ARKAMANI Sudan Journal of Archaeology and Anthropology

An Arabic/English Review on Archaeological and Anthropological Research in the Sudan

SUDAN ANTIQUITIES IN WORLD MUSEUMS

Bolton Museum and Art Gallery	The Bolton Museums have materials from several Nubian sites including pottery and shell bracelets from Kostamneh, excavated in 1906; textiles and small items collected from the Napatan period cemetery at Sanam (opposite Jebel Barkal) in 1912-1913, and from the Egyptian townsite at Sesebi in 1936-1937. They also house a collection of pottery, stonework, small items, and textiles from Qasr Ibrim in Egyptian Nubia.
Brooklyn Museum of Art	The Brooklyn Museum has one of the outstanding collections of ancient Egyptian art in the United States. A few of the objects derive from Egyptian Nubia and the period of Nubian rule in Egypt.
Fitzwilliam Museum	The Fitzwilliam has a superb collection of ancient Egyptian art, with some Nubian objects and objects of the Nubian period in Egypt.
Harvard University Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography	The Peabody has a collection of Nubian artifacts excavated by George Reisner, along with other artifacts from related sites in Libya and the Sudan.
Humboldt Universitat	The Institute of Sudan Archaeology houses a fine collection of architectural fragments, pottery, and archaeological study material from the University's excavations at Musawwarat es-Sufra since the 1960's.
Liverpool Museum The Merseyside County Museums	Contains a selection of objects from John Garstang's early excavations at Meroë (1910-1912).
Metropolitan Museum of Art	The Metropolitan Museum of Art houses the finest Egyptian collection in the United States, but it has very few Nubian objects. Several pieces, however, date from the period of Nubian domination of Egypt, and many objects represent Nubians.
Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University	The collections at the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University range from artifacts and object from pre-dynastic times to the period of Roman domination with a particular focus on funerary materials.
Musée du Louvre	The Louvre has one of the finest and largest Egyptian collections in the world. It has a small collection of Nubian antiquities, which is exhibited with it and has many Egyptian objects made during the period of Nubian domination of Egypt.
Musee d'Art et d'Histoire, Geneva	The Museum contains an important collection of the finds made by the University of Geneva expeditions since the 1960's, at the Kushite temple of Tabo and the site of Kerma, both near the Third Cataract. The material covers all phases of Nubian history from the Prehistoric through the Christian era.
Musees Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire, Bruxelles	Brussels has a superb collection of ancient Egyptian art, with some Nubian objects and objects of the Nubian period in Egypt.
Museum and Center for Afro-American Artists (NCAAA), Roxbury, United States	The Museum of NCAAA has a semi-permanent loan of objects from the royal pyramids of Nuri as well as a full-scale painted and carved reconstruction of the burial chamber of the tomb of the Kushite King Aspelta (ca. 600-580 BCE), including a fiberglass cast of his 12-ton sarcophagus, still in storage at the Museum of Fine Arts.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston	The Boston Museum has the largest collection of art objects and antiquities from Nubia and Sudan in the United States. Its expedition, under the direction of George A. Reisner, explored sites in Egyptian Nubia (1906-07), the Egyptian forts of the Second Cataract (1928-32), and the largest city sites of ancient Kush: Kerma (1913-15), Napata (1916-20), and Meroë (1920-24). As a result of these excavations, it received a half-share of the finds, which amounted to tens of thousands of objects. The collection consists of many pieces of monumental sculpture and colossal statues of Kushite kings. It includes the twelve ton sarcophagus of King Aspelta (ca. 600-580 BCE) and the longest inscription in the Meroitic script. It also includes treasures of the Kushite kings and queens of Egypt, from their tombs at el-Kurru, Sudan, as well as treasures from the royal pyramids of Nuri and Meroë. The collection includes funerary furnishings, gold jewelry, faience amulets, pottery, stone vessels, glass, and outstanding imported objects of Greek and Roman manufacture.
Muzeum Narodowe, Warsaw	The Warsaw collection houses a spectacular collection of preserved Christian frescoes removed from the medieval Nubian cathedral at Faras, Sudan, during the Aswan Dam emergency.
