ARKAMANI Sudan Electronic Journal of Archaeology and Anthropology

AUGUST 2002

The site of Naqaa is located in the Wadi Awatib c.150 km north east of Khartoum in the Butana (district of Shendi). Its location, c.38 km east of an excellent new asphalt road which connects Khartoum to Shendi (and beyond), makes it relatively easily accessible. Although the site is located in the desert, the area is dotted with occasional acacias, low shrubs, and grasses so that the local Bedouin find enough fodder to graze their animals, which consist mostly of sheep and goat and, less frequently, of cattle and camels. after the summer rains, if there is enough water, the area immediately west of the ancient site is cultivated by the locals with sorghum, the only agricultural activity practised in the vicinity. Unfortunately even this small scale activity is encroaching on the site and at the western edge of the city the remains of a cemetery were found which has been destroyed by plowing.

In the immediate neighbourhood of Naqaa there are several wells which contain little water, but on the site itself is a large well, which today provides the main water supply for the inhabitants. This well was constructed in 1904 by the Governor General, F,R,Wingate, and is about 70m deep with only about half a meter of standing water at the bottom.

The ancient site is of great extent and can tentatively be estimated to be c. 2.5 km long (N-S) and c. 1 km (E-W). In addition to the jebel, at the foot of which Temple F is located and on top of which extensive quarrying activity has taken place in the past, there are some flat topped jebels nearby which also show signs of Meroitic activities, the most prominent among them being jebel Hardan. Various 'hafirs', reservoirs constructed to collect rain water run-off and redistribute it in time of need, are visible at and near Naqaa and range in date from the Meroitic period up to modern times.

As will be seen from the following, Naqa has never been fully explored, but the extent of the ruins on the surface are considerable. At least 13 temples and innumerable remains of other structures can be recognised. Two ancient hafirs and three cemeteries have so far been noted. The identification of what lies buried under the large stone heaps must await future excavation. Even the extent of the site in connection with a possible city wall has not yet been determined with certainty.

The most noticeable features at the site are several temples in varying states of preservation. The well-preserved Lion Temple, build around 15 BC-15 AD by Queen Amanitore and King Natakamani, was dedicated to the lion-headed god Apedemak and can be considered a typical single-roomed temple in the Meroitic tradition. Some very unusual relief decoration on the walls of the temple, such as a four armed. three headed representation of the lion god, has fascinated many visitors to the site and has lead to a multitude of interpretations. [see in arkamani,Pomerantseva].

The larger Amun Temple, built also by Amanitore and Natakamani, here associated with their son Arikachatani, reflects much more Egyptian traditions in its architectural layout and decorative programme. It consists of a main temple in front of which six rams were placed facing inwards, followed by a small kiosk in front of which a further six rams on pedestals were originally found. Of the main temple only the doorways built of sandstone remain; the rest of the walls, built of fired bricks, have collapsed. The scheme of the relief decoration on the architraves and door jambs indicate a division between the right side depicting the queen and Amun, the left side the king. Amun is represented both in human and ram-headed form.

The ancient name of the site "Tolkte" (twjlkt) is known to us from inscriptions. These are only partly preserved, on the pylon of the Lion Temple and in the Amun Temple where it is associated with the name of Amun. The name possibly occurs much earlier, in the third century BC, on an inscription in the Lion Temple of Musawwarat where Apedemak is said to be the lord "Twjlkt".

Surprisingly in view of the considerable size of the site, no-one seems to have visited Naqaa before the 19th century. James Bruce, who searched for the source of the Nile, reached and visited the region of Shendi, which lies only about 40 km north of Naqaa in 1769, but did not visit Naqaa. He did however continue toward the north and discovered Meroe.

It was not until 1822 that the first European known to us reached Naqaa. Louis-Maurice-Adolphe Linant de Bellefonds had lived since his 18th year in Cairo, first working on engineering projects, later taking up employment mainly as draftsman. In this capacity he is mentioned in the publication of George Waddington and Rev. Barnard Hanbury in 1822, who state that "for the frontispiece I am indebted to M.Linant a French artist then resident in Cairo; that gentleman also improved )for I am a very bad draughtsman two or three of the other drawings".

Linant de Bellefonds travelled first as a draftsman with William Bankes to Wadi Halfa, when 22 years old, on the order of, and financed by, Bankes he reached Shendi and Musawwarat in February 1822. Despite the warnings of his dragoman "Mohammed", who was actually an Italian, Linant insisted on continuing his travels and visited the site of Naqaa reaching there on 28th February. According to his description his party arrived one hour before sunset and in order to protect themselves against rebelling Bedouin they camped inside the Lion Temple. His dragoman insisted, for fear of the sculptured figure of a man raising a weapon on the outside of the pylon (king smiting enemy), that Linant de Bellefonds should fire his gun at the figure. Luckily this was refused, due to the danger of the sound attracting hostile Bedouin, and Mohammed settled for a blow at the face of the figure with a sword.

