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Top Attractions in Sudan

Meroë

Meroë is an ancient city on the east bank of the Nile about 6 km north-east of the Kabushiya station near Shendi, Sudan, approximately 200 km north-east of Khartoum. Near the site are a group of villages called Bagrawiyah. This city was the capital of the Kingdom of Kush for several centuries. The Kushitic Kingdom of Meroë gave its name to the Island of Meroë, which was the modern region of Butana, a region bounded by the Nile the Atbarah and the Blue Nile. The city of Meroë was on the edge of Butana and there were two other Meroitic cities in Butana, Musawwarat es-Sufra and Naqa. The first of these sites was given the name Meroë by the Persian king, Cambyses, in honor of his sister who was called by that name. The city had originally borne the ancient appellation Saba, named after the country's original founder. The presence of numerous Meroitic sites within the western Butana region and on the border of Butana proper is significant to the settlement of the core of the developed region. The orientation of these settlements exhibit the exercise of state power over subsistence production. The Kingdom of Kush which housed the city of Meroë represents one of a series of early states located within the middle Nile. It is one of the earliest and most impressive states found south of the Sahara. Looking at the specificity of the surrounding early states within the middle Nile, ones understanding of Meroë in combination with the historical developments of other historic states may be enhanced through looking at the development of power relation characteristics within other Nile Valley states. The site of the city of Meroë is marked by more than two hundred pyramids in three groups, of which many are in ruins. They have distinctive size and proportions of Nubian pyramids.

Nubian pyramids

Nubian pyramids are pyramids that were built by the rulers of the ancient Kushite kingdoms. The Kushites built these pyramids some 800 years after the pyramids of Ancient Egypt were built. They are thought to have mimicked the workmanship of the pyramids of Ancient Egypt, but on a much lesser scale. The area of the Nile valley known as Nubia, which lies within present day Sudan, was home to three Kushite kingdoms during antiquity. The first had its capital at Kerma . The second was centered on Napata . Finally, the last kingdom was centered on Meroë . Kerma was Nubia's first centralized state with its own indigenous forms of architecture and burial customs. The last two kingdoms, Napata and Meroë, were heavily influenced by ancient Egypt culturally, economically, politically, and militarily. The Kushite kingdoms in turn competed strongly with Egypt economically and militarily. In 751 BC, the Kushite king Piankhi overthrew the 24th Dynasty and united the entire Nile valley from the delta to the city of Napata under his rule. Piankhi and his descendants ruled as the pharaohs of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty. The Napatan domination of Egypt ended with the Assyrian conquest of Egypt in 656 BC.

Deriba Caldera

Deriba Caldera is at the highest point of Jebel Marra at an elevation of 3,042 m, in Darfur in the western part of Sudan. The caldera rim became Sudans new highest point, after the independence of South Sudan. It is between 5 km and 8 km in diameter across the outer crater. The inner crater is filled by a crater lake. The Marra Mountains are part of a large geologic feature known as the Darfur Dome. The dome appears to be the result of a mantle plume, which is a fixed “hotspot” in the Earth’s mantle . The mantle plume heated the crust from below, leading to uplift of the crust and providing a magma source for the extensive volcanism observed in the region. The 5-kilometer-wide Deriba Caldera was formed by explosive eruption of the Jebel Marra Volcano approximately 3,500 years ago. The volcano is considered dormant, rather than extinct, as hot springs and fumaroles are still present. The caldera has the classic circular shape: the depression formed as overlying rock and soil collapsed into the magma chamber after it was emptied by powerful eruptions. Following the formation of the main outer crater, a second inner crater formed, most likely due to later uplift and eruption of fresh magma moving towards the surface. This inner crater is filled with water. Because the walls of the inner crater are higher than the adjacent caldera floor, precipitation flowing inwards from the outer crater walls does not enter the inner crater lake. White stream bed sediments show the water pathway around the inner crater to a second lake located along the northeast wall of the outer crater. While Jebel Marra is high enough to have a temperate climate and high precipitation, these lakes may be fed by hot springs as well as rainwater.

