AU ROYAUME DE MEROE : MOUWEIS, UNE VILLE SOUS LE SABLE

of NEUMANN Stan, ADDA Catherine

FRANCE, 2010, 00:52:00

Production : CAMERA LUCIDA PRODUCTIONS, MUSEE DU LOUVRE, FRANCE 5
Collection : Musée du Louvre
Genre : Documentary
Keyword : Africa, Archaeology, History

Summary :
A team of French archaeologists of the Louvre Museum discover in Sudan some remains of an Egyptian-African royal city, buried under the sand. A discovery that witnesses a civilization much more urban than what we previously thought. At 200 km north of Khartoum, glued to the banks of the Nile, a narrow strip of fertile land, surrounded by the desert. Two thousand years ago was here one of the cities of the kingdom of Meroe, a Nubian kingdom heavily influenced by Egypt, but at the same time totally rooted in Africa. Of this kingdom are known the great necropolis and their magnificent stepped pyramids. We also know that the kings of Meroe still wanted to keep the title of "Pharaohs of Upper and Lower Egypt", what they were absolutely not and that they worshiped the gods of the Egyptian pantheon. But on their clothing, jewelry, their features, as viewed on the bas-reliefs, are typically African. For the rest, we do not know much. The history of Meroe is still to be written, its culture to be discovered, its language to be deciphered. The great city, buried under the sands of Mouweis, may be one of the keys for the understanding of this African kingdom.

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