The Archaeological Sites of the Island of
Meroe, a semi-desert landscape between the
Nile and
Atbarah rivers (the modern region of
Butana), was the heartland of the
Kingdom of Kush, a major power from the 8th century B.C. to the 4th century A.D. The property consists of the royal city of the Kushite kings at Meroe (on the east bank of the Nile, approximately 200 km north-east of
Khartoum), the nearby religious site of
Naqa and
Musawwarat es-Sufra. It was the seat of the rulers who occupied
Egypt for close to a century (the
Twenty-fifth Dynasty) and features, among other vestiges, pyramids, temples and domestic buildings as well as major installations connected to water management. Their vast empire extended from the Mediterranean to the heart of Africa, and the property testifies to the exchange between the art, architectures, religions and languages of both regions.
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