Researchers from the UW's Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology (PCMA UW) have made an unusual discovery at a cemetery in Ghazali, Sudan. The scientists have discovered an extremely rare mediaeval religious tattoo. This is only the second time the practice of tattooing has been evidenced in mediaeval Nubia.

The expedition from the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archeology discovered nine cloth-wrapped crocodile heads in mortuary complexes in the Theban Necropolis. It is the first of its kind discovery of reptiles’ remains within the tombs of people. The research work is conducted under the Polish Archeological Expedition to North Assasif “Asasif Project”.

Prof. Artur Obłuski, director of the UW Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology and leading researcher of the ERC Starting Grant UMMA, has received the Public’s Choice Award under the European Research Council’s Public Engagement with Research competition.

At the end of December, another season of archaeological fieldwork in Qumayrah Valley in Northern Oman came to a close. Archaeologists identified there another tower in a Bronze Age settlement, unearthed evidence of copper smelting and discovered a 4 thousand-year-old game board.

Fieldwork in Soba, the former capital of the Kingdom of Alwa – today, a suburb of Khartoum – was paused for a mid-season break in mid-December. It was carried out by a team of specialists led by Dr Mariusz Drzewiecki from the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, University of Warsaw. The excavations revealed the remains of a medieval garden. It is the first this kind of a discovery in Soba.