Archaeologists working in Old Dongola have uncovered an Arabic document that confirms the historical existence of Nubian King Qashqash, transforming a figure long treated as semi-legendary into a verifiable monarch during a pivotal phase in Sudan’s past, according to The Telegraph. The handwritten order, issued in the king’s name and preserved in full, was recovered from refuse layers inside a prominent residence that local communities still identify as the “House of the King,” a placement that reinforces long-standing oral traditions about the site, according to RMF24.
Researchers say the text provides the earliest contemporary archaeological evidence that Qashqash exercised authority in Old Dongola, the former capital of the Christian kingdom of Makuria, during a poorly documented era of political fragmentation and advancing Islamisation after the 14th century.
A transfer of goods
The order addresses a man named Khiḍr and directs the transfer of goods and livestock between specific individuals in terms that illuminate royal patronage and the circulation of materials under Qashqash’s authority. “From King Qashqash to Khiḍr son of ŠHDT/ŠHB(T?). As soon as Muḥammad al-ʿArab comes to you, take from him three ʾRDWYĀT and give him a ewe and her offspring… Do not hesitate! This is my letter/reply to you. His scribe Ḥamad wrote it. Greetings,” the message states, with a continuation instructing the provision of “three cotton cloths” and the collection of the ewe and her offspring “for their master.”
The text was among more than 20 Arabic writings retrieved from the building, which also yielded silk and fine cotton textiles, leather footwear, a gold ring, a dagger handle carved from ivory or rhino horn, and musket balls—finds that point to elite occupation within the citadel.
Dated to the 17th century
Specialists have dated the order to the 17th century by correlating it with references in the Sudanese compendium Ṭabaqāt, which records the lives of holy men and scholars. The researchers note that the Ṭabaqāt mentions King Hasan, son of Qashqash, in connection with a prominent religious leader active in Old Dongola by the early to mid-1600s, placing Qashqash’s rule no later than that period and possibly beginning in the latter half of the 16th century.
The document’s Arabic is not in perfect classical form, with nonstandard grammar and pronouns suggesting a scribal environment where Arabic was being adopted by officials whose first language may not yet have been Arabic. In remarks cited by Phys.org, lead author Tomasz Barański said the wider pattern in Nubia reflected “interaction, negotiation and adaptation” rather than abrupt breaks.
The research was published in the journal Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa and forms part of a broader investigation of Old Dongola’s transition from its medieval Christian polity into new political and religious configurations. The manuscript’s survival in complete form distinguishes it from many other texts at the site, which are fragmentary and difficult to interpret. Researchers working with these Arabic documents—letters, administrative and legal texts, and amulets—say the corpus is enabling the ruins to “speak” by revealing how authority operated and how material goods signaled status during the kingdom’s later phases.
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