Archaeologists working in northern Sudan have finally reached the original floor level of the Great Church of Jesus, revealing the extraordinary scale of the ancient structure. A joint Sudanese-Polish expedition, combining researchers from the University of Warsaw's Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology and Sudan's National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums, has been excavating the monumental site at Old Dongola, the former capital of the Christian kingdom of Makuria along the Nile River. During their latest excavation season, the team exposed a massive staircase descending into the interior and reached the cathedral's original ground floor for the first time, where preserved walls alongside the stairwell still rise roughly 11 meters (36 feet) high.
Preliminary architectural assessments indicate that the cathedral measured approximately 47 meters in width, 57 meters in length, and up to 21 meters in height, establishing it as the largest and wealthiest religious building documented from medieval Nubia. Within a smaller chapel constructed on an upper level of the complex, investigators also uncovered painted wall plaster inscribed with Greek liturgical hymns, including the biblical Prayer of Hannah, mother of the prophet Samuel, written in delicate script measuring just half a centimeter tall.
Although the kingdom of Makuria adopted Christianity in the sixth century and Old Dongola flourished as its capital until the fourteenth century, the exact location of this grand cathedral remained buried until the mission first identified its remains in 2021. Expedition director Artur Obłuski compares the architectural influence of the structure to the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, suggesting it likely served as a primary design template for ecclesiastical architecture throughout Nubia and potentially wider regions of Africa. For decades, historians assumed that a different church situated outside the city fortifications served as Dongola's main cathedral, a consensus that this discovery now forces scholars to revise.
Despite these breakthroughs, only a fraction of the vast monument has been cleared so far, meaning its overall dimensions remain preliminary estimates. Ongoing armed conflict in Sudan has significantly slowed fieldwork progress, though the archaeological site of Old Dongola itself has remained undamaged. During the upcoming field season, the team aims to confirm the exact footprint of the cathedral, with Obłuski outlining long-term plans to excavate the entire structure.
@absnowx Give the signal Eritrea!! Sudan will join you in your march to Adis Ababa. This time we don’t need no emperors head. We need Abiy Ahmed in full at a Khartoum museum.
Prime Minister of Pakistan Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif meeting with the President of the Transitional Sovereignty Council of the Republic of Sudan General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan in Antalya.
@absnowx Take a rest Eritrea this time. Sudan will handle it from here. Last time we took their stupid emperors head this time Abiy Ahmed in whole will be taken to a Sudan museum.