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In 701 B.C.E., an African king marched into Syria-Palestine to defend Judah against the invasion of Sennacherib, king of Assyria. Second Kings 19:9 mentions "Tirhakah, king of Cush," coming to the help of Hezekiah, who was up against the Assyrian superpower. Though the Cushites are mentioned only briefly in the biblical text, a number of scholars have argued that their involvement in the conflict against Assyria was decisive in the survival of Jerusalem at this critical historical juncture...The 25th Dynasty of Egypt, which lasted for about a hundred years, from the mid-eighth century to the mid-seventh century B.C.E., was Cushite...

In Old Dongola, archaeologists have recently discovered unique Nubian Christian paintings depicting local kings, Christ, the Archangel Michael, and the Virgin Mary.Old Dongola, also known as Dongola, was an ancient city located in present-day Sudan, situated on the eastern bank of the Nile River. It served as the capital of the medieval kingdom of Makuria, a Christian kingdom that thrived from the 6th to the 14th centuries. In some of these old buildings, archaeologists have recently discovered unique Nubian Christian paintings depicting local kings, Christ, the Archangel Michael, and the Virgin Mary. As read in the article published by Science...

In the 1950s, a dam was proposed to control the flooding and provide hydroelectric power to Egypt, with construction beginning in 1960. The plan was to form a lake behind the dam that would enable farmers to construct a series of channels for irrigation, prevent cliff erosion and provide a reliable source of drinking water.Prior to the dam’s construction, UNESCO enacted a plan to move historic monuments and structures above the flood waters, including the famous Abu Simbel complex, the temples of Philae island, the temples of Beit el Wali and Kalabsha and the Kiosk of Qertassi near the High...

From axes to swords to chariots, see the weapons that helped make ancient Egyptian warriors formidable.The Egyptian military became one of the ancient world’s greatest fighting forces during the New Kingdom period (1550 B.C. - 1070 B.C.), but it did so using borrowed weapons technology. For much of its early history, Egypt relied on simple stone maces, wooden-tipped spears, axes and bows and arrows to fight off neighboring Nubian and Libyan tribesmen. Then came the Hyksos, an invading army from Syria that conquered Egypt around 1650 B.C. with vastly superior weapons like speedy chariots and powerful composite bows. During the...

CAT scans reveal that the Sudanese woman bore the image of the Archangel Michael on her leg. The mummified remains of an Egyptian woman, discovered in a cemetery near the bank of the Nile. revealed a surprising discovery: she bore a tattoo of the Archangel Michael.The Telegraph | YouTubeCAT scans performed by the British Museum revealed that the woman, who lived in Sudan around 700 AD, had the tattoo on her inner thigh (whether it was meant to be seen remains unknown).The tattoo features a cross on top of a symbol representing the Archangel Michael. It combines in one...

1,300-year-old Egyptian mummy had tattoo of St. Michael CT scan 3D visualisation of the mummified remains of a Sudanese woman, to show the organs. TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM Next A mummy of an Egyptian woman dating back to 700 A.D. has been scanned and stripped to reveal a tattoo on her thigh that displays the name of the biblical archangel Michael. The discovery, announced by researchers at the British Museum over the weekend, was made during a research project that used advanced medical scans, including Computed Tomography (CT) images, to examine Egyptian mummies at a number of hospitals in...

Wrapped in bandages and caricatured as figures of terror in Hollywood movies, Egypt’s mummies have long captivated and bewildered scientists and children alike. Now a new exhibition at the British Museum will disclose the human side of the mummies of the Nile. Eight have been – scientifically speaking – stripped bare revealing secrets taken to the grave thousands of years ago. snip One of the mummies, whose remains were found just seven years ago, was so well preserved that archaeologists could almost make out the tattoo on her skin on the inner thigh of her right leg with the naked...

