Sudan’s sole caretaker protects ancient treasures from looting

The sole custodian of the pyramids at Meroë, the ancient capital of the ancient Kingdom of Kush, stands alone between some of Sudan’s greatest artistic treasures and the rampaging armies accused of plundering them. Priceless artifacts from museums across the country.

In peacetime, Meroë, 200km north of Khartoum along the Nile, attracts intrepid visitors to see the carvings and hieroglyphs housed in some of its 200 pyramids – more than the entire Egyptian Ministry – built nearly 2,500 years ago. Nomads play zumbara play the flute for tourists crossing the sand dunes of the Nubian Desert in camel caravans on their way to nearby temples.

But since civil war erupted in April 2023, the archaeological site was abandoned and Fozia Khalid, the sole caretaker, prepared for its destruction.

Khalid, a woman in her 60s, mentioned the troops of the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group that took over much of the country and left a trail of ruin and accusations of ethnic cleansing in its wake: “The militia is not far away.” .

“No one has been here for more than a year – they all died here,” she said from the remains of a welcome center built in 2018 with Qatari funding, at a time when but hopes for tourism in the region are rising.

“I fear they could come and destroy centuries of history,” Khalid said.

Ikhlas Abdel-Latif Ahmed, head of the museum at SudanSudan’s national antiquities agency said RSF soldiers stole artefacts from the newly refurbished Sudanese National Museum in the capital Khartoum in what she called “a major looting operation”.

Many artifacts taken from the museum were loaded onto trucks and smuggled across the border South SudanAhmed said.

The RSF, which locals say has forces less than 20 kilometers from the pyramids, has taken Khartoum and much of Darfur, forcing the official government to retreat 800 kilometers northeast to Port Sudan on the Sea coast. Red. The RSF drone was shot down en route to Shendi, not far from Meroë. RSF did not respond to a request for comment on the looting allegations.

The national museum was opened more than 50 years ago to preserve objects rescued from the area flooded by the construction of Egypt’s Aswan Dam. Among the 100,000 objects housed here are objects from the Paleolithic, Meroë, Christian and Islamic periods, as well as artefacts, such as ushabti Burial statues of Kushite kings from Kerma, the capital in northern Sudan that predate Meroë. The Kushite kingdom is famous for iron smithing.

“Unfortunately, all of this has become a target of war,” Ahmed said.

Reports of looting became so persistent that UNESCO issued one declare in September warned that “the threat to [Sudan’s] culture seems to have reached an unprecedented level.”

The United Nations cultural agency called on art market professionals and the public to “refrain from purchasing or participating in the import, export or transfer of ownership of cultural property from Sudan.” Their appeal stems from concerns that some antiquities may have been offered for sale online as Egyptian artefacts.

“Any illegal sale or relocation of these cultural items would lead to the partial disappearance of Sudan’s cultural identity and jeopardize the country’s recovery,” UNESCO said.

the war in SudanThe book, which has killed some 150,000 people and driven 10 million into exile, now threatens the country’s entire cultural heritage, said Zeinab Badawi, a Sudanese-British author of the book. An African history of Africa and president of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

Much of Sudan’s culture, long undervalued by Egypt-centric scholars, could be lost forever, she said.

“It broke my heart. I can hardly even think about it,” Badawi added. “Today Sudan is a country synonymous with conflict, but in the ancient world it was the center of a great civilization.”

Sudan was home to some of the first human settlements in Africa, dating back to 8,000 B.C., at which time the country produced “exquisitely decorated” pottery, Badawi said. . By 2,500 BC, the Kingdom of Kush was established in present-day Kerma, Karima, northern Sudan. The Kushites even ruled Egypt for more than a century after conquering it in the eighth century BC, she said.

Reports of widespread looting of artefacts, including at a museum in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, and damage to the Caliph Abdullah Al-Taayshi House Museum in Omdurman, recall the wholesale theft of artifacts during recent wars in Iraq, Syria and Mali.

The Iraq Museum in Baghdad was looted after the 2003 US invasion. Although the 4,000-year-old statue of the Sumerian king Entemena was later returned to the museum, many of the stolen pieces remained missing. The museum only reopened in 2015.

In 2016, Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi, an Islamic militant, became the first person to be tried for war crimes of destroying antiquities when sentenced to 9 years in prison by the International Criminal Court for destroying historical monuments in Timbuktu, Mali.

Meroë itself has a history of looting and being pillaged. In 1834, the tops of dozens of pyramids at the site were blown up by Italian treasure hunter Giuseppe Ferlini.

The British Museum in London, where much of the collection originated during looting, includes the Meroë Head, a large bronze head depicting the first Roman emperor Augustus, taken in 1910 from Meroë, where it was looted from Roman Egypt in 24 BC.

Amani Gashi, archaeologist and coordinator of the cultural protection initiative Safeguarding Sudan’s Living Heritage from conflict and climate change, said none of the country’s treasures are safe . That includes the Temple of Amun at Jebel Barkal in Karima, as well as the lion-headed god Apedemak at Naqa and elephant carvings at the temple at Musawwarat, near Meroë.

“All of the stolen items were unique,” ​​Gashi said. “All archaeological sites are now in danger due to the war.”