Sai Island
Located few kilometers from current Abri town across the Nile, the large island of Sai in Northern Sudan (Pl. 1) has been continuously settled from Prehistory to modern times. Nubian cultures of different periods as well as Egyptians of the New Kingdom have left evidence on the island.⁴ As the northern stronghold of the Kerma kingdom, Sai played an important role in the so-called “re-conquest of Nubia” during the early New Kingdom.
Under Ahmose, the founder of the New Kingdom, Sai fell under Egyptian control and a fortified town was founded with a temple dedicated to the god Amun was constructed, effectively ending Kerma’s control of the island ,an Ottoman fortress was built on the site of this new kingdom town, not far from the town a massive necropolis surrounding the settlement shows how funerary practices developed through various periods, from the Nubian kingdom of Kerma with its tumuli of up to 40 meters in diameter, up until the Pharaonic, Napatan, Meroitic and post-Meroitic eras.
A few standing columns of a church remains can be seen also not far from this site.
