Like a long lost relative, I wrapped my arms around a pyramid in a hug. The land south of Egypt, beyond the first cataract of the Nile, was known to the ancient world by many names: Ta-Seti, or Land of the Bow, so named because the inhabitants were expert archers; Ta-Nehesi, or Land of Copper; Ethiopia, or Land of Burnt Faces, from the Greek; Nubia, possibly derived from an ancient Egyptian word for gold, which was plentiful; and Kush, the kingdom that dominated the region between roughly B.
In some religious traditions, Kush was linked to the biblical Cush, son of Ham and grandson of Noah, whose descendants inhabited northeast Africa. For years, European and American historians and archaeologists viewed ancient Kush through the lens of their own prejudices and that of the times. In the early 20th century, the Harvard Egyptologist George Reisner, on viewing the ruins of the Nubian settlement of Kerma, declared the site an Egyptian outpost.
The kingdom rivaled and at times overtook Egypt. This first Kushite kingdom traded in ivory, gold, bronze, ebony and slaves with neighboring states such as Egypt and ancient Punt, along the Red Sea to the east, and it became famous for its blue glazed pottery and finely polished, tulip-shaped red-brown ceramics. Among those who first challenged the received wisdom from Reisner was the Swiss archaeologist Charles Bonnet.
It took 20 years for Egyptologists to accept his argument. He identified and excavated a fortified Kushite metropolis nearby, known as Dukki Gel, which dates to the second millennium B. Around B. Egyptian rule prevailed in Kush until the 11th century B. As Egypt retreated, its empire weakening, a new dynasty of Kushite kings rose in the city of Napata, about miles southeast of Kerma, and asserted itself as the rightful inheritor and protector of ancient Egyptian religion.
Piye recorded his victory in a line inscription in Middle Egyptian hieroglyphics on a stele of dark gray granite preserved today in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. He then returned to Napata to rule his newly expanded kingdom, where he revived the Egyptian tradition, which had been dormant for centuries, of entombing kings in pyramids, at a site called El-Kurru.
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Corinthia Hotels guarantees the best online rate on corinthia. Far off the well-trodden tourist path of the Egyptian pyramids, this area of North Sudan was once part of the realm of pharaohs, which helps to explain why such a magnificent collection of pyramids and temples can be found here.
Thousands of years ago, Meroe served as the capital city of the Kingdom of Kush, the realm presided over by the Nubian dynasty.
The pyramids here, which are almost 5, years old, are spread across three sites and are different from their more famous Egyptian counterparts on account of their smaller bases and steep sloping sides. Unknown to most visitors to North Africa, the site is home to around pyramids and temples—more than there are in the whole of Egypt. The Nubians took inspiration from their Egyptians neighbours as well as the ancient Greeks and Romans in order to create their own distinctive structures.
However, sharp-eyed visitors to the pyramids in Sudan might note that several of the monuments are missing their top points, which is due to Giuseppe Ferlini, an Italian explorer who blew up several of the pyramids in his search for treasure in the s. Ferlini plundered the tombs of the likes of Amanishkheto, a Nubian warrior queen, in order to sell the spoils to European museums. The decoration of the temple, both its exterior and inside, give an excellent example of Nubian culture and how it differs to ancient Egyptian practices.
On 26 January the Mahdi's forces have finally breached the walls of Khartoum and have massacred Gordon and the starving troops and citizens. Wolseley's small army withdraws. The remaining Egyptian garrisons in the Sudan make their way north as best they can.
The Mahdi has made his camp around the small village of Omdurman, on the left bank of the Nile a short way downstream from the confluence of the two rivers. This now becomes the capital of a Sudan administered as an Islamic state in imitation of the early caliphate. The Mahdi rules until his death in June , when he is succeeded by the man whom he has appointed as caliph - Abdullahi ibn Mohammed, usually known simply as the Khalifa.
For thirteen years the Khalifa maintains a military Islamic state in keeping with the early traditions of the caliphate , and on occasion his efforts at expansion meet with some success - as in his interference in in neighbouring Ethiopia.
