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Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean

Post-Meroitic cemetery at the Khor Shambat site in Sudan

2020, 29, No. 2

Łukasz Maurycy Stanaszek

0000-0003-2743-2922

State Archaeological Museum in Warsaw Anthropological Laboratory

Przemysław Bobrowski

0000-0002-7537-1856

Instytut Archeologii i Etnologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk

Polish Academy of Sciences Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology

Maciej Jórdeczka

0000-0002-5026-4528

Polish Academy of Sciences Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology

Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznań

Marek Chłodnicki

0000-0002-1728-464X

Archaeological Museum in Poznań

Poznań Archaeological Museum

DOI

10.31338/uw.2083-537X.pam29.2.27

Publication date

31.12.2020

Publishing model

open access

License type

CC BY 4.0 Int.

Field

Humanities

Discipline

archeology

Language of publication

English

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Abstract

Archaeological research at the Khor Shambat site located in Omdurman in central Sudan has been conducted since 2012, when a team of scientists from the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology Polish Academy of Sciences (Poznań) launched a salvage exploration of a Neolithic site and cemetery damaged by road construction. Research is now conducted within the scope of a grant from the National Science Centre, Poland (No. 2015/17/D/HS3/01492). Three seasons of fieldwork since 2016 have focused on the extensive prehistoric settlement spanning nearly 4000 years, from the early Mesolithic to the late Neolithic. The site turned out to be attractive not only for Mesolithic hunters-gatherers and Neolithic shepherds, but also as a burial place for the Meroitic and post-Meroitic inhabitants of the region. A survey of about 1% of the surface of the Khor Shambat site (KSH 1) resulted in the discovery of 66 graves; 12 of these are probably post-Meroitic, and of these three presented a rich and interesting array of burial goods, including imports from the Far East. At the same time, KSH 1 is one of the southernmost post-Meroitic cemeteries.

Keywords:

Bibliography

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