Image Details

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

From 1907 to 1909 American archaeologist George Reisner excavated the ancient Nubian settlement of Kerma, on one of the most fertile stretches of the Nile valley. Reisner and his team of local workmen first excavated near a massive, 63-foot-tall, flat-topped mudbrick building (shown here) known as the Lower Deffufa, uncovering fragments of fine Egyptian faience and stone vessels. The building itself probably functioned as Kerma’s most important religious structure.