Old Dongola

Old Dongola was the capital of Makuria, the Christian Nubian kingdom that held the middle Nile for six hundred years and turned back two Arab invasions. Its ruins stand on a bluff above the river, with the Throne Hall converted into a mosque, the Church of the Granite Columns, and monastery buildings whose walls still carry Byzantine style frescoes of bishops and saints. Domed mud brick tombs of later Muslim holy men are scattered across the plain below, a strange overlay of two faiths on one site. The modern town of Dongola lies further downstream.