Faras Mound — Cathedral and Town
Pachoras · Faras
Meroitic to Christian Nubian, Ottoman·Meroitic, Nobadian, Makurian Christian·🇸🇩 Northern State, Wadi Halfa District, former west bank Nile (now Lake Nubia bed), Sudan
About
About Faras Mound — Cathedral and Town
Mound of Faras (Pachoras), twin to Qasr Ibrim as source of largest Christian Nubian frescoes corpus — 169 frescoes cut from cathedral walls by Polish mission of Kazimierz Michałowski (1961–64) before dam flooding. The mound contained successive temples (Meroitic), palaces, citadel and two cathedrals (7th and 10th c.), bishop’s palace and town walls with Nilotic stratigraphy 5 m deep. Now under Lake Nubia, its frescoes displayed in National Museum Khartoum and National Museum Warsaw — iconic Nubian Christ and bishop portraits.
Why it mattersLargest preserved Christian Nubian painting school; stratigraphic town mound spanning Meroitic to Islamic.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Location of earlier Meroitic temple under cathedral
Theories
- 01Cathedral mound reused Meroitic podium for Christian sacred topography continuity
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- c. 300 BCE town, cathedral c. 620 CE
- Period
- Meroitic to Christian Nubian, Ottoman
- Culture
- Meroitic, Nobadian, Makurian Christian
- Purpose
- Nubian cathedral mound — capital of Nobadia/Marcuria bishopric on town mound with painted cathedral
- Excavation
- Excavated
1961–64
Polish mission rescues frescoes before flooding
1964
Dam flooding submerges mound
2014
Restored fresco gallery opens in Warsaw
On the ground
Structures & features
22.1867° N · 31.4633° E · 180 m · 2 mapped features
Great Cathedral (7th c.) podium
churchCathedral with frescoed apse and narthex, pavement cut and moved
22.1877° N · 31.4643° ETown mound stratigraphy south sector
mound5 m settlement layers from Meroitic to Ottoman house walls
22.1857° N · 31.4623° E
Gallery