In his journal Linant de Bellefonds gives a description of the site, especially the reliefs of the Lion Temple, which he sketched including views of the front of the northern pylon, the exterior of the west wall and the west part of the north wall. To this was added an idealised sketch of the Lion Temple and the kiosk in front of it. That he was unable to finish the recording of the outer face of the walls of the Lion Temple was due to the approach of four armed Arabs on horses who chased him and his dragoman (who were on camels) for a while but not could catch up with them. So after having spent a fruitful three days at Naqaa they reached Shendi safely.

Linant de Bellefonds continued in future years to participate in other expeditions to the Sudan, played a part in the planning of the Suez canal in Egypt and resided until his death in 1833 in Cairo. Unfortunately his diary and sketches had to wait a long time to be published (Linant de Bellefonds 1958) so that the work of his fellow countryman, Cailliaud, actually became the first publication which made information concerning Naqaa, among many other sites, available to the general public.

On the 14th of March 1822, Linant de Bellefonds while still in Shendi, met Frederic Cailliaud (a mineralogist), who had had some archaeological experience working with Drovetti in Egypt. Cailliaud, having received much advice and encouragement from Linant, soon set out for Jebel Hardan with two guides and two servants. He reached Naqaa on the 22nd of March and only remained at the site for about four days due to water problems. His accomplishments in his few days there are quite incredible. He produced the first topographical plan of the site, and plans of the Amun and Lion temples, the kiosk, Temple F and another temple to the south east. He also produced sketches of the reliefs on the pylon and the south and west walls and two general views of the Lion Temple. He was more fortunate as regards publication than Linant de Bellefonds has been, for already in 1823 the first volume of plates appeared in Paris with lengthy title Voyage a Méroé au fleuve blanc, au dela de Fâzoql dans le midi du Royaume de Sennâr, a Syouah et dans cinq autres oasis; fait dans les années 1819, 1820,1821 et 1822, par M.Frédéric Cailliaud de Nantes, to be followed by three volumes of text in 1826-1827. One can only agree with Budge, who praised Cailliaud's publication as one of the most important contributions to the archaeology of the Sudan.

On 3rd March 1829, Lord Percy, 1st Baron Prudhoe, Duke of Northumberland visited Naqaa (Wady Owateb as he called it) together with Major Orlando Felix who produced aketches of the site and in particular of the Lion Temple. Unfortunately these have only been published in part by Wallert and Zibelius. Major Orlando Felix, was the first visitor to attempt to include copies of the inscriptions in his sketches. The drawings are housed in the collection of Alnwick Castle, but some copies came with the estate of James Burton to the British Museum.

Alexander Hoskins was thwarted in his wish to visit Naqaa (which he called Mecauart Naqaa) in March 1833. He had already decided to attempt the journey, despite being advised against undertaking the trip without a large guard due to the number of lions in the area. However, when his draftsman refused to accompany him he abandoned his plans.

It is interesting to note that Hoskins mentions in his publication (1835, 111-115) the possibility of canal having existed, extending from the Nile to Naqaa or Musawwarat. This idea has sometimes been taken up by other authors; however, as Hinkel has pointed out, the Nile at Wad Banaga lies approximately 360m above sea level, whereas the height measured at the ghaffir's house in Naqaa is 420m, a difference of 60m!

Another explorer who visited Naqaa in the 19th century was Guiseppe Ferlini, who came to the Sudan as a physician in the Egyptian army. In 1934 he took leave in order to search for antiquities in the area of Meroe. On the 10th August 1834, acording to his journal, he and Stefani set out from Wad Banaga on foot and reached Naqaa eight hours later. He also reports having to take precautions against lions roaming the area. He describes a beautiful temple, the outside covered with inscriptions, and states that the temple was half covered in sand. After having removed this sand Ferlini goes on to say that he also had the sand on the east side removed in order to find entrance but to no avail. He then tells us that he tried to enter the temple from the top, but had to abandon the work since, by that time, most of his camels had died and the workers had fallen ill. The party was forced to return to the Nile at Wad Banaga. The perplexing part about his tale is that only the Lion Temple of all the buildings in Naqaa fits his description but, as can be seen from the above descriptions by both earlier and later visitors, the Lion Temple was always accessible. One wonders if perhaps Ferlini's activities where not in fact at some other site, especially as the names of Naqaa, Musawwarat and Wad Banga may not have been clearly distinguished at that time.

