Meinarti

Situated in the Nile, Meinarti was just north of the 2nd Cataract, a few kilometers upstream of the Sudanese border town of Wadi Halfa.

Meinarti was excavated by William Yewdale Adams from 1962 to 1964, prior to perishing in the 1960s with the rising of Lake Nubia due to the Aswan Dam.

Nearly as large was a walled market compound consisting of shops on either side of a plaza, while nearby was the best preserved wine press ever found in Nubia.

The place appeared to have been once again a peasant village, although there were denuded foundations of a couple of larger and more stoutly built buildings, of undetermined function.

Unlike all other buildings at Meinarti it remained in use though successive periods Phases 3-5), with numerous modifications necessitated by constantly accumulating sand.

This was a time when Christian Nubia enjoyed especially cordial and prosperous relations with Fatimid Egypt, as is clearly reflected in the archaeological remains.

Meinarti assumed a new strategic importance, and became a sometime residence of the Eparch of Nobadia (the viceroy of northern Nubia), although his normal capital was Qasr Ibrim.

The archaeological remains at this phase, at any rate, were quite unlike those of any earlier period; they consisted mainly of a sprawling complex of more than 80 contiguous rooms.

Most were quite small, but at the center was a complex of large rooms having whitewashed walls, and in one case mural paintings in red, yellow, and black.

In the north Nobadia survived as a splinter kingdom, saved from nomad invasion by the total lack of pasturage in the surrounding desert.

Around 1890 the Anglo-Egyptian garrison at the nearby town of Wadi Halfa cleared off most of the upper floor of the Meinarti "castle-house" and installed a gun emplacement.