The Kingdom of Makuria: Christian Civilization in the Heart of the Nile

After the collapse of the Kingdom of Kush in the fourth century AD, a new Nubian kingdom rose in northern Sudan: Makuria, which made Dongola (Old Dongola) its capital on the eastern bank of the Nile between the Third and Fourth Cataracts. Its early kings founded it as a fortified city in the early sixth century, then the kingdom embraced Christianity in the mid-sixth century AD, beginning a civilizational era that lasted centuries.

In the early seventh century, Makuria annexed the Nobatian kingdom to the north, extending from the Third Cataract southward to the borders of Byzantine Egypt. And in 652 AD an Arab army from Egypt besieged Dongola, but the kingdom repelled it, and then the two parties signed the Baqt Treaty, which preserved a peace that lasted nearly six centuries between Egypt and Makuria — enabling the Nubian Christian community to grow and flourish.

Makuria reached its civilizational peak between the ninth and eleventh centuries: the Throne Hall was built in Dongola, the Great Cruciform Church, and the Banganarti Monastery; wall paintings and decorated pottery flourished; and Old Nubian was written alongside Coptic, Greek, and Arabic. The kingdom had diplomatic and trade relations with Muslim Egypt, Byzantium, and Ethiopia, and dynastic ties with the Kingdom of Alodia to the south.

Ongoing Polish excavation work since the 1960s has uncovered a massive cathedral church and a royal cemetery in Old Dongola, confirming the city's status as the capital of a powerful kingdom. And in 1317 AD the Throne Hall was converted into a mosque — as attested by the foundation inscription of Sayf al-Din Abdullah Barshambu — heralding the decline of the kingdom, which collapsed in the fourteenth century after nearly nine centuries of existence.

📚 Sources: Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology – University of Warsaw (excavation work in Old Dongola); Smithsonian Magazine (discovery of the massive church in Dongola, 2021); Coptic Encyclopedia – Claremont Graduate University ("Dongola" entry)

— Editorial Team