Professor Krzysztof Grzymski, of the University of Toronto,
has discovered the royal palace of the ancient kingdom of
Nubia, buried in the sands of present day Khartoum.
He and his colleagues have found what they believe are the
remains of a palace and a colonnade built more than 2,000
years ago by the greatest black civilization ever.
"It's quite remarkable, we can see them clearly beneath the
sand," says Grzymski.
The ancient Nubian city of Meroë, considered one of the
largest and most important archaeological sites in Africa,
was at the heart of a powerful black civilization that
flourished along the upper Nile River from about 750 BC to
350 AD. Grzymski plans to start excavating the palace and
colonnade next winter. But for now, he?s content to pour over
the grainy images generated by a device that allows the
archeolgists to "see" the ruins buried beneath the sand
without digging them out.
Explorers and tomb robbers have long been aware of Meroë
and its riches. But archeologists were so preoccupied with
Egypt's pyramids and kingdoms to the north -- and deterred
by the political conflict in Sudan -- they largely ignored the
ancient Nubian culture. "Here you've got this wonderful
civilization that was literate, which extended over 1,000
miles, maybe more, up the Nile, and which built pyramids
and palaces and temples and at the same time was a major
center of iron production, and yet it is generally unknown to
scholars and the general public," says Grzymski.
He has been intrigued with the ruins since the 1970s, when
he studied under Professor Peter Shinnie at the University of
Calgary. Shinnie worked for years with Sudanese scholars on
the ancient iron smelters of Meroë. In 1999, Grzymski and
archeologists at the University of Khartoum were given
permission by Sudan's antiquities officials to explore the site
of Meroë. Part of the ancient city had been excavated in the
early 1900s by British archaeologists, but most remains were
still buried under sand and shrubs.
The archeologists had a hunch about where the best ruins
lay. "You can spend weeks and weeks digging nothing,"
Grzymski says.
To find the most promising areas, Grzymski recruited Tomasz
Herbich, a Polish archeologist and geophysicist who
specializes in using magnetometers to find buried ruins.
Magnetometers are sophisticated versions of the metal
detectors people use to find coins on beaches. They can
differentiate between the magnetic properties of materials --
such as sand, pottery, bricks -- and feed the readings into a
computer. The readings then generate maps. Just before the
archeologists were to start scanning the Meroë site in 2000-
2001, Herbich fell into an abandoned ancient tomb in Egypt,
breaking both his legs and injuring his spine. "It was a
terrible accident," says Grzymski. It set the Meroë scan back
by one year.
In 2002, Hebrich and his magnetometer finally made it to
the Sudan site. Within days, Herbich homed in on the palace
and colonnade. "There are traces of staircases, so it suggests
there must have been upper floors," Grzymski says. The
street in front of the building also came into view. To their
surprise, they found what appears to be a colonnade near
one of the gates to the ancient city. "We were absolutely
delighted," says Grzymski. "It's really fascinating when you
can see the urban design without excavating."
In October, Grzymski will return to Meroë to start digging
with his Sudanese partners.
It remains to be seen what treasure lies beneath the sand,
but the materials uncovered in the region over the years
have made it clear the Nubian civilization was a powerful,
inventive society.
The most incredible find was made almost 200 years ago in a
pyramid near Meroë. An Italian physician and tomb robber
known as Ferlini accompanied an Ottoman invasion of Sudan
in 1821 and discovered exquisite gold amulets, signet rings
and necklaces by blasting open the pyramid of Queen
Amanishakheto, one of Nubia's most powerful rulers.
Ferlini tried to sell the treasure when he returned to Europe.
But collectors thought he was trying to pass off fakes. "They
were jewels of great quality and beauty and often influenced
by Greek art, which was really a surprise," Grzymski
says. "People didn't expect deep in the heart of Africa
depictions resembling those of Egyptian or classical Greek
art." Nubian pyramids, monuments and jewels were clearly
influenced by Egyptian, Mediterranean and Arabian
cultures. "They worshiped many of the same gods as the
Egyptians and the royalty was buried in pyramids," says
Grzymski. Some of their pottery and burial talismans predate
similar discoveries in Egypt, indicating Nubia may have
influenced the Egyptians rather than the other way around.
At the height of their culture, Nubian kings are said to have
ruled Egypt from 750 to 650 BC. They were driven south by
the Syrians. Ancient trash heaps have revealed many details
of daily life for the Nubians. Olive pits suggest the Nubians
either imported olives from the Mediterranean or grew them
on the banks of the Nile. The animal bones they left behind
reveal information about the climate and environment they
lived in. Along with sheep and goats, the Nubians consumed
gazelle, antelope, warthogs and other wild animals now
seldom seen in Sudan. The bones, and ancient water
reservoirs, suggest rainfall patterns have changed in the past
2000 years. "There has been quite a change in
environment," says Grzymski.
But it is the Nubians' written language that he finds most
intriguing. Borrowing 24 signs from Egyptian hieroglyphics
and using them as an alphabet, they developed their own
writing system."It's the second-oldest writing system in
Africa, but it has still not been deciphered," says Grzymski.
So far, 1,500 inscriptions written in the ancient Nubian
language have been found, but no one knows what they
mean.
What the archeoloigsts would most like to find is a bilingual
inscription to enable scholars to unlock the messages left by
the Nubian people. They need something like the Rosetta
Stone, the slab of black basalt inscribed in Greek and in
Egyptian hieroglyphs that enabled scholars in the early
1800s to first decipher Egyptian writing.
To learn the true history of that ancient part of the world,
this author asked present day Egyptians about their own
legends and learn some amazing facts. Read about them
in ?The Land of Osiris? by Stephen Mehler,
click here.
For more information, click here.
