Schlagwort-Archive: Sudan National Museum

Museums, antiquities, heritage, and the ongoing war in Sudan

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By Mrs. Huda Magzoub Al-Bashir, Senior Curator of the Sudan National Museum, Khartoum (status: 14th Oct. 2025)

Mechanisms for protecting museums and antiquities in Sudan

The mechanisms for protecting museums and antiquities in Sudan are divided into two parts:

Firstly: The mechanism for protecting the building with its contents. This is further divided into two parts in terms of importance:

1. Archaeological, historical, and heritage buildings, where preservation is more important and requires greater care and caution. This also includes museums and field museums.

2. Museum collections, archaeological, historical, and heritage collections, whose preservation depends on the preservation of the building in which they are displayed, after careful selection of the site, method, and materials of construction, and the importance and concern of the state in doing so.

Secondly: The state’s mechanism for paying attention to museums, antiquities, and heritage, as a symbol of national sovereignty and identity, and any negative interference with it requires swift and necessary response.

Prior planning:

Establishing a museum under state sponsorship requires prior planning to protect it from internal and external threats and to adopt a sound and effective method for preserving it.

Mechanism based on supporting national security awareness to protect antiquities and museums and the right to swift intervention through those in charge of managing museums, antiquities, and heritage in Sudan, by following pre-planned methods to protect archaeological collections in museums and rescue them to safe areas or routes.

Mechanism for preserving museum collections:

This mechanism is the primary work mechanism in this field and is represented by:

– Museum collections themselves, in terms of collecting, restoring, documenting, displaying, publishing, preserving, and making copies of them.

– In this context, when feeling insecure, relying on the experiences of some countries that have previously preserved the originals of collections, antiquities, and artifacts in safe places and displayed copies of them to avoid theft or attacks, even if it requires returning them to the ground or to secret storage until safety is ensured.

Insurance mechanism through security agencies recognized and approved by the state to protect museums, antiquities, and heritage in Sudan.

These security agencies must receive adequate training to qualify them to preserve and protect collections and their locations, including museums.

Armed defense mechanism:

This mechanism is only allowed to be used in case of an attack on museums or their contents. It requires a deadly defense by specialized agencies to do this work and make the security of museum facilities part of national security.

Avoiding exposure of archaeological museums and their heritage to looting:

To avoid exposure of museums with rare archaeological collections to looting, especially in cases of armed threat, requires prior efforts based on:

– The state’s interest in its heritage and collections, whose loss would affect the state’s dignity, strength, and prestige.

– Several aspects and methods can be followed to avoid exposure of museums, antiquities, and museum collections to looting, theft, and aggression:

    1. Increasing and developing insurance and its methods, according to modern techniques of theft, and benefiting from the experiences of other countries.

    2. Addressing and cutting off corruption in all aspects related to the management of museums, antiquities, and heritage in Sudan.

    3. Financial preparedness can play an important role in avoiding exposure of museums to looting, by providing the necessary resources for protection and security.

    4. Working continuously to raise cultural awareness of the importance of museums, especially among security agencies, and instilling a sense of national duty to defend this heritage.

    5. Seeking international cooperation and assistance from organizations concerned with protecting museums, antiquities, and heritage worldwide.

    6. Establishing laws and deterrent penalties that must be put in place in agreement with the state and adopted internationally in case of exposure of museums, antiquities, and national heritage to looting, especially by armed parties.

About the situation in Sudan

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Our recent five-week season in Sudan in February and March was very impressive on many levels – I will report on this elsewhere on this blog. Today I am delighted that the Austrian Academy of Sciences has published an interview with me about the situation on the ground.

In this interview, I describe some of my impressions of everyday life in a war-torn country, explain why the conflict is far more than a ‘battle between two generals’ – and what archaeological research can do for the future of the country.

Sudan must not be ignored. The cultural heritage is under threat, but also the drone attacks and killings continue, despite of the liberation of the capital Khartoum. We need international support and joint efforts at many levels, including supporting NCAM in assessing the looting in the Sudan National Museum.

‚Digging‘ in the Sudan National Museum storeroom

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This MUAFS/DiverseNile season is divided in two fronts: there will be simultaneous work on site and in Khartoum. I’m working in the storeroom at the Sudan National Museum together with Shadia Abdu and the assistance of various colleagues from NCAM with the aim to document objects previously excavated by Vila in the region from Attab to Ferka. This is a crucial step for us to better understand the sites located in the project’s concession area and to design future excavation and research strategies, especially concerning the cemeteries I’m investigating for DiverseNile’s work package 2.

The storeroom of the Sudan National Museum is an endless source of invaluable information about all things Sudan and Nubia. It’s a great privilege and amazing experience to be able to go through drawers and shelves containing not only all sorts of objects, but also glimpses of the history of archaeology in Sudan, including the drawer cabinets themselves, which were designed by Arkell to contain ancient objects (fig. 1). Arkell later brought the same design to the Petrie Museum in London. 

Fig. 1: drawer cabinet designed by Arkell at the Sudan National Museum in Khartoum (photo by R. Lemos, courtesy of the SNM)

The objects kept at the SNM hold an enormous research potential not only for us to re-contextualise archaeological sites, but also to carry out new analyses and answer questions that archaeology back then didn’t really think about asking. For example, reassessing the pottery from various tombs is important for us to understand the (re)use history of archaeological contexts inside and around cemeteries (fig. 2).

