Sudan's land of 'black pharaohs' a trove for archaeologists

"Egypt is fabulous, it is fantastic, but Sudan is a paradise for archaeologists because every time you excavate there, you write a new page in the country's history," says Ahmed, adding that 30 archaeological teams are working in Sudan compared with more than 1,000 in its northern neighbour.

Sudan is full of untouched sites, explains Rilly.

"There is an unimaginable number of them to excavate. In some cases, we know that there's something there but we simply don't have enough teams to do the work."

"And then there are sites that are completely ignored, about which we know nothing," she adds.

A few years ago, a team from the Louvre began working at Al-Muweis, about 200 kilometres (120 miles) north of Khartoum, which had been untouched for many years.

"It's absolutely amazing what has emerged. There are several temples, a huge palace and houses, in a place where I would never have thought of finding anything," Rilly says.

Swiss archaeologist Mattieu Honeggar recently discovered a site at Wadi Al-Arab, in a corner of the desert area of north Sudan that was inhabited nearly 10,000 years ago, many millennia before the "black pharaohs," and could allow a better understanding of man's transition to a sedentary lifestyle.

http://www.expatica.com/fr/news/french-rss-news/sudans-land-of-black-pharaohs-a-trove-for-archaeologists_27860.html