the Middle East by the Assyrians and the Babylonians lasted for just over 300 years from the battle of Qarqar on the Orontes in 853, in which King Ahab of Israel fought in alliance with the Syrians, (1) until the invaders in turn were forced to abandon their conquests. The growing pressure from further east of the Medes and Persians under Cyrus the Great forced the submission of Mesopotamia and secured the release of the Jewish captives. It was left to Cambyses, Cyrus's son and successor, to continue the advance and, having conquered Egypt, he turned his attention to Meroe, which he threatened but failed to subdue.

The Persian dynasty ruled Egypt for close on 200 years until it, in turn, was overthrown by Alexander the Great in 332. Meanwhile, the Meroites had concentrated on their own homeland and developed their way of life under the influence of Egyptian civilisation. They had moved their capital from Napata to Meroe, which occupied an important strategic position on the Nile at the intersection of a number of caravan routes, and, thanks to a plentiful supply of raw materials and wood fuel, they established a thriving iron-smelting industry. From this so-called 'Birmingham of Northern Sudan' the knowledge of iron-working spread south and west throughout black Africa. (2) Though some doubt has been cast by W. Y. Adams, in his book on Nubia, on the importance of iron-working at Meroe, he has mentioned the significance of handmade pottery as a domestic craft and of cotton-weaving for

(1)Peake, 90a; 1 Kings 20.
(2) Arkell, p. 147.