But in the long run the Anglo-Egyptian alliance to the north has an irresistible military advantage. The death of Gordon is finally avenged in when Herbert Kitchener a member as a young man of Wolseley 's failed expedition mows down the Khalifa's forces at Omdurman with artillery and machine-gun fire. This victory restores British and Egyptian control in the Sudan - though it is challenged two weeks later by France in the dangerous confrontation known as the Fashoda Incident.
Anglo-Egyptian Condominium: The victorious army at Omdurman is mainly composed of Egyptian troops, though led by senior British officers, and the avowed purpose of the campaign is to restore order in this southern province of the khedive of Egypt. The Anglo-Egyptian partnership continues in the arrangements now made for the government of the Sudan.
Sovereignty in the region is to be shared by the British crown and the khedive. British and Egyptian flags are to fly side by side. But cooperation does not prove easy, particularly when politicians in Cairo after World War I begin to demand the incorporation of Sudan within Egypt - a policy vigorously opposed by Britain.
In outbreaks of anti-British violence in Egyptian units in the Sudan are followed by the assassination in Cairo of Lee Stack, the British governor general of the southern colony. The British response is to force the withdrawal of all Egyptian forces. For twelve years the British govern the Sudan on their own, until an Anglo-Egyptian treaty in restores the role of Egyptian officials. There are further disputes. In Egypt's king Farouk , indignant that Britain has facilitated the first steps towards Sudanese independence in the form of a legislative council , unilaterally declares himself ruler of a united kingdom of Egypt and the Sudan.
This declaration has little meaning on the ground, pleases no one in the Sudan and is soon rendered irrelevant when Farouk is himself overthrown in the coup by Naguib and other officers.
Naguib immediately recognizes Sudan's right to self-determination, and in Britain and Egypt jointly agree to facilitate the transitional period. Elections in are won by the National Unionist Party, led by Ismail al-Azhari who has campaigned on a policy of merging Sudan with Egypt to achieve the 'unity of the Nile Valley'. However his views are altered by the experience of office as prime minister. Contrary to his campaign rhetoric, he leads the nation into a separate independence at the start of Independence and civil war: In August , less than six months before the agreed date of independence, the southern Sudan is convulsed by mutiny, riot and violent loss of life.
The reason is alarm at the approaching event by the non-Muslim African majority in the south, where people are mainly Christian or animist. These southern Sudanese fear control by the more numerous Muslim Arabs of the northern regions. With hindsight this event can be seen as a disastrous omen for the new nation. For the rest of the century the recurrent feature of the troubled political life of the area is the attempt by northern Muslim groups to transform the Sudan into a fundamentalist Islamic state.
The underlying strength of the Islamic movement derives from the strong Mahdist tradition in the Sudan. Indeed two of the main parties are at various times led by direct descendants of the Mahdi. The political ambitions of the Muslim community fuel two separate long-running conflicts. One, in the north, is between religious and secular rivals, with the secular side at first advocating a Marxist economic policy.
The other, between north and south, is a civil war in which insurgent groups in Equatoria fight for independence and freedom from the threat of Muslim domination.
The struggle for power in the north goes through several distinct phases. After a spell of military rule , elections in bring in a Muslim government and a ban on the communist party.
A left-wing coup in brings to power a colonel in the army, Gaafar Mohamed el-Nimeri, who establishes single-party rule by the Sudanese Socialist Party. Nimeri aligns himself internationally with the socialist bloc, but at home he is a pragmatic ruler.
This enables him in to end a year-civil war in the rebellious southern province by signing the Addis Ababa Agreement, allowing for the internal autonomy of Equatoria. However, ten years later, Nimeri reverses his policy - partly because violent unrest has recently revived in the south, but also in deference to the growing strength of the Muslim Brotherhood in the north.
In Nimeri amends Sudanese law to bring it into line with the strict and punitive Islamic legal code, the sharia. In the same year he abrogates the Addis Ababa Agreement, bringing the south back under central administration.
The result is an escalation of rebellion in the south and protest everywhere by moderates at the harsh application of the sharia. Nimeri vacillates, in an apparently hopeless situation. In he is toppled in a bloodless coup by his chief of staff.
Elections are held within a year of the coup, bringing to power a succession of ineffective coalitions. Once again the situation is soon resolved by military intervention, in But this time the army and the Muslim fundamentalists are of one mind. The general in command of the coup is Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir. In elections are held.
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