National Archaeological Museum, Athens	The Museum has no Nubian collection, but does own two very outstanding objects from the Kushite Period of rule in Egypt: a kneeling bronze statuette of King Shabaqo, and an extremely fine cast bronze statuette of a lady named Takoushit ("the Kushite [girl]"), inlaid in silver
National Museum of African Art Washington, DC	The National Museum of African Art has a collection of African masterpieces from many parts of the continent. It also exhibits a loan collection from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, presenting the history and culture of ancient Kerma, Sudan, the supposed earliest capital of Kush and the oldest known city in Africa.
National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh	The collection includes numerous major sculptures and objects from the Meroë excavation of John Garstang of the University of Liverpool (1910-1912) and others from the Oxford University excavations at Kawa, Sudan (1935-38).
Oriental Institute Museum University of Chicago	The Oriental Institute Museum has a very important Nubian collection, housing both the earliest photographic archive of Sudanese monuments, taken by J.H. Breasted in 1906-07, and the huge archaeological study collection of the University of Chicago's Nubian Expedition of the 1960's.
Poznan Archaeological Museum	The Museum contains an important study collection of prehistoric remains from Sudanese sites, excavated by the Museum.
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada	The Royal Ontario Museum has an important collection of Egyptian and Nubian archaeological objects, including a plaster cast reconstruction of the relief scenes of the expedition of Egyptian queen Hatshepsut to Punt (Sudan/Eritrean coast). The casts, made in the nineteenth century, reconstruct a highly important document of African exploration in the fifteenth century BCE that today, through damage, is only partly preserved in the original.
Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh
School of Archaeology Classics and Oriental Studies Archaeology Museum University of Liverpool	Contains the excavation records, photographs, and archaeological material from the excavations of John Garstang and the University of Liverpool at Meroë (1910-1912)
Staatliche Sammlung Aegyptischer Kunst, München	Apart from its outstanding collections of Egyptian art, the Museum houses also a half-share of the spectacular gold jewelry and tomb treasure of the Meroitic Queen Amanishakheto, found at Meroë by the Italian adventurer Giuseppe Ferlini in 1833 and later purchased for Munich by the King of Bavaria.
Sultan Ali Dinar Palace Museum Darfur, Sudan	The museum is in the former residence of Ali Dinar, Sultan of Darfur, who ruled until 1916, when his kingdom was overthrown by the then British government of the Sudan. The museum exhibits objects of the period as well as a selection of archaeological objects illustrating the different phases of the history of the Sudan.
The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford	The Ashmolean Museum houses many Nubian objects of the Napatan Period from the excavations of F.L. Griffith at Faras and Sanam in 1912-14, including statues, reliefs, and small finds from the Sanam temple and cemetery. It also houses much material excavated by W. B. Emery and L. Kirwan in the Temples at Kawa, Sudan during the 1930's.
The British Museum, London	The Egyptian Antiquities department at the British Museum houses one of the most important collections of its kind outside Cairo illustrating every aspect of ancient Egyptian culture as well as a significant amount of material from Nubia and the Sudan. The Egypt and African Gallery (Room 65) is devoted exclusively to the cultures of Nubia. The gallery contains material relating to all major ancient cultures of the Northern Sudan along with a small amount of Roman and Aksumite material. The museum has a particularly fine collection of material from Qasr Ibrim including organic material such as wood, leather, and papyri. Of particular interest are artifacts that were excavated by Griffith at Kawa. Among this material is one of the rams from outside temple T (on display in the Egyptian sculpture gallery), and the Taharqa-headed sphinx from inside the temple. Also on display are several pieces from Napata. The most famous artifacts from Nubia are the Prudhoe lions originally installed at the Temple of Amenophis III at Soleb and moved by the Kushites to Jebel Barkal. The museum also has material from the Wellcome excavations at Jebel Moya, Saqadi and Abu Geili, from Meroë and from Faras. Recently the museum has amassed a considerable collection of material from the British Institute in Eastern African’s excavation on the medieval site at Soba East and from the Sudan Archaeological Research Society’s surveys and excavations in the Northern Dongola Reach and north of Meroë at Gabati. The majority of material from the Dongola region dates to the Kerma period and from Kushite through medieval times at Gabati.
