An archaelogical site 300 kms north of the Sudanese capital Khartoum. The pyramids form one of the most spectacular sights in Sudan with about fifty small ruinous pyramids – the tombs of the rulers of Kush from about 250 BC to 350 AD. The pyramids lie on the tops of two rocky ridges blanketed by sand dunes about three miles east of the Nile.
Credit: AFP
There is not a tourist in sight as the Sun sets over sand-swept pyramids at Meroe, in northern Sudan.
"There is a magic beauty about these sites that is heightened by the privilege of being able to admire them alone, with the pyramids, the dunes and the sun," says Guillemette Andreu, head of antiquities at Paris' Louvre museum.
"It really sets them apart from the Egyptian pyramids, whose beauty is slightly overshadowed by the tourist crowds."
Meroe lies around 200 km northeast of Sudan's capital Khartoum and was the last capital of Kush, also called Nubia, an ancient kingdom centred on the confluence of the Blue Nile, the White Nile and the River Atbara.
Kush was one of the earliest civilisations in the Nile valley and, at first, was dominated by Egypt. The Nubians eventually gained their independence and, at the height of their power, they turned the table on Egypt and conquered it in the 8th century BC.
They occupied the entire Nile valley for a century before being forced back into what is now Sudan.
The Meroe dynasty was the last in a line of "black pharaohs" that ruled Kush for more than 1,000 years until the kingdom's demise in 350 AD.
Meroe had three cemeteries containing more than 100 pyramids, smaller than their Egyptian counterparts. The largest are 30 m high and the angles are steep, some close to 70 degrees.
Although the pyramids have been thoroughly excavated, yielding a treasure trove of knowledge about Kushite culture, many aspects of Kushite civilisation remain shrouded in mystery for archaeologists.
"We have a chronology, but it's not very precise," says Salah Mohammed Ahmed, deputy director of Sudan antiquities.
Archaeologists have also discovered numerous stelae, or inscribed stone pillars. However, they cannot read the inscriptions.
"We know about 50 words in Meroitic, but we need about a thousand of them to understand a language. So we have an enormous amount of work to do," says Claude Rilly, head of the French section of Sudanese antiquities in Khartoum and a leading expert in the ancient language.
Julie Anderson, an archaeologist at the British Museum and co-director with Ahmed of the Dangeil excavations in northern Sudan, says that "if we manage to decipher this language, a new world is opened to us, as if the ancient Kushites were speaking to us."
Their team recently discovered a massive, one tonne statue of King Taharqa, the most famous of the black pharaohs, who ruled in the 7th century BC.
forgotten pyramids
It's amazing how little we know about the world.
Secondly these pyramids and others in Sudan are probably less researched because the country has been at war for a while.