National Geographic - February 2022

At the base of Jabal PREVIOUS PHOTO
Barkal, a sacred
mountain and World Ahmed Ibrahim Alkhair
Heritage site, workers (at far left), wrapped
dig to uncover one in the first flag of inde-
of Africa’s great civ- pendent Sudan, and
ilizations. Variously Awab Osman Aliabdo,
known as Kush or with the current flag,
Nubia, the kingdom take in the view from
was long depicted as Jabal Barkal. Sudan’s
a mere appendage of 2019 revolution ousted
neighboring Egypt. its Islamist dictator
and stirred hopes for
democratic rule. But
after a military coup
last fall, the nation
now teeters between
the possibility of
peace and the threat
of more violence.



Schoolchildren visit
the pyramid tombs
of Kushite kings
and queens at the
ancient capital of
Meroë. Under the
dictatorship of Omar al
Bashir, Sudan’s school
curriculum ignored
or suppressed the
country’s non-Muslim
heritage and its roots
in sub-Saharan Africa.

ON A MONDAY
MORNING IN
LATE OCTOBER
OF LAST YEAR,

SUDAN’S LATEST
REVOLUTION

WAS CRUMBLING.

It had been just two and a half years since the Fans of Sudanese
30-year Islamist dictatorship of Omar al Bashir hip-hop artists attend
fell in April 2019. The nation’s military-civilian a music festival in
Sovereign Council was steering away from the Khartoum after the
legacy of the accused war criminal and three dark revolution loosened
decades of repression, genocide, international Islamist restrictions
sanctions, and the secession of South Sudan. on pop culture and
dress, including mod-
But around noon on October 25, 2021, just ern hairstyles now
weeks ahead of a planned transition to civilian worn by many young
control, the future of the African nation took people in Sudan.
another turn. The chair of the Sovereign Council,
The National Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al Burhan, dissolved the
Geographic Society, government and put the civilian prime minister
committed to illuminat- under house arrest. The general called it a state
ing and protecting the of emergency, but the Sudanese people recog-
wonder of our world, nized it as a coup and turned out by the hun-
supports Explorer and dreds of thousands to protest in the country’s
photographer Nichole capital, Khartoum, and beyond.
Sobecki’s work in Africa.
As befits a 21st-century regime change, it all
ILLUSTRATION BY JOE MCKENDRY played out in real time on social media, and I
watched raptly from my laptop half a world
away. I had been following Sudan since before

the coup and the revolution, covering the work out, repeated endlessly in a series of cell phone
of National Geographic Society grantees who photos and video clips: A young woman dressed
were excavating archaeological sites in the coun- in traditional white Sudanese dress stood atop
try’s north. My first reporting trip was during the a car, her finger pointing to the dimming sky,
final paranoid months of Bashir’s rule, a time chanting with the crowd: “My grandfather is
marked by food and gas shortages, restricted Taharqa, my grandmother is a kandaka!”
internet access, and multiplying military check-
points. Our expedition team had quietly mapped I was stunned. This wasn’t a chant support-
out an escape route to the Egyptian border in ing a political group or social movement. The
case Sudan plunged into chaos. protesters were declaring that they were the
descendants of the ancient Kushite king Taharqa
When the Bashir government toppled in the and the Kushite queens and queen mothers
spring of 2019, the images unspooling across known collectively as kandakas. These royal
Twitter and Facebook were remarkable: A sea ancestors led a great empire that reigned from
of young men and women gathered in peaceful northern Sudan and once stretched from what
defiance of the regime, demanding a different is now Khartoum to the shores of the Mediter-
world for their generation. One scene stood ranean Sea.