Late in the year 1835, approximately at the same time as a visit by Sir.J.Gardiner Wilkinson and James Burton, the painter Charles Gleyre made some paintings/sketches at the site. Russegger during his visit to the Sudan did not visit Naqaa but, referring to previous reports of others, was of the opinion that the date for Naqaa could not be placed before the Ptolmaic period and estimated that the Lion Temple should be dated to the last decade BC. He also discussed the various names that different travellers had applied to Naqaa.

Fürst Pückler-Muskau and Holroyd visited Naqaa (which they called el-Auvatep) on 26th April 1837. Pückler-Muskau was the first person to mention a seated lion without head at the northern edge of the site. He went on to describe Temple F, built by Shanakdakhete, the Amun Temple and the Lion temple of which he, surprisingly, mentions that it was undecorated inside, which is not the case. The Kiosk fares rather badly in his description being cited by him as an example of the ultimate degredation of classical style and composition. Perhaps this is why he choose to engrave his name in the Kiosk, feeling that one could do little damage to such a building.

One of the best equipped expeditions to Egypt, the Sudan and the Sinai lead by Richard Lepsius and sent by King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, arrived in Alexandria on 18th September 1842. Its stated purpose was to record all available monuments which might be encountered, to excavate and to collect "beautiful and interesting monuments from the Pharaonic period and to bring these as a new enhancement for the Monbijou Castle in Berlin". Monbijou Castle was at that time the home of the large collection of Egyptian antiquities of G.Passalacqua, which had been obtained at an auction in Paris in 1827. With these objects had also come Passalacqua himself as first curator of the Egyptian collection of Berlin

On 1st February 1844, Lepsius together with draftsman Max Weidenbach and the architect Erbkam reached Naqaa continuing the next day to Musawwarat. Lepsius and others travelled on to Soba and Sennar, but the team (Weidenbach, Erbkam and Franke) returned to "Meroe Island". Erbkam had taken with him a sketchbook containing copies of the drawings of Cailliaud, which he used to compare and correct at the site. He also produced a new topographical site plan, which included the hafirs and the hafir temple, major correction to the plans of the temples and much planning of the buildings visible on the surface. Weidenbach produced drawings of the reliefs in the Amun and Lion temples, which included all the visible inscriptions. Lepsius noticed, due to his particular interest in hieroglyphs, that the Lion and Amun temples were built by the same king and queen, but in each temple accompanied by a different son.

The resulting opus, Denkmaeler aus Äegypten und Aethiopien nach den zeichnungen der von seiner majestät dem Koenige von Preussen Friedrich Wilhelm IV nach diesen ländern gesendeten und in den jahren 1842- 1845 ausgeführten wissenschatlichen Expedition, was published in Berlin in 1959 and consists of 12 volumes containing around 900 illustrations. The LD. as the publication is abbreviated, is still a basic work in present Egyptological studies. Several monuments recorded and published in LD have since disappeared or changed dramatically through various circumstances. In the case of Naqaa, the plates included in LD are, with the exception of the Lion Temple, until now the only published drawings available of the site.

After the expedition of Lepsius visitors to Naqaa during the 19th century decreased in number. Among those that did jounrey to Naqaa, which he calls Arrata, was Trémaux who gives a description of the Lion Temple in January 1848.

E.A Wallis Budge visited Naqaa, in 1903, and gives an extensive description of the site with plans and sketches and also read, for the first time, the name of the prince in the Amun Temple (Budge 1907, I 321, 325-327; II 131-139). He was also the first to identify the builders of both the Amun and Lion temples, whom he calls Amentari and Netekamen, although the date of the building as given by him, "probably in 2-3rd century AD", was not correct. Included in his publication is one of the earliest photographs of the Kiosk.

James Henry Breasted's large expedition to copy historical inscription, using as part of the documentation the medium of photography, arrived at Naqaa in 1906. He was accompanied by Norman de Garis Davis and the photographer Schliephack, who engraved his name near that of Pückler-Muskau in the Kiosk with the date 1906. Besides being of excellent quality the photographs of Naqaa are historical documents which are today of special value in estimating the amount of change at the site with regard to vegetation, driftsand and erosion of sandstone.

In 1909, Liverpool University's Institute of Archaeology received a cocession to work at the site of Meroe under the leadership of John Garstang, F.LI. Griffith was engaged to record all Meroitic inscriptions between Soba and Philae. For this purpose he spent sometime in Naqaa in 1910. In the resulting study Griffith agreed with Budge concerning the names of the king and queen who built the two major temples at Naqaa, the Amun and Lion temples, and also read the names of the gods on the walls of the Lion Temple.

