After weeks of silence and hard work, another update on my weblog.

Some days ago, we went to the Pyramids of Meroe, as a goodbye trip for Alexander of the German Red Cross. Off course when going there you can choose to drive there in a straight line North-East to Shendi, or you cannot do that. We didn’t… We first drove towards Dongola, which is North-West from Khartoum. And after some hours, we started to cross the desert in between the road to Dongola and Shendi. Why? Because it should be possible. And it was.

250 kilometers of virgin desert. The first 50 kilometers consisted of a lunar landscape of dead grass roots and thorny trees. After that, some beautiful dunes:

The dunes slowly changed into a plane of bleakness, with rocks and iron ore everywhere – waiting to pierce our tyres:

Not having used the hi-jack to change tyres, two donkeys gave proof that we were getting close again to an area where people at least were able to live and create some kind of minimal subsistence:

The Pyramids of Meroe:

8 hours later, we took the barge at Shendi and moved on towards the Pyramids of Meroe.

Meroe is the old Kushite capital of the 25th Dynasty of Kush. The kingdom of Kush came into existence in around 780 BC when King Alara unified Upper Nubia and Napata was choosen as one of the two centers of worship.

Around the 3rd century BC, the 25th Dynasty (ie. the Nubian Dynasty) moved the royal cemeteries from Napata to Meroe. Seems quite unimportant, but it marked a move away from the heavy dependence on Egyptian practices.

The move can be dated to King Arkamani. The priesthood of that time off course didn’t like this move and with their holy powers they told the king that the Gods had spoken to them and King Arkamani should take his own life to ensure a smooth succession – and don’t go to Meroe. Arkamani, normally not an ill-tempered man, broke with tradition, didn’t listen to the priests, had them all killed instead, packed his bags and moved to Meroe. With that move, it was the first time that a king didn’t listen to the priests and did his own thing. Breaking with tradition entirely, the Egyptian hieroglyphics you’ll find in some other sites were replaced with a cursive Meroitic script of its own. This makes the Pyramids of Meroe a wet dream for archaeologistics… up to now, the script has not yet been deciphered, still holding its secrets…

Fame and glory (no fortune) will be yours if you can decipher this:

The Pyramids of Meroe:

One advantage of the move to Meroe was that it was a more fertile and wetter environment. Agricultural production supported a large population and iron tools made it even easier. The area is rich in iron ore (the black rock that wants to pierce your tyres) and soon Meroe became a major production center for iron tools – giving it now the nickname ‘the Birmingham of Africa’.

Being there, I couldn’t really grasp the concept ‘wetter environment’:

The kingdom of Kush prospered. Even when Rome grabbed Egypt from the control of Anthony and Cleopatra in the 1st century BC, the Kush kept the Romans out of most of their territory. Eventually, the Romans signed a peace agreement and the Kush got rich from the Nile trade. The temples of Naqa (previous trip) are from that period.

From the 3rd century AD, Kush fell into decline. One theory states that the massive hills of iron slag throughout the kingdom may point to some environmental catastrophe, as deforestation for charcoal and iron-smelting may have led to extensive erosion of the topsoil. Declining agricultural capability made the collaps inevitable…

Next to that, the decline of the Roman Empire – a big trading partner – and the opening of new trading routes from Sub-Saharan Africa to the Red Sea gave the final knock-out to Meroe’s economy.   

And so, everyone got on their camels and moved away from Meroe:

Wishing all of you a good week! Let me know how you’re doing.

Dennis

PS: There seems to be a problem with the option below to send a comment to this weblog. I’m working on getting that fixed. In the meanwhile, you can always email me on Dpbours@yahoo.com