History
As early as the Old Kingdom the Egyptians had a settlement at Buhen from which they organised expeditions for Nubian copper and gold. The great fortress was built under the 12th Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom: some scholars attribute it to Senusret I, others to Senusret III, who around 1860 BC pushed Egypt's border south to the Second Cataract, Buhen being the northernmost of his chain of forts. During the Second Intermediate Period it was taken by the Nubian kingdom of Kerma; in the New Kingdom the Egyptians recaptured it and built temples of Horus here under Hatshepsut and Thutmose III. From 1957 to 1964 the British archaeologist Walter Bryan Emery excavated the site before it was drowned by the waters behind the Aswan High Dam.
What to see
The fortress now lies at the bottom of Lake Nasser and cannot be seen on site. The temple of Hatshepsut's time was dismantled before the flooding and re-erected in the garden of the National Museum in Khartoum, but during the civil war that broke out in 2023 the museum was looted and the temple damaged, so it cannot currently be visited. Plans and photographs from the excavations show what was lost: mud-brick walls about 5 metres thick, rectangular bastions, loopholes, a dry moat and a mighty gate with a bridge.
Wikipedia article Wikidata Q1002656
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