The Butana Expedition, mounted by the Institute for Egyptology of the Humbold University in Berlin in 1957/58, was under the direction of F.Hintze. Its object was stated in the preliminary report "to carry out a thoough archaeological investigation of the district of the ancient "Island of Meroe" which lies in the triangle between the Atbara, the Nile and the road between Khartoum and Kassala" (Hintze 1959m 171). In the report the monuments at Naqaa are described and one grave in the cemetery to the south of the Amun Temple was excavated. The inscriptions of the Amun Temple and the Lion Temple were moulded with latex and Hintze identified the builder of Temple F as Shanakdakhete, a queen not a king as previously thought.

In 1978, as part of the Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients. I.G.Wallert, K.Zibelius and J.Brinks undertook to record as they say "a good example of a single-room temple, and decided on the Lion Temple of Naqaa as being the best preserved Meroitic temple generally". Up to this time there had been no advance since the recording of the reliefs by Lepsius some 120 years earlier. During two stays in Naqaa in 1978 and 1980, the reliefs, inscriptions, and also to some extent the architecture where recorded and excellently published in four volumes in 1983.

Even though the site was visited occasionally by various people between 1980 and 1995 no further work was undertaken. Over the years several factors, (including the modern road which was built in the last few years) have made it more urgent to record scientifically and protect, as well as, develop the site. Its beauty and uniqueness as well as its potential as regards scientific studies, led the director of the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, Prof. Wildung, to apply to the National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums in Khartoum for a concession for the site.

The Naqaa Archaeological Project of the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, funded exclusively through the "Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft" (German Scientific Foundation) undertook the first season of fieldwork in January-March 1995 followed by a second season lasting from November 1995 to February 1996.

Due to the large extent of the site, a long term project is envisaged with several major aims:

In the first and second season the recording of surface structures was one of the major considerations and the production of a new topographical map to replace (finally) the one of Lepsius dating from 1845. Bth the recording of the surface walls and topographical map are well underway. The new topographical map, although not yet finished, has already shown several discrepancies in the location and orientation of a number of buildings when compared with the Lepsius plan. Surface, and near surface recording of the 'city' area in the north and west part of the side indicates the presence of large solid walls running great distances perhaps indicating outer city walls.

Another major aim of the first two seasons was to clear the Amun Temple of windblown sand and the Lion Temple of fallen rocks. Both these undertakings, although by no means finished, have already resulted in surprising finds and features. The ramp of the Amun Temple, which had been thought to consist of steps leading toward the first six rams before the Kiosk (according to the drawing of Lepsius), is clearly a ramp filled with sand reaching almost up to the top of the revetting stonework at the sides. Although not visible at the beginning, on the removal of the sand from around both sets (each of six) of ram-pedestals, it was seen that all 12 rams are accounted for, some having split in half, others having been broken and buried below the sand.

On exposing parts of the outer wall of the temple, a side ramp on its northern side was found. Since processional activity was certainly always taking place along the axis of the temple the function of the side ramp will have to be explored further. During work on the outer wall of the Amun temple a unique find of a large stone block was made. This stone had been used as a sundial and both the front, which is conical, and the back which is flat, marked with twelve lines for reading off the time of day.

The fallen blocks of stones which mostly littered the inside of the Lion Temple have in the last season been removed and the central part of the temple has been cleared to the original (?) floor surface. This floor has never been exposed before and revealed, besides the remains of four columns, the foundation blocks probably for a wooden shrine. Also found in the Lion Temple were several exceptional objects including two decorated offering tables and two faience plaques, one decorated with a kneeling praying man, the other with an exquisitely decorated leopard.

As was mentioned above, the first two seasons at Naqaa were intended to be exploratory and meant to serve as a basis for planning our future work in more detail. However, even these two seasons have shown that the amount of work to be invested in such a large site will be amply rewarded by advances in knowledge concerning Meroitic culture, religion, and society as a whole.

Linant de Bellefonds L.M.A 1958, Journal d'un voyage à Méroé dans les années 1821 et 1822. M Shinnie (ed.) Sudan Antiquities Service Occasional Papers No. 4, Khartoum.

Cailliaud F, 1823, Voyage a Méroé au fleuve blanc, au dela de Fâzoql dans le midi du Royaume de Sennâr, a Syouah et dans cinq autres oasis; fait dans les années 1819, 1820,1821 et 1822. Nantes.

Hintze F, 1959, "Preliminary Report of the Butana Expedition, 1958", Kush 7, 171-196.

Lepsius C.R. 1859, Denkmaeler aus Äegypten und Aethiopien nach den zeichnungen der von seiner majestät dem Koenige von Preussen Friedrich Wilhelm IV nach diesen ländern gesendeten und in den jahren 1842- 1845 ausgeführten wissenschatlichen Expedition. Berlin.

Waddington G and Hanbury B 1822, Journal of a visit to some parts of Ethiopia, London.

Translated into Arabic by Osama Elnur

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