Sudan’s land of ‘black pharaohs’ a trove for archaeologists
- A Sudanese man sits on a camel as he looks at the pyramids in the Meroe desert, north of Khartoum. There is not a tourist in sight as the sun sets over sand-swept pyramids at Meroe, but archaeologists say the Nubian Desert of northern Sudan holds mysteries to rival ancient Egypt.
- Meroe lies around 200 kilometres (120 miles) northeast of Sudan’s capital Khartoum and was the last capital of Kush, also called Nubia, an ancient kingdom centered on the confluence of the Blue Nile, the White Nile and the River Atbara.
- Kush was one of the earliest civilisations in the Nile valley and, at first, was dominated by Egypt. The Nubians eventually gained their independence and, at the height of their power, they turned the table on Egypt and conquered it in the 8th century BC.
- They occupied the entire Nile valley for a century before being forced back into what is now Sudan.
- At the end of March, the Louvre will host its first exhibition on the Meroe dynasty, the last in a line of “black pharaohs” that ruled Kush for more than 1,000 years until the kingdom’s demise in 350 AD.