Khartoum (AFP)
A team of French archeologists has restored three ancient pieces, including a 3,500-year-old wall relief, discovered in northern Sudan and returned to the Khartoum National Museum, a French archeologist told AFP on Thursday.
The three relics have been discovered in three different archeological sites in recent years in Sudan, and have been restored by a team of French experts.
It is a mural that once belonged to a former Nubian queen, a Meroitic stele - the earliest evidence of purely African ancient writing - and a carved wall relief, almost 3,500 years old. .
The fresco was discovered on the site of El-Hassa, the stele in the "city of the dead" of Sedeinga and the relief in the temple of Soleb, places all located in northern Sudan, where a team of archaeologists French and Sudanese has been conducting excavations for several years.
The three plays were presented Thursday at the National Museum of Sudan, to celebrate half a century of presence of French archaeologists in the country.
"The idea is to return to the museum the most important objects discovered and restored," Marc Maillot, director of the French archaeological unit deployed in Sudan, told AFP.
The Sudanese Nile Valley is attracting increasing interest among archaeologists, who are conducting excavations to unearth the remains of the Kush kingdom, led by "black pharaohs".
This kingdom ruled for over 1,000 years between the current Sudanese capital Khartoum and the Egyptian border. And according to archaeologists, the remains of other buried kingdoms are yet to be exhumed.
© 2019 AFP