Qualla: Al-Khiday https://qualla.com/al-khiday en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:29 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/d/z/0/al-khiday-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Al-Khiday https://qualla.com/al-khiday Al-Khiday: Introduction https://qualla.com/al-khiday/ Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Rickjpelleg assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY 2.5. In 2004, an Italian Archaeological Mission surveying the route of a new road on the western bank of the White Nile, not far from Khartoum, began pulling up soil and finding bones. What they had stumbled into was al-Khiday, a cluster of five prehistoric sites, and specifically al-Khiday 2: a multi-phase cemetery where three wholly different peoples had buried their dead across some eight thousand years. Pre-Mesolithic hunters lying extended and face-down. Mesolithic fishers who left no bodies in the mound but left their pottery and their fish bones. Neolithic herders in ritual poses. And finally, much later, Meroitic Sudanese of the classical age, burying infants with feeding cups.

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]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/d/z/0/al-khiday-wp/sdz0-al-khiday-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Al-Khiday: Ninety Bodies Face-Down https://qualla.com/al-khiday/ Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Rickjpelleg assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY 2.5. The earliest burials are the strangest. Around ninety pre-Mesolithic bodies were excavated at al-Khiday 2, lying extended and prone, face-down. This is an unusual burial position almost anywhere in the archaeological record; the dominant human posture for burial is flexed or supi...

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]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/d/z/0/al-khiday-wp/sdz0-al-khiday-ninety-bodies-face-down.mp3 0:06 2 full Al-Khiday: Fish, Tubers, and the Savanna That Was https://qualla.com/al-khiday/ Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Rickjpelleg assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY 2.5. The Mesolithic deposits tell a different story. Around 90 percent of the faunal remains are fish, mostly the shallow-water Clarrid catfish that lived in the Nile shallows and seasonal flood swamps. But the Mesolithic diet was broader than the bones first suggest. The pottery, whe...

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]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/d/z/0/al-khiday-wp/sdz0-al-khiday-fish-tubers-and-the-savanna-that-was.mp3 0:06 3 full Al-Khiday: The Neolithic: Pots, Char, and a Turn to Meat https://qualla.com/al-khiday/ Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Rickjpelleg assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY 2.5. Roughly thirty-two Neolithic burials, dating from about 4550 to 4250 BC, overlay and disturbed the earlier pre-Mesolithic graves. These were ritual burials with goods, including Shaheinab-style pottery that connects al-Khiday to the broader Neolithic Sudan archaeological traditio...

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]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/d/z/0/al-khiday-wp/sdz0-al-khiday-the-neolithic-pots-char-and-a-turn-to-meat.mp3 0:06 4 full Al-Khiday: An Iron Arrowhead Beneath a Child's Skull https://qualla.com/al-khiday/ Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Rickjpelleg assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY 2.5. Fast-forward another three to four thousand years. Forty-three Meroitic graves were identified at al-Khiday 2, dating to the Classical Late Meroitic period of the kingdom that ruled from Meroë. These were deep rectangular shafts dug east-west, sometimes with a circular chamber on...

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]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/d/z/0/al-khiday-wp/sdz0-al-khiday-an-iron-arrowhead-beneath-a-childs-skull.mp3 0:06 5 full Al-Khiday: Purple Nut Sedge, Across the Millennia https://qualla.com/al-khiday/ Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Rickjpelleg assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY 2.5. One plant ties the three periods together. Cyperus rotundus, known as purple nut sedge, is a tuberous plant that thrives along the Nile and spreads aggressively. It does not preserve well in burials, so no intact remains have been found. But dental calculus analysis points to it ...

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]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/d/z/0/al-khiday-wp/sdz0-al-khiday-purple-nut-sedge-across-the-millennia.mp3 0:06 6 full Al-Khiday: A Cemetery Still Telling https://qualla.com/al-khiday/ Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Rickjpelleg assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY 2.5. Al-Khiday is still being excavated, still being analyzed. New techniques, from lipid residue work on pot sherds to isotope studies on teeth, keep pulling more story out of the same soil. One early Holocene man at the site turned out to have prostatic stones, among the oldest ever...

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]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/d/z/0/al-khiday-wp/sdz0-al-khiday-a-cemetery-still-telling.mp3 0:06 7 full