S U D A N ’ S R E C K O N I N G 117

n ean S e a

M e d i terra NilDeeRltiaver

Alexandria

LOWER Cairo SINAI

EGYPT

Memphis

Kushite capital of Egypt, Nile EASTE
7th century B.C. Nile
UPPER
SHAPING THE FUTURE WE S T E R N R N
D E S E R T
Arab nationalism and Islamism EGYPT DESERT R
have molded much of Sudan’s ed
Under Kushite rule

political present, particularly (ca 750–656 B.C.)

in the country’s arid north. Thebes
But many Sudanese are Major Egyptian
turning to three millennia Aswan
of cultural history to build and Kushite
a new identity—one that ASWAN
balances ancient African her- Area of Egyptian religious center
itage with recent centuries dominance HIGH DAM Boundary
claimed
(ca 1550–770 B.C.) Lake by Sudan

Nasser LOWER

of Arab influence. EGYPT Abu Simbel NUBIA

Wadi Halfa A

RN U B I A N E R T
D E
A S

LIBYA H Area of
U
S Egyptian

CHAD A UPPER dominance

DARFUR NUBIA

Nuri

Dongola Karima Kushite
Heartland
ANCIENT RICHES Jabal Barkal Atbara
El Kurru
Sudan is home to more Ed Atbara
pyramids than Egypt. Evi- Napata Damer
dence of settlements, burials,
and temples flanks the length Early Kushite capital and Meroë
of the Nile; some sites hold Major
more than one monument. religious center at the base of Kushite
city
Jabal Barkal, late 7th century B.C.

Archaeological sites A NOmdurman
D Khartoum
3000 B.C. to A.D. 1400 Blue
Before 3000 B.C.
S POWERFUL PAST Nile
Cataract White
The Nubian kings of the Kushite Wad Medani
The six cataracts along Empire, once a vassal of Egypt, Nile
the Nile are granite out- gradually conquered their for- Rabak
croppings that obstructed eign ruler beginning in 750 B.C.,
traffic on the river in reviving Egypt’s art and architec- L
antiquity. Some have been ture and prevailing in Egypt
submerged behind dams. for nearly a century. Major
trading centers in the Kushite
heartland in the Nile Valley
linked African, Mediterranean,
and Near Eastern cultures.

El Fasher H E NUBA
MMATRSR. A M T S.

A Nyala

S Boundary claimed SOUTH SUDAN N
by South Sudan
ABYEI

CRAEEFNPRTUICRBAALNLIC SCALE VARIES IN THIS PERSPECTIVE. DISTANCE FROM
KHARTOUM TO CAIRO IS APPROXIMATELY 1,000 MILES.

CHRISTINE FELLENZ, MATTHEW W. CHWASTYK, AND PATRICIA HEALY, NGM STAFF
SOURCES: ANCIENT NUBIA: AFRICAN KINGDOMS ON THE NILE, MARJORIE FISHER (EDITOR) AND THOMAS JAMES

(MAPS); MICHAEL IZADY, ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD AND VICINITY; PETER LACOVARA, ANCIENT EGYPTIAN
HERITAGE AND ARCHAEOLOGY FUND; GEOFF EMBERLING, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN; DEREK WELSBY

EUROPE A SIA BETWEEN

SAHARA TWO WORLDS
SUDAN
Sudan has long been shaped by outside
AFRICA powers that have prized its rich resources
and strategic location at the intersection of
Arab the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. Since
League gaining independence from Britain and Egypt
member in 1956, the country has faced two brutal
states civil wars and the secession of South Sudan.

Sudan is one of 10 African
nations that are members

of the Arab League.

11055609-B.C. Egypt rules 1896- Britain and Egypt
1898 conquer Sudan
S Nubia, known to and jointly
e ancient Egyptians govern until 1955.
a
as Kush.
Port Sudan
750- Kushite kings 1955- First civil war
656 B.C. rule Egypt as 1972 in the south
pharaohs of the 1956
25th dynasty. 1964 Sudan gains inde-
pendence from
350A.D. Kingdom of Kush 1983- Egypt and Britain.
collapses. 2005
1989 Non-Muslim
ERITREA 543 Emissaries of Africans in south
Roman emperor Sudan revolt
Kassala Justinian intro- against Muslim
duce Christianity, government
giving rise to in the north.
a succession of
Christian Nubian Second civil war
kingdoms. in south Sudan

