Pastoralists, travellers and miners in the Atbai Desert (Sudan): surveys and excavations at Khor Rafit
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Pastoralists__travellers_and_miners_in_the_Atbai_Desert__Sudan___surveys_and_excavations_at_Khor_Rafit.pdf
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14.07 MB
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Resource type
Journal article
Date published
January 2, 2026
Abstract
Owing to the remote terrain and difficulty of logistics, archaeological investigations of the Atbai Desert of Eastern Sudan are in their infancy. As part of a larger project aimed at surveying and documenting sites at threat from modern gold mining, in 2019 the Atbai Survey Project investigated the site of Khor Rafit, a multi-period site with importance both to ancient nomadic groups and foreign urban states (Rome, the Arab-Islamic Caliphate, Nubia) that were involved in gold extraction there. Surveys and excavations at the site revealed extensive gold-mining operations and a large cemetery exhibiting the burials of local pastoralist nomads, as well as Neolithic burials and rock-art sites. The local archaeology bears witness to the as yet unexplored interactions between nomads and foreigners in the gold mines of the Atbai Desert. Moreover, Khor Rafit was a vital watering station and strategic stopping-point on the long-distance trade route known as the Korosko Road, an important desert bypath shortening the route between Lower and Upper Nubia. With ongoing destruction at such sites from unregulated gold mining, archaeological operations at Khor Rafit and other sites in the Atbai should be conducted with urgency.
Journal title
Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa
Publisher
Informa UK Limited
ISSN
0067-270X
eISSN
1945-5534
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Keywords