El-Kurru

El-Kurru was one of the royal cemeteries used by the Nubian royal family. Reisner excavated the royal pyramids. Most of the pyramids date to the early part of the Kushite period, from Alara of Nubia to King Nastasen . The area is divided into three parts by two wadis. The central section seems to be the oldest and contains several tumulus type tombs that predate the Kingdom of Napata. Reisner thought that the earliest tomb, Tum.1, dated back to the time of Pharaoh Sheshonq I of Ancient Egypt and predates the Kingdom of Napata by some 200 years. At the present scholars think the early cemetery stretches back to the Ramesside period and date the earliest burials to the end of the Twentieth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt although Kendall has reverted his position and now adheres to a dating closer to the one proposed by Reisner. The highest part of the cemetery contains 4 tumulus tomb . To the north, across the northern wadi Tum. 6 is located. To the east of the tumul tombs we find row of at least eight pyramids. One of them partially intrudes on a tumuls tomb . The southernmost of this row of pyramids belonging to Kashta his wife Pebatjma. Before this row is another row of pyramids which includes those of Piye, Shabaka and Tanutamani. To the south of the pyramid of Pebatjma one has to cross the southern wadi to reach the southern pyramids. These are the pyramids of the Queens: Naparaye Khensa Qalhata and Arty .

Buhen

Buhen was an ancient Egyptian settlement situated on the West bank of the Nile below the Second Cataract. It is well known for its fortress, probably constructed during the rule of Senusret III in around 1860 BC . The site may have been first established as an outpost in Nubia during the reign of Sneferu . Graffiti and other inscribed items from the site show that the Egyptians stayed about 200 years, until late in the 5th dynasty, when they were probably forced out by immigration from the south. Senusret III conducted four campaigns into Kush and established a line of forts within signalling distance of one another; Buhen was the northernmost of these. The other forts along the banks were Mirgissa, Shalfak, Uronarti, Askut, Dabenarti, Semna, and Kumma. The Kushites captured Buhen during the 13th dynasty, and held it until Ahmose I recaptured it at the beginning of the 18th dynasty. It was stormed and recaptured by indigenous forces at the end of Egypts 20th dynasty. The fortress itself extended more than 150 metres along the West bank of the Nile. It covered 13,000 square metres, and had within its wall a small town laid out in a grid system. At its peak it probably had a population of around 3500 people. The fortress also included the administration for the whole fortified region of the Second Cataract. Its fortifications included a moat three metres deep, drawbridges, bastions, buttresses, ramparts, battlements, loopholes, and a catapult. The walls of the fort were about five metres thick and ten metres high. The fortress at Buhen is now submerged under Lake Nasser as a result of the construction of the Aswan Dam in 1964. Before the site was covered with water, it was excavated by a team led by Walter Bryan Emery. Buhen also boasted a temple of Horus built by Hatshepsut, which was moved to Khartoum prior to the flooding of Lake Nasser.

Nuri

Nuri is a place in modern Sudan on the south side of the Nile. Close to it, there are pyramids belonging to Nubian kings. Nuri is situated about 15 km north of Sanam, and 10 km from Jebel Barkal. All these remains belonged to the ancient city Napata, the first capital of the Nubian kingdom of Kush. The earliest pyramid at Nuri belongs to king Taharqa which measures 51.75 metres square by 40 or by 50 metres high. His successor Tantamani was buried in el-Kurru, but all following Nubian kings and many of their wives till Nastasen were buried here. The pyramids at Nuri are in general smaller than the Egyptian ones and are today often heavily destroyed, but they often still contained substantial parts of the funerary equipment of the Kushite rulers who were buried here. During the Christian era, a church was erected here. The church was built of many old stones, including several stelae originally coming from the pyramids. The pyramids were systematically excavated by George Reisner. The pyramids of Nuri together with other buildings in the region around Gebel Barkal have been placed on the UNESCO list of world cultural heritage sites since 2003.

Tuti Bridge

The Tuti-Kartoum Bridge is a modern suspension bridge linking between Tuti Island and the City of Khartoum that was completed in February 2008. In the past the only approach to Tuti Island was via ferries but thanks to the Tuti-Khartoum Bridge, easy access to the island is possible. The Tuti Bridge in Khartoum is considered to be the first suspension bridge to be constructed in Sudan and one of the first constructed in Africa. The concept design of the bridge was proposed by Alfatih Ahmed, with the final working design by AA Company Its construction depended on new bridge technology, enabling the erection to be carried out using local expertise equipment. The Tuti-Kartoum Bridge is the first among a series of bridges that will connect the cities of Khartoum, Omdurman and Bahri, and will help to alleviate traffic throughout the cities. The development has immediately commercialized the previously isolated Tuti Island.