CT scans and the use of infra-red technology on the naturally mummified remains of a woman who lived in in a Christian community in the Sudan 1,300 years ago have revealed a tattoo on her inner thigh. The tattoo is a symbol of the Archangel Michael, assembled from ancient Greek letters. “She is the first evidence of a tattoo from the period. This is a very rare find,” Daniel Antoin, curator of physical anthropology at the British Museum, told The Telegraph. The woman’s remains are part of a special exhibition of eight mummies and what technology has revealed about their...

Archaeologists have uncovered more than 100 ancient inscriptions carved into rock at Wadi el-Hudi, where the ancient Egyptians mined amethyst. In addition to the carved-rock inscription, the researchers also found 14 stele (inscriptions carved on a stone slab or pillar) and 45 ostraca (inscriptions written on pieces of pottery). Analysis of the newfound inscriptions is underway. So far, archaeologists can tell that many of the inscriptions date back around 3,900 years, to a time that modern day archaeologists call the "Middle Kingdom." Many of the ostraca date back around 2,000 years, to around the time that Rome took over Egypt....

February 25, 2016 (KHARTOUM) - Sudan's Justice Minister, on Thursday, formed a fact-finding committee on the alleged burial of radioactive waste in northern Sudan desert during the construction of Merowe Dam. The decision comes after claims by the former director of the Sudan Atomic Energy Commission (SAEC), Mohamed Sidig, who said that 60 containers with toxic waste were brought from China with construction materials and machinery for the building of the Merowe dam. Sidiq claimed that 40 containers were buried in the desert near the dam construction site while another 20 containers have been left out in the open. The...

Their excavations are centered in graves from the New Kingdom (c. 1550-1070 BCE) and the Third Intermediate Period (c. 1070-615 BCE). By measuring craniofacial features, Buzon is able to establish biological relationships and mixing between Nubians and Egyptians at Tombos. By analyzing skeletons, burial practices and contents of the graves, Smith and Buzon have been able to piece together a period of shifting cultural identities that led to the Nubian conquest of Egypt and the 25th Dynasty of Egypt (Napatan Period c. 750-650). Indeed, the shift was so complete the Nubians presented themselves as more culturally authentic Egyptian than the...

...Through their shared history, Egyptians and Nubians also came to worship the same chief god, Amun, who was closely allied with kingship and played an important role as the two civilizations vied for supremacy. During its Middle and New Kingdoms, which spanned the second millennium B.C., Egypt pushed its way into Nubia, ultimately conquering and making it a colonial province. The Egyptians were drawn by the land's rich store of natural resources, including ebony, ivory, animal skins, and, most importantly, gold. As they expanded their control of Nubia, the Egyptians built a number of temples to Amun, the largest of...

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...

A research team successfully identified ancient barley and wheat residues in grave goods and on teeth from two Neolithic cemeteries in Central Sudan and Nubia, showing that humans in Africa were already exploited domestic cereals 7,000 years ago and thus five hundred years earlier than previously known. Dr. Welmoed Out from Kiel University said, “With our results we can verify that people along the Nile did not only exploit gathered wild plants and animals but had crops of barley and wheat.” These types of crops were first cultivated in the Middle East about 10,500 years ago and spread out from...

Christianity had entered Sudan through the persecuted followers who escaped Egyptian territories which was occupied by the Romans who fought the new religion at first, but when Christianity became the Empire's religion the missionary movement became active and took a formal push in the reign of the Emperor Justinian in the years 517 AD -565 AD. The first mission sent from Constantinople to Nubia was under the chairmanship of a priest called "Julian" in 543 AD. With the support of Empress "Theodora", "Julian" stayed in Nubia and succeeded to some extent in spreading Christianity among the Nubian Gentiles. Then at...

Hidden beneath an ancient palace in what is now central Sudan, archaeologists have discovered the oldest building in the city of Meroë, a structure that also may have housed royalty... flourished around 2,000 years ago, Meroë was centered on the Nile River... built palaces and small pyramids, and developed a writing system that scholars still can't fully translate today. Although Meroë has been excavated off and on for more than 150 years, archaeologists are not yet clear on how it came to be. The city seems to have emerged out of nowhere... the presence of such an ancient building at...

"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...