British Museum -- Sudan

In our continuing effort to see most of the British Museum (a little at a time) we visited it again on 20 November, concentrating on a special exhibit on Sudan, which, we learned, is the largest country in Africa and about 10 times the size of the UK. Sudan, of course, has been much in the news of late because of the tragic events in the Darfur region of that unhappy country.

The BM exhibit deals with the archaelogical history of the country -- going back to Neolithic times about 200,000 years BC. There were several ancient civilizations in the country -- some contemporary with the ancient Egyptian civilizations -- and competitors of the Egyptians. Sudan even contains many of the ancient gold mines that provided the gold used by the Egyptians in their better-known jewelry and decorations.

The British Museum has had a lengthy history, for over a century, of working in Sudan and has extensive collections from that area. We found it interesting and illuminating -- pretty much always our reaction to visits to this great museum.