Mysterious church and palace from the beginning of the 1st millennium A.D. discovered in Sudan

Serwis Nauka w Polsce

At the beginning of this year, archaeologists from Warsaw University, headed by Dr Bogdan Żurawski discovered the remains of an Early Christian church and an even older palace. "During research in the area of Selib, a village located on the right bank of the Nile, between the 4th and 3rd cataract, the remains of a building erected on the plan of a huge rectangle were found. It soon turned out that this was one of the most unique churches found in the area of ancient Nubia, that is modern Sudan" - Dr Zuzanna Wygnańska, editor of "Archewieści Centrum Archeologii Śródziemnomorskiej" (Archaeo-new from the Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology) informed. Thanks to geophysical research and aerial photographs made from a kite, it was possible to establish that a circular building eight metres in diameter made from red brick was adjacent to the main building.

"This is extremely interesting, as the only known buildings in Nubia to be built on the plan of a circle are ovens for baking bread, bricks and lime. All doubts as to whether the building was a church disappeared when a stone reliquary, fragment of altar construction and oil lamps were found" - Wygnańska noted.

See the above page for the full story, with photographs.