Underwater Tombs Beneath the Pyramids of the Black Pharaohs

More than a thousand miles south of the Great Pyramid of Giza, scattered across the deserts of modern Sudan, stands another landscape of pyramids that remains far less famous and in some ways even more mysterious. These monuments belonged to the ancient kingdom of Kush, an African civilization that rose along the Nile in Nubia and at one extraordinary moment became powerful enough to conquer Egypt itself, and its rulers became historically known as the Black Pharaohs. Hundreds of Nubian pyramids were eventually constructed at royal cemeteries such as El Kourou, Nuri and Meroe, creating one of the greatest concentrations of pyramids anywhere in the ancient world. In fact, the historical region of Nubia, in modern Sudan, contains more pyramids than Egypt itself, with hundreds of forgotten monuments rising from the sands. But beneath some of these monuments lies something that cannot be seen from the surface. Networks of subterranean burial chambers that today are filled with dark groundwater, forcing archaeologists to literally scuba dive beneath pyramids to discover what remains inside. The story becomes especially fascinating at Nuri, an enormous royal cemetery located near the Nile in northern Sudan, across the river from the sacred mountain of Jebel Barkal. Spread across more than 170 acres, Nuri contains the remains of more than 80 royal Kushite burials, around 20 of whose pyramids still stand visibly above the desert today. Unlike the enormous but relatively broad pyramids of Giza, Nubian pyramids were generally much narrower and considerably steeper, creating an almost needle-like appearance when viewed from a distance. Many were originally between roughly 20 and 100 feet, 6 and 30 meters high, while the largest monument at Nuri, built for the powerful Kushite pharaoh Taharqa, may originally have approached approximately 160 feet or 50 meters in height. The interior was not filled with enormous halls and corridors, like those often imagined inside pyramids, but consisted primarily of dense masonry and rubble filling supporting the outer structure. Layer after layer was added, until the builders created the characteristic steep-sided pyramid, rising high above the surrounding desert. Many also have a unique small offering temple structure at their base, allowing followers to leave offerings and pay their respects. Analyses of the pyramids around Nubia have determined them to be constructed primarily from sandstone and mud bricks, but still, rarer and more precious materials, along with other mysteries, can be found within. In the 1830s, the pyramids of Meroe faced an enemy more destructive than 2,000 years of scorching heat, sandstorms and erosion. His name was Giuseppe Fellini, an Italian adventurer and treasure hunter who arrived in Sudan obsessed with stories of enormous quantities of gold, hidden inside the monuments of the ancient Kushite kings. Fellini made a vow that he would either return to Europe penniless, or come home carrying treasures unlike anything he had ever seen. Convinced that the pyramids themselves concealed secret chambers packed with gold, he began attacking them one after another. He tore into the pyramids from above, dismantling their masonry and reportedly using explosives when brute force was not enough. Monument after monument was reduced to a shattered stump as he searched for hidden cavities inside the structures. In only a short period of time, damage was done that no amount of restoration could ever fully reverse. His most infamous target was the pyramid associated with Queen Amanishaketo, one of the most powerful rulers of ancient Kush. Fellini began at the top and systematically worked downward, tearing apart the monument in the belief that the treasure chamber must lie somewhere inside the pyramid itself. After nearly two weeks of destructive excavation, he reached the burial area, but initially found nothing resembling the fabulous treasure he expected. Rather than abandoning the search, he continued digging through the ruins. Eventually his persistence was rewarded when he discovered a concealed deposit containing an extraordinary collection of gold and silver jewellery. Among the objects were bracelets, shield rings, signet rings, necklaces, amulets and other pieces produced by some of the finest craftsmen of the Kushite kingdom. Many combined Egyptian religious symbols with distinctly Nubian artistic traditions, revealing a royal culture that was neither simply Egyptian nor isolated from the wider ancient world. The treasure immediately proved that the pyramids of Meroa had once contained wealth worthy of powerful African monarchs. Fellini removed the objects and carried them back to Europe in 1836, but his story initially sounded so extraordinary that many people simply did not believe him. European scholars at the time often underestimated the sophistication of ancient Kush, and some doubted that jewellery of such quality could possibly have come from Sudan. Eventually, however, major collections were acquired by museums in Berlin and Munich, where many of the surviving pieces remain today. Ironically, the treasure Fellini stole became some of the most important physical evidence demonstrating the extraordinary wealth and craftsmanship of the civilization whose monuments he had destroyed. But Fellini also made one fundamental mistake about the pyramids themselves. He assumed that, like some imagined treasure vault, their valuable contents must be hidden somewhere inside the masonry, and this misconception helped drive his campaign of destruction. In reality, the Kushite pyramids were largely solid monuments of stone and rubble, while the true burial places were located below ground, where the real treasures of the Kushites stand. The chambers containing the dead, their sarcophagi, offerings, jewellery and funerary equipment, were normally reached through descending stairways cut into the earth beside the pyramid. Beneath them are tombs cut directly into the bedrock, creating