Gebel Adda

About

Gebel Adda (also Jebel Adda) was a mountain and archaeological site on the right bank of the Nubian Nile in what is now southern Egypt. The settlement on its crest was continuously inhabited from the late Meroitic period (2nd century AD–4th century) to the Ottoman period, when it was abandoned by the late 18th century. It reached its greatest prominence in the 14th and 15th centuries, when it seemed to have been the capital of late kingdom of Makuria. Much of the site is now underwater, flooded by the construction of Lake Nasser. Gebel Adda was superficially excavated in the 1960s by the American Research Center in Egypt, just before it was submerged. Archaeologists unearthed several churches, some with their paintings still intact, two palatial structures, inscriptions in the Meroitic language, documents in Old Nubian, and a large amount of leatherwork at the site. The nearby ancient Egyptian rock temple of Horemheb was relocated. Much of the material excavated from Gebel Adda is stored in the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada and remains unpublished.

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.