Sai

Sai Island Sai, the second largest island on the Nile, is situated approximately 600 km north of the Sudanese capital Khartoum and 200 km south of the border between Sudan and Egypt. Sai has thus a strategic position on the river between Egypt and the Mediterranean world to the north and Sudan and the African heartlands to the south. This location has made the island an important centre since the Bronze Age (2500-1500 BCE), when one of the earliest chiefdoms on the African continent was founded on the island, until today that Sai is the core area of the Sukkot, a Nubian-speaking sub-tribe. The monumental heritage of the island bespeaks of its importance through time: the Bronze Age tumuli, a Pharaonic temple, Meroitic pyramids, the columns of the so-called Cathedral of Sai, and the fortress of the Ottomans that was built on the ruins of their Christian and Pharaonic predecessors.