The LOST Pyramids of Sudan
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ก.ย. 2024
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"The site was nearly deserted. A few locals were tidying up after recent restoration work, and young camel drivers were out looking for clients. In the midday heat, the bright glow of the desert helped focus my attention on the pyramids themselves.
Situated on the east bank of the Nile, some 150 miles by car northeast of Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, the Meroe pyramids - around 200 in total, many of them in ruins - seemed to be in perfect harmony with the surrounding landscape, as if the wind had smoothed their edges to accommodate them among the dunes.
Throughout the 30-year dictatorship of Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who led Sudan through a long series of wars and famines, the pyramids of Meroe saw few international visitors and remained relatively unknown.
But among the many consequences of the revolution that led to Mr. al-Bashir’s ouster in 2019 - along with the removal of Sudan in 2020 from the United States’ list of state sponsors of terrorism - was the hope that the country’s archaeological sites might receive broader attention and protections, not simply from researchers and international visitors but also from Sudanese citizens themselves.
I traveled to Sudan in February and March of 2020, just a few days before pandemic lockdowns fell into place in my home country of Italy.
I was attracted to a nation that had managed - through the strength, creativity and determination of its people - to free itself from a dictatorship. And I was keen to meet and photograph the protagonists and young actors of this historic moment.
Late in 2018, Mr. al-Bashir, the former dictator, had ended subsidies on fuel and wheat, leading to a surge in prices. The reaction of the people, exhausted by economic crises, was not long in coming.
A wave of demonstrations filled the streets of several towns, far beyond the capital Khartoum. These were Sudanese of all ethnicities, classes and generations - but above all students and young professionals.
During my visit, Amr Abdallah and Tawdia Abdalaziz, two young Sudanese doctors in their 20s, led me through the streets of Khartoum to see the symbolic sites of the revolution, showing me mile after mile of public art - graffiti, murals, verses - that marked the sites of the protests.
When they told me about Meroe and Ancient Nubia, the name of the region that stretches between Egypt and northern Sudan, I discovered that the majority of Sudanese had never had the opportunity to visit these sites - including the doctors themselves.
For me, as an Italian, it equated to never having had the chance to visit the Colosseum in Rome.
The ancient city of Meroe - part of a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2011 - is a four-hour drive from Khartoum, northeast along the Nile River. The pyramids here, built between 2,700 and 2,300 years ago, stand as a testament to the grandeur of the Kingdom of Kush, a major power from the eighth century B.C. to the fourth century A.D.
Compared to the monumental pyramids in Giza, Egypt, the structures at Meroe are significantly smaller - from around 30 to 100 feet tall, against the 455-foot-tall Great Pyramid - and their slopes steeper. As in Egypt, though, the pyramids serve as royal burial sites.
In recent years, the pyramids at Meroe - as well as other Sudanese archaeological sites up and down the Nile, including the pyramids at Nuri, farther north - have been threatened by rising floodwaters, as well as the continuing effects of wind and sand erosion.
Plans for new hydroelectric dams also threaten certain archaeological sites in Sudan - as they have in the past, when the construction of the Merowe Dam displaced tens of thousands of residents and led to a frenzied archaeological hunt for artifacts before they were submerged by the dam’s reservoir.
Perhaps the most infamous act of destruction at Meroe, however, is attributed to the Italian treasure hunter Giuseppe Ferlini, who in the 1830s destroyed several of the pyramids in a ruthless search for ancient artifacts.
With one hand on the steering wheel and the other holding his phone, Nour, our driver, was accustomed to bringing visitors to Meroe. Still, in his four-wheel-drive Toyota, we sometimes lost our way as we moved from one site to another, through vast stretches of deserts.
Local tour guides at the entrance to Meroe invited us to take camel rides, eager to remind us that this is a time-tested, if often neglected, tourist site."