A DIVERSE MIX 640 Arab conquest Omar al Bashir
of Egypt; arrival takes power in
Arabic spread into the region with of Islam a military coup.
the rise of Islam in the seventh
century, but Sudan is still home to 652 Nubian-Christian 2003 Armed groups in
more than 500 ethnic groups and 1504 forces repel the western Dar-
over 400 languages. Most ethnic Arab invaders fur region revolt,
Nubians are concentrated in small and negotiate a claiming neglect
pockets and primarily speak Arabic; truce, known as from Khartoum.
there are efforts to revive the the Baqt, which
Nubian language. The nomadic Beja endures 600 years. International Crim-
speak their ancient language, Beja. inal Court issues
Last Christian 2008 an arrest warrant
Arabs Nubian kingdom for Bashir for war
GRAND falls; Muslim sul- crimes in Darfur.
ETHIOPIAN EGYPT tans rule Sudan.
RENAISSANCE South Sudan
DAM becomes an inde-
pendent nation.
ETHIOPIA Nubians Bej 1822 Mohammed Ali 2011
1881 conquers Sudan 2019 Pro-democracy
Others S U DA N a and rules on 2021 revolution
Arabs behalf of the
Ottoman Empire. Top generals seize
power, derailing
Mahdi Moham- the transition to
med Ahmed democracy and
leads revolt and sparking massive
establishes the protests.
first Sudanese
nationalist gov-
ernment, a strict
Islamic state.

The empire of Kush—known also as Nubia— name comes from the Arabic bilād al-sūdān, Shabaka, Shabataka, Taharqa, and T
was indeed once spectacular, but it was now or “land of the Black peoples.”) Since Sudan became Egypt’s 25th dynasty, often
mostly relegated to footnotes in books on achieved independence, it has been ruled by an as the Black pharaohs.
ancient Egyptian history. Even within Sudan, Arabic-speaking political elite.
few students growing up under the Bashir Following his victory over Egypt, Piy
regime learned much of distant Kush. So why Before the 2019 revolution, an Islamist govern- to Jabal Barkal to expand the Amun
was the legacy of an ancient kingdom, little ment and membership in the Arab League made a scale never seen before, decorati
known even among archaeologists, much less it advantageous for Bashir’s regime to present scenes of the Kushite conquest of its fo
the average Sudanese, suddenly a rallying cry Kush not as a uniquely African phenomenon but nizers. Today the story of that conque
in the streets of Khartoum? as a legacy of its powerful modern ally, Egypt, with depictions of Kushite chariotee
and, by extension, a chapter in the history book down Egyptian troops—lies buried so
When I returned to Sudan in January 2020 to of the Near East. Kushite sites such as Jabal under the sand. What few scenes su
explore these questions, the postrevolutionary Barkal and El Kurru were marketed as quick, millennia were excavated and docum
capital felt energized. In Khartoum, where just exotic trips for Western tourists visiting the ruins archaeologists in the 1980s. Deeme
a year earlier women could be publicly flogged of Abu Simbel, just over the border in Egypt. ile for regular exposure to the elem
for wearing pants, young Sudanese were dancing were mostly reburied—a fitting metap
at music festivals and packing cafés. The city’s O N C E T H E S P I R I T UA L center of the important ancient kingdom that has
thoroughfares and underpasses were embla- Kushite kingdom, Jabal Barkal is an cloaked in obscurity.
zoned with portraits of modern martyrs—some enormous 30-story sandstone mesa
of the estimated 250 protesters killed during that erupts from the Sahara and Why have so few people heard of
and since the revolution—as well as murals of looms over the west bank of the Nile starters, the earliest historical accou
ancient Kushite kings and gods. Kushites come from the Egyptians,
near Karima, about 200 miles north to erase the humiliating conquest
Sudan’s unique location at the intersection annals and presented Kush as just on
of Africa and the Middle East, and at the con- of Khartoum. Some 2,700 years troublesome groups that disrupted the
fluence of three major tributaries of the Nile,
made it an ideal locus for powerful ancient ago, King Taharqa inscribed his name atop this That narrative was left unquestio
kingdoms—as well as a territory coveted by first European archaeologists to arriv
more recent empires. In the modern era it fell sacred mountain, covering it in gold as a glitter- in the 19th century. Poking around
under Ottoman-Egyptian rule followed by Kushite temples and pyramids, the
British-Egyptian domination until 1956, when ing, triumphant rejoinder against his enemies. the grand ruins to be mere imitation
the Republic of the Sudan gained its indepen- tian monuments.
dence. Today its diverse citizenry includes more Today only traces of Taharqa’s inscription are
than 500 ethnic groups speaking over 400 lan- That view of the African kingdom
guages and skews incredibly young: Roughly 40 visible to climbers. At the base of the mountain forced by the racism of most Western
percent of the population is under 15. “The native negroid race had never
are the ruins of the Great Temple of Amun, orig- either its trade or any industry worth
Sudan is Africa’s third largest country; it’s tion, and owed their cultural position t
also the world’s third largest Arab nation. (Its inally built by Egyptians who colonized Kush in tian immigrants and to the imported
civilization,” remarked George Reisner
KUSH’S HISTORY WAS the 16th century B.C. Over the five centuries that University archaeologist who underto
ERASED BY ANCIENT liest scientific excavations of the royal
EGYPTIANS, OVERLOOKED Egypt controlled Kush, the Amun temple was temples of Kush in the early 20th cen
BY EUROPEAN
EXPLORERS, AND rebuilt and refurbished by a who’s who of New To Sudanese archaeologist Sami Ela
IGNORED BY MOST ner was as sloppy in method as he was
WESTERN SCHOLARS. Kingdom pharaohs: Akhenaten, Tutankhamun, in interpretation. In 2014, Elamin and
archaeologists sifted a large mound of
Ramses the Great. Assimilation was the order dirt from Reisner’s dig site at the ba
Barkal. “We found a lot of objects,” El
of the day, and during that time Kushite elites “We even found small statues of gods