Fig. 2: a selection of the vessels I’m re-documenting, mostly from tomb 3-P-50 at Ginis West (photo by R. Lemos, courtesy of the SNM)

Tomb 3-P-50 at Ginis West is one of the most important burial contexts that I’m currently looking at. After some preliminary observations based on material published in the 1970’s, I was able to put forward some questions and hypotheses that help us move research forward. Now I have the chance to carry out a first hand study of some of the objects from inside tomb 3-P-50—including my favourites, the pretty shabtis of lady of the house Isis (fig. 3). This is important as it allows me to ask more in depth questions to move forward.

Fig. 3: one of the green faience shabtis of lady of the house Isis from tomb 3-P-50 at Ginis West + SNM object card (photo by R. Lemos, courtesy of the SNM)

It’s a great opportunity to be able to work in the Sudan National Museum storeroom. As a material culture person, I feel privileged and humbled to be able to handle with my own hands the results of years and years of archaeology in Sudan, carefully kept by our wonderful colleagues at NCAM. Working inside the SNM is certainly a great way of closing this dreadful year. May the next year be better for all of us! Cheers from Khartoum!

Getting ready to fly to Sudan

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The Christmas weekend is just about to end, and I am currently packing my last suitcase – despite of omicron & the pandemic, but of course with much caution and aware of the most recent political developments in Sudan, we are getting ready to fly to Khartoum tomorrow.

It will be a very brief season with a tiny team – just Rennan, Cajetan and I will travel. One focus of our planned work is on the study & documentation of object’s stored in the Sudan National Museum, coming from Vila’s survey in the 1970s in the present MUAFS concession. Rennan will focus in particular on ceramics and small finds from some of the New Kingdom tombs. Especially Ramesside material is highly interesting and raises many questions concerning the continuity of sites in the pre-Napatan era.

Up in the north, at our excavation house in Ginis East, I will focus on some logistics, preparing the upcoming excavation season planned for spring 2022. I also plan some survey work with our inspector and Cajetan will concentrate on setting survey points and taking measurements.

Of course, we will keep you updated – maybe not during the season, depending on the quality of the internet and connection.

Hoping that most of our plans will work out, but also very much prepared for surprises and the need to improvise, I am just really very happy to be soon back in Sudan, after almost 2 years!

Back in 2020: a short visit to the Sudan National Museum in Khartoum

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A year ago today, the last official steps of our 2020 season of the MUAFS project were carried out, I submitted all paperwork to the Sudanese authorities and we were getting ready to leave Khartoum – of course not knowing that a) a sandstorm will delay our flight out, b) because of the extra night in Khartoum we will just catch the last flight to Munich from Istanbul before flights were closed in Turkey because of the pandemic and c) it will take us more than a year to return to Sudan.

One of my personal rituals I have developed in the last 10 years is that on the occasion of my last day in Khartoum, I always try to visit the Sudan National Museum, at least the garden with its wonderful monuments, but preferably the galleries with its treasures as well.

The entrance of the museum with rams of Kawa showing king Taharqa. Photo: J. Budka.

My first visit to the museum was exactly 20 years ago – but the building and its treasures impress and inspire me deeply every time anew. The Sudan National Museum in Khartoum clearly belongs to my favourite museums, together with the splendid Aswan Nubian Museum and the Luxor Museum in Egypt.

A glimpse into the ground floor gallery housing Egyptian, Napatan and Meroitic statues and much more. Photo: J. Budka.

It is always a great pleasure to give newcomers of the team a special tour though the museum – last year this was Jessica and we had the luck that our dear friend and colleague Huda Magzoub joined us. This photo shows us in the entrance alley to the museum together with one of the marvelous Meroitic lion sandstone statues of Basa, representations of the lion-god Apedemak.

The last selfie I took back in Khartoum in 2020: Huda, Jessica and me in front of one of the Basa lions.

I can just recommend to everyone: do not miss this marvelous museum and please calculate several hours for your visit – the ground floor gallery is full of important objects from all areas of Sudan, from Palaeolithic to Post-Meroitic times. And the upper floor gallery focusing on the Christian Medieval Kingdoms of Nubia is equally a must, featuring the world-famous wall paintings from the cathedral in Faras (a very useful guide through the collection is available online for free).

One of the impressive ceramic vessels in the museum: a painted Meroitic fine ware bowl. Photo: J. Budka.
Another stunning object from Meroitic times: a glass chalice of highest quality from a tomb in Sedeigna. Photo: J. Budka.

Like at Aswan, I think the most charming aspect of the museum is its garden. Here, one can visit complete temples (the splendid New Kingdom temples of Buhen, Semna-West and Kumma) and one rock-cut tomb (of Djehuti-Hotep) but also a large number of statues, including monumental royal statues, reliefs and rock art respectively rock inscriptions are exhibited.

The entrance alley of the Museum flanked with Meroitic lion statues. Photo: J. Budka.

I very much hope that my yearly ritual of a stroll through this wonderful collection and enjoying the view of the monuments in the garden will be possible again soon, hopefully somewhen later this year.