The Kingdom of Kerma was a state in Nubia from around 2000 BCE to about 1520 BCE. It was based in the city of Kerma in Upper Nubia and emerged as a major centre during the Middle Kingdom period in Egypt The town is marked by large and expensive tombs. Kerma was also home to an Egyptian fort. George Reisner believed that Kerma was originally the base of an Egyptian governor and these Egyptian rulers evolved into the independent monarchs of Kerma. Modern scholars tend to see the fort as a trading outpost as it is too small and too far away from the known borders of Egypt. The royal burials also employ practices foreign to Egypt making a local dynasty more probable.
During the First Intermediate Period the Egyptian presence in Lower Nubia disappeared and when Egyptian sources again mention the region at the beginning of the New Kingdom they report Kerma in control of both Upper and Lower Nubia.
Under Tuthmosis I Egypt made several campaigns south, which resulted with the annexation of Nubia and brought an end to the Kingdom of Kerma.