Archaeologists reach the original floor of Nubia’s largest cathedral at Old Dongola

For the first time, archaeologists at Old Dongola in Sudan have dug down a monumental staircase and stood on the original floor of the Great Church of Jesus, the biggest cathedral known from medieval Nubia. The building measures about 47 by 57 meters, and its walls beside the stairs still rise roughly 11 meters. The find gives researchers a rare look inside a church that once anchored a kingdom.

A capital of a forgotten Christian kingdom

Old Dongola was the capital of Makuria, a Christian kingdom that ruled parts of what is now northern Sudan for centuries. The site sits on the Nile, and its ruins trace the city’s growth from the 4th to the 15th century. A joint team from the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of Warsaw and Sudan’s National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums has worked there for years. The project is led by Prof. Artur Obłuski.

The team first made contact with the huge structure in 2021. Since then, they have slowly uncovered a building that dwarfs every other church found in Nubia.

What the team found inside the Great Church of Jesus

This season, the diggers exposed a monumental staircase that leads into the church. At its bottom, they reached the original floor, something no one had done before at this building. The church is about 47 meters wide and roughly 57 meters long, and the team estimates it may have stood about 21 meters high. Obłuski compared its size to the White House in Washington, D.C., and called it “a natural trendsetter for Nubia and perhaps for other parts of Africa.”

The walls beside the staircase still reach about 11 meters. The team also found buttresses that supported the apse, the rounded east end of the church. Those supports help explain how medieval builders held up such a large structure.

A smaller church above, with painted plaster and Greek odes

On an upper floor of a structure added to the cathedral, the team found a smaller church. Only about one meter of its walls survives, but it yielded fragments of painted plaster and pieces of Greek text. Epigraphist Dr. Agata Deptuła identified the Greek writing, whose letters stand only about half a centimeter tall, as biblical odes. One of them is the Prayer of Hannah.

The odes matter because they are new for the site. As Deptuła explained, “Psalm texts were the most common biblical writing found at Old Dongola before, so the odes are new for the site.” The painted plaster now sits in storage, where conservators work on it. According to the report, it fills six large shelving units.

Why the discovery matters

Reaching the floor gives archaeologists a fixed point for dating the building and studying how people used it. A church of this scale suggests that Makuria’s rulers and clergy invested heavily in public religion, and the team argues it likely set trends for church building across the region. The odes may also show that worshippers at Dongola used a wider range of biblical texts than the earlier psalm-heavy finds suggested.

The work also carries a human side. Autumn 2024 brought the worst flooding in Sudan since 1988, and the project has paired excavation with local support, including a solar-powered water system that serves about 10,000 people. Funding and help come from Poland’s National Science Center, the Warsaw University of Technology and the Polish Aid program, among others.

Caveats and what comes next

Only a fraction of the Great Church of Jesus is open so far. The 21-meter height is an estimate, not a measurement, and “largest” reflects the team’s own comparison with other Nubian churches. We also could not read the original institutional release, so the details here come from a news report on the dig. Future seasons should clarify the building’s date, its full plan and how the smaller upper church fit into it.

For now, one staircase has opened a door into a lost kingdom’s biggest church, and the floor at its foot is only the start.

Sources

• Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology (PCMA), University of Warsaw, and Sudan’s National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums, Old Dongola excavations (pcma.uw.edu.pl)
• Archaeology News Online Magazine, 4 November 2026: Archaeologists reach the original floor of Nubia’s largest cathedral in Sudan