Meroe - the old Kushite capital is famed for the pyramids of the Royal Cemetery. Sudan's most popular tourist attraction, they have long been overshadowed b the headline grabbing pyramids and treasures of Egypt. The joy of Meroe is that you have its pyramids virtually to your self. Surrounded by the desert it is easy to slip into reverie and imagine yourself stumbling across these pyramids for the first time.

The site is divided into two main clusters - the older and smaller southern cluster and the more impressive, better preserved, northern cluster.

Not as grandiose as the Egyptian pyramids, from which they are clearly derived, they are smaller - the tallest being thirty metres - and have a steeper pitch at 70º. The pyramids have a rubble core encased by sandstone. A funerary chapel is sited on the east of each pyramid.

The northern cluster which spans the 4th C BC to 3rd C AD has some 44 pyramids in various states of repair and/or restoration. Many of them contain interesting drawings depicting scenes on which the kingdom derived its economic wealth, the passage of the dead to the afterlife.

In pyramid number six, that of the Queen Amanishekheto, in the late nineteenth century an Italian treasure hunter named Ferlini actually found gold and treasure which he tried to sell at a local market. Not believing that it was treasure, Ferlini was forced to return to the pyramid and remove a stone depicting the Queen in all her finery as proof of the treasure's validity.

The gold and treasure now lies in Berlin leaving behind the pyramids in a broken state and an archaeological jigsaw for those more enlightened and conscientious following in his footsteps.