Description
The museum (also simply known as the Sudan Museum or the Sudanese Archeological Museum) traces its origins to the establishment of the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium of Sudan in 1898, where the overseeing of antiquities was part of the duties of the Governor General. Therefore, the “General Museum” was founded, occupying two rooms in the buildings of the Gordon Memorial College (now University of Khartoum) in 1904. Space was restricted and hopes for a permanent museum could not be realised due to lack of funds, and in 1932 a temporary solution was found where the Khartoum Museum was opened in an existing two-storey house overlooking the Nile (the house is now the office of the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Khartoum). This also became insufficient, and plans to construct a permanent museum on the site of a former hospital were dashed by the Second World War.
In 1954, Egypt announced the construction of the Aswan High Dam, which would flood much of Lower Nubia, part of which lay within the borders of Sudan. Thus, UNESCO launched the International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia. In 1956, the year of Sudan’s independence, the Sudan Antiquities Service designated a plot of land on the former Mogran Quays Station on the banks of the Nile west of the city centre for the construction of a new archaeological museum. This would bring together the collections of the old museums as well as the new findings from the UNESCO campaign.
The museum was to be designed to international standards for the safekeeping of sensitive artefacts. Whole temples would be painstakingly disassembled and transported to Khartoum and space was needed for them also in the museum grounds. The decision to transport them to Khartoum was made by the government to enable easy access for school and university students and to promote tourism.
The Museum Board commissioned the office of Alexandre O. Petermuller, based in Khartoum, in January 1957 to create the initial plans for the museum. It was suggested by the Head of the Museums and Monuments Department at UNESCO that a consultant architect with experience in museography be appointed, and this role was filled by Hans Asplund. The two architects met in Paris in October 1957, and by 1959 Asplund submitted his “Final Report on Planning Official Buildings in Khartoum, Sudan”. The foundation stone was laid in November of that year by the Minister of Education, Sayed Ziada Arbab.
The Sudan National Museum is best described as a complex of buildings in a landscape; its location overlooks the Blue Nile River and is surrounded by major civic, commercial and governmental buildings as well as hotels. The landscaped garden, designed by Friedrich Hinkel and the Garden Section of Khartoum Province, accommodates the historic Aksha, Buhen and Semna Temples (rebuilt here), cemeteries, cathedral columns and others. Its central focal point is a linear pool that symbolises the River Nile, as the archaeological structures were excavated from its banks.
Friedrich Hinkel was the architect contracted to dismantle, transport and re-erect monuments and other objects from Nubia to Khartoum. As well as the archaeological garden, he also designed three steel and glass structures that housed the temples. As the climate in Khartoum was rainier than in Nubia, with a short rainy season in the summer months, the shelters were seen as necessary, and their roofs were designed to be moveable so that the enclosures can be left in the open in the dryer months.
The main museum buildings include the exhibition hall, the administrative building and the laboratory building. The exhibition hall, designed by Petermuller, is a rectangular-plan two-storey building that sits axially opposite the entrance. It is characterised by its exposed structural piers and upstand roof beams that break up the volume. To one side of the entrance is a large area of north-facing curtain walling, revealing the second level access ramp behind. The exhibition hall has been likened to Mies van der Rohe’s S. R. Crown Hall at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Behind the exhibition hall to the south lie the two-storey laboratory building immediately adjoining the exhibition hall, and the four-storey administrative block adjoining the laboratory building. Also designed by Petermuller, the administrative building is characterised by its horizontality, its strong bands of open access decks that provide solar shading to the south while allowing for cross-ventilation in the interior.
The museum is accessed via an entrance pavilion designed by El Amin Muddathir, with three portals and an interior embellished with murals by the acclaimed artist Kamala Ishag. The Museum was inaugurated in May 1971.
References
Adam, A. H. A. (2017). “Museums in the Sudan: History, Current Situation and Challenges”. Der Antike Sudan. Mitteilungen der Sudanarchäologischen Gesellschaft zu Berlin, 28, 2017, pp. 103–113.
Alsadig, S. O. (2006). دراسات سودانية في الآثار والفلكلور والتاريخ [Sudanese Studies in Archeology, Folklore, and History]. Dar Azza Publishing.
Bundi, M.-E. (2019). “Museums, Memory and Meaning: Politics of Identity and Representation in Sudanese Archaeological Museums.” Neuchâtel and Berlin, 1. https://libra.unine.ch/handle/123456789/28399
Hamad, B. (1995). “Sudan Notes and Records and Sudanese Nationalism, 1918–1956”. History in Africa 22, 1995, pp. 239-270.
Hinkel, F. (1978). Exodus from Nubia. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1978.
Negm El Din M. Sherif. A Short Guide to the Antiquities Garden, Sudan National Museum. Antiquities Service, Ministry of Education, the Democratic Republic of the Sudan, 1977. Microfilm, reel no. 7. New York: New York Public Library, 1982.
Richter, S. (1975). “Sudanesisches Nationalmuseum Khartoum“ [Sudan National Museum Khartoum]. Neue Museumskunde, 18, 1975.
Rilly, C. (2013). “The Sudan National Museum in Khartoum, An Illustrated Guide for Visitors.” French Unit in The National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums of Sudan (SFDAS).
Säve-Söderbergh, T. (1987). Temples and Tombs of Ancient Nubia: the International Rescue Campaign at Abu Simbel, Philae and other sites. London: Thames and Hudson, 1987.
The museum is entered through an entrance pavilion with three portals.
View of main hall.
Retractable steel and glass shelters above archaeological fields and temples.
Originally published in: Uta Pottgiesser, Ana Tostões, Modernism in Africa. The Architecture of Angola, Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Birkhäuser, 2024.