a hidden underground cemetery that is considerably larger than the structures visible on the surface. Archaeologists now believe that many of these subterranean chambers have become flooded, and some of the royal burials may still contain material that has never been properly excavated. Yet reaching these hidden chambers proved to be extraordinarily difficult, because the very water concealing them also transformed archaeological excavation into something resembling cave diving. The most remarkable example lies beneath the pyramid of King Nastasen, a Kushite ruler who lived more than 2,000 years ago and became the last known king buried at Nuri. His tomb contains three successive chambers, reached through a ceremonial staircase descending from the desert, but groundwater from the Nile has risen through the surrounding rock until much of the complex is submerged. What began as a conventional archaeological mystery, therefore became something almost unprecedented, an excavation in which archaeologists would have to scuba dive beneath an ancient pyramid in the middle of the Sahara. Pierce Paul Creaseman began an archaeological mission at Nuri in 2017. Divers then entered a sequence of three subterranean chambers, sometimes swimming through spaces where the water reached all the way to the ceiling. Inside the deepest chamber, they encountered a massive stone sarcophagus beneath several feet of water. More importantly, excavation of sediment produced small shapti figures and extraordinarily thin fragments of pure gold foil. The gold probably once covered funerary objects whose underlying materials had deteriorated in the water. Because valuable gold remained scattered inside the tomb, the expedition considered this strong evidence that grave robbers may never have thoroughly looted Nastasen's burial. Creaseman did not fully excavate Nastasen's tomb, his expedition succeeded in reopening the ancient access route, reaching the flooded underground chambers, documenting portions of the complex, and carrying out limited underwater excavation. The greatest prize beneath Nastasen's pyramid, however, remained frustratingly difficult to reach. Eventually, the deteriorating conditions forced the expedition to stop short of completely excavating Nastasen's deepest burial chamber, leaving its most important archaeological deposits beneath the water and sediment. As a result, more than 2,000 years after Nastasen was buried, part of what remains beneath his pyramid is still unexplored, making the flooded tomb one of Nuri's most intriguing, unfinished archaeological investigations. But to understand how a civilization capable of creating these extraordinary royal cemeteries emerged, we have to travel much further back in time, long before the first Nubian pyramid was ever constructed. More than 4,000 years ago, one of Africa's earliest great urban civilizations was already flourishing around the city of Kerma in northern Sudan. At its centre stood a monumental structure known today as the Western Defufa, an enormous mass of mud brick constructed beginning around the middle of the 3rd millennium BC, and repeatedly modified over centuries. Even after approximately 4,000 years of erosion, its surviving walls still rise around 60 feet or 18 metres above the surrounding ruins. The Western Defufa was not an isolated building standing in an empty desert, but part of a substantial city containing religious buildings, workshops, residences, storage areas and monumental architecture. Its enormous mud brick walls, stairways, corridors and elevated ceremonial spaces suggest that it served an important religious function, although exactly what ceremonies occurred there remains uncertain. These discoveries demonstrate that a sophisticated indigenous Nubian kingdom had developed centuries before the later Kushite rulers adopted pyramids as royal monuments. Kerma eventually became powerful enough to challenge Egypt itself, particularly during periods when Egyptian central authority weakened. Egyptian texts portray the southern kingdom as a dangerous rival and archaeological evidence demonstrates extensive trade and interaction between the two civilizations. Nubia possessed something Egypt desperately desired, access to enormous quantities of gold along with ivory, ebony, exotic animals, incense and trade routes leading deeper into Africa. Control of Nubia therefore meant control over one of the ancient world's richest corridors of valuable resources. During Egypt's new kingdom however, the balance of power changed dramatically. Beginning in the 16th century BC, Egyptian pharaohs launched military campaigns southward, defeated the kingdom centred at Kerma and gradually brought much of Nubia under Egyptian control. Pharaohs including Thutmose I and III extended Egyptian authority far beyond the traditional southern frontier. By approximately the 15th century BC, Egypt controlled a vast stretch of the Nubian Nile, administered through officials serving the Egyptian crown. One of the most important places absorbed into this Egyptian religious and political system was Jebel Bakal, a spectacular isolated sandstone mountain rising from the desert near the Nile. Egyptians identified the mountain with the god Amun and during the new kingdom a sanctuary dedicated to Amun developed at its base. Thutmose III is associated with early major Egyptian construction there in the 15th century BC and subsequent rulers continued developing the sacred complex. The mountain's unusual pinnacle was apparently interpreted as a divine symbol, helping transform Jebel Bakal into one of the most sacred places in Nubia. Egyptian domination of Nubia reached one of its most spectacular architectural expressions several centuries later under Ramses II. During the 13th century BC, Ramses ordered two enormous temples carved directly into the sandstone cliffs at Abu Simbel in lower Nubia. Four seated statues of the pharaoh, each approximately 66 feet or 20 meters high, dominated the facade of the great temple. Anyone traveling along this