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Wadi Howar (Wadi Howa) is a wadi in Sudan and Chad. Originating in the Ennedi Region of Chad Wadi Howar runs through the Sudanese states of North Darfur to join the Nile north of the great bend opposite Old Dongola. Stretching over 1100 km in west-east direction across the southern fringes of the Libyan Desert, it ordinarily receives 25 mm of rainfall per year. Wadi Howar is the remnant of the ancient Yellow Nile, a tributary of the Nile during the Neolithic Subpluvial from…

The A-Group culture was an ancient civilization that flourished between the First and Second Cataracts of the Nile in Nubia. It lasted from c. 3800 BC to c. 3100 BC. The A-Group makers maintained commercial ties with the Ancient Egyptians. They traded commodities like incense, ebony and ivory, which were gathered from the southern riverine area. They also bartered carnelian from the Western Desert as well as gold mined from the Eastern Desert in exchange for Egyptian products…

Kerma (also known as Dukki Gel) was the capital city of the Kerma culture, which was located in present-day Sudan at least 5500 years ago. 1 Kerma is one of the largest archaeological sites in ancient Nubia. It has produced decades of extensive excavations and research, including thousands of graves and tombs and the residential quarters of the main city surrounding the Western/Lower Deffufa. Around 3000 BC, a cultural tradition began around Kerma. It was a large urban…

The Kerma culture or Kerma kingdom was an early civilization centered in Kerma (also known as Dukki Gel), Sudan. Kerma was the capital city of the Kerma culture. It was a large urban center that was built around a large adobe temple known as the Western Deffufa. The Kerma culture flourished from around 2500 BCE to 1500 BCE in ancient Nubia, located in Upper Egypt and northern Sudan. The polity seems to have been one of a number of Nile Valley states during the Middle…

The Land of Punt (Egyptian: pwnt; alternate Egyptological readings Pwene(t)) was an ancient kingdom. A trading partner of Egypt, it was known for producing and exporting gold, aromatic resins, blackwood, ebony, ivory, and wild animals. The region is known from ancient Egyptian records of trade expeditions to it. At times, the ancient Egyptians called Punt Ta netjer, meaning "God's Land". This referred to the fact that it was among the regions of the Sun God, that is, the…

The C-Group culture is an archaeological culture found in Lower Nubia, which dates from ca. 2400 BCE to ca. 1550 BCE. The C-Group is marked by its distinctive pottery, and for its tombs. Early C-Group tombs consisted of a simple "stone circle" with the body buried in a depression in the centre. The tombs later became more elaborate with the bodies being placed in a stone lined chamber, and then the addition of an extra chamber on the east: for offerings. The C-Group were…

Excavated between 1956–57 and 1966–68, Semna South is a 12th Dynasty fort located in Nubia—the present Republic of Sudan—on the west bank of the Nile. These excavations revealed the building plan of the fort, a church, a cemetery, and numerous other settlement-related features. Some of the most important discoveries were found within dumps near the fort. In particular, Žabkar recovered pottery seals which provided the Egyptian name of the fort (“Subduer of the Setiu-Nubians…

Napata was a city-state of ancient Nubia on the west bank of the Nile at the site of modern Karima, Sudan. Napata was founded by Thutmose III in the 15th century BC after his conquest of Nubia. The nearby Jebel Barkal was taken to mark the southern border of the New Kingdom of Egypt. In 1075 BC, the High Priest of Amun at Thebes, capital of Egypt, became powerful enough to limit the power of Pharaoh Smendes of the post-Ramesside Twenty-first Dynasty over Upper Egypt. This was…

Jebel Barkal or Gebel Barkal (Arabic: جبل بركل‎) is a very small mountain located some 400 km north of Khartoum, in Karima town in Northern State in Sudan, on a large bend of the Nile River, in the region called Nubia. The mountain is 98 m tall, has a flat top, and apparently was used as a landmark by the traders in the important route between central Africa, Arabia, and Egypt, as the point where it was easier to cross the great river. In 2003, the mountain, together with the…

Meroë is an ancient city on the east bank of the Nile about 6 km north-east of the Kabushiya station near Shendi, Sudan. This city was the capital of the Kingdom of Kush for several centuries. The Kushitic Kingdom of Meroë gave its name to the Island of Meroë, which was the modern region of Butana, a region bounded by the Nile (from the Atbarah River to Khartoum), the Atbarah and the Blue Nile. The city of Meroë was on the edge of Butana and there were two other Meroitic…

El-Kurru was one of the royal cemeteries used by the Nubian royal family. Reisner excavated the royal pyramids. Most of the pyramids date to the early part of the Kushite period, from Alara of Nubia (795–752 BC) to King Nastasen (335–315 BC). The area is divided into three parts by two wadis. The central section seems to be the oldest and contains several tumulus type tombs that predate the Kingdom of Napata. The highest part of the cemetery contains four tumulus tombs (Tum…

The Kingdom of Kush was an ancient kingdom in Nubia, located at the Sudanese and southern Egyptian Nile Valley. The Kushite era of rule in Nubia was established after the Late Bronze Age collapse and the disintegration of the New Kingdom of Egypt. Kush was centered at Napata during its early phase. After Kashta ("the Kushite") invaded Egypt in the 8th century BC, the monarchs of Kush were also the pharaohs of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt, until they were expelled by the…

The Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XXV,alternatively 25th Dynasty or Dynasty 25), also known as the Nubian Dynasty or the Kushite Empire, was the last dynasty of the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt that occurred after the Nubian invasion. The 25th dynasty was a line of pharaohs who originated in the Kingdom of Kush, located in present-day northern Sudan and Upper Egypt. Most of this dynasty's kings saw Napata as their spiritual homeland. They reigned in…