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They didn't adopt it. Multiple sources state that Ancient Egyptians were Nubian colonists.
more fantasy no actual facts
@@ChrisThornburn-ke5xkfantasy when you don’t want to hear it or see it mate
no actual source states this it is fantasy
@@sincorazon9920 no fantasy is fantasy do you ignore real evidence the egyptians themself never said they were colonists of nubia why they plain and simple werent its more afrofantasy what psuedo historian wish
@@ChrisThornburn-ke5xk What fantasy even Greeks claimed that the Ancient Egyptians originated from Nubia.
That was a very enjoyable video to watch, keep it up!
Thank you brother 👊
Great content! Informative and summarized
Thank you so much! I really enjoyed making this video, hopefully the algorithm will share it more :)
OH. MY. GOSH. This is one of the best short documentarys, I LOVED THIS SO MUCH. It was the perfect mix of informative but not boring! Keep it up my map! I hope you all the best on your youtube journey!
Thank you so much man! It’s not doing that great in terms of performance but I hope that changes 🙂
@@Culturiosity what do you mean by performance?
@@adrienjose2266 views probably
Gotta keep grinding it. Sooner than later the algorithm will find you!
Sudan is in Africa
First of all Sudan is not Sub Saharan Africa. Sudan is North Africa🙄 It's really sad to hear people still parrot the 19th century idea that "Egypt gave Sudan" their culture. Sudan has tombs of Kings that are 9500 years old. The first kings of Egypt are Nubian. Narmer was from Kush or Ta-Seti. Amon and Hathor are Nubian. This idea of the Black Pharoahs is silly when so many of the first Pharaohs were Black. The Egyptians were a Nubian colony that split off many thousands of years ago. The Nubians restored proper Egyptian CULTURE to Egypt when they took over because it was THEIR culture. This is the fact according to Harvard University and Cambridge University in England🙄
So you agree with the Sudanese prime minister when he said that the pyramids are older than the ones in Egypt?
No the first kings of Egypt are more similar to modern Egyptians than Nubians. What you said is baseless.
@Dragon Of The West that’s not factual. DNA says otherwise. Ethnocentrism only makes a fool out of you buddy, you sound stupid.
@@jimmybeanchugger1832 modern day Egyptians are Arabs ,there is no chance the first Kings of kemet where Arabs , that's just dumb to think that
@@jimmybeanchugger1832 I have been in Egypt. Sorry dna test do not support all the above claims nor the mummies support that idea
The south Sudan are the oldest that's why they are largely worn out
They’ve been blown by so called “treasure hunters”… 🤦♂️
sorry you are way off egyptian ones are older being said nubian ones are pale imitations
Does this man realizes that Kush and Mizraim are brothers? Which means before the invasion of Arabs, Sudanese and ancient Egyptians looked alike. Both were sons of Ham.
🤔
utter nonsense
All those artifacts should be given back.
I agree 100%
if it wasnt for people who took the artifacts they wouldnt exsist now noone in africa was interested in them at all
Interesting because it simply answers who built pyramids
220 that still standing... But it's more than 400 pyramids in Sudan...
Clarity👌🏽
👌🏼
Guy, what hell the ancient Kemet/Egyptian never had slaves... they did have prisoner of war.
Now, if you are talking about the invaders the Hyksos or Assyrians. Yes...
Guy, that's Alara (2:27)... Imhotep the father of Medicine from Egypt.
interesting
Zahi Hawass and most people in Egypt are not original Egyptians, and they have actually no rights to be there.
Why so?
@@Culturiosity because they are Islamic invaders...history man
Colonizers!! But the Arab's want people to feel sorry for them because of Palestine! Hive Africa back to the original blacks! White people are doing the same thing yo them as they done to Africa!
Hhe Arab's in North Africa are racist!
You are a woke Afrocentric freak
@@lionelsanders180 Africa don't mean black you 🐵!
I don't think they have ever found a pharaoh buried in an Egyptian pyramid, not one....just saying
body parts have being found though
@@ChrisThornburn-ke5xknope
I sure hope we one day decipher the Nubian Script.
Is there any study being done right now?