A small, fragile sheet of paper discovered in northern Sudan is doing something archaeologists rarely get to witness firsthand: turning a figure once confined to legend into a verifiable historical ruler.
Unearthed during excavations at the archaeological site of Old Dongola, the document preserves a short administrative order issued by a ruler named King Qashqash, a ruler previously known only from later hagiographic texts and oral tradition.
Published in Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, the discovery provides rare evidence that the once semi-legendary monarch was not only real, but actively managing the day-to-day affairs of his kingdom. In doing so, the document also captures a rare written voice from a largely undocumented chapter of African history.
“The documentary sources uncovered at Old Dongola, including the king’s order, provide invaluable insights into the network of connections in Dongola before the colonial era,” researchers write. “This evidence presents a unique opportunity to explore the linguistic transformations and cultural interactions that have shaped Nubia over time.”
A rare document from a poorly documented era
Old Dongola sits on the eastern bank of the Nile in modern Sudan. During the Middle Ages, it served as the capital of Makuria, one of the powerful Christian kingdoms that once dominated Nubia.
However, by the fourteenth century, Makuria had declined, and the region’s political history during the following centuries remains only partially understood.
This in-between era—spanning the collapse of themedieval Nubian states and Sudan’s nineteenth-century Turco-Egyptian conquest—is among the most opaque chapters in the region’s history. Contemporary written records are scarce, forcing historians to piece together events from later texts, oral traditions, and occasional accounts by foreign travelers. It’s a gap so deep that scholars have sometimes labeled it a historical “dark age.”
However, this newly analyzed document helps illuminate that gap. It provides direct evidence of political authority in Dongola during the sixteenth or early seventeenth century, when the region was undergoing major social and cultural change as Arabization and Islamization spread along the Nile Valley.
The “House of the Mekk”
The king’s order was discovered inside a large structure within Dongola’s citadel, dubbed by archaeologists as “Building A.1” and sometimes called the “House of the Mekk.” Local traditions associate the building with a Mekk, an indigenous title used in late pre-colonial Sudan for local rulers subordinate to the Sultan of Sennar.
Archaeological evidence suggests the structure was indeed home to members of Dongola’s elite. Compared with other houses from the same period, the building is significantly larger and contains a more complex layout.
Excavations also revealed objects associated with high status, including luxury textiles made from linen, cotton, and silk, jewelry, leather shoes, and a dagger handle made of ivory or rhino horn.
Researchers also recovered musket balls and what appears to be a powder horn—objects that likely functioned more as prestige symbols than weapons in pre-colonial Nubia.
However, perhaps the most remarkable finds were written documents. Excavations in Building A.1 uncovered more than twenty paper texts, including letters, administrative notes, legal records, and amulets. Among them was the document now known as the king’s order.
King Qashqash’s instruction
The document itself is small—about 10.5 by 9.5 centimeters—and written in Arabic by a scribe named Hamad. It is addressed from King Qashqash to a man named Khidr, who appears to have acted as a royal subordinate or intermediary.
The message instructs Khidr to oversee an exchange involving textiles and livestock. According to the translation published in the study, the king directs Khidr to receive three textile units from a man named Muhammad al-ʿArab and provide him with a ewe and her offspring. Khidr is then ordered to collect the animals from another individual, ʿAbd al-Jabir, and deliver them without delay.
A short note on the reverse side of the document appears to mention additional goods—possibly cotton cloth or headwear—though parts of the text are damaged and difficult to interpret.
On the surface, the order appears to be a routine administrative note. Yet it reveals a strikingly human portrait of a ruler managing exchanges, coordinating intermediaries, and maintaining relationships within the local economy.
Although the document itself does not include a date, the archaeological context helps narrow the date to when it was written.
Coins discovered in the same room were minted in Egypt during the reign of Ottoman Sultan Murad IV (1623-1640) and possibly during that of his successor, Ibrahim. This suggests that the layer where the document was found was deposited sometime after the early seventeenth century.
Radiocarbon analysis of organic material from the same deposit further indicates that the rubbish layer likely formed between the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The document itself was probably written earlier and later discarded.
“Although the archaeological context suggests a later date, internal analysis and comparisons with other sources indicate that it most likely dates to the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century,” researchers write.
Pulling King Qashqash out of legend
Before this discovery, King Qashqash appeared only in Kitāb al-T. abaqāt, a Sudanese biographical work compiled near the end of the Funj period that preserves stories about Islamic scholars and holy men.
In those narratives, Qashqash appears only indirectly, making it difficult to determine whether he was a historical figure or part of a semi-legendary lineage. However, the Dongola document provides the first direct evidence of the ruler’s existence.
Researchers conclude that Qashqash likely ruled Dongola during the transition between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and may have been the father of King Hasan, another ruler mentioned in historical accounts from the period. If so, Qashqash becomes the earliest known post-medieval king of Dongola confirmed through documentary evidence.
A glimpse of Nubian micropolitics
Beyond confirming the king’s existence, the order also sheds light on the political and economic relationships that sustained power in pre-colonial Nubia.
The exchange described in the document likely reflects more than a simple trade. The researchers suggest it was part of a tradition of reciprocal gift-giving meant to strengthen social ties and obligations among the king, intermediaries, and trading partners.
Textiles in particular appear to have played an important role in regional exchange networks, functioning not only as goods but also as markers of prestige and political favor.
In this sense, the king’s order captures what the researchers describe as the micropolitics of governance—the small, everyday transactions that helped maintain authority and social cohesion.
A rare written voice from pre-colonial Nubia
For historians of Africa, one of the greatest challenges in reconstructing the past is the limited survival of written sources. Many societies preserved history primarily through oral traditions rather than written archives.
That makes discoveries like the Dongola document unusually valuable. It preserves a brief but direct record of how authority functioned in Nubia centuries ago. More importantly, it bridges the realms of legend and documented history.
Through a single piece of paper—discarded as trash centuries ago—a ruler once remembered only in stories now stands confirmed as a historical king who governed, negotiated, and managed the everyday affairs of his court.
“In the Sudanese and broader African context, the paucity of written sources renders historical reconstruction particularly challenging,” researchers conclude. “The king’s order we have discussed here represents a rare instance in which a figure previously confined to the domain of hagiographic literature and oral traditions can be situated within a verifiable historical framework supported by tangible archaeological evidence.”
Tim McMillan is a retired law enforcement executive, investigative reporter and co-founder of The Debrief. His writing typically focuses on defense, national security, the Intelligence Community and topics related to psychology. You can follow Tim on Twitter: @LtTimMcMillan. Tim can be reached by email: tim@thedebrief.org or through encrypted email: LtTimMcMillan@protonmail.com