The Egyptian Museum, Cairo	Despite the fact that most of the Nubian antiquities once stored and exhibited in Cairo were moved to the new Nubia Museum at Aswan, the Cairo Museum still houses many important stone monuments and statues of the 25th Dynasty and a selection of the Nubian treasures from the royal tombs of Ballana and Qustul (sixth century BCE).
The Jebel Barkal Museum, Karima, Sudan	Originally built on the east side of Jebel Barkal, now moved to the other bank directly under the Jebel the Museum, contains many stone monuments and architectural fragments from the excavations at Jebel Barkal, since the 1970's. The museum also contains one gallery of Sudanese arms and armor of the nineteenth century. Most of the objects now perished (stolen) due to unprecedented neglegance during the last 13 years of NIF Inghas Government.
The Nubia Museum, Aswan, Egypt	The Museum is entirely dedicated to the history and cultures of Egyptian Nubia. It contains thousands of objects, from prehistoric times to the present, and showcases the most famous Nubian monuments that used to be shown in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. It is the present repository of most of the art objects and archaeological material recovered during the UNESCO archaeological salvage campaign of Nubia, during the construction of the Aswan High Dam.
The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography, Harvard University	The Peabody Museum houses a collection of Nubian and Sudanese artifacts from the excavations of Henry Wellcome at Jebel Moya, of Oric Bates at Gamai, and George Reisner from his sites in the Sudan (see Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).
The Sudan National Museum, Khartoum	Built near the spot where the Blue and White Niles come together, on the south bank of the Blue Nile, the Sudan National Museum houses the most important collection of Nubian antiquities in the world. The collections are growing annually, as the finds from over 30 national and international archaeological expeditions working in the Sudan each year are catalogued. The collections cover all periods, from the Paleolithic ("Old Stone Age") (ca. 750,000 - 15,000 BP) to the Islamic. The collections feature also 1) the Neolithic and Bronze Age Cultures (ca. 4000-1550 BCE), with rock drawings, spectacular pottery, polished stone tools, jewelry and figurines, 2) the period of the Egyptian domination of Nubia (ca. 1550-1100 BCE), with inscriptions, statues, mummy cases, funerary offerings, jewelry, as well as a complete temple and tomb removed from the Second Cataract area and rebuilt in the Museum gardens, 3) the Napatan Culture (ca. 900-300 BCE), featuring royal tomb treasures from the pyramids at el-Kurru and Nuri, and great monuments from the Jebel Barkal Temples, including colossal statues and sphinxes of kings, 4) the Meroitic Culture, with treasures from the pyramids of Meroë and from other Meroitic temples and townsites, and 5) the post-Meroitic period, with the treasures from the royal mounds of Hobagi. The entire second floor is devoted to the frescoes of the medieval Christian cathedral at Faras.
The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, United States	Famous for one outstanding Nubian object: the magnificent fragmentary plaque, excavated at Meroë in 1912, showing on one side the Meroitic king Tanyidamani (late second century BCE) and on the other, the lion god Apedemak
University of Khartoum, Department of Archaeology	A study collection of antiquities and archaeological samples derived from the excavations of the University of Khartoum.
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, United States	The Museum houses a large Egyptian and Nubian collection, as well as many Egyptian objects from Nubia. The Nubian objects come primarily from the University of Pennsylvania's expeditions in Lower Nubia and northern Sudan. The collections cover the range of cultural material from about 3000 BCE to about 600 CE. The most spectacular objects come from the Meroitic site of Karanog in Lower Nubia and consist of magnificent decorated pottery, funerary material, stelae, and statuary. Click here to open the Ancient Nubia Gallery Tour.
Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, United States	The Worcester Art Museum owns only one Nubian object, but it is one of the most famous. It is a small, finely carved tablet bearing the image of a Meroitic prince smiting a group of enemies, which he holds by the hair (see it at Prince Arikankharer Slaying His Enemies). Under his feet, a pet dog is shown goring another enemy, while in the sky behind him, a winged goddess shelters him with her fan.