tour 14 of 14
Sudan Past and Present: Early cultures to the Arrival of Christianity
Stela of Mariankouda
This high-quality white marble funerary stela
was set in the pavement of the North Kom church. When it was broken
ten fragments were preserved, although part of the bottom of the
inscription and some of the edge are missing. The carved text is in
Greek and is twenty-eight lines long, with three small crosses
above it. The stela seems to have been laid in memory of a
high-ranking government official named Mariankouda, who was
probably buried in a nearby crypt. The inscription also mentions
the Makurian king, Georgios. The stela was reconstructed by
conservation experts at the British
Museum.
There is evidence
of widespread literacy among the Nubians during the Christian
period. Large numbers of letters, business and legal documents,
graffiti, religious texts and tombstones all indicate that people
could read and write in greater numbers than in the pre-Christian
era. Coptic, Greek and Old Nubian, the Nubian language, were
written and appear alongside Arabic texts. Greek was used for
tombstones and inscriptions as well as the titles of religious
officials, whereas religious texts such as the Bible were often
written in Old Nubian, as well as Greek.