Mostafa Ahmed Mostafa is the heir to a long line of guardians who watched over the ancient pyramids of Meroë in Sudan. Today, three years after the start of the war between the army and paramilitary forces, he stands, like an almost solitary sentinel, to watch over his heritage.
"These pyramids are ours, this is our history, this is who we are," said the 65-year-old man, surrounded by the dark sandstone structures of the Bajrawiya necropolis, part of the island of Meroë, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Dressed all in white, Mostafa cut a striking figure as he walked through this 2,400-year-old burial site, which houses 140 pyramids built during the Meroitic period of the Kingdom of Kush.
None are intact. Some have been decapitated, others reduced to ruins, first in the 1800s by dynamite in the hands of European treasure hunters, then by two centuries of sand and rain.
Located a three-hour drive from the capital Khartoum, this site was once the most visited heritage site in Sudan. Today, three years after the start of the war between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (paramilitary), only the grunt of a lone camel breaks the silence.
Archaeologist and site director Mahmoud Soliman gave AFP journalists a tour of the site, explaining the matrilineal succession of the Kingdom of Kush, its trade routes and its relations with neighboring Egypt.
"This is perhaps the fourth time I've given tours of the site since the start of the war," the scientist said.
Together with Mostafa and the young archaeologist Mohamed Mubarak, he manages the site, gathering as best he can the resources needed to keep the erosive rain and sand at bay.
Apart from a brief influx of visitors at the start of the war – mainly displaced people desperate to find something to do – the site has remained largely abandoned.
"My grandmother Kandaka"
It's a world apart from the pre-war era, when there were "regular weekend visits from Khartoum, buses filled with 200 people a day," Soliman recalls nostalgically.
Sudan's heritage sites had seen a resurgence of interest, he explains, after the 2018-2019 uprising, when young Sudanese protested against the autocrat Omar al-Bashir.
One of the slogans was: "My grandfather Taharqa, my grandmother Kandaka" – the former being a pharaoh of Kush, the latter the name given to queens of antiquity, and also used to honor iconic female figures of the revolution.
"Young people were more interested, they organized excursions to tourist sites and discovered their own country," said Soliman.
The inhabitants of the nearby village of Tarabil – whose name comes from the local word meaning “pyramids” – sold souvenirs and rented camels, and “depended entirely on the site”.
On a windy April day, 45-year-old Khaled Abdelrazek rushed to the site as soon as he heard there were visitors. Crouching at the entrance, he showed AFP journalists miniature sandstone pyramids he had handcrafted and reminisced about the time when "there were dozens of us selling them."
In the months leading up to the war, the site had hosted documentary film crews, a music festival and "big plans for just after Eid al-Fitr," Soliman said – all of which was destroyed when the war broke out in the final days of Ramadan.
"I felt like I was teaching people about their own culture," said Mubarak, who has been working at the site since 2018.
“Today, everyone’s top priority is of course food, water, and shelter. But this is also important. We must protect this site for future generations; we cannot let it be destroyed or fall into ruin.”
A distant dream
Near the entrance to the site, the majestic pyramids, each flanked by a small funerary temple, are framed by undulating hills of black sandstone.
The view is breathtaking, but Soliman says his eyes see only danger: Is this crack in the pyramid recent? Has this mound of sand shifted? Does the tubular scaffolding at the entrance to this burial chamber need to be rebuilt before the rainy season?
"I think if the pyramids had been left in their original state, we wouldn't have all these problems," Mubarak said.
The structures are smaller and steeper than their Egyptian neighbors, built to "withstand sand and drain rainwater, but every crack poses a problem."
The largest pyramid on the site — that of Queen Amanishakheto, who reigned around the 1st century AD — has suffered far more than simple cracks and is now nothing more than a veritable sandbox, where fine sand swirls where her tomb once stood.
In 1834, the Italian adventurer Giuseppe Ferlini, who destroyed dozens of pyramids, razed the pyramid of Amanishakheto and took its jewels to Europe. These are now on display in the Egyptian museums of Berlin and Munich.
The exterior of her temple wall still stands, where a larger-than-life sculpture of the queen shows her standing proudly, holding a spear in one hand and striking down enemy captives.
Soliman showed AFP journalists other reliefs: the lion deity Apademak and motifs common with Egypt, including the gods Amun and Anubis, lotus flowers and hieroglyphs.
He longs for the day when tourists and archaeologists will return.
"It's just a distant dream, but I would really like it if one day we could properly restore these pyramids," he said, as if he didn't really allow himself to hope.
"This place has so much potential."
