The Pyramids of Meroe at Begrawiya
About two hundred kilometers northeast of Khartoum, near the village of Begrawiya in River Nile State, the Pyramids of Meroe stand tall above low hills in a near-pristine desert. They are distributed across three cemeteries: the northern, southern and western, together comprising more than a thousand graves, among them about 140 pyramids, and UNESCO inscribed them in 2011 on the World Heritage List under the name "Archaeological Sites of the Island of Meroe."
These pyramids were built in the late phase of the Kingdom of Kush, between about 300 BC and 300 AD, and were burial places for the kings of Kush, its queens, princes, senior officials and diplomats. The first pyramid attributed with certainty to a specific ruler is that of King Arkamani (Arkhamani), who ruled around 280 BC.
The Meroitic pyramids are distinguished by being smaller in size and steeper than their Egyptian counterparts: their height does not exceed 30 meters, and their slope angle ranges between 68 and 81 degrees compared with less than 52 degrees in the Egyptian pyramids. Most were built of local sandstone, then of brick in later periods, and each pyramid has a small funerary temple attached on its eastern side in the form of a miniature Meroitic temple, with a burial chamber beneath it carved into the rock and reached by a staircase.
Throughout history the pyramids have faced successive threats: treasure seekers looted them in the nineteenth century, among them the Italian Ferlini, who destroyed the pyramid of Queen Amanishakhete in 1834; then sand dunes began accumulating on them from the 1960s, causing severe erosion of their original surfaces; and they were threatened by floods for the first time in September 2020. Despite all that, they remain one of the most important archaeological sites in Sudan, and a destination for thousands of Sudanese and foreign visitors.
In 2018 the Sudanese National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums opened to visitors for the first time "Pyramid Nine" at Begrawiya, the tomb of King Tabarqo, who ruled Meroe for 21 years (207–186 BC), and excavations revealed a passage beneath the pyramid and three funerary chambers at a depth of ten meters whose walls were decorated with colored paintings recounting the king's funerary rituals and his journey of passage to the other world.
📚 Sources: UNESCO — World Heritage List "Archaeological Sites of the Island of Meroe"; "Sand dune movement and flooding risk analysis" study — npj Heritage Science (Nature); German Archaeological Institute (DAI); Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), quoting the Director General of Sudan's National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums. — Editorial Team