Archaeological Sites of the Island of Meroe Sudan

The Archaeological Sites of the Island of Meroe, a semi-desert landscape between the Nile and Atbara rivers, was the heartland of the Kingdom of Kush, a major power from the 8th century B.C. to the 4th century A.D. The property consists of the royal city of the Kushite kings at Meroe, near the River Nile, the nearby religious site of Naqa and Musawwarat es Sufra. It was the seat of the rulers who occupied Egypt for close to a century and features, among other vestiges, pyramids, temples and domestic buildings as well as major installations connected to water management. Their vast empire extended from the Mediterranean to the heart of Africa, and the property testifies to the exchange between the art, architectures, religions and languages of both regions.

Continent: Africa

Country: Sudan

Category: Cultural

Criterion: (II)(III) (IV) (V)

Date of Inscription: 2011

Location and Values

The archaeological sites of the Island of Meroe are located on the east bank of the Nile, about 200 km north-east of Khartoum. The sites include the remains of the Royal City, and nearby pyramid fields of the ancient Kingdom of Kush, which stretched from the Mediterranean to the heart of Africa from the 8th century BC to the 4th century AD. The centre of the Kushite Kingdom was moved upstream to Meroe from Nuri (part of the Gebel Barkal world heritage site) in about 270 BC, as the climate and environmental conditions in Nuri deteriorated. So most of the remains at Meroe recall the latter part of the Kushite era

Archaeological Site of the Island of Meroe

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Little remains of the Royal City

Little remains of the Royal City, but its archaeological site - located on the banks of the Nile, no longer an island - provides evidence of temples, domestic buildings and the vestiges of water channels. The main attraction for visitors lies in the desert about 3 km to the east – the pyramid fields. There are two clusters with about 100 pyramids in total, recalling a period of 1,200 years from the 8th century BC to the fall of the Kushites in the 4th century AD. The pyramids are smaller and steeper than their Egyptian equivalents at Giza, the tallest being about 30m high (by comparison the tallest of the Giza pyramids are around 140m high) – but in many ways no less impressive in their stark desert environment. Sadly, most of the Meroe pyramids were decapitated by a treasure hunter, Guiseppe Ferline, who passed through in 1834.

Slideshow for this Heritage Site

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