Meroë

Meroë is the name of an ancient city on the east bank of the Nile

about 6 km north-east of the Kabushiya station near Shendi, Sudan, ca.  200 km north-east of Khartoum.

Near the site are a group of villages called Bagrawiyah. This city was the capital of the Kingdom of Kush for several centuries. The Kushitic Kingdom of Meroe gave its name to the "Island of Meroë", which was the modern region of Butana, a region bounded by the Nile (from the Atbarah River to Khartoum), the Atbarah, Ethiopia, and the Blue Nile. The city of Meroe was on the edge of Butana and there were two other Meroitic cities in Butana, Musawwarat es-Sufra and Naqa. [1]

The site of the city of Meroë is marked by over two hundred pyramids in three groups, of which many are in ruins.

History of Meroë

Meroë was the southern capital of the Kushite Kingdom or Napata / Meroitic Kingdom that spanned the period c.800 BC - c. AD 350. Excavations revealed evidence of important, high ranking Kushite burials, from the Napata Period (c.800 BC - c. 280 BC) in the vicinity of the settlement (Western cemetery)

The town's importance gradually increased from the beginning of the Meroitic Period, from the reign of Arrakkamani (c. 280 BC) when the royal burial ground was transferred to Meroë from Napata (Jebel Barkal).

The last period the Meroite city is marked by the victory stele of an unnamed king of Aksum (almost certainly Ezana) erected at the site of Meroë; from his description, in Greek, that he was "King of the Axumites and the Omerites," (i.e. of Aksum and Himyar) it is likely this king ruled sometime around 330. Two more inscriptions in Ge'ez script have been found on nearby pyramids; it is uncertain whether they are contemporary with the royal stele, or belong to a later date; Ge'ez inscriptions have been found as far north as Kawa, 100 km upstream of the third cataract.

Rome's capture of Aegyptus led to border clashes and expansion by both Meroe and Rome (eg 23 BC the Roman governor of Egypt, Petronius, invaded Nubia in response to a Nubian attack on southern Egypt, pillaging the north of the region and sacking Napata (22 BC) before returning north). Meroe usually came off the better, even looting a head from a statue of the emperor Augustus and burying it under their temple steps [2], and so it settled down to a healthy trading relationship with Rome and the Mediterranean.

See also

• List of World Heritage Sites in Africa

External links

• LearningSites.com - Gebel Barkal
• UNESCO World Heritage - Gebel Barkal and the Sites of the Napatan Region
• Voyage au pays des pharaons noirs Travel in Sudan and notes on the nubian history

References