<\/p>\n
PARIS \u2014 In a dimly lit office in a corner of the French National Institute for Art History, Sudanese archaeologist Shadia Abdrabo studies a photograph of pottery made in her country around 7,000 B.C. She carefully types a description of the Neolithic artifact into a spreadsheet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
As the war between the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese Armed Forces rages on, the curator from Sudan\u2019s National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums is on a yearlong research grant in France with one mission: to build an online database of the African nation\u2019s archaeological sites, museum collections and historical archives.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Soon after the war in Sudan<\/a> started, in April 2023, museums were looted and destroyed. It\u2019s unclear what exactly went missing, but Abdrabo says her task is to find out \u2014 and time is of the essence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWe have to work fast to secure our collections. We\u2019ve already lost two museums and we don\u2019t want to lose more,\u201d Abdrabo told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n She says two regional museums in El Geneina and Nyala were almost completely destroyed, while in Khartoum, the National Museum \u2014 which held an estimated 100,000 objects before the war \u2014 was ransacked by militias<\/a> who posted videos online of their fighters inside the storeroom.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The National Museum had pieces dating back to prehistoric times, including from the Kerma Kingdom and the Napatan era when Kushite kings ruled the region as well as from the Meroitic civilization that built Sudan\u2019s pyramids. Other galleries displayed later Christian and Islamic objects.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Among its most valuable items were mummies dating back to 2,500 B.C., some of the oldest and most archaeologically significant in the world as well as royal Kushite treasures.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n