Sudan Scouting 2018






KHARTOUM AND HISTORY’S LEGACY

by JoMarie Fecci


KHARTOUM, SUDAN (4 April 2018) — Getting a crash course in history via a few interesting museum visits today before we set off into the desert. Like most foreigners, I have a very limited knowledge of Sudan’s history apart from the largest outlines, and so am trying to play catch-up. Khartoum holds an eclectic selection of museums, including some rather unlikely ones for a tourist.

Of course the obvious place to start is the National Museum of Sudan which houses the largest and most comprehensive Nubian archaeological collection in the world including objects from the Paleolithic through to the Islamic period originating from every site of importance in the country. This collection allows a visitor to “connect the dots” of the ancient civilizations that grew up here and was a great way to flesh out the “timeline” and contexts for the archaeological sites on our route.

An interesting aside about one of the collections displayed here — the rescued ruins from Lake Nasser: these temples and tombs would have been submerged and lost forever with the construction of the Aswan Dam, but were rescued by an international team of archaeologists who came together to work with their Sudanese colleagues in a massive operation to relocate the ruins. Under the umbrella of the UNESCO salvage campaign, the monuments were disassembled and floated down the Nile to Khartoum, where they were reassembled in the museum’s outdoor garden. The project, began in 1960, took 20 years to complete but was a spectacular success resulting in the excavation and recording of hundreds of sites, the recovery of thousands of objects, and the salvage and relocation of a number of important temples to higher ground.

Two slightly quirkier museums offered insights into the modern nation of Sudan. The defining narrative of the anti-colonialist struggle is at the core of the Sudanese national identity. The Presidential Palace Museum, built in 1912 under the British administration, was once a cathedral. Now it holds a collection that includes some of the artifacts from the British colonial period as well as a number of items commemorating the defeat of the British and the transfer of power and establishment of the modern Sudanese nation. Most interesting here is the section that details the Mahdi uprising including a graphic image of the Mahdist forces displaying the severed head of British General Charles Gordon.

That same history is covered in more detail at the Military Museum which continues the narrative focusing on the role of the nation’s armed forces from independence through today. The fact that we can visit the military museum at all makes an interesting statement — in so many places anything to do with the military is strictly off-limits for photography and tourists, but here I was welcomed and shown around personally by a Sudanese army officer who gave interpretive information and anecdotes about the various items on display.

I was particularly interested in a collection of weapons that included an Italian bomb purported to be the one that fell on an unsuspecting donkey credited with saving the city of Khartoum. It was during World War II, when the Italian air force dropped a bomb on a crowded market area of the city, and a woman was there selling milk with her donkey. The bomb fell on the donkey, and as it was designed to explode on impact with the ground, it didn’t explode. The poor donkey died from the direct hit, but all the people were saved. The event was a minor incident in WWII but was memorialized in a locally-famous song…


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ABOUT THE EXPEDITION


JoMarie Fecci, of USnomads, sets off on an independent scouting trip across Egypt and Sudan in preparation for an up-coming Sahara expedition. Driving locally-sourced Toyotas and working with small local teams in each region, she will traverse a winding route that jumps off from key points along the Nile as far south as Khartoum, where the Blue and White Niles meet. During the journey she will visit a series of UNESCO world heritage sites focused on the ancient civilizations that occupied the region and meet with local communities. The primary goal of this mission is to assess terrain, security, driving conditions, logistical concerns and approximate timeframes for future travel.


WHERE WE ARE


The Sudan in Northeast Africa is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west and Libya to the northwest. The country has a total area of 1.861.484 square kilometres (718.722 square miles), making it the third largest in Africa. The terrain is generally flat plains, broken by several mountain ranges. In the west the Deriba Caldera (3,042 m or 9,980 ft), located in the Marrah Mountains, is the highest point in Sudan. In the east are the Red Sea Hills. The name Sudan derives from the Arabic “bilād as-sūdān” or “the lands of the Blacks.” The population of roughly 37 million people is made up of 597 different ethnic or tribal groups speaking over 400 different languages and dialects. Sudanese Arabs are by far the largest ethnic group, estimated to account for 70% of the population. They are almost entirely Muslims. The majority speak Sudanese Arabic, with some different Arabic dialects, while many Arabized and indigenous tribes like the Fur, Zaghawa, Borgo, Masalit and some Baggara ethnic groups, speak Chadian Arabic. The nation’s official languages are Arabic and English. Sudanese history goes back to Antiquity, when the Meroitic-speaking Kingdom of Kush controlled northern and central Sudan and, for nearly a century, Egypt.


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