Ancient Tomb of Gold Worker Found Along Nile River

By Owen Jarus, Live Science Contributor | June 19, 2017

A 3,400-year-old tomb holding the remains of more than a dozen possibly mummified people has been discovered on Sai Island, along the Nile River in northern Sudan.

Archaeologists discovered the tomb in 2015, though it wasn't until 2017 that a team with the AcrossBorders archaeological research project fully excavated the site.

The island is part of an ancient land known as Nubia that Egypt controlled 3,400 years ago. The Egyptians built settlements and fortifications throughout Nubia, including on Sai Island, which had a settlement and a gold mine. The tomb, which contains multiple chambers, appears to hold the remains of Egyptians who lived in or near that settlement and worked in gold production.

The artifacts found in the tomb include scarabs (a type of amulet widely used in Egypt), ceramic vessels, a gold ring, the remains of gold funerary masks worn by the deceased and a small stone sculpture known as a shabti. The ancient Egyptians believed that shabtis could do the work of the deceased for them in the afterlife. Some of the artifacts bore Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions that revealed the tomb was originally created for a man named Khnummose, who was a "master gold worker."

The remains of Khnummose (which may have been mummified) were found next to those of a woman who may have been his wife. Some of the other people found in tomb may have been relatives of Khnummose, the researchers said, adding that they planned to conduct DNA analyses of the remains.

Finds reveal how ancient Egyptian and Nubian cultures blended

Study shows how excavations in Sudan reveal the transformation of Egyptian and Nubian culture.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SANTA BARBARA—In a middle-class tomb just east of the Nile River in what was Upper Nubia, a woman offers a glimpse of how two met civilizations met, mingled and a new pharaonic dynasty arose. Her tomb was Egyptian, but she was buried in the Nubian style—placed in a flexed position on her side and resting on a bed. Around her neck she wore amulets of the Egyptian god Bes, the protector of households.

The Nubian woman is, according to Stuart Tyson Smith, a professor of archaeology and chair of the Department of Anthropology at UC Santa Barbara, a prime example of "cultural entanglement," the process by which colonizing powers and indigenous people influence one another and change over time.

In a paper published in American Anthropologist, Michele Buzon of Purdue University and Smith explore cultural identity and transformation in the ancient village of Tombos in what is now northern Sudan. "Entanglement and the Formation of Ancient Nubian Napatan State" details the findings from Smith and Buzon's excavations of cemeteries in Tombos, which became an important colonial hub after the Egyptians conquered Nubia around 1500 BCE.

"You get this really interesting entangled culture blending different elements in really different ways, but also there seems to be a lot of individual choice involved," Smith explained. "It's not just a matter of the two cultures mash up and then you get this new hybrid thing that's consistent. There seems to be a lot of individual choice—whether or not you want a Nubian bed and/or an Egyptian coffin and/or to be wrapped like a mummy or whether or not you want an Egyptian-style amulet and/or Nubian ivory jewelry."

16 Pyramids Discovered in Ancient Cemetery

by Owen Jarus, Live Science Contributor   |   September 16, 2015

The remains of 16 pyramids with tombs underneath have been discovered in a cemetery near the ancient town of Gematon in Sudan.  

They date back around 2,000 years, to a time when a kingdom called "Kush" flourished in Sudan. Pyramid building was popular among the Kushites. They built them until their kingdom collapsed in the fourth century AD.

Derek Welsby, a curator at the British Museum in London, and his team have been excavating at Gematon since 1998, uncovering the 16 pyramids, among many other finds, in that time. "So far, we've excavated six made out of stone and 10 made out of mud brick," Welsby said. 

The largest pyramid found at Gematon was 10.6 meters (about 35 feet) long on each side and would have risen around 13 m (43 feet) off the ground.

Wealthy and powerful individuals built some of the pyramids, while people of more modest means built the others, Welsby said. "They're not just the upper-elite burials," he said.

In fact, not all the tombs in the cemetery have pyramids: Some are buried beneath simple rectangular structures called "mastaba," whereas others are topped with piles of rocks called "tumuli." Meanwhile, other tombs have no surviving burial markers at all.

Museum Pieces - Aegis of Isis

Photocredit: British Museum

Aegis of Isis

From Kawa, Sudan
Kushite, late 3rd century BC
Height: 17.500 cm
Width: 16.000 cm

Excavated by Prof Francis Llewellyn Griffith

EA 63585

Ornamental head of a goddess, possibly Isis

The term aegis is used in Egyptology to describe a broad collar surmounted by the head of a deity, in this case a goddess, possibly Isis. Representations in temples show that these objects decorated the sacred boats in which deities were carried in procession during festivals. An aegis was mounted at the prow and another at the stern. The head of the deity identified the occupant of the boat and it is likely that this example came from a sacred boat of Isis.