Dar al-Manasir

Dar al-Manasir (Arabic: دار المناصير‎‎) is the region of the Fourth Cataract, the most impassable of all rapids of the Nile. It is the homeland of the Arab tribe of the Manasir and from them gets its name. Still today the water rapids cannot be crossed by any large boats making the region accessible only via a sandy and rocky desert track. At the height of the Island of Muqrat (N 19°30') the Nile river is blocked from its northward course taking a sharp turn SSW for 280 kilometres before continuing to flow north. In the middle of this S-shape between the Bayudah Desert to the south and the Nubian Desert to the north, the Nile is forced by the topography to split up into a multitude of tributaries forming a fertile river oasis of small rocky islands described by the traveller GRAY (1949:120) with the following words: "Whereas usually [agriculture] in the Nile Valley […] is confined to the belt on two banks on which the river has deposited silt, in this cataract area, where islands are scattered like a flock of goats, the number of silt-covered river banks in any given 10 kilometres may be up to a dozen". Dar al-Manasir will be successively flooded by the Merowe Dam project.

Wadi Allaqi

Wadi Allaqi, also transliterated as Wadi Allaqui or Wadi Alalaqi, is a wadi in southern Egypt, about 180 km south of Aswan on the eastern shore of Lake Nasser. Wadi Allaqi is the major dry river in the southeastern part of the Eastern Desert of Egypt, draining the area from the hills near the Red Sea to the valley of the Nile. With a length of 250 km, the wadi is used by the nomadic Bejas who live in the area – about 1,000 members of the Ababda and Bisharyn tribes as of 2003 – to graze livestock, for the production of charcoal for fuel, to collect medicinal plants, for quarrying for copper and nickel and for agriculture on a small scale. As of 1989 the area has been a nature reserve managed by the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency. It was declared a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1993.

Acropole Hotel

The Acropole is the oldest existing hotel in Khartoum, founded in 1952. It is run by the Greek Pagoulatos family - brothers Thanasis, George, and Mike. An added attraction is the OHM electronics shop next door, which is owned by the brother of Sheikh Musa Hilal, the tribal leader of Darfur's notorious Janjaweed. Several journalists and members of human rights organizations have managed to interview Hilal in that shop. When notorious filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl's helicopter crashed in the Nuba mountains, the Pagoulatos brothers found her a Sudan Airways captain and plane to rescue her and the crew, and had an ambulance waiting at the airport. During the famine, when provisions were as scarce as rain, the Pagoulatos family and their Sudanese network scrounged up goods for Oxfam and Save the Children to get to the camps. In May 1988, the hotel was targeted in a terrorist assault, along with the Sudan Club, which killed 7 or 8, and injured 21.

Radom National Park

Radom National Park is a biosphere reserve in South Darfur, Sudan, Africa. It is 1,250,970 hectares in size. The Adda and Umblasha Rivers form the park’s northern and southern boundaries. Contiguous to Radom is the Andre Felix National Park of the Central African Republic. Established as a park, it was designated in 1979 as a member of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves. Rivers, streams, and permanent pools cover much of the park, which is characterized as a wooded savannah. Approximately 90% of the habitat is shrubland, while the remainder is forest. Annual rainfall ranges between 900–1,700 millimetres; the mean annual relative humidity ranges between 57-65%; and the average annual temperature is 16-27 C. Major villages within the park include: Radom, Mesheitir, Bireikat, Um Gudul, Songo, al Hufra, Bimeza, Deim Gushara, Chili West, Majid, Dafag, Titribi, Kafindibei West, Kafindibei East, Amara, Um Hugaar, Kafiakingi, Karmandoura, and Shioulla.

