In form and ornament the temple complex at Al Naggar was Egyptian, resembling many others farther down the Nile. This temple in the middle of the Sudan sited more southerly even than Nubia, was like a copy of the temple at Edfu. The walls even had the same symbolic figures of the king and queen holding enemy prisoners by their hair, and lions preparing to eat them. On the sides of one pylon a coiled python with a lion’s head — Apademak again — was rising from a lotus flower, the symbol of everlasting life. On the other pylon, King Natakamani was shown worshiping the lion god.
On every surface there were bas-reliefs, some of ram-headed Amun, and Khnum, and many lion heads, beautifully sculpted and uprisen, their paws extended to snatch and gobble prisoners. The north wall showed symbols of peace and prosperity, the south wall images of chaos and war. A crocodile with its jaws tied tightly symbolized peace; armored battle elephants dragging captives depicted war.
Inside the kiosk of the temple were old pieces of graffiti (‘Holroyd 1837’) and pharaonic scenes too, delicately cut into the sandstone that had been quarried from the nearby stone hills that surrounded this ancient settlement. The place was known by its Arabic name, Musarrawat al Sofra, ‘Yellow Drawings.’
‘But why these people here?’ Ramadan said dismissively, meaning the Sudanese peasants at the well. ‘A few huts. A few goats. Two days by donkey to Shendi if they want to buy something.’
A handful of Sudanese toiled with donkeys, drawing water from another well half a mile away — a well that probably dated from this Kushitic site. But what seemed like the middle of nowhere had once been a trade route. It must have been, because there was a way south in the wadi here that had produced the prizes from deeper in Africa: wood, honey, gold, and slaves. And ivory: it was said that many tusks had been dug out of the ancient store rooms on this site.
Here we camped, in the dune near the temple, just the two of us, like a pair of nineteenth-century travelers who had happened upon an ancient ruin in the desert. No fences, no signs, no commercial activity, no touts, no postcards. The locked-up quarters of the German archeologists who were cataloguing this site were over the next hill.
When we started cooking, some local men drifted over and squatted with us and shared our food. You couldn’t blame them — in the odorless desert the aroma of shish-kebab must have stirred appetites in the distant huts. We talked awhile, and then I sat in a plastic chair in the dark and in this peaceful place listened to bad news from the larger world on my shortwave radio.
That was the night Ramadan said, ‘This my country! This my desert! I sleep here on the sand!’ That was the night the moon was clouded over; the night in the hot darkness I heard the pitter-pat of tiny feet which turned out to be raindrops, the prelude to a violent downpour, and another later. In the morning I woke up sneezing, surrounded by these glorious temples, reddish-gold in the sunrise.
Part of that next day I spent at another temple on a nearby hill, an Amun temple, with a ramp, a walkway flanked by recumbent rams (a dozen altogether, their faces broken). Khnum was the ram god, ‘God of the Kings, and King of the Gods.’ The king and queen who had had this temple built were shown on the bas-reliefs with ram heads. But Egyptology seemed a discipline based largely on conjecture, assigning names to eroded faces of royalty and deities and animals. So much was speculation, for the Kingdom of Kush, the Napatan and Merotic periods had lasted for a thousand years, until the fourth century AD. What was known was piddling compared to what was not known. A quarter of a mile away was the Great Enclosure. It was lovely but enigmatic: carved pillars, lions, elephant sculptures, feet, legs, torsos, with the implied self-mocking command: ‘Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Was this a center for training elephants for warfare — the battle elephants depicted on the temple at Al Naggar? Some archeologists thought so. Others thought it was perhaps a religious center. But it might have been used for coronation rites. Or some sort of royal arena: ‘The ruler might have had to renew publicly his or her show of strength in order to retain the throne.’
The experts didn’t know, so how should I? I was just a wanderer, heading to Cape Town, wearing a faded shirt and flapping pants, sunburned toes showing in my Syrian sandals, and with a head cold from having been rained on: a traveler in an antique land.
The greatest part of my satisfaction was animal pleasure: the remoteness of the site, the grandeur of the surrounding mesa-like mountains and rock cliffs, the sunlight and scrub, the pale camels in the distance, the big sky, the utter emptiness and silence, for round the decay of these colossal wrecks the lone and level sands stretched far away.
It was necessary in the remote provinces of the Sudan for foreigners to report to the local security police within twenty-four hours of arrival. These were the same police who had interrogated one American man for days before they performed a mock execution on him. The same police, of which the State Department advisory had warned: The government of Sudan’s control of its police and soldiers may be limited.
True, I might be interrogated when I showed up; but if I didn’t show up the consequences could have been dire. There were worse things than a mock execution; there were real executions, for example.
Shendi was the nearest town. We drove across the desert to it and entered. The place was biscuit-colored and dusty, a low settlement of poor huts and small shops, the streets overrun with goats and camels. The largest house in town, a conspicuous villa, belonged to the president’s brother. There were some beat-up vans and old trucks and a fleet of battered blue taxis, which Ramadan said were all Russian-built, jalopies from long ago, called Volgas. This was the only town in the Sudan where you would see such vehicles, but the engines had been replaced with newer Japanese ones, purloined from other cars. There were no trees anywhere, and not much shade.
The security office was at the edge of town on a side street, the officer a stern skull-capped man with a visible prayer bump on his forehead, a facial feature I always took to be a warning sign. He was with three other men who, Sudanese style, sat on chairs with their feet tucked under them. They were all watching a small TV set — more worry, a black-and-white set showing a howling placard-carrying mob, some of the slogans readable in English. They were angry Palestinians. The sound was turned up, and so the only voices audible in this security office were those of outraged Philistines.
I had a very bad moment just then, for in my passport were two Israeli stamps, one from the checkpoint at Allenby Bridge where I entered from Jordan, the other at Haifa, where I departed Israel on a ferry. The instructions from the Sudanese Embassy said that any passport ‘with Israeli markings’ would be rejected. Yet I had handed in my passport and been granted the visa. If any Sudanese had seen the ‘Israeli markings’ he had not mentioned it.
But a scowling man with a prayer bump in the desert town of Shendi might find them, and might object. He took my passport and laid it flat, and smoothed it with the heel of his hand and began scrutinizing it. Perhaps the stamps from Kiribati, Ecuador, Albania, Malaysia, India, Hong Kong, Gibraltar, and Brazil dazzled him. Some were colorful. He glanced from time to time at the television. He wiped his mouth. I sat rigid, expecting the worst. Then, without a word, he gave me back my passport and dismissed me, and went on watching the Middle Eastern mob scene.