Remains of Ancient Palace Discovered discovered in Sudan

Only a small portion of the structure, possibly an ancient palace, has been excavated so far (part of it can be seen in the photo's bottom foreground) in central Sudan beneath another ancient palace. The structure is the oldest building ever found in the ancient city of Meroë.
Hidden beneath an ancient palace in what is now central Sudan, archaeologists have discovered the oldest building in the city of Meroë, a structure that also may have housed royalty. The capital of a vast empire that flourished around 2,000 years ago, Meroë was centered on the Nile River.

Some more light shed on these Nile type civilizations. But not much is know about these ruins or how they were created. One thing is sure these civilizations were pretty sophisticated for their times. There is a blank for the historians as to how in 800 BC this civilization suddenly sprung into action. Any theories for this one?

I've always given ancient humans credit for being far more ingenious and inventive, than they are usually portrayed. After the end of the Neolithic Sub-pluvial ( a time of greatly increased rainfall, leading to expanded Nilotic cultures) these proto-civilizations began to come together, centering around powerful Kings.

The Prehistory of Egypt spans the period of earliest human settlement to the beginning of the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt in ca. 3100 BC, starting with King Menes/Narmer The Predynastic Period is traditionally equivalent to the Neolithic period, beginning ca. 6000 BC and including the Protodynastic Period (Naqada III).

Pre Dynastic Egypt

Meroe seems to have been a flourishing town at least as early as the eighth century BC. It was situated at the junction of several main river and caravan routes, connecting central Africa, via the Blue and White Niles, with Egypt, and the Upper Nile region itself with Kordofan, the Red Sea and the Ethiopian highlands. Since it lay within the rainbelt, the land about it was seasonally more productive than the region of Napata, and it was thus a somewhat more pleasant place to live. By the third century BC it was only one of several large towns that had arisen in the same region. Bounded to the west by the Nile, the north by the River Atbara and to the south by the Blue Nile, this area, now known as the Butana, was the heartland of the later Ku#e kingdom, and came to be known in classical literature as "the Island of Meroe." Our historical knowledge of Meroitic history is scant. When the kings ceased writing in Egyptian and began writing in their own Meroitic language, we suddenly cease being able to understand their official inscriptions. Meroitic, unfortunately, has not yet been deciphered; the key has never yet been found. All our knowledge of Meroitic history is thus based on the few surviving Greek and Roman reports, and on data recovered archaeologically. The rulers of the Meroitic Period were contemporaries with the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Romans. In the third century BC, they maintained friendly relations with the Ptolemies, since the kings of the two neighboring Nile states collaborated in renovating the temples of Lower Nubia, sacred to both Kush and Egypt. Agents of the Ptolemies also traveled up the Nile as explorers and emissaries, some perhaps traveling to Meroe to haggle with the Ku#e ruler over the price of war elephants which they sought to purchase for the armies of Egypt. The Roman historian Pliny preserves the names of several Greeks who actually resided at Meroe.

Meroitic Period

By this particular time within Meroitic Egypt, Persians and Assyrians had overcome the land, but it was returned to Egyptian rule between 404-343 BCE. This was late in Egyptian history, but is an extremely fascinating subject. I simply love the Meroitic pyramids; they look as if they were built yesterday. Perhaps with this new find, we might be fortunate enough to discover Meroe's "Rosetta Stone" and begin to get some answers!

reply to post by sunny_2008ny

I simply love the Meroitic pyramids; they look as if they were built yesterday.

They were.

Those are amateurish restorations, not the original builders’ work.

The reasons civilisations sprang up and disappeared along the Nile valley had much to do with the vagaries of the river over the course of time: floods, droughts and changes of course. These, together with the extreme inhospitability of the regions through which it runs, are more than enough to explain any ‘mystery’ about the origins of these civilisations.

Two fantastic books by Alan Moorehead, The White Nile and The Blue Nile, will tell you a lot about the river and its peoples in ancient times. It’s a fascinating story.

cool. Wonder whose palace it was.