Introduction

"To the south-west Aithiopia extends towards the setting sun, the furthest inhabited country. This country produces much gold , huge elephants, all kinds of wild trees, and ebony; and the men there are very tall, handsome and longlived ."

Kush , Nubia and the Sudan
       For Herodotus, who lived in 5 th century BC, similarly to other ancient authors the mysterious Ethiopia (Aithiopiae), "a land of people with sub-burnt faces", stretched from the Sahara to India, but its heartland were the territories of the northern and central part of the modern Sudan. Over the last five millennia of its history the region had various names: the ancient Egyptians called it Ta-Sety ("Land of the Bow"), the land of Wawat , and later the land of Kush. The word "Nubia" appeared only during the Roman period and it might have been derived from a garbled Egyptian word nebu, which means gold. Paradoxically, however, we do not know what the indigenous inhabitants called the place of their own language. Today Nubia has become something of a synonym for northern Sudan. The name "the Sudan" that is overwhelmingly used today is just a few centuries old given by the Arabs and referring to the dark skin of the natives.

The land of six cataracts
       Six cataracts - the biggest of rock rapids, divide the middle section of the Nile, which is a main element of region's landscape. On the both sides the fertile river valley is surrounded by rocky heights that form the natural boundaries of the Eastern Desert and the Libyan Desert. Usually, there is Lower Nubia between First and Second Cataract and Upper Nubia to the south. The division to an extent reflects the run of the frontier between modern Egypt and the Republic of Sudan. However, geography and history have made the two Nubias an inseparable whole, and to speak of each independently seems absolutely impossible.
       The rocky region of Batn-el-Hagar ("Belly of Rocks") had always formed a natural barrier to expansion from the north. Dongola Reach between the Third and Fourth cataract has been densely populated since the antiquity, similarly to the fertile Butana, circled by Nile and the Atbara and called "an isle" in the ancient times. There the monotonous desert landscapes gives way to sahel - a transitional area leading to the savannah. Finally, beyond the Six Cataract there is Khartoum - a place where the waters of the White Nile and the Blue Nile come together.
       It was precisely the geographical location that made the Sudan a corridor and a crossing path for the routes of trade and culture exchange between the Mediterranean world and Africa, between the Arabian peninsula and the Sahara

The Sudan - The heritage of the past
       "Nothing that happened in the past is irrevocably lost", says an old Arab proverb. Dead cultures and civilizations may stay for centuries buried in the sands of the desert until the hand of the archaeologist reveals them anew and brings them back to life. Yet some elusive, ethereal element of the past civilizations can be found in the people who today inhabit the land hiding away ancient treasures.
       This is the modern Sudan - a country little known still, which has become heir to a distant but glorious past that allows its inhabitants look hopefully to the future.