The eyes and eyebrows of the goddess were originally inlaid. The large eyes, further emphasized by the inlay, are typical of later Kushite art. The rectangular hole in her forehead once held the uraeus, which identified her as a goddess. The surviving part of her head-dress consists of a vulture - the wing feathers can be seen below her ears. The vulture head-dress was originally worn by the goddess Mut, consort of Amun of Thebes, but became common for all goddesses. The rest of the head-dress for this aegis was cast separately and is now lost, but would have consisted of a sun disc and cow's horns. The piece bears a cartouche of the Kushite ruler Arnekhamani (reigned about 235-218 BC), the builder of the Lion Temple at Musawwarat es-Sufra.

S. Wenig, Africa in antiquity: the arts, Vol II, exh. cat. (Brooklyn, N.Y., Brooklyn Museum, 1978)

M.F. Laming Macadam, The temples of Kawa (Oxford, 1949 (vol. I) 1955 (vol. II))

Source: http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/aes/a/aegis_of_isis.aspx

'Evil Eye' Box and Other Ancient Treasures Found in Nile River Cemetery

By Owen Jarus, Live Science Contributor   |   August 12, 2014

A 2,000-year-old cemetery with several underground tombs has been discovered near the Nile River in Sudan.

Archaeologists excavated several of the underground tombs, finding artifacts such as a silver ring, engraved with an image of a god, and a faience box, decorated with large eyes, which a researcher believes protected against the evil eye.

Credit: © Berber-Abidiya Archaeological Project

Villagers discovered the cemetery accidently in 2002 while digging a ditch near the modern-day village of Dangeil, and archaeological excavations have been ongoing since then. The finds were reported recently in a new book.

The cemetery dates back to a time when a kingdom called Kush flourished in Sudan. Based in the ancient city of Meroe (just south of Dangeil) Kush controlled a vast territory; its northern border stretched to Roman-controlled Egypt. At times, it was ruled by a queen.

Although the Kushites built hundreds of pyramids, this particular cemetery contains no structures on the surface; the tombs are underground.

"As of now, we don't know exactly the size of the cemetery," Mahmoud Suliman Bashir, an archaeologist with Sudan's National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums (NCAM), said in an interview with Live Science.

Egyptian Carving Defaced by King Tut's Possible Father Discovered

By Owen Jarus, Live Science Contributor   |   July 24, 2014

A newly discovered Egyptian carving, which dates back more than 3,300 years, bears the scars of a religious revolution that upended the ancient civilization.

The panel, carved in Nubian Sandstone, was found recently in a tomb at the site of Sedeinga, in modern-day Sudan. It is about 5.8 feet (1.8 meters) tall by 1.3 feet (0.4 m) wide, and was found in two pieces. 

Originally, it adorned the walls of a temple at Sedeinga that was dedicated to Queen Tiye (also spelled Tiyi), who died around 1340 B.C. Several centuries after Tiye's death — and after her temple had fallen into ruin — this panel was reused in a tomb as a bench that held a coffin above the floor.

Credit: Photo by V. Francigny © Sedeinga Mission

Scars of a revolution

Archaeologists found that the god depicted in the carving, Amun, had his face and hieroglyphs hacked out from the panel. The order to deface the carving came from Akhenaten (reign 1353-1336 B.C.), a pharaoh who tried to focus Egyptian religion around the worship of the "Aten," the sun disk. In his fervor, Akhenaten had the name and images of Amun, a key Egyptian god, obliterated throughout all Egypt-controlled territory. This included the ancient land of Nubia, a territory that is now partly in Sudan.

"All the major inscriptions with the name of Amun in Egypt were erased during his reign," archaeology team member Vincent Francigny, a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, told Live Science in an interview.

The carving was originally created for the temple of Queen Tiye — Akhenaten's mother — who may have been alive when the defacement occurred. Even so, Francigny stressed that the desecration of the carving wasn't targeted against Akhenaten's own mom.

Saharan remains may be evidence of first race war, 13,000 years ago

Scientists are investigating what may be the oldest identified race war 13,000 years after it raged on the fringes of the Sahara.

French scientists working in collaboration with the British Museum have been examining dozens of skeletons, a majority of whom appear to have been killed by archers using flint-tipped arrows.

The bones – from Jebel Sahaba on the east bank of the Nile in northern Sudan – are from victims of the world’s oldest known relatively large-scale human armed conflict.

Over the past two years anthropologists from Bordeaux University have discovered literally dozens of previously undetected arrow impact marks and flint arrow head fragments on and around the bones of the victims.