Kawa is a site in Sudan, located between the Third and Fourth Cataracts of the Nile on the east bank of the river, across from Dongola. In ancient times it was the site of several temples to the Egyptian god Amun, built by the Egyptian rulers Amenhotep III and Tutankhamun, and by Taharqa and other Kushite kings. At least three Ancient Egyptian granitic gneiss statues of Amun in the form of a ram protecting King Taharqa were displayed at the Temple of Amun at Kawa in Nubia…

Naqa or Naga'a (Arabic: ٱلـنَّـقْـعَـة‎, translit. An-Naqʿah) is a ruined ancient city of the Kushitic Kingdom of Meroë in modern-day Sudan. The ancient city lies about 170 km (110 mi) north-east of Khartoum, and about 50 km (31 mi) east of the Nile River located at approximately MGRS 36QWC290629877. Naqa is one of the largest ruined sites in the country and indicates an important ancient city once stood in the location. It was one of the centers of the Kingdom of Meroë…

Musawwarat es-Sufra (Arabic:المصورات الصفراء al-Musawwarāt as-sufrā, Meroitic: Aborepi, Old Egyptian: jbrp, jpbr-ˁnḫ), also known as Al-Musawarat Al-Sufra, is a large Meroitic temple complex in modern Sudan, dating back to the early Meroitic period of the 3rd century BC. It is located in a large basin surrounded by low sandstone hills in the western Butana, 180 km northeast of Khartoum, 20 km north of Naqa and approximately 25 km south-east of the Nile. Its MGRS coordinates…

Nuri is a place in modern Sudan on the west side of the Nile, near the Fourth Cataract Nuri is situated about 15 km north of Sanam, and 10 km from Jebel Barkal. More than 20 ancient pyramids belonging to Nubian kings and queens are still standing at Nuri, which served as a royal necropolis for the ancient city of Napata, the first capital of the Nubian Kingdom of Kush. It is probable that, at its apex, 80 or more pyramids stood at Nuri, marking the tombs of royals. The…

Jebel Moya is an archaeological site in the southern Gezira Plain, Sudan. Dating to the mid-first century AD to the fourth century AD, the site is one of the largest pastoralist cemeteries in Africa with over 3,000 burials excavated thus far.

Ballana was a cemetery in Lower Nubia. They date to the time after the collapse of the Meroitic state but before the founding of the Christian Nubian kingdoms, around AD 350 to 600. They usually featured one or several underground chambers, with one main burial chamber. The Ballana tombs belong to a culture complex often called X-Group. The X-Group Culture was an ancient civilization that existed from ca. 300 CE to ca. 600 CE. It was centered in Nubia stretching from the…

Old Dongola (Old Nubian: Tungul; Arabic: دنقلا العجوز‎, Dunqulā al-ʿAjūz) is a deserted town in what is now Northern State, Sudan, located on the east bank of the Nile opposite the Wadi Howar. An important city in medieval Nubia, and the departure point for caravans west to Darfur and Kordofan, from the fourth to the fourteenth century Old Dongola was the capital of the Makurian state. A Polish archaeological team has been excavating the town since 1964. Old Dongola was…

Alodia, also known as Alwa (Greek: Aρογα, Aroua; Arabic:Alwa) was a medieval Nubian kingdom in what is now central and southern Sudan. Its capital was the city of Soba located near modern-day Khartoum at the confluence of the Blue and White Nile. Founded some time after the fall of the ancient kingdom of Kush in around 350, Alodia is first mentioned in historical records in 569. It converted to Coptic Christianity in 580, the last of the three Nubian kingdoms to convert, the…

Makuria was a Nubian kingdom located in what is today Northern Sudan and Southern Egypt. Makuria originally covered the area along the Nile River from the Third Cataract to somewhere south of Abu Hamad as well as parts of northern Kordofan. Its capital was Dongola (Old Nubian: Tungul), and the kingdom is sometimes known by the name of its capital. By the end of the 6th century, it had converted to Christianity, but in the 7th century, Egypt was conquered by the Islamic armies…

Nobatia was a late antique kingdom in Lower Nubia. Together with the two other Nubian kingdoms, Makuria and Alodia, it succeeded the kingdom of Kush. After its establishment in around 400, Nobadia gradually expanded by defeating the Blemmyes in the north and incorporating the territory between the second and third Nile cataract in the south. In 543 it converted to Coptic Christianity. The kingdom of Nobatia had been founded in the former Meroitic province of Akine, which…

The Kanem–Bornu Empire was an empire that existed in modern Chad and Nigeria. It was known to the Arabian geographers as the Kanem Empire from the 9th century AD onward and lasted as the independent kingdom of Bornu (the Bornu Empire) until 1900. The Kanem Empire (c. 700–1380) was located in the present countries of Chad, Nigeria and Libya. The empire of Kanem formed under the nomadic Tebu-speaking Kanembu, who eventually abandoned their nomadic lifestyle and founded a…

The Shilluk Kingdom was located along the banks of the White Nile river in modern South Sudan. Its capital and royal residence was in the town of Fashoda. According to their folk history and neighboring accounts, the kingdom was founded during the mid-fifteenth century CE by its first ruler, the demigod Nyikang. During the nineteenth century, the Shilluk were affected by military assaults from the Ottoman Empire and later British colonization in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The…

The kingdom of Fazughli was a precolonial state in what is now southeastern Sudan and western Ethiopia. Oral traditions assert its establishment to refugees from the Nubian kingdom of Alodia, after its capital Soba had fallen to Arabs or the Funj in c.1500. Fazughli was famous for its gold. Centered around the mountainous region of Fazughli on the Blue Nile and serving as a buffer between the Funj sultanate and the Ethiopian empire, the kingdom lasted until its incorporation…