#GLIMPSES SUDANS FORGOTTEN PYRAMIDS SERIES#
#GLIMPSES SUDANS FORGOTTEN PYRAMIDS FREE#

The ancient city of Meroe, which has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2011, is a four-hour drive from Khartoum, northeast of the Nile. When they told me about Meroe and Ancient Nubia, the name of the region between Egypt and Northern Sudan, I found that the majority of Sudanese never had the opportunity to visit these places вЂ“ including the doctors themselves.ДЇor me as an Italian, that meant never having had the opportunity to visit the Colosseum in Rome. These were Sudanese of all races, classes and generations вЂ“ but mostly students and young professionals.Дuring my visit, Amr Abdallah and Tawdia Abdalaziz, two young Sudanese doctors in their twenties, took me through the streets of Khartoum to see the symbolic sites of the revolution and showed me miles of public art вЂ“ graffiti, murals, verses вЂ“ that marked those Places of protests. The reaction of the people, exhausted by economic crises, was not long in coming.ДЄ wave of demonstrations filled the streets of several cities far beyond the capital, Khartoum. And I really wanted to meet and photograph the protagonists and young actors of this historic moment.ДЄt the end of 2018, the former dictator al-Bashir stopped subsidies for fuel and wheat, which led to a rise in prices.

#GLIMPSES SUDANS FORGOTTEN PYRAMIDS FREE#

I was drawn to a nation that had managed to break free from dictatorship through the strength, creativity and determination of its people. I traveled to Sudan in February and March 2020, just a few days before pandemic lockdowns broke out in my home country, Italy.

#GLIMPSES SUDANS FORGOTTEN PYRAMIDS SERIES#

Located on the seashore of the Nile, about 150 miles by car northeast of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, the Meroe Pyramids вЂ“ around 200 in total, many of them in ruins вЂ“ appeared to be in perfect harmony with the surrounding landscape, as if the wind had it their edges smoothed to accommodate them between the dunes.Дuring the 30-year dictatorship of Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who led Sudan through a long series of wars and famines, the pyramids of Meroe saw few international visitors and remained relatively unknown.ДЄmong the many aftermaths of the revolution that led to the overthrow of Mr al-Bashir in 2019 вЂ“ along with the removal of Sudan from the list of state sponsors of terrorism in the US in 2020 вЂ“ was the hope that the countryвЂ™s archaeological sites would be preserved could provide wider attention and protection, not only from researchers and international visitors, but also from Sudanese citizens themselves. In the midday heat, the bright glow of the desert helped draw my attention to the pyramids themselves. Some locals were cleaning up after the recent restoration work, and young cameleers were looking for customers.

Glimpses sudans forgotten pyramids