Nuri is where the kings of Napata are buried, in a desert cemetery on the west bank of the Nile, a little downstream of Jebel Barkal, and it holds the largest group of royal pyramids in Sudan. The first, and largest, belongs to Taharqa, the Kushite pharaoh who ruled Egypt and Nubia in the seventh century BC, and who is mentioned in the Bible as a king who came out against the Assyrians. His pyramid once rose around fifty metres high, in steep, narrow form that is typical of Nubian examples, and it contained a burial chamber cut deep into the rock and reached by a stair. Around it, the pyramids of more than twenty kings and many queens stand in rows, many of them partly collapsed.
Nubian pyramids differ from Egyptian ones. They are smaller, steeper, built of sandstone blocks with a rubble core, and each stood in front of a chapel for offerings. Most were looted in antiquity, and a large number of the finds were removed by archaeologists in the early twentieth century, including funerary statues, which are now in museums in Khartoum and Boston. The cemetery at Nuri was excavated by an American team around 1916, and the statues of Taharqa and his successors can be seen in museum halls.
The country here is dry, hot and spare. A strip of irrigated land, a few kilometres wide, runs along the river, and beyond it lies the Bayuda or Libyan desert, with dark hills in the distance. Date palms, sorghum fields and small villages dot the bank, and the people are Nubian, with their own languages and a deep pride in the ancient heritage. The road along the Nile is quiet. The best season is from November to February, when the days are warm and mornings cool.
The situation in Sudan today is very serious. A war that began in April 2023 has caused immense suffering and made most travel impossible. Foreign ministries advise against any journey, and it would be unwise to plan a visit until peace returns. The pyramids have stood for twenty-seven centuries and will wait.
Kuraymah, seven kilometres from Nuri, is a town of almost twenty thousand people with fuel and food, and Merowe, a short distance further, has more. Bring water and a hat if you ever come.