Qualla: Naqa https://qualla.com/naqa 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/s/naqa-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Naqa https://qualla.com/naqa Naqa: Introduction https://qualla.com/naqa/ Photo credit Clemens Schmillen, CC BY-SA 4.0. There is a moment when you round the last low ridge of the Butana plateau and Naqa appears all at once: a temple to Amun with a hundred-meter processional way, a smaller temple to Apedemak carved with a three-headed lion god and a four-armed lion god, and, most improbably, a little stone kiosk that looks as if it were lifted from a Roman provincial town and set down in the Sudanese scrub. Three architectural languages on one site. Around 135 BC, a Kushite queen named Shanakdakhete built the oldest temple here. The Kingdom of Meroë was making a statement at Naqa: our gods, their gods, and whatever useful style is crossing the caravan routes this season, we can absorb them all.

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Image: Clemens Schmillen | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/d/z/s/naqa-wp/sdzs-naqa-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Naqa: A Trading Station in the Butana https://qualla.com/naqa/ Photo credit Eric Gaba (Sting - fr:Sting), CC BY-SA 3.0. The site lies 170 kilometers northeast of Khartoum and 50 kilometers east of the Nile, far enough from the river to require camels or donkeys but close enough to matter. Smaller wadis converge here and feed north into the Wadi Awateib, which joins the Nile at Wad ban Naqa. In the...

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Image: Eric Gaba (Sting - fr:Sting) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/d/z/s/naqa-wp/sdzs-naqa-a-trading-station-in-the-butana.mp3 0:06 2 full Naqa: The Lion Temple https://qualla.com/naqa/ Photo credit Clemens Schmillen, CC BY-SA 4.0. West of the Amun temple stands the Temple of Apedemak, the lion-headed warrior god specific to Kushite religion. Apedemak was sacred guardian of the royal dead, and anyone who touched the grave of a chief was said to be cursed by him. The pylons at the temple entrance show King N...

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Image: Clemens Schmillen | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/d/z/s/naqa-wp/sdzs-naqa-the-lion-temple.mp3 0:06 3 full Naqa: The Temple of Amun https://qualla.com/naqa/ Photo credit Karl Richard Lepsius (1810–1884), Public domain. King Natakamani, who ruled around the beginning of the Common Era, founded the Amun temple at Naqa, 100 meters in length with several colossal statues of himself. A second Amun temple on the slope of Gebel Naqa, the mountain overlooking the settlement, was begun by Amanikhareqere...

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Image: Karl Richard Lepsius (1810–1884) | Public domain

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/d/z/s/naqa-wp/sdzs-naqa-the-temple-of-amun.mp3 0:06 4 full Naqa: The Roman Kiosk https://qualla.com/naqa/ Photo credit User:LassiHU, CC BY-SA 4.0. Near the main temple sits a small structure known as the Roman Kiosk, one of the stranger objects in Sudanese archaeology. Its entrance is classically Egyptian, with a lintel crowned by a row of sacred uraeus cobras. But its sides consist of columns with florid Corinthian capital...

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Image: User:LassiHU | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/d/z/s/naqa-wp/sdzs-naqa-the-roman-kiosk.mp3 0:06 5 full Naqa: The Oldest Temple on the Site https://qualla.com/naqa/ Photo credit Lassi, CC BY-SA 3.0. At the foot of the sandstone cliffs of Jabal Naqa stands the temple labeled simply 500, built by Queen Shanakdakhete around 135 BC. This makes it the oldest building here, and the inscriptions on its walls are the oldest known writings in the Meroitic hieroglyphic script, a syste...

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Image: Lassi | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/d/z/s/naqa-wp/sdzs-naqa-the-oldest-temple-on-the-site.mp3 0:06 6 full