trained in Egyptian schools and temples. Elamin grew up in a village a few m
the nearby site of El Kurru, where
The remains of the Amun temple that visitors other Kushite kings and kandakas w
When Elamin was a young boy, his g
see today, however, come from a time after the would take him to El Kurru and expla
ruins were “the tombs of our grandfa
collapse of the New Kingdom and the retreat sight inspired Elamin to study arch

of Egyptian power in Kush. By the eighth cen-

tury B.C., Jabal Barkal had become the center of

Napata, the Kushite capital from which a series

of local rulers consolidated power and turned

the tables on their former colonizers.

Piye, father of Taharqa, ascended the Kushite

throne in 750 B.C. He gathered his troops and

marched north into a weakened Egypt, seizing

temples and conquering towns until he com-

manded all of Upper and Lower Egypt. With a

territory that stretched from what is now Khar-

toum to the Mediterranean, Kush was for a short

time the largest empire to control the region.

For a little more than a century, its kings Piye,

Tantamani Khartoum and earn a graduate degree in Europe. UNEARTHING
referred to He returned to Sudan and has been excavating
at Jabal Barkal and elsewhere for several years. THE KUSHITE
ye returned WORLD
n temple to Now Elamin and a team of Sudanese and
ing it with American archaeologists are searching for the The pyramids of Kush command much attention, but
ormer colo- homes and workshops of ancient Kushites who archaeologists rely on smaller discoveries—from
est—replete supported this spiritual capital for millennia.
ers running Jabal Barkal has long been a popular destina- figurines to ostrich-shell beads—to reveal the history
ome 15 feet tion for Sudanese who come during holidays to and legacy of this long-overlooked African kingdom.
urvived the climb the mesa and picnic in the broad swaths
mented by of shade it casts across the desert. In the past,
ed too frag- Elamin says, visitors paid little attention to the
ments, they sprawl of ruins surrounding the magnificent
phor for an rock outcropping. But that’s changing.
s long been
Elamin notes that he’s seen more locals visit-
Kush? For ing Jabal Barkal and wandering its ruins. “Now
unts of the they ask a lot of questions about the antiquities
, who tried and the history and the civilization,” he says.
from their
ne of many Elamin and his colleagues are eager to engage
eir borders. with their fellow citizens and present this dis-
ned by the tant chapter of history to a generation hungry
ve in Sudan to learn. It’s an opportunity and responsibility
crumbling as Sudanese archaeologists, he says, to bring
y declared citizens together by showing them the efforts
ns of Egyp- of even distant generations.

