In Sudan at war, the last guardians of the pyramids of Meroe

Par Bahira Amin and Abdelmoneim Abu Idris Ali — Reportage à Méroé, Soudan

Moustafa Ahmed Moustafa is the heir to a long line of guardians who watched over the ancient pyramids of Meroe in Sudan. Today, after three years of war, he is one of the rare sentinels to protect this heritage.

“These pyramids are ours, it’s our history, it’s what we are,” says this 65-year-old man, dressed in white from head to toe, and whose silhouette contrasts with the dark sandstone structures of the Begrawiyah necropolis, on the site known as the island of Meroe, which is a world heritage site. of UNESCO.

This burial site, which dates back 2,400 years, is home to 140 pyramids built up to the 4th century^e century after J.-C., during the Meroetic period of the kingdom of Kush, at the crossroads of cultural exchanges with Pharaonic Egypt, then Greece and Rome

None are intact. Some are decapitated, others in ruins, dynamited in the 19th century^e century by European treasure hunters, and eroded by two centuries of sand and rain.

A three-hour drive from the capital Khartoum, it was once Sudan’s most visited historic destination. Today, in a country fought over by the army and the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces, only the grunt of a solitary camel breaks the silence.

“This is perhaps the fourth time that I have made a visit since the start of the war,” archaeologist and director of the site, Mahmoud Soliman, confided to AFP journalists, whom he was guiding to the site. He recalls with nostalgia the pre-war period, when “there were regular weekend visits from Khartoum, whole buses, 200 people per day.” With Mr. Moustafa, and the young archaeologist Mohamed Moubarak, they guard the site, fighting as best they can against erosion.

“My grandmother Kandaka”

Sudanese heritage had sparked renewed interest, explains Mr. Soliman, after the 2018-2019 uprising against the autocrat Omar el-Bashir. “My grandfather Taharqa, my grandmother Kandaka,” was one of the slogans chanted by the demonstrators. Taharqa was one of the last Kushite pharaohs, and the Kandakas were the queens and princesses of this kingdom with matrilineal succession, a name taken to honor the women mobilized during the revolution.

Residents of the neighboring village of Tarabil – pyramids in Sudanese – who sold souvenirs and rented camels, “were entirely dependent on the site”

Khaled Abdelrazek, 45, came running as soon as he learned there were visitors. Crouching at the entrance, he shows AFP journalists miniature handmade sandstone pyramids, and remembers the time when “there were dozens of us selling them.”

In the months before the war, which broke out in the final days of Ramadan, there were also documentary film crews, a music festival and “big plans for just after Eid ul-Fitr,” Mr. Soliman recalls. “Before, I felt like I was teaching people their culture,” says Mr. Mubarak, who has worked at the site since 2018. “Today, everyone’s top priority is of course food, water and shelter,” but “we have to protect all of that for generations “We cannot let this place be destroyed or deteriorate in the future.”

“Dream far away”

Near the entrance, the pyramids, in front of which stands a small temple, stand out against a landscape of black sandstone hills. The panorama is breathtaking, but Mr. Soliman only sees the danger: is this crack new? Has this mound of sand moved? Should we redo the scaffolding at the entrance to this funeral chamber before the rainy season? “If the pyramids had been left in their original state, we wouldn’t have all these problems,” said Mr. Mubarak. The structures are smaller and steeper than their Egyptian neighbors, built to “resist sand and shed rainwater, but every crack creates problems.”

The largest pyramid, that of Amanishakheto, who reigned around the I^is century after J.C., is nothing more than an enclosure where sand and dust swirl, above the buried burial chamber where the queen rested. On a wall of the entrance temple, still standing, the queen is represented standing, larger than life, with a spear in her hand, striking enemy captives. On other bas-reliefs, details Mr. Soliman, appear the leonine divinity Apedemak, Egyptian motifs, including the gods Amon and Anubis, lotus flowers and hieroglyphs.

“This place has so much potential,” he says. “It’s just a distant dream, but I really wish that one day we could carry out a real restoration of these pyramids.”