Message #209679

[Benito Taunton]

(Page 2 of 2)


Archaeologists have also discovered numerous stelae, or inscribed stone pillars. However, they cannot read the inscriptions. While the hieroglyphics have been deciphered, the language of the ancient Nubians remains a mystery.

"We know about 50 words in Meroitic, but we need about a thousand of them to understand a language. So we have an enormous amount of work to do," says Claude Rilly, head of the French section of Sudanese antiquities in Khartoum and a leading expert in the ancient language.

Julie Anderson, an archaeologist at the British Museum and co-director with Ahmed of the Dangeil excavations in northern Sudan, says that "if we manage to decipher this language, a new world is opened to us, as if the ancient Kushites were speaking to us."