Starting excavation!

The team has arrived at Jebel Barkal and we have begun excavation! Conditions in Sudan are unsettled, particularly in Khartoum, but life in northern Sudan in the area of Karima, where we are working, seems to be going on as usual, although it has been unusually cold.

Excavation on the East Mound at Jebel Barkal, 2022

Our excavation this season will continue to focus on the ancient town at Jebel Barkal that we first identified in 2016. It’s a large area with dense, urban architecture that includes small houses and work spaces, some of which seem to be arranged into city blocks that are entirely full of buildings. There are also other structures that seem from their shapes on the geophysical survey to be special purpose buildings. The uppermost layer dates to the 1st century BCE / 1st century CE, which is the Meroitic period in Sudan and contemporary with the Roman occupation of Egypt.

In our excavation this season, we have three main goals. First, to identify the streets and alleys that circle the large block of buildings that we have been working on, in part to help us understand the forms of the buildings themselves, and in part to help us understand the town plan. Second, we plan to begin clearing other areas of the site to begin to understand the diversity of the settlement. Finally, we would like to understand how long the area was settled (and how deep the archaeological deposits might be). To address that question, we will begin to clean out a sounding done by Italian colleagues around 1980 and will document what we find there.

We plan also to begin work to help us understand the ancient environment of the site and the potential location of other channels of the Nile, which is currently nearly 2 km from the site, too far for ancient people to carry water for daily use. We will also conduct a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey of the area of the great temples at the site, which will also help us understand the history of construction and occupation in that area of the ancient city.

Stay tuned!

lsa logoum logoU-M Privacy StatementAccessibility at U-M