section of the Nile would have been confronted by an overwhelming declaration that Egypt controlled the land. Deep behind those colossal statues, the temple extended directly into the mountain through halls lined with enormous figures of Ramses, reliefs depicting military victories and increasingly sacred chambers terminating in an inner sanctuary. Nearby Ramses constructed another rock-cut temple dedicated to Hathor and his great royal wife Nefertari, whose colossal image appears beside that of the king. Abu Simbel was therefore simultaneously a religious sanctuary and a spectacular statement of Egyptian authority in Nubia. The irony is that several centuries later, the political relationship between Egypt and Nubia would be completely reversed. Egyptian power in Nubia weakened dramatically following the collapse of the new kingdom around the end of the second millennium BC. From this changing political landscape emerged a new Kushite kingdom centered in the region of Napata, close to Jebel Barkal. Instead of rejecting the sacred landscape established during Egyptian rule, the Kushite kings embraced Jebel Barkal and transformed it into the spiritual center of their own kingdom. It was from this emerging kingdom that one of the most extraordinary reversals in African history began. During the 8th century BC, the Kushite king Pieh expanded northward into an Egypt fragmented among competing regional rulers. Pieh marched his forces into Egypt, defeated his opponents and established Kushite supremacy over much of the country. The descendants of the civilization once conquered and governed by Egypt had become powerful enough to conquer Egypt themselves. Pieh and the rulers who followed him formed what historians call Egypt's 25th dynasty, whose Kushite rulers are popularly known today as the Black Pharaohs. At its greatest extent, their realm connected territories deep in Nubia with the cities, temples and fertile lands of Egypt. For the first time in centuries, much of the Nile Valley was again politically united, but now under rulers whose homeland lay far to the south. Taharqa, who ruled from approximately 690 to 664 BC, became one of the dynasty's greatest builders. Rather than destroying Egypt's religious traditions, the Kushite rulers presented themselves as restorers of ancient sacred institutions, constructing and enlarging temples throughout their territories. At Jebel Barkal, Taharqa commissioned the extraordinary Temple of Mut, partly cut into the rock beneath the towering pinnacle of the sacred mountain. Monumental columns, reliefs, divine imagery and representations of the king transformed the sanctuary into another expression of the connection between Kushite royalty and Amun's divine family. Taharqa also constructed the enormous pyramid at Nuri discussed earlier, establishing the cemetery that would become the resting place of generations of Kushite royalty. But the 25th dynasty simultaneously faced an enemy even more powerful than the divided Egyptian rulers Pie had defeated, the expanding Assyrian Empire. Assyrian armies invaded Egypt repeatedly, eventually forcing Taharqa southward. Tantamani attempted to restore Kushite authority, but by the middle of the 7th century BC Kush had permanently lost control of Egypt. The loss of Egypt did not destroy Kush. Instead, the center of royal power gradually shifted farther south, eventually becoming closely associated with Meroe, where an extraordinary new phase of Nubian civilization developed. Kushite culture increasingly displayed its own distinctive identity, even developing the greatest intellectual mystery of Kush, the Meroitic writing system. To this day, the Meroitic language itself remains insufficiently understood, meaning that many inscriptions cannot yet be translated with confidence. Monumental construction continued, demonstrating that the kingdom remained powerful for centuries after the age of the black pharaohs had ended. Among the most mysterious monuments associated with Meroe is the so-called Sun Temple, situated away from the principal royal pyramid cemeteries. Archaeology reveals a substantial ceremonial complex, with a large central sanctuary surrounded by an enclosure and decorated with royal and religious imagery. Meroe itself became surrounded by temples, palaces, industrial areas, reservoirs, settlements, and enormous royal cemeteries filled with steep-sided pyramids. Some of the most spectacular evidence for this later architectural transformation survives at Naka, situated far from the main channel of the Nile. Here, around the beginning of the 1st century AD, King Natakamani and Queen Amanitore constructed one of the masterpieces of Meroitic architecture, the Lion Temple dedicated to Apedemak. Unlike Amun, Apedemak was a distinctly Kushite deity, usually represented as a powerful lion-headed god associated with royalty and warfare. His prominence demonstrates just how far Kushite religion had developed beyond the Egyptian traditions that had influenced the earlier Napatan kings. The walls of the Lion Temple preserve enormous reliefs of Natakamani and Amanitore confronting enemies beneath the protection of the gods. Other representations of Apedemak are even stranger, including extraordinary composite forms that have become some of the most recognizable images of Meroitic religion. The chronology of these monuments therefore tells a remarkable story, stretching across more than 2,000 years. By this period, the kingdom that Egypt had once conquered had passed through an extraordinary transformation, from an independent Nubian power, to an Egyptian-controlled territory, to the homeland of pharaohs who conquered Egypt, and finally to a distinctive African empire that endured long after those pharaohs had disappeared. The pyramids scattered across Sudan are therefore only the most visible remains of a much larger civilization, whose temples, cities, royal tombs, writings and monuments preserve more than two millennia of one of the most dramatic political reversals in the history of the ancient Nile.