Dam project unearths Sudan's archaeological treasures

Sudan's archaeology is finally stepping out of Egypt's shadow as teams work against the clock to rescue an entire swathe (many layers) of Nile Valley heritage from the rising waters of a Chinese-built dam.

"The paradox (self-contradictory, but true) is that, yes, an entire area is being wiped off the map, but thanks to the rescue project, Sudanese archaeology is being put on the map," said Sudan's antiquities chief Salah Ahmed.

The Merowe dam is a controversial hydro-electric project, one of the largest in Africa, being erected on the Nile's fourth cataract (large waterfall) and due to start flooding the valley over more than 100 miles (160 kilometres) within months. Archaeologists admit that an incalculable (cannot be concluded) amount of information will be forever lost.

But the largest archaeological rescue project since the Nubian campaign launched in the 1960s during the

 construction of the Aswan dam in southern Egypt has unearthed heritage that would likely have remained untapped. "This area was completely unknown to archaeologists, it was a missing chapter in Sudan's history and nobody was planning to go there because it's very hard from a logistical point of view," Ahmed said.

Sudan's pre-Christian civilisations built more pyramids than the Egyptians, but have received little attention since being defeated by Egyptian warrior Pharaoh Tuthmosis I (15th century BC).

"Of course, there is no Abu Simbal here," said Ahmed, in reference to the massive temples originally carved out of the mountain under the reign of Rameses II and relocated as part of a monumental transfer when the Aswan dam was built.

But teams of archaeologists from Britain, France, Germany, Poland and a dozen other countries have been relentlessly searching the fertile Nile river banks near Merowe for at least five years now and made some significant discoveries.

Some of the artefacts(man-made objects such as tools or vessels) found in the soon-to-be flooded area enabled archaeologists to redefine the borders of ancient kingdoms, such as Kerma which ruled part of Nubia between 2,500 and 1,500 BC. "We found very rich Kerma occupations farther upstream, extending the frontiers of this important kingdom by more than 200 kilometres (120 miles)," Ahmed said.

Funerary archaeology in the area also benefits from exceptional chronological (in order of things happening) continuity, offering experts a rare chance to retrace historical developments.

City Times