Al-Meragh
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Al-Meragh is an archaeological site in
Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...
. It is situated in the
Wadi Muqaddam Geography Wadi Muqaddam is a dry water course some 320 km extending from beyond Omdurman north to the great bend of the Nile near Korti. It gives its name to the geological Wadi Milk Formation. Delimiting the Bayuda Desert to the west it stil ...
approximately north of
Omdurman Omdurman (standard ar, أم درمان ''Umm Durmān'') is a city in Sudan. It is the most populated city in the country, and thus also in the State of Khartoum. Omdurman lies on the west bank of the River Nile, opposite and northwest of the ...
in the
Bayuda The Bayuda Desert, located at , is in the eastern region of the Sahara Desert, spanning approximately 100,000 km2 of northeast Sudan north of Omdurman and south of Korti, embraced by the great bend of the Nile in the north, east and south a ...
, an area that today is largely desert. A buried
Napata Napata (Old Egyptian ''Npt'', ''Npy''; Meroitic language, Meroitic ''Napa''; grc, Νάπατα and Ναπάται) was a city of ancient Kingdom of Kush, Kush at the fourth cataract of the Nile. It is located approximately 1.5 kilometers from ...
n settlement was discovered at al-Meragh in 1999-2000. The site consists of two houses with stone pillars and stone door frames. Both buildings are oriented in the same way, which assumes a uniform plan. It appears that the place was inhabited by only one or two generations and was then destroyed by fire, apparently by nomads. The function of this settlement may have involved an administrative center as
Nubians Nubians () (Nobiin: ''Nobī,'' ) are an ethnic group indigenous to the region which is now northern Sudan and southern Egypt. They originate from the early inhabitants of the central Nile valley, believed to be one of the earliest cradles of c ...
colonized in this area.


Further reading

* Timothy Kendall: ''Evidence for a Napatan occupation of the Wadi Muqaddam: excavations at al-Meragh in the Bayuda Desert (1999-2000).'' In: Brigitte Gratien (éditeur): ''Mélanges offerts à Francis Geus: Égypte - Soudan.'' imprimerie Université Charles-de-Gaulle - Lille 3, Villeneuve-d'Ascq 2007, {{ISBN, 2-9525870-1-9, S. 197-204.


External links


Al-Meragh site description
Archaeological sites in Sudan Kingdom of Kush