00:00They've been standing here for some 2,000 years, built by the rulers of the ancient Kushite kingdoms in the
00:07Nubian region of present-day northern Sudan.
00:10The over 200 UNESCO-protected pyramids at several sites, including Meroi, have survived sand, rain, war and neglect.
00:18But things have worsened amid the latest conflict.
00:24Visitors were coming, missions were operating, and everything was fine until the year 2023 and the war.
00:34The war happened, and we've worked during that time, but the visits and missions have stopped.
00:42Some 800 years older than the Egyptian pyramids, and just a three-hour drive from the capital Khartoum, they were
00:49once Sudan's most visited heritage site.
00:52But preservation efforts at the complex have halted, and it's stood largely abandoned since the start of the civil war,
00:58with a handful of people doing what they can to protect them.
01:04The biggest problem is that we come in the morning to find that stones have fallen, which is a huge
01:09problem.
01:10Or we'd find salt inside the funerary temples, in an area with inscriptions and drawings.
01:16The salt weakens the stone, and eventually it'll make us lose these inscriptions.
01:23Some of these are priceless relics.
01:26As the harsh desert environment continues to ravage these wonders of the ancient world with a unique angular architecture,
01:34those at the site hope tourists and archaeologists will be able to return one day.
01:40So that it can be protected for future generations.
01:44The
01:46The
01:46The
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