Archaeologists have discovered a gold processing centre that is believed to have been in operation sometime between 2000 and 1500 BC.
The discovery, made by a team from the University of Chicago, consists of more than 55 grinding stones made of granite-like gneiss at the site of Hosh el-Geruf along the Nile and is located some 225 miles north of Khartoum, Sudan.
Groups of similar grinding stones have been found on desert sites, mostly in Egypt, where they were used to grind ore to recover the precious metal. Archaeologists believe that the ground ore was likely washed with water nearby to separate the gold flakes.
"This large number of grinding stones and other tools used to crush and grind ore shows that the site was a centre for organised gold production," said Geoff Emberling, Director of the Oriental Institute Museum and a co-leader of the expedition.
The expedition has also excavated a cemetery containing a variety of artifacts that suggest the region was part of the Kingdom of Kush, understood to be the first sub-Saharan kingdom.
It would mean that the Kingdom of Kush extended over an area much larger than previously believed.
"This work is extremely exciting, because it can give us our first look at the economic organisation of this very important, but little known ancient African state," said Gil Stein, Director of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.
"Until now, virtually all that we have known about Kush came from the historical records of their Egyptian neighbors, and from limited explorations of monumental architecture at the Kushite capital city Kerma."
Studying Kush may also help scholars understand more about ancient community life in the region outside established power centres such as Egypt and Mesopotamia.
"The Kingdom of Kush was unusual in that it was able to use the tools of power-military and governance-without having a system of writing, an extensive bureaucracy or numerous urban centers," said Emberling.
The University of Chicago expedition is part of an international recovery project intended to find artifacts related to Kush and other civilisations that flourished in the area before archaeological sites are covered by the steadily rising Nile river.
The research was funded by the the National Geographic Society and the Packard Humanities Institute.
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