The Pyramids of Meroe at Begrawiya About two hundred kilometers northeast of Khartoum, near the village of Begrawiya, dozens of pointed Nubian pyramids rise from the desert hills: they are the tombs of the kings, queens and senior officials of the Kingdom of Kush in its Meroitic era, distributed across three main cemeteries — the northern, southern and western. The first pyramid that can be securely attributed to a ruler goes back to King Arkamani (Ergamenes), who ruled around 280 BC. The Meroitic pyramids were built between roughly the third century BC and the third century AD, and they are much smaller than the pyramids of Giza: they do not exceed thirty meters in height, but their sides are far steeper (between 68 and 81 degrees, compared with less than 52 degrees in the Egyptian pyramids). The Kushite pyramid is a solid mass with no internal chambers: it is built above the burial chamber dug into the ground as a memorial marker, and faces it to the east a small decorated funerary chapel. The chapel decorations bear a rare blend of Egyptian, Greco-Roman and local African influences, making them a unique artistic document of Kushite funerary beliefs. In 2011 UNESCO inscribed the "Archaeological Sites of the Island of Meroe" on the World Heritage List, comprising the royal city, the three cemeteries, and two nearby religious centers, Naqa and Musawwarat es-Sufra. The pyramids suffered extensive destruction in the nineteenth century: the Italian adventurer Giuseppe Ferlini smashed about forty pyramids in 1834 in search of gold, and found in the tomb of Queen Amanishakhete a precious treasure of jewelry. Hasty excavation operations also destroyed golden caps that had crowned some of the pyramids. Today the pyramids face a new danger: floods threatened them in 2020, and since the outbreak of war in April 2023 protection and restoration work has stopped completely, and Sudanese archaeologists have warned (Associated Press, August 2026) of accumulating sand and salts threatening the ancient stones and inscriptions with collapse. 📚 Sources: UNESCO (World Heritage List — Archaeological Sites of the Island of Meroe, 2011) / German Archaeological Institute (DAI) / Wikipedia encyclopedia (Pyramids of Meroë) — Editorial Team