Kerma-Period Grave Discovered in Sudan
By Owain Williams
A team of Polish researchers from the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of Warsaw, led by Dr Henyk Paner, have discovered the grave of a man in the Bayuda Desert who appears to belong to the Kerma culture (ca. 2400–1600 BC), named after the site of Kerma on the banks of the Nile.
The body was buried in a shallow, oval burial pit in a posture common in older Kerma graves, flat on its back, with its head facing northeast, and its legs twisted to the right, and its feet resting on the pelvic bones. A spouted jug containing the remains of burned plants and animal bones, possibly the remains of a funerary celebration, and an inverted bowl were interred with the body, along with what appears to have been a necklace of 82 faience beads.
According to Dr Paner, “Studies have shown that the man was 30–40 years old, with a rather massive build and relatively well-developed musculature, just over 164 centimetres tall. Biological and pathological studies indicate that he lived in harsh semi-desert conditions, surrounded by animals, likely had a limited diet, and worked hard.” Moreover, further analysis has indicated that the region where he was interred was wetter 4000 years ago, possibly a savannah-like environment.
The Kerma culture, also known as the Kingdom of Kerma, developed out of the so-called C-Group culture of Nubia, which was centered between the Nile’s Third and Fourth Cataracts, an area known as the Dongola Reach. By the mid-third millennium BC, a significant settlement was founded on the site of Kerma, with monumental buildings at its centre, including a large roundhouse and a massive mudbrick structure known as the Western Deffufa. While the earliest settlement was only 3 hectares, with satellite settlements all around it, it would eventually grow to more than 25 hectares in size.
The development of Kerma roughly coincided with the withdrawal of direct Egyptian influence from the region. While the precise relationship between these developments is not known, the rise of Kerma certainly had an impact on Egypt, especially during the First Intermediate Period.
You can learn more about the rise of the Kingdom of Kerma and its influence on Egypt in the next issue of Ancient History!
3 comments
Mike and Neil,
Yes, there is still so much out there that we have yet to discover! It is a sobering thought to think of how little we do actually know.
We know so little about our ancestry and cultural development, we have what is deemed great archaeological and historical knowledge, drop in the ocean! I do wonder if our fore-folk had to endure such an array of despots and fools such as we suffer these days!
It’s good that people are still willing to go to these places and do the actual digging. It shows that we have still a lot to learn about our early history.