Most people are surprised to learn that Sudan has extensive fields of ancient pyramids of its own. In fact, Sudan contains more surviving pyramids than Egypt, although the Sudanese pyramids are generally much smaller and were built during different periods.
These monuments belonged to the Kingdom of Kush, one of the great civilizations of the ancient Nile Valley. Kush developed in what is now Sudan and interacted with Egypt for centuries through trade, warfare, religion and cultural exchange. During the eighth century BCE, Kushite rulers expanded north and eventually controlled Egypt, where they ruled as Egypt’s 25th Dynasty for close to a century.
Meroë became one of the kingdom’s great political and royal centers and later the principal residence of Kushite rulers. From around the third century BCE onward, many Kushite kings and queens were buried in the pyramid cemeteries surrounding the city. Today the archaeological landscape includes pyramids, temples, palaces, settlements and other remains from a civilization that flourished here for more than a thousand years. :contentReference[oaicite:1]{index=1}
Meroë was the only major Kushite site I managed to visit. There are many other archaeological sites scattered along the Nile in Sudan, including the earlier royal centers around Gebel Barkal, El-Kurru and Nuri. As usual, there was never enough time to see everything.
Meroë lies north of Khartoum in a semi-desert landscape not far from the Nile. The drive itself was part of the experience, with wide stretches of sand, scrub and open desert along the way.
As I approached the pyramids, the landscape became increasingly dramatic. Massive dunes surrounded the archaeological site, and it was difficult to imagine that this quiet desert had once been connected to the political heart of a powerful ancient kingdom.
When I visited Meroë, I first had to check in at a local security post. The officials seemed especially concerned about video recording, but photography was allowed once they saw the permit I had obtained in Khartoum.
After that I was largely left alone to explore the site.
The pyramid above has undergone restoration and gives a better impression of the steep-sided appearance characteristic of Kushite pyramids. These were funerary monuments associated with burial chambers beneath the ground rather than enormous internal chambers like those most people associate with the pyramids of Giza.
This pyramid gives a better idea of what many of the structures looked like when I visited. Thousands of years of erosion, shifting sand, looting and human damage have taken a toll, but the fact that so many monuments remain standing is remarkable.
You can also see how high the surrounding dunes have climbed against parts of the structure.
Some pyramids have survived far better than others. Natural weathering and ancient looting caused plenty of damage, but one notorious episode occurred during the nineteenth century when treasure hunter Giuseppe Ferlini destroyed or heavily damaged several pyramids while searching for valuables.
That history helps explain why some of the monuments appear abruptly truncated today. Others have deteriorated almost completely into piles of stone and brick.
Some of my favorite details were the carvings and inscriptions associated with the pyramid chapels. Many Kushite pyramids had small funerary chapels built against their eastern sides, where reliefs and inscriptions honored the person buried nearby.
The carving above clearly shows a human figure, although without knowing exactly which monument I photographed, I wouldn’t try to identify the person as a particular king, queen or elite official.
The Kushites eventually developed their own writing system, known as Meroitic. It existed in both hieroglyphic and cursive forms and was used to write the indigenous Meroitic language.
The script itself can be read phonetically because scholars understand the approximate sound values of its characters. The problem is that much of the language’s vocabulary and grammar remain poorly understood. There are very few useful bilingual texts, so although researchers can pronounce many Meroitic inscriptions, they often cannot confidently translate what the words actually mean.
That makes standing in front of these inscriptions especially fascinating. We can recognize the writing system and even sound out portions of it, yet much of what these people recorded remains effectively silent to us.
Lastly, I wanted to include one completely unrelated detail from the desert itself. I was surprised to find these sprawling plants growing directly out of the sand and producing fruit despite the harsh environment.
I never identified the species and simply started calling them desert melons. Whatever they actually were, there were dozens growing among the dunes—a small reminder that even a landscape that initially looks empty can support more life than expected.
