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Popular Archaeology International efforts may be mobilized to save a rich heritage before flooding begins. In 1999, the construction of the Merowe Dam near the Fourth Nile Cataract - a largely unexplored area whose history of human settlement dates back to the first Kingdom of Kush, sub-Saharan Africa's earliest urban civilization - resulted in a major international rescue campaign. The project, led by the Sudan Archaeological Research Society and British Museum, lasted a decade and saw archaeologists collect as much information as possible before the dam opened in 2009. Now, faced with three more proposed dams that will flood the Kajbar, Shereiq and Upper Atbara areas along the Nile, Sudan's archaeologists have again appealed to the international community for help with rescue operations. At a recent meeting in London, international experts met with members of Sudan's National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums, as well as the Dam Implementation Unit, to share information and lay the foundation for a large-scale rescue campaign, according to The Art Newspaper. In the case of the Upper Atbara dam, archaeologists will have three years before flood waters are released. For the Kajbar and Shereiq dams, the estimated window is six years. (Pictured above: Photo taken from the International Space Station showing where the Merowe Dam, opened in 2009, flooded many ancient archaeological sites. Photo: NASA) According to a spokesman from the Dams Implementation Unit, the dams are part of a government plan to exploit its vast and diverse resources to achieve human welfare by sustainable development and to safeguard Sudan's remaining water share allotted in the 1959 Nile Water Agreement. He added that his department understands the significance of the endangered archaeological sites and that the unit is enthusiastic about co-operating with international archaeological bodies. The Kajbar region, with its hundreds of ancient, medieval and post-medieval sites, appears to be the most widely explored of the three proposed dam areas, but even it remains relatively mysterious. Sabu, for example, a village about 525 kilometers northwest of Khartoum, is known for its Neolithic-era rock-art panels depicting giraffes, New Kingdom ships and Christian churches, but it has yet to be systematically studied by archaeologists.
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