Throughout most of the history of Kush, Gebel Barkal appears to have been the primary center of royal coronations and kingship ritual. For centuries each new king of Kush came to Gebel Barkal to be confirmed and crowned by the god who dwelt within the mountain, just as kings very likely did during the New Kingdom. Throughout his reign each king of Kush also consulted the god’s oracle on matters of state and the conduct of war. Until the early third century BCE, the same oracle was even said to inform the king by letter of the moment when his reign should end, ordering him to commit suicide. This custom was reportedly abolished by a King Ergamenes, who, so condemned, took matters into his own hands, went to the temple with his troops and slew the priests. The veracity of this tradition is suggested by the fact that until the third century BCE, the kings traveled the 230km from Meroë to Napata for burial in pyramids erected for them across the river from Gebel Barkal at Nuri. Given the existence there of a Valley Temple, apparently for mummification, one must assume that most of them made the journey to the cemetery alive. In 24 BCE, Napata was attacked, plundered, and razed to the ground by a Roman army.

The extensive remains at Gebel Barkal (encompassing at least 13 temples and 3 palaces) were first observed and described by European explorers in the 1820s, but it was not until 1916 that the first major excavations were undertaken, by George A. Reisner and the joint Harvard University / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Expedition.  Reisner cleared nine buildings at the site and assigned them each a 100-number, prefaced by the letter B (for Barkal).  From the 1970s to the present, excavations have continued by a team from the University of Rome, under the direction of Sergio Donadoni, which was joined in the 1980s by another team from the Boston museum, under the direction of Timothy Kendall.