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10
General Information
Ancient Arab historians gave the name Sudan to
the vast lands beyond the Great African Desert.
But while ancient Sudan, the land of the blacks,
embodied a broad geographical and human
spectrum, modern Sudan with its present state
boundaries only came to existence at the beginning
of this century. Sudan is the largest country in Africa.
Stretching from Egypt in the north to Uganda in the
south and sharing borders with nine countries. This
vast territory measures about 1 million square miles,
which constitutes 8.3% of the land area of Africa. It
is geographically situated almost at the centre of the
continent, between longitudes 22 and 38 East and
latitudes 4 and 22 North. Sudan shares borders with
nine African countries: two are Afro-Arab, lying in the
north of Sudan – Egypt (1,200 km) and Libya (380
km); in the east are Ethiopia, Eritrea and the Red
Sea, with a total border of (6,630 km); Kenya (200
km), Uganda (400 km) and the Democratic Republic
of Congo (500 km) lie in the south; and the Central
African Republic (900 km) and Chad (1,100 km) are
in the west. Sudan has naturally became a zone of
interaction between the Hemitic Arabs and the Negro
Africans. This blending resulted in Sudan’s many
different ethnic groups and unique culture.
INTRODUCTION
HISTORY
Camels around Khartoum
Ancient History
Findings of Paleolithic tools attest to the existence of
Stone Age old men in Sudan. The first known settle-
ments probably date back from between 5000 and
4000 BC. Their occupants had no knowledge of ag-
riculture. Ancient Egyptian records provide the only
source of information about early historical events
and are confined to northern Sudan (Ancient Kush).
The earliest of these recorded events were the raids
by Egyptians from the Old Kingdom in about 2800
BC. Two hundred years later, the Egyptians estab-
lished trade with the Dongola area and an expedition
may have gone as far as Darfur. During this period,
Sudan was inhabited by groups of people engaged
in agricultural and pastoral pursuits, ignorant of the
arts of writing and metallurgy. Those of them who
lived in the north are known as the “A” group: their
most important settlement thusfar found is located
at Faras, near Wadi Halfa. People of sculpture are
known to have lived in the area of Khartoum.
During the Middle Kingdom of Egypt, beginning in
about 2000 BC, the Egyptians colonised Sudan
as far as the Fourth Cataract and established a
governor at Kerma, whose large fortified residence
can still be seen today. A string of forts was built
along the Nile to protect the communication routes
to Egypt. This occupation lasted for 300 years, at the
end of which some disaster occurred of which we
have no details, but which caused the destruction
of the forts by fire and the disappearance of the
Egyptian administration. The invasion of Egypt by
the Hyksos, an Asiatic people, in about 1700 BC,
was probably connected to this collapse. After the
expulsion of the Hyksos in 1580 BC, the Egyptians
soon reasserted their domination of Sudan during
the reign of Ahmas I, the founder of the 18th dynasty
of pharaohs. With the decline of the Egyptian Empire
at the end of the second millennium, the Egyptians
again disappeared from Sudanese history. Little is
known of the 300 years that followed.
Kingdoms of Napata and Meroe
In 900 BC, a Sudanese kingdom, with a strong
Egyptian cultural and religious influence, was
founded at Napata, near modern Meroe. In about
760 BC, under the kings Kashata and Piankhi, they
conquered Egypt, and together with their successors
constituted the 25th dynasty of the rulers of Egypt.
About the year 660 BC, the Assyrians under their
king Ashurbanipal finally drove Sudanese rulers out
of Egypt, but their descendants continued to live in
Sudan for another thousand years. The capital was
at Napata until about 550 BC, when it was moved to
Meroe, north of modern Shendi.