Kerma City

Archaeologists believe that the ruins behind the modern Sudanese town of Kerma belonged to the earliest capital of Kush. Its original name is still unknown.

Between 1913-15 and again between 1972 and the present, archaeologists excavated these ruins. They found the remains of a large central town, with palaces, houses and temples. The king and his nobles lived in the central town, which was surrounded by walls and moats. Outside the walls was an outer town where the common people lived.

Archaeologists also found a huge cemetery in the eastern desert. It contains over 35,000 mound graves. The largest tombs are those of the kings. The most powerful kings were buried under large mounds (90 meters/100 yards across). In one grave, they found the skeletons of over 300 people! Archaeologists believe that these were all the king's servants, who were buried with him to help him in the afterlife.

The so-called "Deffufa," the massive brick structure at the center of the city of Kerma, which was part of the temple complex. Stairs led up to its flat top, where religious ceremonies were probably held. About 1700-1500 BCE.

Photo: T. Kendall.

East of the city of Kerma is its enormous cemetery, where the graves appear as mounds or rings of stones. Photo: T. Kendall.

Photo: T. Kendall.

Drawing of one of the largest of the kings' tombs at Kerma, dating to about 1600 BCE It was a man-made mound, 90 m in diameter, with a small brick-built chamber in the center in which the king was buried. Running through it was a corridor where all the king's servants were found. They probably took poison, lay down, died, and were buried with their master.

Drawing by Michael Graham, courtesy of the University Museum, University of Pennsylvania.

Well-preserved body of a female servant buried with one of the kings of Kerma, about 1650 BCE.

Photo, taken in 1913 by the Harvard University-Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, expedition, from the archive of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.