When we talk about the pyramids, the word "Egypt" immediately pops up in my memory. In most cases, this is the case, since it is one of the wonders of the ancient world that has survived to this day. And in most sources of information the word "pyramid" is associated with the word "Egypt".
After the Egyptian pyramids, a popular topic that is heard by many is the pyramids of Central America. But few people have thought about it and know that there are pyramids in Africa, in addition to the Egyptian ones. These are the pyramids in Nubia, in the northern part of Sudan. Sudan, Egypt's southern neighbor. The northern part of the country is the Nubian Desert, which is part of the Sahara.
The pyramids of Nubia were supposedly built from the middle of the 8th century BC to the 4th century AD. The period of building up the desert lands of Nubia with pyramids, which were used as burial places for representatives of the ruling dynasty, lasted only about 1100 years. The pyramids of Nubia are different from the Egyptian ones.
They are built of stepped rows of horizontally placed stone blocks. The height of the pyramids ranges from six to thirty meters. Compared to the pyramids in Giza, the Nubian ones do not look impressive.
All the pyramids were plundered in ancient times, but the wall reliefs preserved in the tombs show how royalty were mummified, covered with jewels and laid to rest in wooden boxes. The Nubian pyramids were definitely a burial site.
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For comparison, the Egyptian pyramids of the same height had a base five times larger than the Nubian ones, and rose upward at an angle of 40-50 degrees, while in the Nubian pyramids the angle is 70 degrees, which was the reason for such a small size. The pyramids of Nubia surpass the pyramids of Egypt in only one thing - in quantity.
223 pyramids of Sudan are spread across the desert. Buried in sands on the banks of the Nile, many of them are still unexplored. The reason for this is the internal political state of the country. Sudan may still have great archaeological discoveries, but so far the sands are hiding a secret. It is also worth noting one small superiority of the Nubian pyramids, many more royals are buried in them than in their Egyptian predecessors.
The first rows of the Nubian pyramids were built at the el-Kurru site and included the tombs of King Kasht, his son Pi, successors to Pi Shabaka, Shabataka, Tanvetamani and the pyramid of 14 queens. The Napata Pyramids are located at Nuri, on the west bank of the Nile in the upper part of Nubia. This cemetery was the burial place of 21 kings and 52 queens and princes. The oldest and largest pyramid in Nuri is the pyramid of King Napata and the 25th Dynasty Pharaoh Taharqa.
Thus, the pyramids of Nubia are divided into three generations: the pyramids of el-Kurru, which were built over 100 years, from 747-653 BC, Nuri, dated 690-308 BC, and the Meroe pyramids, which were built in Nubia almost 600 years, from 270 BC to 350 AD. But it is also customary to refer Jebel Barkal to the pyramidal complexes of Nubia.
The largest and most famous site of the Nubian pyramids is Meroe.
The site stretches between the 5th and 6th rapids of the Nile, approximately 100 km north of Khartoum, the modern capital of Sudan. More than forty kings and queens of the state of Meroe are buried on this site. The Nubian pyramids are much younger than the Egyptian ones. Perhaps unlike Egypt, this was directly related to the economy of Nubia.
As Roman wealth declined, so did the demand for Meroe luxury goods. At the same time, the trade route from Meroe across the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean was lost due to the superiority of its neighbor, the Ethiopian kingdom of Aksum.
Around 350 AD, the army of the Axumite king Ezana invaded Meroe. By that time, the capital had already been abandoned. The desire of the Nubians to be more powerful than Egypt led to the fact that the king of Kashta, the ruler of Napata, in 770 BC. conquered most of the territory of Egypt, but only his son, Pharaoh Pi, managed to truly rule the occupied lands.
The Nubian pyramids were built in the form of a tomb, on top of which was installed something like a chapel, where religious rites were performed. Wall reliefs have preserved images of these ceremonies: here you can see how royal persons were mummified, how they were dressed up and decorated with jewelry, and then laid to eternal rest in wooden sarcophagi.