m was rein- B UILT SHORTLY before the coun-
n scholars. try gained independence in 1956
developed and inaugurated 15 years later, the
hy of men- Sudan National Museum is a cav-
to the Egyp- ernous, poorly lit space with no
d Egyptian
r, a Harvard climate control to protect artifacts
ook the ear-
l tombs and from the relentless heat and dust

ntury. of Khartoum. Most of the objects are housed
amin, Reis-
s misguided in old-fashioned wood-and-glass display cases
d a team of
f excavated alongside yellowing, typewritten labels.
ase of Jabal
lamin says. But the museum is chock-full of treasures. A
s.”
miles from larger-than-life granite statue of Taharqa from
e Piye and
ere buried. Jabal Barkal, broad-shouldered and expression-
randfather
ain that the less, commands the museum’s entrance, and
athers.” The
haeology in massive statues of the Kushite rulers flank its

ground-floor gallery.

Tucked around the corner from Taharqa is

one of the country’s most heralded artifacts:

a glowering bronze head of Caesar Augustus.

It’s believed to have been the war trophy of a

one-eyed Kushite queen named Amanirenas,

who battled the Romans in Egypt around 25 B.C.

The museum label neglects to note, however,

that the storied artifact is a copy. The original

was whisked off by colonial forces shortly after

its discovery in 1910 and now resides in the

British Museum.

S U D A N ’ S R E C K O N I N G 121

2 11
3 10

4

56 14

15

9

7
8

1. (Overleaf) Shabtis— 2. Amputated leg 4. Iron arrowheads, 6. Ceramic bowl, 8. Spindles for 10. Quartzite statue of 12. Archers’
statuettes crafted to bones of adult male, 7th-4th centuries B.C. 6th-4th centuries B.C. manufacturing textiles, Egyptian pharaoh Amen- rings, 6th-4
perform menial tasks in 7th-4th centuries B.C. 6th-4th centuries B.C. hotep II, 15th century B.C. centuries B.
the afterlife—from burial 5. Christian inscription 7. Arrowhead,
of Kushite king Nastasen, 3. Inscribed ceramic jar, in Greek, 10th-13th 6th-4th centuries B.C. 9. Gold leaf from tomb of 11. Storage jar, 7th cen- 13. Necklac
ca 315 B.C. 6th-4th centuries B.C. centuries A.D. King Nastasen, ca 215 B.C. tury B.C.-4th century A.D. 6th-4th cen

18
12 17

13
19 20

21
23

16 22

’ thumb 14. Burial finds, including 16. Beads from Kushite 18. Ostrich-shell beads, 20. Decorated drinking 22. Fine redware bowl,
4th beads and animal teeth, burial, 4th century 2nd-7th century A.D. cup, 4th century B.C.-4th ca 1st-4th centuries A.D.
.C. 7th-4th centuries B.C. B.C.-4th century A.D. century A.D.
19. Prehistoric 23. Bronze alloy falcon from
e, 15. Ceramic plate, 17. Ceramic jar, stone hand axes, 21. Skull from Kushite burial, tomb of King Nastasen,
nturies B.C. 6th-4th centuries B.C. 6th-4th centuries B.C. 9000-3000 B.C. 4th century B.C.-4th century A.D. ca 315 B.C.

