The story of our research keeps reaching new audiences, and the wider world of Sudan coverage has been busy, too. Here’s a round-up.
On the radio: The World
On 3 June, Geoff spoke with Carolyn Beeler on The World, a public radio program that has been running on the US public radio network for decades and the international-affairs flagship of American public broadcasting. The conversation focused on how Sudan’s war disrupts not just daily life but our ability to understand the ancient past; how the conflict affects research into the Kingdom of Kush, and what’s at stake for the heritage of a country already in crisis. You can listen to the full segment at the link above.
The Conversation: the numbers are in
We can now share the readership figures for Geoff’s piece in The Conversation, which we mentioned in our last post. It accumulated 10,292 reads in its first month, making it the third most-read article by a University of Michigan researcher on The Conversation in May 2026. It was also syndicated by PBS, PennLive, Firstpost, and NewsBreak. We’re delighted by how many people have wanted to engage with our work at Barkal.
Sudan in the news: a round-up
Beyond our own media engagement, the past months have seen some excellent journalism and scholarship on Sudan’s ancient heritage and the devastating effect of the war on it. Here are a few pieces that have stood out:
In late April, AFP sent journalists to the pyramids of Meroe and wrote up a quietly devastating report. The site, which many of you will know is a UNESCO World Heritage Site holding 140 pyramids from the Kushite Meroitic period, is now nearly deserted. The piece centers on Mostafa Ahmed Mostafa, whose family has guarded the site for generations; archaeologist and site director Dr Mahmoud Suliman, who is a long-term friend of our team; and a young colleague named Mohamed Mubarak. Mahmoud told AFP it was only about the fourth time he’d shown visitors around since the war broke out. It is a portrait of extraordinary dedication under impossible circumstances, and a reminder of what is at stake.
Also in April, the WSJ published a major piece, “The Priceless Treasures Fueling Sudan’s Bitter Civil War”, examining how antiquities looting has become entangled with the conflict. Sudan’s archaeological sites are not only threatened by the war’s physical destruction; they are, in some cases, being actively exploited as a resource within it. It is grim reading, but important.
In May, a research team led by another good friend, Julien Cooper (Macquarie University), working with colleagues from France’s HiSoMA research unit and the Polish Academy of Sciences, published a remarkable piece in The Conversation (which was picked up widely) on their discovery of hundreds of large ancient mass graves hidden in the Sahara.
And finally, we’d like to draw attention to a piece by Ismaʼil Kushkush in the New York Review of Books, published in December 2025. (Isma’il has been a close associate of our project in the past few years, and we should really have flagged this earlier, but better late than never.) In his essay, “Leaving Khartoum”, Kushkush writes from inside the city on the afternoon of 14 April 2023 (the eve of the war) and the days that followed. It is a deeply personal account of what it meant to be trapped in the capital as the fighting began, told by someone who knew the city intimately. If you haven’t read it yet, please do.
It’s a pleasure to see Mahmoud, Julien, and Isma’il’s work in the press and we’re pleased as ever when Sudan gets the coverage it deserves.
We’ll be back with more updates soon!
