Loyal groundskeepers guard Sudan's ancient Nubian pyramids

The ancient pyramids of Meroe have been standing for some 2,000 years, built by the rulers of the ancient Kushite Kingdom in the Nubian region of present-day northern Sudan.

The over 200 UNESCO-protected pyramids, found at several sites in the area, have survived sand, rain, war, and neglect.

Amid the latest conflict between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, a handful of people are trying to protect them.

Mostafa Ahmed Mostafa is the heir to a long line of groundskeepers who have guarded the pyramids. Three years into the civil war, he stands a near-solitary sentinel over his heritage.

"These pyramids are ours, it's our history, it's who we are," the 65-year-old said, flanked by the dark sandstone structures of the Bajrawiya necropolis, which is part of the Island of Meroe, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Clad all in white, Mostafa cut a striking figure crossing the 2,400-year-old burial site, which holds 140 pyramids built during the Kingdom of Kush's Meroitic period.

Surviving centuries

None are intact. Some were decapitated, others reduced to rubble, first in the 1800s by dynamite at the hands of treasure-hunting Europeans, and then by two centuries of sand and rain.

A three-hour drive from the capital Khartoum, it was once Sudan's most visited heritage site. Now three years into the war, only a lone camel's grunt cuts through the silence.

Archaeologist and site director Mahmoud Soliman told visiting journalists that it was probably only the fourth time he had shown people around since the war broke out.

Together, he, Mostafa, and young archaeologist Mohamed Mubarak man the site, cobbling together resources to keep the erosive rain and sands at bay.

It is worlds away from its pre-war days, when there were "regular weekend visits from Khartoum, busloads of 200 people per day," Soliman said.

Sudan's heritage sites had experienced a resurgence, he explained, after the uprising of 2018-2019, when young Sudanese protested against autocrat Omar al-Bashir.

"Young people were taking more of an interest, they were organising trips to tourist sites and getting to know their own country," he said.

'So much potential'

In the months before the war, there were visits from documentary crews, a music festival and "big ideas for right after Eid al-Fitr," said Soliman — all destroyed when the war broke out.

"I used to feel like I was teaching people about their culture," said Mubarak, who has worked at the site since 2018.

"Now, everyone's top priority is of course food and water and shelter. But this is also important. We need to protect this for future generations, we can't let it be destroyed or wither away."

Sudan’s pyramids, while older, are smaller and steeper than their Egyptian neighbours, built to "withstand the sands and sweep away the rainwater, but every fracture creates issues."

The largest of the lot is the pyramid of Queen Amanishakheto who reigned around the first century AD.

It suffered more than just fractures and is now effectively a sandbox, fine sand swirling where her tomb once stood.

In 1834, Italian adventurer Giuseppe Ferlini, who destroyed dozens of pyramids, levelled Amanishakheto's and carted her jewellery off to Europe where it is now exhibited museums in Berlin and Munich.

The outside of her temple wall still stands, where a larger-than-life carving of the queen shows her standing proud, holding a spear in one hand and smiting enemy captives.

Soliman yearns for the day tourists and archaeologists will return.

"This is just a distant dream, but I'd really like us to one day be able to do proper restoration on these pyramids," he said, as if he were not really allowing himself to hope.

"This place has so much potential."