Sudan’s looted national museum reopens online

KHARTOUM, Sudan (MNTV) — Sudan’s National Museum, looted and left largely empty in the early months of the country’s civil war, has reopened to the public in virtual form as efforts to recover its stolen artefacts continue to yield limited results.

The museum in Khartoum, which housed around 100,000 artefacts collected since the 1950s, was plundered following the outbreak of war between Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in April 2023. 

Today, almost nothing remains at the physical site except objects too large or heavy to be removed, including a massive granite statue of the Kushite Pharaoh Taharqa and wall frescoes relocated from ancient temples during the construction of Egypt’s Aswan Dam.

“The virtual museum is the only viable option to ensure continuity,” said Ikhlass Abdel Latif, a Sudanese government antiquities official, during a recent presentation of the project.

Satellite imagery taken after the outbreak of fighting showed trucks carrying museum artefacts toward Darfur, a western region now under RSF control. Despite cooperation with Interpol, searches for the stolen objects have produced only limited recoveries.

“The Khartoum museum was the cornerstone of Sudanese cultural preservation, the damage is astronomical,” said Faiza Drici, a researcher with the French Archaeological Unit for Sudanese Antiquities (SFDAS).

She said the digital project allows researchers to recreate lost collections and maintain an official record of Sudan’s heritage.

The virtual museum was developed by SFDAS with support from the Louvre Museum in Paris and Britain’s Durham University.

Over the past year, researchers reconstructed the museum’s holdings using fragments of official inventories, academic studies and photographs taken during archaeological excavations.

Graphic designer Marcel Perrin then created a digital model replicating the museum’s architecture, lighting and display layout.

The online platform, launched on January 1, allows visitors to virtually walk through reconstructed galleries and view more than 1,000 artefacts from the ancient Kingdom of Kush.

Work is ongoing to recreate the museum’s famed “Gold Room,” which once housed solid-gold royal jewellery and ceremonial objects.

That section is expected to be completed by the end of 2026.

Beyond public access, officials say the reconstructed catalogue could assist international efforts to combat illicit trafficking in Sudanese antiquities by providing detailed documentation of missing objects.

As the civil war continues and prospects for recovery remain uncertain, the virtual museum has become a rare attempt to safeguard Sudan’s cultural memory amid one of the country’s worst crises.