Old Dongola

Old Dongola, early Christian city in northern Sudan, on the east bank of the Nile River, about 400 km (about 250 mi) northwest of the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. The 19th-century Turko-Egyptian city of Dunqulah lies about 160 km (about 100 mi) to the north. Old Dongola was the capital of the kingdom of Makuria, the most powerful of three Nubian kingdoms. Makuria converted to Christianity in about ad 570 and recognized the Coptic patriarch in Alexandria, Egypt. From the 6th to the 10th centuries, Old Dongola was the center of Nubian political, economic, and artistic life. Makuria was ruled by 13 kings led by a “father of kings” and had a unique feudal system, where land and royal title were passed through the maternal line. Unlike its arid and impoverished conditions today, Old Dongola had beautiful buildings, churches, monasteries, palm trees, vines, gardens, and fields. Eventually, the city's power was undermined as it was surrounded by Muslim states after 800. Beginning late in the 12th century, constant conflict existed between Makuria and the Turks. Dwindling with the power of the Makurian kings, Nubian Christianity disappeared by 1500.

On a hilltop overlooking the Nile, the king's palace still stands. Converted into a mosque in 1314, it is Old Dongola's most prominent feature. Between 1964 and 1979 archaeologists uncovered a complex covering about 40 hectares (about 90 acres), including three large stone churches, a large residential area, massive defensive walls, and a piped water system.