Nubia

A desert region and ancient kingdom in the Nile River valley of southern Egypt and northern Sudan. After the 20th century B.C. it was controlled by the rulers of Egypt, although in the 8th and 7th centuries an independent kingdom arose that conquered Egypt and ruled as the XXV Dynasty (712-663). Converted to Christianity in the 6th century A.D., Nubia united with Ethiopia but fell to the Muslims in the 14th century. Much of the region was flooded by the completion of the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s.