In the capital of Sudan, upstream from the fourth cataract and about 225 miles north of Khartoum, archaeologists from the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago scoured the rock and ruins of a desolate site called Hosh el-Geruf.
The kingdom of Kush flourished for five centuries in the second millennium B.C.
Over the last few years, archaeological teams from Britain, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Sudan and the United States have raced to dig at sites that will soon be underwater.
The kingdom of Kush maintained control over a wide territory in Africa.
Gold was already known as a source of Kush’s wealth through trade with Egypt. Other remains of gold-processing works had been found in the region, though none with such a concentration of artifacts. Emberling said that more than 55 huge grinding stones were scattered along the riverbank.
Hurried excavations are uncovering ancient settlements, cemeteries and gold-processing centers in regions previously unexplored.
Experts in the party familiar with ancient mining technology noted that the stones were similar to ones found in Egypt in association with gold processing. The stones were used to crush ore from quartz veins. The ground bits were presumably washed with river water to separate and recover the precious metal.
Ruins of the kingdom of Kush
From deciphered Egyptian documents and modern archaeological research, it is now known that for five centuries in the second millennium B.C., the kingdom of Kush flourished with the political and military prowess to maintain some control over a wide territory in Africa.
Most archaeologists expect this to be their last year for exploring Kush sites nearest to the former riverbanks.
In recent reports and interviews, archaeologists said they had found widespread evidence that the kingdom of Kush, in its ascendancy from 2000 B.C. to 1500 B.C., exerted control or at least influence over a 750-mile stretch of the Nile Valley.
The kingdom of Kush once had influence over a 750-mile stretch of the Nile Valley.
The Merowe Dam, in Sudan built by Chinese engineers with French and German subcontractors, stands at the downstream end of the fourth cataract, a narrow passage of rapids and islands. The rising Nile waters will create a lake three kilometers wide and 100 kilometers long, displacing more than 50,000 people of the Manasir, Rubatab and Shaiqiyah tribes. Most archaeologists expect this to be their last year for exploring Kush sites nearest the former riverbanks.
The pyramids of Merowe, distant relatives of the Great Pyramids, north of Khartoum.
By this time next year, the dammed waters may be lapping at the old gold works, and archaeologists will be looking elsewhere for clues to the mystery of how remote Kush developed the statecraft to oversee a vast realm in antiquity.
Source: The New York Times
