Kyriakos or Cyriacus (ca. 750) was a ruler of the

Nubia Nubia () (Nobiin: Nobīn, ) is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the first cataract of the Nile (just south of Aswan in southern Egypt) and the confluence of the Blue and White Niles (in Khartoum in central Sudan), or ...

n kingdom of Makuria. While some authorities place his reign between Merkurios and Zacharias I, according to Severus of El Ashmunein, Kyriakos succeeded Markos. Around 748, Kyriakos marched north into

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

as far as

Fustat Fusṭāṭ ( ar, الفُسطاط ''al-Fusṭāṭ''), also Al-Fusṭāṭ and Fosṭāṭ, was the first capital of Egypt under Muslim rule, and the historical centre of modern Cairo. It was built adjacent to what is now known as Old Cairo by t ...

(Cairo) at the head of an army said to number 100,000 men to free the Patriarch of Alexandria

Michael Michael may refer to: People * Michael (given name), a given name * Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael Given name "Michael" * Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian an ...

, whom the Governor of

, Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan ibn

Musa bin Nusayr Musa ibn Nusayr ( ar, موسى بن نصير ''Mūsá bin Nuṣayr''; 640 – c. 716) served as a Umayyad governor and an Arab general under the Umayyad caliph Al-Walid I. He ruled over the Muslim provinces of North Africa ( Ifriqiya), and dire ...

, had thrown into prison. However, once the Makurian army reached Egypt, the Patriarch was released from prison, along with Kyriakos' envoy, who was then dispatched to Kyriakos to ask him to return to Makuria.E.A Wallis Budge, ''A History of Ethiopia: Nubia and Abyssinia'', 1928 (Oosterhout, the Netherlands: Anthropological Publications, 1970) p. 104. Budge gives two dates for this expedition: 722 on this page, and 737 on p. 117; neither fits the dates Michael (whom Budge calls "Khail", the Egyptian form of his name) was patriarch (743-767).

References

Nubian people Kingdom of Makuria 8th-century monarchs in Africa {{AncientEgypt-stub