The National Museum of SudanorSudan National Museum, abbreviated SNM, is a two-story building, constructed in 1955 and established as national museum in 1971.
The building and its surrounding gardens house the largest and most comprehensive Nubian archaeological collection in the world, including objects from the Paleolithic through to the Islamic period, originating from every site of importance in Sudan.[1] A significant catalyst for the museum's creation was the large number of relocated artefacts as a result of the International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia.
The Taharqa statue. A 4-meter high granite statue of PharaohTaharqa, penultimate Pharaoh of the 25th Egyptian dynasty, facing the main entrance, welcomes the visitors to the museum. The statue was broken by the Egyptians when they sacked Napata in 591 BCE under the reign of Psamtik II, then buried in a pit by Kushite priests and excavated by George Reisner in 1916.[4]
Neolithic black-topped red burnished pottery and ram statuettes of the C-Group culture.
Funerary artefacts and ceramic art dating from the Neolithic, A-group, C-Group, Kerma, and Kushite periods.
A bowlegged figurine of the dwarf goddess Beset with a plump body and strange facial features: She has a large flat nose and a wide mouth framed by a lion mane and round lion ears. Uncommon in Egyptian art, Beset is pictured frontally and full-faced rather than in profile. She appears grasping an undulating snake in her 3-digit left hand indicating to control hostile forces. She is the protector of mothers and new-born children.[5]
The Napata and Meroë periods of the Kingdom of Kush including the 25th Pharaonic dynasty: Funerary material, a granite statue of king Aspelta, the statue of an unknown Meroitic king, represented as an archer, and artefacts from representative sites like Meroe, Musawwarat es-Sufra and Naqa.
Kerma Culture jug with a beak in the shape of a hippopotamus head
Stela of the chief of Teh-khet, Amenemhat
Female Demon Beset
Bronze with gold statue of a Meroitic king as an archer
Beginning of CE sandstone-carved Meroitic statue raising its left arm
Wall paintings from the Christian Faras Cathedral dated between the 9th and the 13th century, detached during the UNESCO Salvage Campaign.
The catalogue of Greek and Coptic inscriptions, produced primarily by the Christian culture of Nubia, was the scholarly contribution of Adam Lajtar from Warsaw University with respect to Greek inscriptions and Jacques Van der VlietofLeiden University with respect to Coptic inscriptions. These inscriptions were found on Nubian funerary epitaphs found in the Nubian territory in Sudan between Faras in the North and Soba in the South. The texts are inscribed in sandstone, marble or terracotta (36 inscriptions, mostly from Makuria) of generally rectangular shape.[6]
Fresco of Faras cathedral depicting the birth of Jesus.
The story from Daniel and of the three youths thrown into the furnace.
In the museum garden are some rebuilt temples and tombs relocated from the submerged area of Lake Nasser.
In 1964, the Aswan High Dam, built across the Nile River in Egypt, created a reservoir in the Nubian area, which extended into Sudan's territory threatening to submerge the ancient temples. During the UNESCO Salvage Campaign[7] the following temples and tombs were re-erected in the museum garden according to the same orientation of their original location, surrounded by an artificial stream of water symbolic of the Nile:[8]
Some remains of the temple of Ramses IIofAksha dedicated to Amun and to Ramses II himself. Preserved are a part of the Pylon with the Pharaoh worshipping the dynastic god Amun and some side-elements detailing submitted peoples.
The temple of HatshepsutofBuhen dedicated to Horus. The falcon-headed Horus, the mythical ancestor of all Pharaohs, and Hatshepsut appearing as a king, never as a woman.
The tomb of the Nubian prince Djehuti-hotep at Debeira
The temple of Semna dedicated to Dedwen and the deified Sesostris III. The sunk reliefs of this temple were carved over a large period hence the scenes are fragmented.
The granite columns from the Faras Cathedral
The temple of Aksha:The Pharao worshipping Amun
The Buhen temple
Temple of Kumma: The ram-headed Khnum (left) and Tuthmosis III (center) running towards Hathor (right) offering her a lapwing
Temple of Semna: A New Kingdom graving shows an effigy of Sesostris III on a bark
Fragments of inscriptions of the submerged Nile-areas inserted onto fake rocks include a Nilometer with the name of queen Sobekneferu.
At the banks of the water strip two Meroitic frog statues 60 cm in height from Basa village representing the water-goddess Heket, as well as Beset the protector of pregnant women and newborn babies.
Outside the museum building are set up two granite unfinished colossal statues from the ancient temple of TaboonArgo Island. As inscriptions are missing, they cannot be assigned to any precise origin, but show Roman stylistic influence.[9]
The lane leading from the museum car park to the exhibition halls is flanked with Meroitic statues of 2 rams and 6 dark sandstone man-eating lions from Basa village site. The lions are from the first century BCE, as shown by the two cartouches from king Amanikhabale engraved on the first lion on the right.
After decades of excavations by foreign archeological teams in the first half of the 20th century, Sudanese archeologist were gradually trained and included in these excavations and subsequent research. At the end of 2022, The Guardian reported about a new generation of Sudanese archeologists, including a large number of young women. Trained at the Department of Archeology of the University of Khartoum, this new generation represents a growing number of professionals for Sudan’s National Corporation of Antiquities and Museums, who are adding their contemporary perspective on the heritage of Sudan to foreign-led research and studies.[10]
The National Museum of Sudan was the scene of heavy fighting during the 2023 Sudan conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. Archaeologists monitoring the site noted fire damage on the building during the fighting. On 2 June 2023, the museum was taken over by the RSF.[11][12] Exhibits, among them ancient mummies, were destroyed or damaged. The Continent magazine commented these events as follows: "The war in Sudan is destroying not just the country's future, but also the country's past."[13]
^An illustrated Museum guide, retrieved 8 March 2017
^Maria Constanza de Simone, Nubia and Nubiens: The Museumization of a culture, University of Leiden,2014, pp.135-141
^Necia Desiree Harkless, Nubian Pharaos and Meroitic Kings. The Kingdom of Kush, 2006. ISBN1-4259-4496-5
^Judith Weingarten: The Arrival of Bes[et] on Middle-Minoan Crete, in: There and Back Again – the Crossroads II. Proceedings of an International Conference Held in Prague. September 15–18, 2014. Edited by Jana Mynárová, Pavel Onderka and Peter Pavúk, pp.181-196.
ISBN978-80-7308-575-9
^Friedrich Hinkel, Dismantling and Removal of Endangered Monuments in Sudanese Nubia, in: Kush V Journal of the Sudan Antiquity Service, 1965
^Jacquet-Gordon, Helen; Charles Bonnet; Jean Jacquet (August 1969). "Pnubs and the Temple of Tabo on Argo Island". The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology. 55: 103–111. doi:10.2307/3856006. JSTOR3856006.
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