Old Dongola — Capital of the Kingdom of Makuria

Old Dongola (in Old Nubian: Tungul) is an abandoned archaeological city in the Northern State on the eastern bank of the Nile opposite Wadi Howar. It was the capital of the Christian Kingdom of Makuria from the sixth century until the fourteenth century CE, and the departure point of trade caravans westward toward Darfur and Kordofan.

Since 1964, a mission of the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of Warsaw has been excavating the site, and it has revealed four successive cathedrals, churches, royal palaces, fortifications of the citadel, a huge monastery and pottery workshops — evidence of a flourishing Makurian civilization with a Byzantine character and an independent Nubian spirit.

Its most famous landmark is the "Throne Hall": a two-storey building 12 meters high, built in the first half of the ninth century in the reign of King Georgios I (835–887 CE), and in 1317 CE (717 AH) King Sayf al-Din Abdallah Barshambu — the first of Makuria's Muslim kings — converted it into a mosque, according to a commemorative marble inscription. It is today the oldest preserved mosque in Sudan, and it continued to perform its function for more than 650 years until it was closed in 1969.

Modern discoveries continue: in 2021, the mission led by Artur Obłuski revealed a huge church in the middle of the citadel, believed to be the cathedral, with an apse that is the largest discovered in Nubia so far, decorated with murals of huge figures. In 2023, hidden chambers were revealed with rare Christian paintings depicting the Virgin Mary, Christ, and the Nubian King David protected by the Archangel Michael — scenes the researchers described as "unique in Christian art," and Archaeology magazine chose them among the ten most important archaeological discoveries in the world for 2023.

In a crypt from the twelfth century, the remains of seven naturally mummified persons were found, one of them Archbishop Georgios, who died in 1113 CE, and the crypt's walls are covered with Greek, Coptic and Old Nubian texts and quotations from the Gospels. The royal court left Dongola in 1364, and the city remained inhabited until the end of the nineteenth century, before life moved to modern Dongola, 80 km to the south.

📚 Sources:

  • Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of Warsaw (PCMA UW) — excavation work at Old Dongola since 1964
  • Archaeology Magazine (Archaeological Institute of America) — reports on the discoveries of 2013, 2021 and 2023

— Editorial Team