'We do not know of a similar case': 4,000-year-old burial in little-known African kingdom mystifies archaeologists

An isolated burial in Sudan has revealed the first evidence of an unknown funeral ritual that took place nearly 4,000 years ago in a little-known African kingdom, a new study finds.

In the grave, archaeologists discovered a ceramic vessel that contained charred plant and wood remains, animal bones and pieces of insects, all of which the team thinks were the remains of a funeral feast.

"We do not know of a similar case," study co-author Henryk Paner, an archaeologist at the Polish Center of Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of Warsaw, told Live Science in an email, "and this is precisely what makes our discovery mysterious and even unusual, as we do not know the significance of this ritual."

In the study, published Nov. 13 in the journal Azania, researchers described the burial of a middle-aged man, which they found in 2018 during an archaeological survey project in the Bayuda Desert in northeast Sudan. The grave was dated to between 2050 and 1750 B.C., meaning the man was likely part of the Kingdom of Kerma, an early Nubian civilization that neighbored ancient Egypt. Within the burial, which had an oval mound of dirt on top of it, archaeologists discovered a male skeleton, two ceramic vessels placed behind his head, and 82 blue-glazed ceramic disc beads around his neck.

"The burial mound is not particularly impressive, and the grave goods, including beads and ceramic vessels, are quite common," Paner said, all of which suggest the man did not have elite social status. But "the contents of one of the vessels are unusual," he said, possibly "relics of the fire associated with a funeral ritual."

Within a medium-sized ceramic jug, the researchers discovered a treasure trove of charred remains of plants, wood, animals, insects and coprolites (fossilized feces). Most of the wood was determined to have come from acacia trees, and the researchers identified two legumes — likely a lentil and a bean — and cereal grains among the charred botanical remains. The jug also contained a few weevils, which likely hitched a ride on the plants in ancient times.

"Since the vessel does not show any signs of having been burned, these remains, along with the fragments of animal bones found, were probably simply inserted into it," the researchers explained in the study. "The bones in question are likely evidence of consumption during a funeral feast, some of the remains from which were then thrown into the fire."

The botanical remains also indicate that this geographic area was a more humid savanna-type environment when the man was buried, compared with the open desert it is now. "Even a seemingly modest site" like this isolated burial "can provide important clues for reconstructing past environments and climates," the researchers wrote.

The other vessel found in the burial was placed upside down near the individual, but it was empty, the researchers noted.

This burial is the first from the Kingdom of Kerma to reveal evidence of a funeral ritual that took place four millennia ago. But the lack of similar known burials could point to the area's complex cultural exchange processes, the researchers wrote, meaning more work is needed to understand the trade of goods and ideas in ancient Africa.