Aksha

Aksha is an ancient Egyptian temple, rebuilt in part at the National Museum of Sudan in Khartoum. The temple was built around 1250 BC by Ramses II. It is situated in the far north of present-day Sudan, a few kilometers south of Faras, on the west side of the Nile. On the temple walls, several sacrifices are depicted. The location of the temple was not well chosen, as it is only a few inches above the high tide of the Nile. This resulted in penetration of the lower wall layers, salt crystallization on the wall surfaces, and stones being worn down over the centuries. In addition, the temple was preyed upon by the local population. Other finds at the site include cemeteries, parts of Qubanstele, and the stele with the "blessings of Ptah". The1963 excavations of Aksha were initiated because of the construction of the Aswan Dam. One of the discoveries included a relatively well-preserved temple wall, the western wall of the courtyard. Along its entire length, it contains a carved list of the foreign nations which Ramses II. After the temple was deemed worthy of preservation, archaeologists from the University of Ghana sawed the wall into individual blocks. It was rebuilt in the garden of the National Museum, protected by a pavilion.

Jebel Dair

Jebel Dair (Arabic: جبل الدائر‎) is an igneous mountain in central Sudan. It rises over 1000m above the surrounding terrain and 1451m above sea level. The flanks of the mountain apparently have been denuded of vegetation, although water exists in some of the meandering stream channels within the darker, vegetated wadis. It can be seen as the dark, fractured structure near the center of the photograph to the right. The mountain flanks are the broad reddish-tan ring around it. A small muddy reservoir can be seen near the northwest corner of the photograph, and sand dunes to the northwest. With the exception of Jebel Dair, most of the region is fairly flat. It is hot and semiarid, and marginally suited for subsistence agriculture, as well as for commercial crops of peanuts, sesame, and gum arabic. Drainage patterns dominate the landscape in central Sudan west of the White Nile River. Several major wadis, intermittently flowing watercourses, merge west and northwest of the mountain. The sand dunes nearby capture the wide variation in annual precipitation in the region, which makes agricultural activity tenuous.

Corinthia Hotel Khartoum

The Corinthia Hotel Khartoum is a five-star hotel in central Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, on the meeting point of the Blue Nile and White Nile and in the centre of Khartoum’s commercial, business, and administrative districts. It is located next to the Friendship Hall of Khartoum and the Tuti Bridge. The hotel was opened on 17 August 2008. It has 18 guest floors, 173 rooms and 57 suites, all offering panoramic views of Khartoum and the Nile. The hotel has six restaurants and cafés and leisure facilities including spa, gym, tennis and squash courts. It was built and financed by the Libyan government at a cost of over 80 million Euro. The building has an oval curved facade; like the Burj Al Arab, it was designed to resemble a ship's sail, although to many Western Gen-Xers and millennials its white walls and blue window rows and panels humorously evoke the fictitious robot R2-D2 of the Star Wars universe. It is known as "Gaddafi's Egg" because it is funded by Libya.

Tuti Island

Tuti Island is an island in Sudan where the White Nile and Blue Nile merge to form the main Nile. It is surrounded by the "Three Towns": Khartoum , Omdurman (the largest city in Sudan), and Khartoum North (also known as Bahri, a large industrial center). Despite this, Tuti is home to only one small village (founded in the late 15th century), with grassland being the main makeup of the island. In the past the only approach to Tuti Island was via several ferries that cross the river every so often, but now the Tuti Bridge, a modern suspension bridge, has been completed and can be used instead. Pristine Tuti Island lies at the heart of Khartoum's most famous beauty spot where Mahas tribesmen have lived for centuries, isolated from the cacophony of Khartoum, Omdurman and Bahri, only a short boat ride away. Tuti Island is mainly agricultural and where Khartoum gets most of its supply of fruits and vegetables and therefore, you can find many farms situated all around the island, many of them still using manual methods of farming. You will find acres of green fields and lime groves. Its eight square kilometres of fertile land are covered in citrus orchards, vegetable farms, gorse hedgerows and narrow muddy lanes where donkeys and rickshaws are the main source of transport. The building of the Tuti Bridge has sparked development projects on Tuti Island, primarily by Tuti Island Investment Company, which plans to turn the Island into a state of the art tourist resort. These ideas have caused controversy, with the locals wishing to protect their village from becoming a tourist destination.
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