The pleasure of Sudan

A Don's Life blog, Times Online (Mary Beard)

It goes without saying that Sudan has terrible problems. The plucky, "South-focussed", daily Khartoum Monitor -- which fills up spare space with Wiki articles: we're now on Part 4 of "Edmund Burke" -- published a nice editorial on New Year's day lamenting the fact that Sudan was the first African state to gain independence from British rule, but the last to enjoy it.

You find war, hunger, internal refugees living in dreadful conditions, threats (and more than threats) of terrorism and -- in Khartoum -- the beginning of the worst kinds of modernization (with Gulf and Chinese money -- thanks to the US economic boycott of the country).

It is also true that the people are extraordinarily friendly and helpful (often explicitly saying how muchK63492_m they want to meet the English), and the archaeology is tremendous.

Yesterday we went to see the find spot of one ofthe most famous statues of the emperor Augustus ever, and one I am always teaching: the so-called Meroe Head, now in the British Museum.

See the above page for the full story, with a couple of good photographs.