S U D A N ’ S R E C K O N I N G 125

RIGHT

Badeaa Osman Mustafa
and her granddaughter,
Menna Abdulhamid,
visit the remains of
an Egyptian temple
at the Sudan National
Museum, in Khartoum.
Around 40 percent
of Sudan’s population
is under 15, and many
young people are
rediscovering their
history as scholars try
to wrest the legacy of
Kush from the shadow
of ancient Egypt.

BELOW

Adherents of Sufism,
a mystical dimension
of Islam, perform the
dhikr, a ritual that can
involve drumming and
dance, at the tomb of
Sheikh Hamed al Nil,
in Omdurman. Sudan
is home to one of the
world’s largest Sufi
communities. Its lead-
ers wield powerful
influence, and some
Sufi orders supported
the popular uprising
that toppled Bashir.

126 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

know their history, they can protect it.”
Then I pose a delicate question: How do ethnic

groups living in areas of Sudan that never were
part of the Kushite Empire—tribes from the
Nuba mountains or Darfur, for example—react
when asked to rally around an ancient history
they don’t feel is theirs? Bashir’s regime was
notorious for exploiting ethnic and religious
differences to prevent the richly diverse coun-
try from uniting against the Arabized political
elite in Khartoum. Jahin furrows his brow and
pauses. “This is a good point. We need a lot of
work, really.”

Like many young Sudanese, Jahin rejects the
idea that “Arab” is a Sudanese identity. “If some-
one says, ‘My roots come from Saudi Arabia,’ or
something like that, I don’t believe it,” he says
firmly. “I believe that our roots are the same or
close together … In general, we are Sudanese.
That’s enough.”

T HE IMAGE OF THE REVOLUTIONARY

kandaka, white-robed among the
protesters, raising her finger in the
sky as she invokes Kushite kings
and queens, has been memorialized

in street art across Khartoum and

around the globe. But when I meet

Alaa Salah during my second trip to Sudan in

early 2020, she’s unrecognizable in a burgundy

headscarf and dark clothes, sitting across from

me at a crowded open-air café on the bank of the

Blue Nile in the fading evening light.

At 23, Salah became a face of the Sudanese rev-

Outside the museum I meet Nazar Jahin, a olution, a role that would propel her from engi-
tour guide and member of Artina (“Our Art”),
a student group organized during the 2019 pro- neering student to international figure invited
tests to support Sudan’s struggling cultural insti-
tutions. “The last government, really, they don’t to speak before the UN Security Council on the
care about history,” Jahin tells me. Much of that
disinterest was the result of the former govern- role of women in the new Sudan. Through an
ment’s hard-line interpretation of Islam. “We had
a minister of tourism who said that statues were interpreter, Salah tells me that growing up she
forbidden,” Jahin recalls, shaking his head.
was taught little in school about the history of
But there are bright spots on the horizon, he
says. The Italian Embassy and UNESCO pledged ancient Kush and that she had to discover it on
funds in 2018 to refurbish the museum (a proj-
ect now delayed by the pandemic), and since her own. It was only a few years earlier that she
the revolution more Sudanese are visiting the
museum and sites like Jabal Barkal and the traveled to see the fabled pyramids at Meroë. She
ancient capital of Meroë.
was astonished by what she saw: “We have a lot
“This is most important,” Jahin says. “Suda-
nese have to know their history first. If they of pyramids, even more than Egypt!”

When the protesters on the streets of Khar-

toum began the chant “My grandfather is

Taharqa, my grandmother is a kandaka,” Salah

explains, they were expressing their pride in the

defiance and bravery of the ancient kings and

queens. It made them feel as if they too belonged

to this ancient civilization of strong and coura-

geous leaders, particularly for the women who

S U D A N ’ S R E C K O N I N G 127

The south flank of Jabal
Barkal looms above an
Islamic cemetery. Arab
Muslim elites have long
monopolized power in
Sudan, but marginal-
ized groups hope that
a new generation of
Sudanese will forge a
more inclusive future.



RIGHT

A Sudanese family
from Karima tours the
nearby tombs of El
Kurru, where some of
the earliest Kushite
leaders were buried in
the eighth century B.C.

