In the early 19th century, there was excited discussion in cultural circles of the Western world about the discovery of a monument of incredible beauty south of Egypt, in Sudan. Numerous European and American explorers wrote about the existence of magnificent temples and numerous pyramids south of Aswan, between the First and Sixth cataracts of the Nile, in the area of ancient Nubia. There, there had once been the secretive and unexplored Kingdom of Kush.
Unfortunately, one of these travelers, the Italian adventurer Giuseppe Ferlini, was not seeking archaeological treasures but hidden wealth, and in his eager search, he systematically destroyed the tops of the pyramids, causing irreparable damage to forty of them.
However, as northern Sudan is an extremely inhospitable area, the entire pyramid fields were forgotten for almost a whole century. It was only with the opening of the Cairo-Khartoum railway in 1898 that more detailed exploration of this area became possible.
The first systematic surveys were carried out by… At the beginning of the 20th century, the American Egyptologist George Reisner began excavating an Egyptian temple at the base of Barkale mountain and discovered several pyramids. He later focused his research on the examination of Nubian pyramids in general, successfully establishing a chronology of events and laying the scientific foundations for the history of ancient Nubia.
Although 223 pyramids have been discovered in Nubia so far, twice as many as in the entire area of Egypt, many see them as an unsuccessful attempt to keep up with their powerful northern neighbors – the Egyptians.
Pyramids in the Nuri region.
Pyramids in the Meroe region.
King Taharka represented by a sphinx.
Queen Amanišakheto’s jewelry is now located in the museum in Berlin.
Characteristics of Nubian pyramids:
There are three significant pyramid sites in Nubia. The first two date back to the Napatan period of the Kingdom of Kush (900 BC – 295 BC) and are located in el-Kurru and Nuri, while the third one is from the Meroitic period (295 BC – 350 AD). KR. – 320 AD) and is located in Merowe.
All Nubian pyramids have in common that they are built on raised ground, but they differ from the Egyptian ones in appearance and construction methods. They are built from horizontal rows of step-like blocks made of local sandstone. They range in height from six to thirty meters. The surface areas of their bases are relatively small, with no side length exceeding eight meters, but they are steeper than those in Giza. The only exception is Taharqo’s pyramid in Nuri, which has a height and base side length of fifty meters.
The sides of classical Egyptian pyramids are inclined at an angle of 52 degrees to the base, while Nubian pyramids have an angle of 60 to 70 degrees. This was possible because their smaller dimensions resulted in much lower internal stresses. What makes them truly impressive is their abundance in a relatively small area.
Although mostly ravaged, it can be unequivocally concluded from what remains that they are tombs in which wooden coffins were placed. In ancient times, mummified kings were laid to rest, adorned with rich golden jewelry. Later, tombs carved into rocky foundations on which the pyramid was built were discovered. Access to these tombs was through a staircase along a long corridor that started a little further from the pyramid itself, outside the surrounding wall, and always from its eastern side.
Above this staircase, next to the facade, a sanctuary was usually built, accessed through a portal with pillars. The pillars, sanctuaries, and tombs were richly decorated with reliefs and drawings that showed Egyptian influences but also many details characteristic of Black Africa.
Despite looting, numerous ushabti figurines, golden objects, wooden sarcophagi, canopic jars, and small everyday items were found. All of these are now housed in museums in Khartoum and Boston.
Bodies, both of members of the royal family and representatives of the nobility and priesthood, were usually mummified, but numerous bodies buried in the vicinity were also discovered. the fetus burial, which was the original Nubian way of burying the dead.
By using hieroglyphic inscriptions on the found older items, the chronology of royal tombs has been established, but from the 3rd century BC, inscriptions appear in a new, indigenous script which, although seemingly simpler than hieroglyphs, has not been deciphered to this day.
Although obviously tombs, these pyramids were not just tombs. Like those in Egypt, they are part of a larger complex and have a theological significance associated with the cult whose bearers are priests from Heliopolis.
Piramides from Jebel Barkal.
Schematic representation of Taharqa’s pyramid.
El-Kurru
When the power of the Egyptian New Kingdom weakened, a powerful Kushite ruler named Kashta appeared in Napata in 770 BC, taking control of Lower and Upper Nubia and Upper Egypt up to Thebes. His son Piye conquered the entire Egypt and was recognized as pharaoh.
Piye celebrated his coronation in Heliopolis, went to pay homage to Amun-Ra, and then… I returned to the south and ruled Egypt from Napata as the first of the five pharaohs of the 25th, or Nubian, dynasty.
