Meroe

I organized my December 2019 trip to Sudan with ITC Sudan and stayed at their Nubian Rest Camp near the foot of Jebel Barkal and Meroe Camp overlooking the pyramid field. I stayed at Acropole Hotel in Khartoum at the beginning and end of my trip, and in between visited Jebel Barkal, a holy mountain surrounded by the ruins of two thirteenth century BCE temples and some of the most intact pyramids in Sudan, erected between the third and first centuries BCE; Nuri in northern Sudan, where more than twenty ancient pyramids that served as a necropolis for Nubian kings and queens still stand near the Nile; Meroë, an ancient city along the eastern bank of the Nile and home to hundreds of Nubian pyramids; the Temple of Apedemak at Naqa, dating from the first century CE and one of the largest ruined sites in Sudan; and Musawarat es-Sufra, a large temple complex dating back to the third century BCE.

As soon as you enter Sudan, you can see each and every advertisement that have the slightest connection with tourism having the image of the pyramids, and that implies that Meroe is the crown jewel of the Sudanese tourism, and its relative closeness to Khartoum makes it the most touristy place in the whole country. But do not expect crowds of tourist flocking the ruins. When we visited meroe last December seemingly we were the only foreigners there. The presence of desperate souvenir sellers and guys who offered rides on their camels shows that there were better times, and maybe there are days when there are more people coming. 

The site consists of two major parts, the capital of the Meroitic kingdom, and its necropolis. The capital is a bit more far away from the main road. it's more or less completely ruined, you need an extremely good imagination to see the lush palaces and pompous temples of Egyptian and local gods in the less than a meter high cramped walls. But the scenery with the trees offering a shadow for the exhausted traveller is impressive and with a knowledgeable guide it can be a somewhat interesting experience.  

On the contrary the necropolis in the red desert is touching for the first sight. One of the most impressive sites I've ever seen. The pyramids are much smaller than their Egyptian brothers and much younger too, but not less interesting or mysterious. The black stone buildings in the reddish …

After I had visited the excellent Gebel Barkal, I wondered if Meroë could surpass it. Well, it did. I do not hesitate to compare this collection of 4 archaelogical sites in the heart of Sudan with Jordan's Petra. Meroë is testimony to the period when the Black Pharoahs of Nubia found their own style: less Egyptian and more African, with far-reaching trade connections.

The focal point of the nomination is the pyramid field of the Meroë Necropolis, where about 100 structures are clustered. It lies within sight of the busy tarmacked road between Khartoum and Atbara, with mainly trucks and buses plying the route to Port Sudan. The pyramids here have been uncovered since the early 20th century. The reconstruction of their characteristic pylon gateways or votive chapels often dates as recent as the 1990s. Fresh sand covers the entrances to these chapels every day, making it still adventurous to tread and explore. Most are empty inside, but some have carvings or paintings so it's worth just checking them out one by one to see what you find.

A few kilometers away, on the other side of the modern road, lie the remains of the former city of Meroë. This is mostly just ruined now, but you can see the size of it all (it had 25,000 inhabitants in its heyday). A Roman-style bath house has been discovered here. Nature is slowly taking over the site again: due to restrictions on wood collecting, an acacia forest is starting …

It is good to see Meroë on the list for possible inscription in 2010. One of the “Top 50 Missing” identified by users of this Web site, it is incontrovertably “World class” and needs to be present on any credible UNESCO list, even though “Egyptian civilisation” is already quite well represented. I visited it in Dec 2005 – just we 3 visitors across the whole evening, night and morning we spent there - so different from the crowded sites in Egypt! Meroë is primarily about pyramids (Photo - there are an amazing 200 or so of them) and atmosphere – which you must sense as you clamber up and down the sand dunes to enter the enclosures just like some Victorian explorer getting there for the first time – oh and look out for the tablets with Meroitic script too!

The T List documents rather strangely call it “The Island of Meroë”. I say strangely because it isn’t an “island” and is in fact located a distance away from the Nile, very much in the sandy desert. It appears that this phrase was used by Classical writers to describe the entire region from Atbara in the North to Khartoum in the south – at these 2 extremities, around 300kms apart, the main Nile is joined by the Atbara and Blue Nile rivers. These rivers on 3 sides led to use of the term “island” with some poetic license! The area was the heartland of the Meroitic civilisation around the 3rd …