The historical Sudanese sites Meroe and Nuri, home to ancient royal pyramids, have been at risk of heavy floods, Reuters reported, citing comments by the director of the country’s antiquities and museums authority, Hatem al-Nour.
During the Bronze Age, the city of Meroe was the capital of the Kingdom of Kush. It's located 200 km from the nation's present capital, Khartoum, and just several hundred meters from the banks of the Nile. It is home to hundreds of pyramid constructions, divided in three groups, which for centuries functioned as a necropolis for members of the royal family. The Meroe pyramids are also designated as UNESCO World Heritage sites.
According to al-Nour, Meroe’s royal bath usually fills up with water during the Nile’s annual flooding, but this year the site has been facing unprecedented levels of danger, prompting authorities to take swift measures in order to prevent it from being swamped.
The teams had to set up sandbag walls and even pump out water to safeguard an important structure in the area, the ruins of Al-Bajrawiya, a royal city of the ancient Meroitic Empire, the head of the French Archaeological Unit of the Sudan Antiquities Service, Marc Maillot, told AFP. The official said that the floods “had never affected the site before”.
Meanwhile, the Nuri pyramids, another vital Sudanese archaeological site located just 350 km from the capital, have already sustained damage due to rising groundwater. The Nuri site hosts the tombs of legendary rules, including 7th century BC Taharqa pharaoh, located around 7-10 meters underneath pyramids, which are an “invaluable historical relic”, according to al-Nour.
The Sudanese floods have been caused by two weeks of heavy rains; they've already killed more than 100 people and displaced hundreds of thousands more by destroying houses in at least 16 states in the country. Last week, Sudanese authorities declared a state of emergency which is expected to last three months.
