Alison's World & Adrianism: Sudan's Ancient Nubian Pyramids, Jebal Berkal

Jebel Barkal or Gebel Barkal is a very small mountain located some 400 km north of Khartoum, in Karima town in Northern State in Sudan, on a large bend of the Nile River, in the region called Nubia.

The mountain, together with the historical city of Napata which sits at its feet, were considered by UNESCO, in 2003, World Heritage Sites.

Around 1450 BC, the Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose III extended his empire to that region and considered Gebel Barkal its southern limit. There, he campaigned near the city of Napata that, about 300 years later, became the capital of the independent kingdom of Kush. The 25th Dynasty Nubian king Piye later greatly enlarged the New Kingdom Temple of Amun in this city and erected his Year 20 Victory stela within it.

The ruins around Gebel Barkal include at least 13 temples and 3 palaces, that were for the first time described by European explorers in the 1820s. In 1862 five inscriptions from the Third Intermediate Period were recovered by an Egyptian officer and transported to the Cairo Museum, but not until 1916 were scientific archeological excavations performed by a joint expedition of Harvard University and the Museum of Fine Arts of Boston under the direction of George Reisner.From the 1970’s, explorations continued by a team from the University of Rome La Sapienza, under the direction of Sergio Donadoni, that was joined by another team from the Boston Museum, in the 1980’s, under the direction of Timothy Kendall. The larger temples, such as that of Amun, are even today considered sacred to the local population.

The mountain is 98 m tall, has a flat top, and apparently was used as a landmark by the traders in the important route between central Africa, Arabia, and Egypt, as the point where it was easier to cross the great river.

Jebel Barkal served as a royal cemetery during the Meroitic Kingdom. The earliest burials date back to the 3rd century BCE.
Bar. 1 King from the middle of the 1st century BCE.
Bar. 2 King Teriqas (ca. 29-25 BCE)
Bar. 4 Queen Amenirenas (1st century BCE.)
Bar. 6 Queen Nawidemak (1st century BCE.)
Bar. 7 King Sabrakamani (3rd century BCE.)
Bar. 9 King or Queen of the early 2nd century AD
Bar. 11 King Aktisanes or Aryamani (3rd century BCE.)
Bar. 14 King Aktisanes or Aryamani (3rd century BCE.)
Bar. 15 King Kash (3rd century BCE.)

Nuri is a place in modern Sudan on the south (east) side of the Nile. Close to it, there are pyramids belonging to Nubian kings. Nuri is situated about 15 km north of Sanam, and 10 km from Jebel Barkal. All these remains belonged to the ancient city Napata, the first capital of the Nubian kingdom of Kush.

The earliest pyramid at Nuri belongs to king Taharqa which measures 51.75 metres square by 40 or by 50 metres high. His successor Tantamani was buried somewhere else, but all following Nubian kings and many of their wives till Nastasen (about 330 BC) were buried here.The pyramids at Nuri are in general smaller than the Egyptian ones and are today often heavily destroyed, but they often still contained substantial parts of the funerary equipment of the Kushite rulers who were buried here. During the Christian era, a church was erected here.The church was built of many old stones, including several stelae originally coming from the pyramids.

The pyramids were systematically excavated by George Reisner.
The pyramids of Nuri together with other buildings in the region around Gebel Barkal have been placed on the UNESCO list of world cultural heritage sites since 2003

We had no photos of the Pyramids at Nuri, as just as we whipped out our cameras, we were confronted by an armed army officer, waving his Kalashnikov at us.

There is another site of such Pyramids in Meroe, which we did not visit