Meroe

Meroë is an ancient city of the east of the Nile, located around 200km north-east of modern Khartoum in Sudan, near the modern settlements of Kabushiya and Begrawiya. Known as Medewi or Bedewi in its own language, the city was inhabited from approximately 890 BCE to 350 CE, and was situated on several trade routes. It was the southern administrative capital of the Kingdom of Kush from around 750 BCE.

The city was well-known to classical authors but its site first came to the attention of western archaeologists in 1722. Garstang, who had worked previously on funerary sites in Sudan, gained the approval of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudanese Government to excavate Meroë from 1909-1914.

There are gaps in the series of negatives displayed here, as during the Second World War, the Institute of Archaeology was hit during a bomb raid and the Meroë records were partially destroyed.

The site was made up of a walled city, various outlying temples, the pyramids of the royal burial grounds, and necropolises containing the tombs of other inhabitants of the city.