Relics stolen and mummy coffins looted as Sudan’s largest museum ravaged by battle | EUROtoday

Inside the museum, show instances stand empty and shattered and a mummy lies uncovered in an open storage field. All the gold artifacts have been looted.

This is the scene in Sudan’s largest museum the place the exhibition halls as soon as stuffed with statues and relics from centuries of historic civilizations are trashed, affected by particles.

The Sudan National Museum has been wrecked by two years of battle, with most of its artifacts stolen. Authorities blame the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which held this district of Khartoum alongside the banks of the Nile River for a lot of the battle.

Since the Sudanese army regained management of the capital final month, officers have been working to evaluate the injury and loss in hopes of in the future restoring the museum.

“The losses are extremely big and saddening. A significant number of antiquities were stolen,” Gamal ElDeen Zain al-Abdeen, a senior official at the National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums, told The Associated Press. “The RSF destroyed everything … concerning the civilization of the Sudanese people.”

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The National Museum had thousands of pieces, dating back to the Paleolithic era well before the development of agriculture, and through the kingdoms of ancient Sudan. Many came from the Napatan era in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., when pharaohs from Sudan ruled over much of ancient Egypt, or from the later Meroitic kingdom that built pyramids in Sudan. Other halls had later Christian and Islamic material.

Some pieces too heavy to carry remain in place. In the museum’s garden, a line of stone lions remains, as do the Colossi of Tabo, two large pharaonic-style statues. Also remaining are three pharaonic temples that were moved from northern Sudan and reassembled at the museum in the 1960s to escape the rising waters of Lake Nasser from Egypt’s construction of the High Dam.

But many objects are gone. Looters broke into the locked storerooms and made off with all the gold artifacts, Zain al-Abdeen said. But it was too early to know how much of the museum’s collection had been stolen, he said.

He blamed the RSF for the destruction, saying they had fighters in the museum at some point during the war.

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The war in Sudan broke out in April 2023, after tensions between the Sudanese army and the rival RSF turned into battles in the streets of Khartoum and rapidly spread around the country. The RSF held much of Khartoum during the war, including the district of the museum.

Now that they have been driven out, the extent of the destruction from fighting and looting is coming clear.

“Khartoum in general has been destroyed, particularly the center of Khartoum,” Zain al-Abdeen stated. “No building was spared from the bloodshed and theft, and this is what I saw with my own eyes.” He said all the city’s museums were damaged, particularly the Ethnography Museum, where walls were demolished and halls and offices burned.

The ransacking is a blow to a country with a rich heritage, one that has deep resonance among Sudanese but is often overlooked abroad because of Sudan’s decades of instability.

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UNESCO stated in September it was involved about looting on the Sudan National Museum, which it helped renovate in 2019. It warned that sale or elimination of artifacts “would result in the disappearance of part of the Sudanese cultural identity and jeopardize the country’s recovery.”

A UNESCO spokesperson stated Friday that injury, looting and destruction of museums and cultural websites occurred throughout Sudan’s states of Khartoum, River Nile, Northern State, Gezeira and the Darfur area. An correct evaluation is not potential as a result of ongoing preventing.

The Sudan National Museum is amongst a number of which have undergone “extensive looting and substantial damage,” in response to UNESCO.

Sedeeq Mohamed Sedeeq, who lives close to the museum, stated the RSF vowed democracy and liberation however as an alternative they’re “erasing the oldest nation in history, erasing its history.”

Reconstruction plans for destroyed museums will start after committees assess the injury and advocate proposals for rehabilitation, Zein al-Abdeen stated. The plans are anticipated to incorporate constructing repairs, restoration of the antiquities storage areas and fixing the museum’s surrounding grounds.

At least 20,000 individuals have been killed because the battle broke out, although the quantity is probably going far greater. The battle has additionally pushed greater than 14 million individuals from their properties and pushed elements of the nation into famine.