Polish archaeologists re-date Sudanese city

Hieroglyphic findings by a Polish archaeological team in Old Dongola in Sudan suggest the city may be a thousand years older than believed.

The hieroglyph-covered sandstone blocks uncovered by the Poles probably come from a temple and date from the first half of the 1st millennium BC, which indicates that Old Dongola may be a thousand years older than researchers believed.

Old Dongola is a deserted town in northern Sudan. Located on the east bank of the Nile river, it was an important urban centre in medieval Nubia. From the fourth to the fourteenth century the city was the capital of the Makurian state, a Nubian kingdom, covering parts of today's northern Sudan and southern Egypt.

Polish archaeologists have been working on the site since 1964.