Greeks their adored. The Egyptians and Romans envied them. Now, thanks to the archeologists, the treasure of this fabulous civilization, which, alas, gone forever, finally "revived" of sand, while keeping her secret.

South of Egypt in territory of modern Sudan, in the desert are strange pyramid. Travelers usually think that they are the creation of skilful hands of the ancient Egyptians. But it is not. If to take a closer look to these structures, they neither in style, nor in texture is not similar to the burial place of the pharaohs, while located near the river Nile. The pyramid was built from Sandstone and reach a height of 15 meters. They like the Egyptian structures of this kind are the tombs. But tombs for court mysterious Kingdom Meroe.

Everything in these graves - wonderful frescoes, dazzling jewelry, objects of pottery, original vases decorated with images of animals, half covered with sand and limestone, says about the mysterious and brilliant civilization Meroe.

Once this territory belonged to Egypt, included in its composition Kingdom Kush, in which lived the Nubians in the VI century BC. The Nubians and the Egyptians constantly had problems with each other, armed clashes were not uncommon. And in 591 year BC the Egyptians, tired of the hectic life, went with this land just above the Nile, in his city of Napata. Ruled at that time the king Kochetov Asphalt also went with his people in the opposite direction - to the sixth threshold of the Nile in the desert, just South of... the place was well protected by the Nile, and his last inflow - Altabari.

Here and founded the city Meroe in which kuchity were buried and their kings. The third century BC was the time of creation of the new Kingdom, which has known during the following centuries the incredible prosperity. Meroe was really fantastic to human life. Here as if God himself had sent such a welcome rains. This "gift of life" gave the opportunity to mereutsa to live independently from moisture Nile. Moreover, the settlers found about 800 bodies of water under the open sky! Thanks to water by local residents, which has podelilis" Cushite, only cultivated sorghum, breeding bulls and elephants. Mereutsa began to develop gold mines, to grow fruit trees, make figurine from an ivory... Their goods, they sent caravans in Egypt to the Red sea and Central Africa.

As the product, mereutsa really impressed! What are the only decoration of the Queen of Amanishakheto,

stolen from her grave Italian adventurer Ferlini. There were tens of bracelets, rings, decorative gold stripes...

Something has survived to the present day. Or sculptural head of a man with a surprisingly delicate features made in I-III centuries BC and found Spanish archaeologists in 1963! Or bronze king Kochetov (II century BC), the position of the hands which testified that he was holding a bow! Or statue of the God Semimajor, which decorated the entrance to one of the temples Meroe! Or bowl of blue glass, decorated with gold that was found broken into forty pieces, according to the funerary ritual, in the town Seeing!..

People with a burning face," as they were called by the Greeks, was delighted with the geniuses of antiquity. For example, Herodotus, for example, referred to the "Big city" in the desert and described camels walking in it as creatures "with the four-toed hind limbs. Mirage, maybe...". Greek geographer and traveler Strabo says the Queen mereutsa Candace - curve, one-eyed and brave." Her portrait was discovered on the walls of the temple of the Lion, located in Naga, South Meroe. It was one of the many traces of art mereutsa, showing them as the first African civilization.

Opinion archaeologist Francis Hessia: "Meroe completely different from Egypt. Rebounding from the foreign, here managed to generate the original civilization. Cannot be confused, for example, the buildings constructed by mericli, Egyptian or Greco-Roman structures. Mereutsa created his art, not similar to any other. They parted with the Greek Pantheon, to worship a new God - Apedemak, unique to God with a lion head".

New God of mereutsa the Apedemak was the patron of soldiers of the Nubians. Specialist mariiskoi culture Director archaeological mission in Sudan Kathrin Berger believes that "God with a lion head governs the Empire together with the RAM of Amun, but Amon saves the Egyptian view, and Apedemak - Sudanese. God is the lion directs the battles, being a symbol of victory". By the way, mereutsa rather strange convergence of religions: they worship two gods - and Apedemak, and Amun - at the same time. Perhaps this is the impact of the Egyptians, which for many years was ruled by toshitami - descendants mereutsa.

As for female figures painted on wooden plates, mounted on the facades of churches, then they are nothing like slim Egyptian beauties. Mariiskie women differed magnificent forms.

City Kingdom Meroe was discovered by archaeologists in the early nineteenth century. Since that time excavations have become more frequent. Thanks to the Egyptian document, testifying about the mysterious Nubians, who lived in it, archaeologists began to know the history Meroe. Meanwhile, still no one knows how and why the Kingdom Meroe extinguished in the first half of IV century of our era. In 330 year of the first Christian king of the Kingdom of Accom (Ethiopia) found during one of his campaigns ruins of the city Meroe.

About what happened to the mysterious civilization, one could see from texts mereutsa collected by archaeologists almost two hundred years. But alas! They still have not deciphered - not found the "key" to unlocking the language mereutsa. This desert Atlantis, as it is sometimes called Meroe seems swallowed up their secrets deep in the sand. Archaeologist Francis Hessia believes that in the III century BC rulers Meroe began to pay too much attention to their regions neighbouring territories, raspalis thus the forces that led to the weakening and then the destruction of the Kingdom.

Egyptologists continue to puzzle over the language of mereutsa. The Englishman Griffith the first to recover their alphabet in 1909 through the inscriptions on the stele, made in two languages - mariiskom and language of the ancient Egyptians. Then other researchers have completed the alphabet. Jean Lachlan, researcher in France, believes that the alphabet of this nation consists of 23 letters. But to apply this alphabet proved to be very difficult. Deciphered the words had no meaning. Managed except that approximately to decipher the names of kings and gods... Even using the computer Jean Leclan and his colleagues, gathering thousands of texts mereutsa, using all the possibilities of modern technology on drawing up of different combinations of letters, not making progress.

The secret language of this civilization are still not opened, and therefore the Kingdom itself Meroe, its meaning and laws while not subjected to human mind...