Thread by @LevineRx

Sudan is an amazing place & today’s #MuseumsUnlocked is a wonderful celebration of its museums & archaeological sites! Here are my favorites from the National Museum, updates on our current @brownarchaeolog excavations at Uronarti & more!
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#archaeology #sudan @BrownUniversity

The National Museum of Sudan is an absolute treasure & one of my favorite museums on the planet. Established in 1971, the museum sits on the south bank of the Blue Nile & houses an amazing diachronic collection of Sudanese archaeology

The collections of the National Museum of #Sudan span the rich history of the region, from Paleolithic to Medieval. The pottery collection features amazing examples of local ceramic traditions, including a rich display of beautiful 2nd millenium Kerma pots & some great repairs!

The sculpture & figural collections are spectacularly diverse, highlighting Nubia’s rich cultural connections and it’s local traditions. Highlights include a colossal granite statue of the Nubian pharaoh Taharqa, Meroitic sculpture Egyptian funerary masks, & some Roman bronzework

One noteworthy piece at the National Museum of #Sudan is actually a cast. This bronze head of Augustus, now at the @britishmuseum & recently highlighted as one of @wmarybeard’s favorite objects, it was actually discovered at Meroë, where it had been taken as war booty from Egypt!

The upper floor of the National Museum is dedicated to the amazing wall paintings from the Christian cathedral from Faras. Dating from the 9th-13th centuries, these paintings from the flooded site are beautiful examples of Nubian Christian art ft. biblical scenes, saints, & kings

The highlight of the National Museum of #Sudan, though, are its 6 amazingly preserved Egyptian temples, relocated to Khartoum from the 2nd cataract to preserve them from the flooding of Lake Nassar. The beautiful polychromy is absolutely striking!
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#MuseumsUnlocked

Perhaps even more interesting than the temples themselves are the traces of early visitors to Nubia! The walls are covered in elaborate graffiti of 19th century European antiquarians, here are some examples in Italian, Greek, & English!

But of course the objects closest to my heart at the National Museum og #Sudan come from the fortress of Uronarti, site of ongoing @brownarchaeolog projects! The most notable objects are a statue of the Pharaoh Senwosret III & a boundary stele highlighting his military victories

Uronarti is an amazing Middle Kingdom Egyptian fortress on an island in the Nile. Built in the 19th c. BCE it was part of a network of forts expanding Egyptian control of Nubia. First excavated in the ‘20s, our work focuses on understanding who lived at the site & how they lived!

To help answer these questions, we implemented a survey along the banks of the Nile to learn more about interaction between Uronarti & surrounding communities. You can read more about fieldwork in this beautiful landscape in our report in @AntiquityJ! cambridge.org/core/journals/…

But if you only take away one thing from today’s #MuseumsUnlocked, I hope it’s that you feel a need to visit #Sudan & to see some of this amazing country for yourself! It’s a privilege to work there & I can’t wait to get back. See you there!
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#archaeology #sudan #travel