This is in addition to many arrow heads and impact marks already found embedded in some of the bones during an earlier examination of the skeletons back in the 1960s. The remains – the contents of an entire early cemetery – were found in 1964 by the prominent American archaeologist, Fred Wendorf, but, until the current investigations, had  never been examined using more modern, 21 century, technology.

Some of the skeletal material has just gone on permanent display as part of the British Museum’s new Early Egypt gallery which opens officially today. The bones – from Jebel Sahaba on the east bank of the River Nile in northern Sudan – are from victims of the world’s oldest known relatively large-scale human armed conflict.

Archaeologists discover earliest example of human with cancer

BY KATE KELLAND

(Reuters) - British archaeologists have found what they say is the world's oldest complete example of a human being with metastatic cancer and hope it will offer new clues about the now common and often fatal disease.

Researchers from Durham University and the British Museum discovered the evidence of tumors that had developed and spread throughout the body in a 3,000-year-old skeleton found in a tomb in modern Sudan in 2013.

Analyzing the skeleton using radiography and a scanning electron microscope, they managed to get clear imaging of lesions on the bones which showed the cancer had spread to cause tumors on the collar bones, shoulder blades, upper arms, vertebrae, ribs, pelvis and thigh bones.

"Insights gained from archaeological human remains like these can really help us to understand the evolution and history of modern diseases," said Michaela Binder, a Durham PhD student who led the research and excavated and examined the skeleton.

"Our analysis showed that the shape of the small lesions on the bones can only have been caused by a soft tissue cancer ... though the exact origin is impossible to determine through the bones alone."

Newly found Sudan pyramids show 'democratization'

March 30, 2013 11:03 AM

By Ian Timberlake

KHARTOUM: People power may have come to modern-day Egypt and not Sudan, but the unearthing of ancient pyramids in Egypt's southern neighbour shows that greater social equality existed there 2,000 years ago, a French archeologist says.

Three years of digging by a French team at Sedeinga, about 200 kilometres (120 miles) from the Egyptian border, has unearthed 35 pyramids that emphasise the contrast between the two ancient cultures, said Claude Rilly, director of the mission.

"Pyramids were so fashionable that everybody that could afford to build one, did," said Rilly, referring to the latter part of the Meroe kingdom, around 100-200 AD.

"So we have really a kind of inflation, what I call a democratisation of the pyramid which is without equivalent anywhere, especially in Egypt."

Sudan's remote and relatively undiscovered pyramids contrast with their grander and better-known cousins to the north.

Egyptian pyramids, built far earlier than those in Sudan, held the tombs of kings, the royal family and nobles -- but never the middle class, Rilly said.

Sudanese royalty also got their pyramids, but later so did many other lesser souls, said the 53-year-old archeologist, who began studying hieroglyphics when he was only seven.

"It reached layers of the population which have never been concerned by building of pyramids in Egypt," Rilly said. "This is really something new, which we didn't expect."

That is why there is such a large number. Sometimes they were built so close together, typically in a circular pattern, that there isn't enough room to squeeze between them.

Polish archaeologists are exploring an unknown area in Sudan

Two concentrations of ancient rock engravings and rich archaeological site dating back more than five hundred thousand years are the most important discoveries of the last season of the research expedition of Poznań Prehistory and Early African Civilizations Study Team of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology PAS, operating in the mountains of the Red Sea in the north-eastern Sudan.

Polish team made new discoveries in the area of Bir Nurayet, set of sites that have been explored for three years, located next to the picturesque mountain Magardi, clearly distinctive among the surrounding hills. It is accompanied by one of the richest African rock art galleries, with thousands of images of cattle, camels, wild animals and humans. The presence of engravings was probably related to the fertility cult practiced here for several thousand years, and the cult of the mountain with a characteristic, according to the researchers, phallic shape.

 

"Mountains of the Red Sea and the vast areas of Eastern Desert in Sudan is a generally unexplored region in terms of archaeological significance. This covers a huge area, similar in size to the area of Poland. It extends from the area east of the Nile valley and north of Port Sudan, to the Egyptian border" - explained Dr. Przemysław Bobrowski, head of research.

 

In 2012, archaeologists conducted a reconnaissance along the many kilometers long valley known as Wadi Diib (Valley of the Wolves), a dry river bed, on the bank of which Bir Nurayet is located. The discovery of new sites indicate, according to the archaeologists, the great importance of the valley as a communication route leading through the mountains, from south to north. Thousands of years ago it was probably used by cattle breeders.

 

With the information from the local Beja tribe, archaeologists managed to discover two large, previously unknown concentration of rock art in the remote rock massifs Karaiweb and Erkabeb, located few miles from Bir Nurayet.