He was buried in a pyramid in el-Kurru, thirteen kilometers downstream from the Temple of Amun, at the foot of Mount Barkal, which has long been believed to be the birthplace of Amun and therefore considered sacred. His pyramid is the first of 223 Nubian pyramids built over the next thousand years.
Reisner found only one fully preserved pyramid in el-Kurru. Beneath a heap of stones, he discovered Piye’s tomb and the tombs of his successors in the 25th dynasty, Shabaka, Shabitku, and Taharqa, King Kashta, and fourteen queens. These tombs were obviously covered by pyramids that had disappeared by the beginning of the 20th century.
The burial chamber of Piye’s tomb was carved into the rock in the form of an open trench and covered with a masonry roof on brackets. The body was placed in the center of the chamber on a stone pedestal. The bed platform was placed directly on the pedestal. Yes, which is not the case with the Egyptians. Given the remains of canopic jars and ushabti figurines, the body was most likely embalmed.
In the tombs of el-Kurru, embalmed horses and dogs were also found. In Piankhi and Tantamani’s tombs, four horses were found, so it is speculated that they may have belonged to their war chariots. Headless and in a standing position, the horses were obviously sacrificed and were covered with pearls and silver and gold parts of equipment. It is even speculated that they served as a substitute for the ships that were located in Egyptian pyramids.
Nuri
The penultimate king of the 25th Dynasty, Taharqa, built his pyramid in Nuri, a site located across from the one at the foot of Barkal Mountain, on the opposite bank of the Nile. It was the first and largest pyramid in Nuri, but today it is just a ruin. It is unique in its structure because it consists of two pyramids built on top of each other. The inner one is lined with smooth sandstone, while the outer one, with a slope of 69 degrees, is The pyramid is composed of stepped layers. The pyramids were surrounded by a sturdy wall.
The underground chambers of Taharqo’s pyramid were architecturally richly designed and finely crafted. In the actual burial chamber, six large pillars carved into the living rock formed a trinave room with a barrel vault in the center, where there was a hollowed place for the sarcophagus. The north and south walls had four rectangular niches carved into them, and the west wall had two.
In this necropolis, there are the tombs of twenty-one kings and fifty-two queens. However, they no longer ruled Egypt but instead, during the next 350 years, they ruled the territory from the First to the Sixth Cataract (from Aswan to an area 100 km north of Khartoum).
The pyramids in Nuri, ranging from twenty to thirty meters in height, are larger than those in El-Kurru and have a similar floor plan. The sanctuaries are located along the eastern facade, decorated with reliefs, and have a stele incorporated into the wall structure depicting the king in front of the gods.
In the foundations on the eastern side
Meroe:
After 308 BC, the capital of the Kingdom of Kush, as well as the royal cemetery, moved to Meroe, south of the Nile, between the Fifth and Sixth Cataracts. For the next six hundred years, until 350 AD, Meroe remained a royal graveyard, where forty kings and queens were buried. It is the largest and certainly the best-preserved site, but likely would not have been the most beautiful had the pyramids in el-Kurru and Nuri been in better condition. Although it is believed that the inspiration for the construction of these pyramids were the large pyramids of northern Egypt, they are much more similar to the private pyramids that can still be found on the West Coast in Thebes.
Many archaeologists describe Meroe as one of the greatest archaeological sites in the world. Like in Nuri, these pyramids are also similar to each other: they have steep sides, built of sandstone, and are ten to thirty meters high. They are also built in a stepped manner, but their edges are framed with smooth masonry. The preserved tops show that the lines in the upper quarter of the pyramids are rounded. Here, too, there was a sanctuary along the eastern wall of the pyramids, whose facades were often decorated with miniature pillars.
Numerous mummified bodies have been found in the tombs, as well as those placed in the fetal position. Alongside the luxurious golden and silver jewelry, many items for everyday use were found next to the bodies: furniture, bronze and silver bowls, pottery, weapons.
Towards the end of the Meroitic period, The quality of the built pyramids is decreasing, they are no longer stepped but smooth, the formwork blocks are much smaller and placed on an improperly prepared foundation. The last pyramids were made of brick and stone fragments, and their surfaces were covered with plaster.
The reappearance of pyramids after eight centuries – since the last Egyptian ones until the first Nubian ones, as royal (but also other) tombs, is certainly an interesting case of transferring architectural, but also religious ideas from one area and culture to another. The Nubians undoubtedly highly valued their northern neighbor. When Egypt was declining and the Nubians entered the historical scene, Nubian rulers tried to regain some of the splendor of ancient Egypt. With the cessation of pyramid construction in Nubia, pyramids as a symbol of royal tombs disappeared.