Khartoum and earn a graduate degree in Europe.
He returned to Sudan and has been excavating
at Jabal Barkal and elsewhere for several years.
Now Elamin and a team of Sudanese and
American archaeologists are searching for the
homes and workshops of ancient Kushites who
supported this spiritual capital for millennia.
Jabal Barkal has long been a popular destina-
tion for Sudanese who come during holidays to
climb the mesa and picnic in the broad swaths
of shade it casts across the desert. In the past,
Elamin says, visitors paid little attention to the
sprawl of ruins surrounding the magnificent
rock outcropping. But that’s changing.
Elamin notes that he’s seen more locals visit-
ing Jabal Barkal and wandering its ruins. “Now
they ask a lot of questions about the antiquities
and the history and the civilization,” he says.
Elamin and his colleagues are eager to engage
with their fellow citizens and present this dis-
tant chapter of history to a generation hungry
to learn. It’s an opportunity and responsibility
as Sudanese archaeologists, he says, to bring
citizens together by showing them the efforts
of even distant generations.B
UILT SHORTLY before the coun-
try gained independence in 1956
and inaugurated 15 years later, the
Sudan National Museum is a cav-
ernous, poorly lit space with no
climate control to protect artifacts
from the relentless heat and dust
of Khartoum. Most of the objects are housed
in old-fashioned wood-and-glass display cases
alongside yellowing, typewritten labels.
But the museum is chock-full of treasures. A
larger-than-life granite statue of Taharqa from
Jabal Barkal, broad-shouldered and expression-
less, commands the museum’s entrance, and
massive statues of the Kushite rulers flank its
ground-floor gallery.
Tucked around the corner from Taharqa is
one of the country’s most heralded artifacts:
a glowering bronze head of Caesar Augustus.
It’s believed to have been the war trophy of a
one-eyed Kushite queen named Amanirenas,
who battled the Romans in Egypt around 25 B.C.
The museum label neglects to note, however,
that the storied artifact is a copy. The original
was whisked off by colonial forces shortly after
its discovery in 1910 and now resides in the
British Museum.Tantamani
referred toye returned
n temple to
ing it with
ormer colo-
est—replete
ers running
ome 15 feet
urvived the
mented by
ed too frag-
ments, they
phor for an
s long been
fKush? For
unts of the
, who tried
from their
ne of many
eir borders.
ned by the
ve in Sudan
crumbling
y declared
ns of Egyp-m was rein-
n scholars.
developed
hy of men-
to the Egyp-
d Egyptian
r, a Harvard
ook the ear-
l tombs and
ntury.
amin, Reis-
s misguided
d a team of
f excavated
ase of Jabal
lamin says.
s.”
miles from
e Piye and
ere buried.
randfather
ain that the
athers.” The
haeology inThe pyramids of Kush command much attention, but
archaeologists rely on smaller discoveries—from
figurines to ostrich-shell beads—to reveal the history
and legacy of this long-overlooked African kingdom.UNEARTHING
THE KUSHITE
WORLD
SUDAN’S RECKONING 121