Gebel Barkal, Nubia
A Brief History
page updated Feb. 27, 1999
Gebel
Barkal is the current
name for the small mountain and its archaeological site situated about
400km north of Khartoum, the Sudan. The site lies at the approximate
mid-point of the great bend in the Nile River, about 1.5km away on the
north bank, beside the present town of Karima. Its 98m-high,
flat-topped eminence once marked a primary river crossing on the important
north-south overland trade route between central Africa and Egypt (click here for map).
About 1450
BCE, the Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose III extended his
conquests to Gebel Barkal and established it as the southern border of his
empire. The city he founded there was called Napata. The Egyptians
remained only about 300 years. Later Napata became the seat of royal
authority of an independent Nubian kingdom called Kush, and from about 720
to 660 BCE its kings conquered and ruled Egypt as the
25th Dynasty. Napata was the political capital of Upper Egypt
(northward to Memphis) during the late-8th-century reign of Piyankhy (or
Piye). After the Kushites were driven out of Egypt, Napata continued
as an important royal residence and religious center until about 350
BCE, when the kingdom finally
collapsed.
The extensive remains at Gebel Barkal (encompassing at least 13 temples and 3 palaces) were first observed and described by European explorers in the 1820s, but it was not until 1916 that the first major excavations were undertaken, by George A. Reisner and the joint Harvard University/ Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Expedition. Reisner cleared nine buildings at the site and assigned them each a 100-number, prefaced by the letter B (for Barkal). From the 1970s to the present, excavations have continued by a team from the University of Rome, under the direction of Sergio Donadoni, which was joined in the 1980s by another team from the Boston museum, under the direction of Timothy Kendall.
Currently,
LEARNING SITES is working
with Timothy Kendall to reconstruct the site digitally, one temple at a
time. The resulting 3D models, high-resolution animations, and
virtual worlds will be first used as research tools for better
understanding the function of the site and its many buildings.
Subsequently, the material will be made available for museum display
kiosks and educational
materials.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(compiled for Learning Sites by
Timothy Kendall, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
Kendall,Timothy. The Gebel Barkal Temples 1989-90: A Progress Report on the Work of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Sudan Mission. Geneva: 7th International Conference for Nubian Studies, 3-8 Sept., 1990.
- "Gebel Barkal Temples, Karima, Sudan. 1987
Season, Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Institute of Art and Archaeology
Newsletter. Memphis, TN: Memphis State University, 1988,
pp.10-18.
- "The Barkal Temples in 1916 [Part II]."
Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 5:99-112.
1918.
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Reference Information
page updated Feb. 27, 1999
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