The Monastery in Ghazali is a medieval Christian

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which ...

in the

Bayuda Desert 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 ...

in northern

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 ...

. Probably founded by the

Makuria Makuria (Old Nubian: , ''Dotawo''; gr, Μακουρία, Makouria; ar, المقرة, al-Muqurra) was a Nubian kingdom located in what is today Northern Sudan and Southern Egypt. Makuria originally covered the area along the Nile River from the ...

n king Merkurios in the late 7th century, it functioned until the 13th century.

Archaeological research

Almost all famous travelers visited the site in the 19th century. The first excavations took place in the 1950s. From 2012 to 2018, research in Ghazali was conducted by a team of Polish archaeologists from the

Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology University of Warsaw The Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology University of Warsaw (PCMA UW; pl, Centrum Archeologii Śródziemnomorskiej UW im. Kazimierza Michałowskiego) operates as an independent research institute of the University of Warsaw under the p ...

, in cooperation with the National Corporation of Antiquities and Museums of Sudan. The project was directed by Artur Obłuski. At the same time, preparations were made for opening the site to visitors.

Description of the site

Apart from the monastery, which is the main feature of the site in Ghazali, a settlement, cemeteries, and a metallurgical center with iron-smelting furnaces provided additional information on the daily life of the monks. The North Church in Ghazali with a basilical layout was mentioned already by 19th-century travelers and was first excavated by

Peter Shinnie Peter Lewis Shinnie (January 18, 1915 in London – July 9, 2007 in Calgary) was a British archaeologist and Africanist. He was the author of ''Meroe - A Civilization of the Sudan'' (1967). He was awarded the Order of the Two Niles in 2004. W ...

’s expedition. It is a typical Makurian church. The younger South Church is built entirely of mud bricks. The monastery also encompasses several other buildings that served different functions. A free-standing building contained at first six, and then twelve dormitories. The triple bedrooms were small, measuring about 20 square meters. Remains of a staircase indicate there was a second floor.Obłuski A., Ciesielska J., Stark R., Chlebowski A., Misiurny A., Żelechowski-Stoń M., el-Din Mahmoud Z. (2018)
Qatar-Sudan Archaeological Project: Excavations at the Ghazali monastery from 2014 to 2016, Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean 27/1, 245–271
/ref> A refectory (dining room) and installations for food production, such as a mill and an oil press, were found as well. There is evidence suggesting the presence of a pilgrimage movement in Ghazali.

References

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Bibliography

''The list contains a selection of the latest publications on the research in the monastery written in English.'' * Stark, R., Ciesielska, J.A. (2019). Vertebral infection in a male individual buried in the monastic cemetery (Cemetery 2) at Ghazali (ca. 670–1270 CE), northern Sudan, ''International Journal of Paleopathology'' 24, 34–40 * Obłuski, A. El-Ghazali – a royal monastery in Northern Sudan?, Sudan and Nubia 22, 2018, 155–166 * Obłuski A., Ciesielska J., Stark R., Chlebowski A., Misiurny A., Żelechowski-Stoń M., el-Din Mahmoud Z
Qatar-Sudan Archaeological Project: Excavations at the Ghazali monastery from 2014 to 2016, Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean 27/1, 2018, 245–271
* Obłuski, A., Ochała, G., Calaforra-Rzepka, C., Korzeniowska, M., Maślak, S., & ed-Din Mahmoud, E
The winter seasons of 2013 and 2014 in the Ghazali monastery. ''Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean'', ''26''(1), 2017, 367–398, https://doi.org/10.5604/01.3001.0012.1795
* Obłuski, A., Ochała, G., Bogacki, M., Małkowski, W., Maślak, S., & ed-Din Mahmoud, Z
Ghazali 2012: preliminary report. Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean, 24(1), 2015, 431–442. https://doi.org/10.5604/01.3001.0010.0085
* Obłuski, A
Ghazali Site Presentation Project preliminary results, Der Antike Sudan. Mitteilungen der Sudanarchäologischen Gesellschaft zu Berlin e.V, 25, 2014, 197–205

External links

Nubian Monasteries, Ghazali

Ghazali Archaeological Site Presentation Project

Virtual reconstruction of the Monastery in Ghazali
Archaeology of Sudan Nubia Christian architecture 7th-century establishments in Africa