Found: A Massive Medieval Cathedral From a ‘Forgotten’ Nubian Kingdom

[Black Orchid]

The discovery adds to our knowledge of Makuria, which ruled a vast region of Africa for six centuries.

BENEATH THE SANDS OF A deserted Sudanese town called Old Dongola, on the eastern bank of the Nile River, archaeologists have discovered traces of a time when the place bustled with life. Specifically, they’ve revealed a church that appears to be the largest ever discovered in the Nubian region, comprising parts of present-day Egypt and Sudan.

Archaeologists from the University of Warsaw’s Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology (PCMA) believe they have found two walls of the church’s apse, painted portraits of the Twelve Apostles, and the domed covering of a tomb. Artur Obłuski, director of the PCMA, told The Art Newspaper that the tomb could be the resting place of a powerful archbishop from Nubia’s Christian period, which ran approximately from the 6th century to the 14th century. That theory is based on the layout of another ancient church found in Sudan in the 1960s, just west of a bishop’s domed tomb.

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