page_title: Soba (city)
hierarchical_section_title: Soba (city)
caption_attribution_description: English: In Sudan, archaeologists arrive at work in the early morning. It is necessary to make photographic documentation before the Sun rises high. On the image, you can see archaeological trench, explored in November and December 2019. It is exposing mud-brick architecture. In medieval times the entire area, including the fields and the nearby orchards seen on the photo, was part of a large city, the capital of the kingdom of Alwa (Khartoum Province, Sudan).English: In Sudan, archaeologists arrive at work in the early morning. It is necessary to make photographic documentation before the Sun rises high. On the image, you can see archaeological trench, explored in November and December 2019. It is exposing mud-brick architecture. In medieval times the entire area, including the fields and the nearby orchards seen on the photo, was part of a large city, the capital of the kingdom of Alwa (Khartoum Province, Sudan).
context_page_description: Soba is an archaeological site and former town in what is now central Sudan. Three kingdoms existed in medieval Nubia: Nobadia with the capital in Faras, Makuria with the capital in Dongola, and Alodia with the capital in Soba. The latter used to be the capital of the medieval Nubian kingdom of Alodia from the sixth century until around 1500. E. A. Wallis Budge identified it with a group of ruins on the Blue Nile 19 kilometres from Khartoum, where there are remains of a Meroitic temple that had been converted into a Christian church.
  Ibn Selim el-Aswani described the city as large and wealthy, but he probably never visited it and modern archaeological investigations show it to have been a moderate centre. Built mainly of red brick, the abandoned city was plundered for building material when Khartoum was founded in 1821. Development from the growth of suburbs now threatens the ruins.
context_section_description: Soba is an archaeological site and former town in what is now central Sudan. Three kingdoms existed in medieval Nubia: Nobadia with the capital in Faras, Makuria with the capital in Dongola, and Alodia (Alwa) with the capital in Soba. The latter used to be the capital of the medieval Nubian kingdom of Alodia from the sixth century until around 1500. E. A. Wallis Budge identified it with a group of ruins on the Blue Nile 19 kilometres (12 mi) from Khartoum, where there are remains of a Meroitic temple that had been converted into a Christian church. 
  Ibn Selim el-Aswani described the city as large and wealthy, but he probably never visited it and modern archaeological investigations show it to have been a moderate centre. Built mainly of red brick, the abandoned city was plundered for building material when Khartoum was founded in 1821. Development from the growth of suburbs now threatens the ruins.
caption: Soba during the excavations in 2019
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "5472", "Image ImageLength": "3078", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image ImageDescription": "default", "Image Make": "Hasselblad", "Image Model": "L1D-20c", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0 CE", "Image DateTime": "2019:12:14 07:26:21", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image XPComment": "[48, 0, 46, 0, 57, 0, 46, 0, 49, 0, 52, 0, 50, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ... ]", "Image XPKeywords": "[115, 0, 105, 0, 110, 0, 103, 0, 108, 0, 101, 0]", "Image ExifOffset": "464", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 3, 0, 0]", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[15, 31, 66563/2000]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "E", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[32, 40, 299359/10000]", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "GPS GPSAltitude": "401", "Image GPSInfo": "992", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1234", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5824", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/320", "EXIF FNumber": "5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2019:12:12 06:29:38", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2019:12:12 06:29:38", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "2971/1000", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Daylight", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "513/50", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "5472", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3078", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "28", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF DeviceSettingDescription": "[0, 0, 0, 0]", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "0K8TG6J0120468", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[28, 28, 14/5, 11]"}