Online: Reports on rescue excavations in Sudan

Section Française de la Direction des Antiquités du Soudan

For four years, the SFDAS has participated with NCAM in an archaeological survey program and rescue excavations linked to the construction of a dam near the 4th cataract of the Nile. This program started in November 2001 and ended in 2005. NCAM asked the SFDAS to carry out four interventions in the areas selected for the resettlement of Shaagia and Manasir populations who currently live along the fourth cataract. These regions are located near Debba, Korti, Atbara and Abu Hamed.

The first stage of the program, which ended in December 2002, covered the region of el-Multaga, east of Debba. The survey allowed the identification of 147 sites with an archaeological interest. Its contribution mainly concerns prehistory and more specifically Middle Paleolithic stone processing sites, Mesolithic and Khartoum Neolithic settlements, as well as funeral mounds dating from the second half of the fifth millennium BC.