Having visited the far north of Sudan during a trip made earlier this year with my travel companion Paul (see AE 139), it was time for us to sweep down through Upper Nubia, back towards Khartoum. Our mission was to explore some of the archaeological sites in an area commonly known as the ‘Island of Meroë’.
KERMA
Our first stop on this journey was the Kerma Museum and the exquisitely carved statues of the Napatan kings, replicas of which had inspired my trip to Sudan. Outside the museum the imposing 18-metre-high mud-brick structure known as the Western Deffufa dominates the royal settlement that was at the heart of the Kerma kingdom, and we were able to climb the various mud-brick staircases and ramps that took us to the top.
Dukki Gel
The cache of black granite statues of Napatan kings found at Dukki Gel.
The cache of statues was not found at Kerma, however, but at another settlement, now known as Dukki Gel, a few kilometres away. Dukki Gel (a Nubian term meaning ‘red mound’) is commonly believed to be the site of the ancient city of Pnubs. There had been a temple of Amun at Pnubs, which experienced much the same fate as the Temple of Amun at Gebel Barkal. It was founded by Thutmose III, and converted to a temple of Aten worship by Akhenaten (it is one of the most southerly versions of an Aten temple), before being rededicated to Amun during the Nineteenth Dynasty. We saw several examples of talatat blocks in the museum that were found in situ at the site. Having been largely abandoned during the Ramesside era, the temple was restored by the Nubian rulers of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty.
