Qualla: Banganarti https://qualla.com/banganarti 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/e/j/z/banganarti-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Banganarti https://qualla.com/banganarti Banganarti: Introduction https://qualla.com/banganarti/ Photo credit Qkiel, CC BY-SA 4.0. For seven centuries, pilgrims walking the middle Nile reached this spot and carved their prayers into the plaster. Nearly a thousand inscriptions survive on the interior walls of the Upper Church at Banganarti, left by Christian Nubian travelers between roughly 1050 and the 1700s. They scratched requests for healing, thanks for safe journeys, and pleas addressed to the Archangel Raphael, whom locals believed had taken up residence in the building. The church itself, called Raphaelion II, rose on the foundations of an even older sanctuary from the seventh century, whose lower levels still contain one of the oldest known images of the Virgin Mary in African Christianity. The village nearby, Banganarti, takes its name from the Nobiin language: Bangan-arti, the Island of the Locust.

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Image: Qkiel | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/e/j/z/banganarti-wp/sejz-banganarti-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Banganarti: A Pilgrim Center on the Middle Nile https://qualla.com/banganarti/ Photo credit Albertinese, CC BY-SA 4.0. Banganarti sits roughly halfway between the Third and Fourth Cataracts of the Nile, ten kilometers from Old Dongola, which was the capital of the medieval Christian kingdom of Makuria. Makuria was one of three Christian Nubian kingdoms that emerged after the collapse of the Kushi...

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Image: Albertinese | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/e/j/z/banganarti-wp/sejz-banganarti-a-pilgrim-center-on-the-middle-nile.mp3 0:06 2 full Banganarti: Two Churches, Stacked https://qualla.com/banganarti/ Photo credit LeGabrie, CC BY-SA 4.0. Polish archaeologists have excavated the site since 1998, directed by Bogdan Zurawski as part of the Southern Dongola Reach Survey. Earlier work in 1984 by a Royal Ontario Museum expedition had hinted at what lay beneath the sand. The team uncovered two successive church building...

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]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/e/j/z/banganarti-wp/sejz-banganarti-two-churches-stacked.mp3 0:06 3 full Banganarti: Kings Under the Wings of Angels https://qualla.com/banganarti/ Photo credit Albertinese, CC BY-SA 4.0. Inside the Upper Church, fifty-seven wall paintings have been preserved. Thirteen of them depict a Nubian king in hieratic pose, often shown being protected or sanctified by Archangel Raphael. Other panels show the Apostles gathered around scenes of royal authority, or high-ranki...

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]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/e/j/z/banganarti-wp/sejz-banganarti-kings-under-the-wings-of-angels.mp3 0:06 4 full Banganarti: The Graffiti Archive https://qualla.com/banganarti/ Photo credit Adam Łajtar, CC BY 3.0. Almost a thousand inscriptions survive on the plaster of the Upper Church's interior walls. Most are pilgrims' prayers, written in Old Nubian, Greek, and Coptic. Adam Lajtar, the epigrapher attached to the excavation, has been cataloging them for more than two decades. The texts ...

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]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/e/j/z/banganarti-wp/sejz-banganarti-the-graffiti-archive.mp3 0:06 5 full Banganarti: A Fortified Sanctuary https://qualla.com/banganarti/ Photo credit LeGabrie, CC BY-SA 4.0. Around the church, Polish archaeologists also found the remains of a medieval fortification and a substantial settlement. By the later centuries of its use, the pilgrim site at Banganarti was walled, defensible, and connected to a town that had grown up to serve the pilgrims. The...

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]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/e/j/z/banganarti-wp/sejz-banganarti-a-fortified-sanctuary.mp3 0:06 6 full