BELOW

Boxing trainer Aya
Khalid playfully spars
with her seven-year-
old daughter, Taliya
Hashim, at their home
in Khartoum. Sudanese
women played a pivotal
role in the 2019 revo-
lution, but many fear
their presence will be
minimized in future
governments, whether
civilian or military.

130 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

O N M Y L A ST F R I DAY in Khartoum,
I cross the White Nile to the city
of Omdurman, where the tomb of
19th-century Sufi sheikh Hamed al
Nil lies in a cemetery bounded by

busy streets. Some 70 percent of

Sudanese consider themselves fol-

lowers of Sufism, a mystical expression of Islam.

The country’s Sufi orders often play an influen-

tial role in internal politics, and the Sufis who

marched from Omdurman to army headquarters

to join the 2019 protests helped oust the regime.

Each Friday at sundown, hundreds of follow-

ers of the Qadiriyya order gather at the cemetery

to perform the dhikr, a ritual that often involves

chanting and dance. As men in green and red

robes slowly slap their tambours in rhythm, the

crowd looks on and sways. The drumming picks

up pace, and the dancing and chanting begin. La

ilaha illa Allah. “There is no God but God,” the

crowd repeats, as clouds of frankincense and

dust rise in the air. The dhikr ends with a kinetic,

exultant release, and people disperse, some fol-

lowing the call to prayer to the mosque, others

wending their way through the cemetery.

Several graves are fresh and decorated in the

colors of the Sudanese flag. These belong to

some of the protesters killed during the revolu-

tion, students who announced in the streets that

they too were kings and kandakas, inheritors of

the complex legacy of a land where some of the

earliest empires intersected.

Watching students pay their respects at one of

the graves, I was struck by how fragile the new

Sudan felt, like a precious ancient vessel being

carefully excavated from the earth. Now the

coup has injected even more uncertainty into

played a pivotal role in the protests. “Whenever a nation and generation hungry for democracy
people see a young woman in the street fight-
ing for Sudan, going into the streets for Sudan, and stability.
that means she’s brave, she’s very defiant,” she
explains. “She’s strong and a warrior, just like Most of the grand palaces and temples of
the kandakas.”
Kush disappeared long ago, looted for parts
In the nearly three years since the fall of Bashir,
however, the role of women has been increasingly and swallowed by sand. But many monuments
shunted aside. That was Salah’s main concern as
we spoke, to ensure that Sudan’s modern kanda- to the dead remain: the pyramids of kings and
kas are safe and would have proper representa-
tion in any transitional government. Since our kandakas standing sentinel in the desert, the
interview, the coup—which, with the threat of
a return to a repressive regime, feels more like a tombs of sheikhs, and the tombstones of stu-
counterrevolution—has made the situation for
Sudanese women even more perilous. dent protesters crowding urban cemeteries.

These monuments persist as regimes collapse

and rebuild, telling anyone willing to listen: We

fought for this. We were once here too. j

Kristin Romey is the archaeology editor for
National Geographic. Photographer Nichole
Sobecki covered cheetah trafficking for the
September 2021 issue.

S U D A N ’ S R E C K O N I N G 131

From the peak of Jabal
Barkal, young Sudanese
survey the capital of
Kushite ancestors as
they chart an uncer-
tain future. Can Sudan’s
ancient history become
a unifying force in a
land often divided
along racial and ethnic
lines? Change is in the
air, but no one knows if
it is real and enduring.



INSTAGRAM KARINE AIGNER

FROM OUR PHOTOGRAPHERS

WHO “Would you want to be that tiger?” asks Aigner. While
in India in 2018, she witnessed a scene that plays
A Washington, D.C.–based out in national parks around the world: wildlife tour
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animals and their relation- get their clients the best views. This results in racing
ships to humans safari trucks that startle—and occasionally harm—
tigers and other species. People who don’t adhere to
WHERE tourism rules contribute to the problem. But so do
those—herself included, says Aigner—who pursue
Ranthambore National Park wild animal photography.
in northern India

W H AT

A Canon EOS-1D X with a
100-400mm lens

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