Returning to work after spending a month in the Sudan is always a shock. I have been back only for three weeks, but it feels like a million years ago. (The endless Christmas parties might have something to do with this feeling.)

We had a quiet season in Dangeil this year. At least it felt quiet after the excitement of last year. In fact, last year was beyond exciting: we made mind-boggling discoveries (the kind that makes you do a little jig on the baulk), but I could not tell you about these spectacular discoveries until they were published. As luck would have it, my copy of Sudan & Nubia (the journal of the Sudan Archaeological Research Society)—with Julie and Salah’s article published on its glossy pages—was waiting for me when I got home…

We found magnificent granite statues of Napatan kings.

Royal statues… can you believe it?!

Immediately, we knew we had something special because granite is not found in the area of Dangeil. The nearest granite quarry is at the Third Cataract, much further north, across the Bayuda Desert. Additionally, the artistic style and craftsmanship indicated that we were dealing with sculpture of the Napatan period (8th-4th century B.C.E.), rather than the Meroitic period (3rd century B.C.E to mid-3rd century C.E.). And that completely baffled us. What were these Napatan statues doing in Dangeil, a Meroitic site that has yet to reveal Napatan occupation?

Statues like the ones at Dangeil have been found at only two other sites in the Sudan: Napata, the first capital of Kush located near Jebel Barkal and the Fourth Cataract (after which the Napatan period is named), and Dukki Gel, near Kerma, an ancient city near the Third Cataract, where the Napatans were very active (and later the Meroites, too). The statue cache at Napata was found by George A. Reisner (Harvard-Boston Expedition) in 1916 and that at Dukki Gel by Charles Bonnet and the Swiss Mission to Kerma in 2003.

Considering that the region of Meroe (the second capital of Kush, which gave its name to the Meroitic period) has so far revealed little evidence of royal Napatan occupation our discovery was surprising to say the least. In fact, some archaeologists who heard rumours of our find could not even believe we had found Napatan statues at our Meroitic site! Yet, there we were with three granite sculptures of powerful Napatan kings.

Taharqo, Senkamanisken and Aspelta at Dangeil. Wow! The statues are broken at the neck, the knees and the ankles, and we have various body parts for each statue. Both Taharqo and Senkamanisken have great muscular bodies with an inscribed back pillar (Taharqo is more than life-size and weighs over one ton) and lovely feet on the statue base, but we are missing their heads and their lower legs. As for Aspelta, it completely the opposite: we have his beautiful head, lower legs and his feet, but not his body. At present, the head is identified as Aspelta’s purely on its resemblance to the statues of Aspelta at Barkal and Dukki Gel.

We also have a small statue of a Meroitic queen, possibly the Kandake Amanitore. We know the statue is Meroitic because of the iconography and artistic style. It was also carved out of locally available, poor quality sandstone. There isn’t an inscription on the back of this statue, but because we have found over the years inscriptions mentioning or reliefs representing Amanitore, it might be her. We know she build the temple we are currently digging, so why not?

As you might have guessed, this year we hoped to find the heads of Taharqo, Senkamanisken and Amanitore… but that was not to be. Instead we found very interesting stratigraphy, post holes (lots of them), and earlier construction phases. (Could it be an earlier Napatan temple? I guess we’ll find out with the Carbon14 results.) However, with or without heads, we would like to find out how these statues ended up in Dangeil and why. It might take a while, but we’re working on it.