Meinarti

Meinarti, also Mainarti; was an island with a village in the Nile in northern Sudan. The remains of a Nubian settlement from the Meroitic period to the Christian Middle Ages were archaeologically explored before the island sank in the 1960's in the ascending Nubia Lake.

Location

Meinarti lay just north of the second cataract few kilometers upstream of the Sudanese border town of Wadi Halfa. Little north was located on the western bank of the Nile which now also flooded ancient Egyptian settlement booing.

History and townscape

Meinarti was excavated by William Adams Yewdale 1962 to 1964 and is one of the best known Nubian settlements.

The oldest settlement dates back to the late Meroitic period around 300 AD. Of the larger buildings of the oldest layers only a few remnants had received. If there should have been Meroitic temple, they were destroyed during the subsequent X-group time and the public buildings were out of function. During this time, a deterioration of the building fabric is fixable. The settlement appears to have been destroyed by a Nile flood.

During the Christian empire of Nobatia a 200 x 80 meters big place was around 660 AD completely rebuilt. The predominantly built of mud bricks on stone pedestals small fraction houses were in contrast to the Meroitic buildings smaller and clustered closely to the site of the former public building on the slightly raised center of the island. It developed in the Christian era, a village settlement, whose population is estimated at 200 to 400.

Perhaps from the 7th century dates the original construction of a church in the east of the village. To compensate for the irregularities of the rock surface, the mud-brick walls stood on a low base of rubble. Later, the church was completely renovated, the previous slab floor of rubble as he was similarly present in the monastery church of ar - Ramal, was offset by an applied above screed floor of Nile mud. At the same time, a pattern of solid urban structures rather sloppy construction. Since these layers exhibit relatively rich finds, this fact probably has to do with the impoverishment of the population. In the following years, however, the houses were again a little more stable. In the 12th or 13th century originated in the south of a monastery, which mentions the contemporary Armenian historian Abu Salih. The monastery is said to be dedicated to St Michael and Kosma.

Many houses of thin row clay walls were not covered with the usual Nubian vaults, but received a lighter flat cover of a wooden floor joists. As a stabilizing action of the thin mud-brick walls corner reinforcements of large stone blocks, which were otherwise rarely appropriate served. In the Christian late phase a few houses had very low inputs with a clear height of about 80 centimeters in Nubia. The passages to the apse side rooms of the church on the island in the Nile Kulubnarti were also low and only crawling to happen. A as a "block house" designated building Meinarti had the lowest input level with 50 centimeters.

The site was probably abandoned in 1286, which eventually happened on the orders of King Semamun, who had to evacuate Nubia of an impending attack by the Mamluks. The site was then resettled. In the mid-14th century, the island was inhabited by Arabs, which probably destroyed the frescoes in the church. The Arabs, however, were distributed to 1500 and again lived a Christian population.

The island remained deserted until a new settlement in the mid-19th century. During the Turkish- Egyptian rule talked before the defeat of the Mahdi uprising for a short time soldiers of the garrison of Wadi Halfa in the medieval fortress on the island.