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Monday, 20 January, 2003, 17:47 GMT Black pharaoh trove uncovered The Nubian kings ruled 2,500 years ago By Ishbel Matheson BBC, Nairobi A team of French and Swiss archaeologists working in the Nile Valley have uncovered ancient statues described as sculptural masterpieces in northern Sudan. The archaeologists from the University of Geneva discovered a pit full of large monuments and finely carved statues of the Nubian kings known as the black pharaohs. The Swiss head of the archaeological expedition told the BBC that the find was of worldwide importance. The black pharaohs, as they were known, ruled over a mighty...

"The site of Wad ban Naqa is one of the most important archaeological sites in the territory of the ancient Kingdom of Meroe. Most of the structures that are located there, some of them were already archaeologically surveyed in the past. During our second excavation season we focussed mainly on the so-called 'small temple', a structure built in either the first century BC or first century AD and continually used as a sacred building until the collapse of the Meroe Kingdom in the fourth century. The temple was likely dedicated to one of the native Nubian lion gods, either Apedemak...

How Africa Became Black Africa's racial history was not necessarily its racial destiny. To unravel the story of Africa's past, you must not only look at its faces but listen to its languages and harvest its crops. By Jared Diamond DISCOVER Vol. 15 No. 02 | February 1994 | Anthropology Despite all I'd read about Africa, my first impressions upon being there were overwhelming. As I walked the streets of Windhoek, the capital of newly independent Namibia, I saw black Herero people and black Ovambo; I saw Nama, a group quite unlike the blacks in appearance; I saw whites, descendants...

Royal Nubia lies under sand Canadian archaeologists in Sudan, using magnetometers, have found a 2,000-year-old palace in the heart of the ancient black civilization If his partner had not fallen into an ancient tomb and broken both legs, Professor Krzysztof Grzymski would have discovered the ancient Nubian royal palace even sooner. Still, Grzymski, a professor at the University of Toronto and a curator at the Royal Ontario Museum, is a happy archaeologist these days. He and his colleague, who is walking again, have found what they believe are the remains of a palace and a colonnade built more than...

...in the necropolis of Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, on the West Bank at Thebes, Egypt... According to the Spanish news agency EFE, the tomb embodies all the features of the tomb of Osiris, as told in ancient Egyptian legends, and is a smaller version of the design of the Osireion, built under Egyptian pharaoh Seti I in the city of Abydos, Luxor. Researchers believe the tomb complex dates back to the 25th dynasty (760-656 BC) or 26th dynasty (672-525 BC), based on a comparison to similar tombs that contain Osirian elements. The complex consists of a large hall supported by five...

Nubia was an important part of the trade route from ancient Egypt to other parts of Africa. Tirhaka, mentioned in the Bible as the king of Ethiopia (II Kings, 18-20; Isaiah, 37-38), actually was Taharqa, king of Nubia and Kush. He ruled Egypt from 690 to 664 BC during its 25th Dynasty. The Kingdom of Kerma was the first Nubian kingdom to unify much of the region. Its capital city was one of the earliest urban centers in tropical Africa. The kings of Kerma left behind rich tombs, which were filled with their possessions and sacrificial offerings. The metalworking and...

How Pharaoh sailed to Karnak New discoveries at Karnak Temple in Luxor have changed the landscape and the history of this great religious complex, writes Nevine El-Aref Clockwise from top: Ptolemaic bath with 16 seats; a stelae bearing the name of the 25th-Dynasty King Taharqa; the obelisk of Tuthmoses I at the eight pylons; restoration work at the Chapel of Osiris Neb-Ankh History has a special scent and taste at Karnak Temple. The emotions it evokes are powerful and timeless. Inside the lofty pylons is amassed an unsurpassed assembly of soaring obelisks, awe-inspiring chapels and hushed sanctuaries reflecting the spectacular...

Martin Bernal, whose three-volume work “Black Athena” ignited an academic debate by arguing that the African and Semitic lineage of Western civilization had been scrubbed from the record of ancient Greece by 18th- and 19th-century historians steeped in the racism of their times, died on June 9 in Cambridge, England. He was 76. The cause was complications of myelofibrosis, a bone marrow disorder, said his wife, Leslie Miller-Bernal. “Black Athena” opened a new front in the warfare over cultural diversity already raging on American campuses in the 1980s and ’90s. The first volume, published in 1987 — the same year...

The absurd, ahistorical Black Athena theory, which had posited that ancient Greeks were of African descent has been thoroughly debunked on numerous occasions in the past, protothema.gr notes in the following report: But it seems the proponents of this baseless view are attempting to peddle the same nonsense once more. This time via the entertainment route. Achilles, the ancient Greek hero of the Trojan War is one of the chief characters in the plot portrayed by a black actor in a joint BBC and Netflix multimillion-dollar mini-series expected to air in 2018. The series, called “Troy: The Fall of a...

The seven statues, which stood between 1.3 to 2.7 meters (4 to 10 feet) tall, were inscribed with the names of five of Nubia's kings: Taharqa, Tanoutamon, Senkamanisken, Anlamani, and Aspelta. Taharqa and Tanoutamon ruled Egypt as well as Nubia. Sometimes known as the "Black Pharaohs," Nubian kings ruled Egypt from roughly 760 B.C. to 660 B.C... The Nubian period in Egypt is known as the Twenty-fifth Dynasty... Historians dislike the term "Black Pharaohs," calling it more of a media ploy than a meaningful designation. "It's such a loaded term," said Kendall. "The ancient Nile dwellers didn't really use...

Archaeologists say the pyramids, cemeteries and ancient palaces of the Nubian Desert in northern Sudan hold mysteries to rival ancient Egypt. There is not a tourist in sight as the Sun sets over sand-swept pyramids at Meroe, in northern Sudan. "There is a magic beauty about these sites that is heightened by the privilege of being able to admire them alone, with the pyramids, the dunes and the sun," says Guillemette Andreu, head of antiquities at Paris' Louvre museum. "It really sets them apart from the Egyptian pyramids, whose beauty is slightly overshadowed by the tourist crowds." Meroe lies around...

It has been said that the period between 760 BCE to 656 BCE in Egypt was the 'age of the black pharaohs'. It was during this time that ancient Egypt was ruled by a dynasty or succession of kings from Nubia, the Kingdom of Kush, a rival African kingdom just to its south in what is today northern Sudan. Beginning with king Kashta's successful invasion of Upper Egypt, what became known as the 25th Dynasty achieved the reunification of Lower Egypt, Upper Egypt, and also Kush (Nubia), the largest Egyptian empire since the New Kingdom. They introduced new Kushite cultural...