IMG_8017 - Guardian Kerma
The seemingly insignificant town of Kerma may have been largely left behind by the rest of the world today, but that wasn’t always the case. This is one of the oldest inhabited towns in Africa and a place of immense historical importance. The area around Kerma has been occupied for at least 8000-10,000 years, but the town reached its peak around 1800 BC - 1600 BC when it was capital of the Kingdom of Kush and an important trade centre during Egypt’s Middle Kingdom. It was
at this time that Kerma’s kings built two giant mud-brick temples, known as deffufas; the oldest, and arguably
largest, mud brick buildings on the continent. The western deffufa (pictured) stood about 19m high and stretched 50m long. Nobody is really certain what it was used for but most agree it served a religious purpose. . About 3km away is the smaller, eastern deffufa. This is
thought to have been a royal cemetery. Around the kings tombs archeologists have discovered some 30,000 other graves. Many of the people buried in these graves appear to have been ritually sacrificed in order to accompany their king to the underworld. Encircling the human graves, archeologists have also unearthed around 5000 cattle skulls, which indicates just how important cattle was to the people who once lived here. In addition to the two deffufas there are a number of other historic sites around the town including Duki Gail; a little understood site containing the remains of a huge temple with two metre thick walls.
IMG_8017 - Guardian Kerma
The seemingly insignificant town of Kerma may have been largely left behind by the rest of the world today, but that wasn’t always the case. This is one of the oldest inhabited towns in Africa and a place of immense historical importance. The area around Kerma has been occupied for at least 8000-10,000 years, but the town reached its peak around 1800 BC - 1600 BC when it was capital of the Kingdom of Kush and an important trade centre during Egypt’s Middle Kingdom. It was
at this time that Kerma’s kings built two giant mud-brick temples, known as deffufas; the oldest, and arguably
largest, mud brick buildings on the continent. The western deffufa (pictured) stood about 19m high and stretched 50m long. Nobody is really certain what it was used for but most agree it served a religious purpose. . About 3km away is the smaller, eastern deffufa. This is
thought to have been a royal cemetery. Around the kings tombs archeologists have discovered some 30,000 other graves. Many of the people buried in these graves appear to have been ritually sacrificed in order to accompany their king to the underworld. Encircling the human graves, archeologists have also unearthed around 5000 cattle skulls, which indicates just how important cattle was to the people who once lived here. In addition to the two deffufas there are a number of other historic sites around the town including Duki Gail; a little understood site containing the remains of a huge temple with two metre thick walls.