Location of Soba in medieval times (below on the right) Soba 3 churches

Soba is an archaeological site and former town in what is now central

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 ...

. Three kingdoms existed in medieval Nubia: Nobadia with the capital in Faras,

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

with the capital in Dongola, and Alodia (Alwa) with the capital in Soba. The latter used to be the capital of the medieval

Nubia Nubia () ( Nobiin: Nobīn, ) is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the first cataract of the Nile (just south of Aswan in southern Egypt) and the confluence of the Blue and White Niles (in Khartoum in central Sud ...

n kingdom of

Alodia Alodia, also known as Alwa ( grc-gre, Aρουα, ''Aroua''; ar, علوة, ''ʿAlwa''), was a medieval kingdom in what is now central and southern Sudan. Its capital was the city of Soba, located near modern-day Khartoum at the confluence of t ...

from the sixth century until around 1500. E. A. Wallis Budge identified it with a group of ruins on the

Blue Nile The Blue Nile (; ) is a river originating at Lake Tana in Ethiopia. It travels for approximately through Ethiopia and Sudan. Along with the White Nile, it is one of the two major tributaries of the Nile and supplies about 85.6% of the water to ...

from

Khartoum Khartoum or Khartum ( ; ar, الخرطوم, Al-Khurṭūm, din, Kaartuɔ̈m) is the capital of Sudan. With a population of 5,274,321, its metropolitan area is the largest in Sudan. It is located at the confluence of the White Nile, flowing n ...

, where there are remains of a Meroitic temple that had been converted into a

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι� ...

church. In the 10th century

Ibn Selim el-Aswani Abu Muhammad Abdallah ibn Ahmad ibn Salim (or ibn Sulaym) al-Aswani ( ar, أبو محمد عبد الله ابن احمد ابن سليم الأسواني, ʿAbū Muḥammad Abd Allāh ibn Aḥmad ibn Salīm/Sulaym al-Aswānī) was a tenth-century ...

described the city as large and wealthy, but he probably never visited it and modern archaeological investigations show it to have been a moderate centre. Built mainly of red brick, the abandoned city was plundered for building material when Khartoum was founded in 1821. Since the 1990s, development from the growth of suburbs of Greater Khartoum poses a threat the ruins. =Archaeological research = In its heyday, the city covered approximately 275 hectares, but the excavations carried out prior to 2019 only encompassed about 1% of this area. The research was conducted by, among others, expeditions from the Sudanese National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums (NCAM) and the

British Institute in Eastern Africa The British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA) is headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, and is dedicated to supporting historical, archaeological, and other social science and humanities research in eastern Africa. The BIEA is sponsored by the British A ...

, mostly as part of salvage excavations resulting from the construction of a tarmac road and the building activity along it. Since the 1900s, modern buildings started to covered the remains, resulting in modern development covering about half of the site. In 2019, the interdisciplinary project “Soba – the heart of Alwa” was commenced. It is carried out by 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 ...

and the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the

Polish Academy of Sciences The Polish Academy of Sciences ( pl, Polska Akademia Nauk, PAN) is a Polish state-sponsored institution of higher learning. Headquartered in Warsaw, it is responsible for spearheading the development of science across the country by a society o ...

and is directed by Mariusz Drzewiecki ( PCMA UW). It aims to study the

topography Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary sc ...

of Soba and determine the extent, spatial structure, and character of each city quarter. A

magnetic Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that are mediated by a magnetic field, which refers to the capacity to induce attractive and repulsive phenomena in other entities. Electric currents and the magnetic moments of elementary particl ...

geophysical prospection revealed unknown parts of medieval Soba. In one of the quarters, large architectural complexes stood at a distance from each other; in another, a clear street grid is visible. Test trenches were also excavated in strategic spots in the city or in places where the results of the geophysical research are not unequivocal.Mariusz Drzewiecki, Robert Ryndziewicz, Tomasz Michalik, Joanna Ciesielska, Ewa Czyżewska-Zalewska, Maciej Kurcz, Mokhtar Maali Alden Mokhtar Hassan
Soba Expedition. Preliminary report on the season of fieldwork conducted in 2019–2020
report written for the National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums of Sudan. The residence of the kingdom of Alwa’s rulers has not yet been identified.

Notes

External links

Soba – the heart of Alwa
– the website of the research project {{Authority control History of Sudan Former populated places in Sudan Archaeological sites in Sudan Nubia Medieval Africa

Notes

Further reading

External links