Seemingly lost under the folds of giant apricot-colored dunes, this ancient royal cemetery, with its clusters of narrow pyramids blanketing the sand-swept hills, is one of the most spectacular sights in eastern Africa.
The Meroitic archaeological sites are listed as World Heritage by UNESCO since 2011.
The Pyramids
Despite being considered Sudan’s most popular tourist attraction, you might still have the place all to yourself. Standing like a line of jagged, broken teeth in various states of disrepair, there are around one hundred pyramids separated into two main groups several hundred meters apart, known as the Northern and Southern Cemeteries.
The Southern cemetery is the older one, dating back to the 8th century BC, but remained in use until the 4th century BC. The Northern cemetery, on the other hand, is the better preserved cluster despite having been mostly decapitated pyramids.
The reason many of the pyramids are missing their tops is thanks to a 19th Century Italian ‘archaeologist’ who thought treasure might be contained within. Rather than going about the laborious task of opening them properly he merely chopped the tops off and, somewhat to the surprise of many, he did indeed find treasure!
The Royal City
This heavily ruined site was once the capital city of the Kushite kingdom, when, around the 3rd century B.C., the Royal Cemeteries were moved from Napata to Meroe. Thus marked a change from such a heavy dependence on Egyptian practices and prompted the development of a more indigenous culture, a new era for the Kingdom of Kush. The city was abandoned centuries later, around 350 AD following the decline of the Kushite power.
The layout:
At the centre of the city stood the Royal Palace and the Amun Temple, with a processional way. Residential areas lay on the periphery, surrounded by a boundary wall. Also amid the ruins are the Royal Baths, once thought to have been part of a gymnasium, but more likely to have been a sanctuary associated with the annual Nile inundation. The Meroitic Kingdom monuments are some of the most important founds in the entire African continent.