A Sudanese kingdom founded, together with the city of Sennar, by Amara Dunkas in about 1504–05. Successive rulers expanded it over the Gezira and southern Kordofan, and fought two wars with Ethiopia. In the 17th century the monarchy was kept in power by a great army of slaves, and thereafter declined. When the Egyptians invaded it in 1821, the last king (whose state had been weakened by disunity) offered no resistance.