A series of short articles tell the stories, histories, memories and experiences of the collections and specific items.
Please note for the following stories, each story has many contributors who made the research, recording, editing, and presentation of these possible. Due to the extensive scope of these contributions, apart from stories contributed as part of specific projects, the stories have been featured here as unauthored. The many contributors who have made these stories possible are included in the team list.
Veganize Me: Becoming Vegan in a Sudanese Household
On Eid al-Adha, the butcher usually arrives at sunrise and sets up his apparatus under a strong tree or an outside doorway. Knowing it is Eid, Basil wakes up from a restless sleep and rushes to find the sheep’s pen is empty!
My Brother the Green-Eyed Mulukhiyah Monster
Hassan’s story is a drop in the Nile when it comes to the lengths the average Sudanese will go to get mulukhiyah.
The Abreh Story
Abreh or hulu-mur is a popular Sudanese beverage, said to have been invented by Amna Abdel-Razig Alfahl in Berber, Northern Sudan sometime in the 1860s.
Lofty Heights: Memory of Our Omdurman Home on Hamam Mahshi Day
As a small boy of about eight or nine years old, I remember in great detail climbing a rickety ladder up to my grandmother’s pigeon loft on the roof of her house in Omdurman.
The Leaving Train
Alright, to the kitchen, something quick and easy to take on the train. How about al gatar gaam?
Omer Khairy, Also Known as George Edward Scuncucur
Out of a fever dream, scrambled and meticulously sketched, comes George Edward Scuncucur, alter ego or possibly higher self of Sudanese visual artist and writer Omer Khairy.
Camel Culture
Mohammed Hussein Daw-Alnoor, a camel breeder from Nyala in Sudan's South Darfur state, explains the importance of camels in the culture of Darfur's Rezeigat nomads.
The Khartoum School: The First Sudanese School in Modern Arts
In the middle of the twentieth century, many African intellectuals developed an anti-colonial thought, and that gave rise to artistic and literary practices expressing aspirations for liberation from European colonisation.
Cinema in Sudan: Conversations with Gadalla Gubara
Frédérique Cifuentes’s first documentary film, Cinema in Sudan: Conversations with Gadalla Gubara, builds up a portrait of a great Sudanese film-maker, Gadalla Gubara (1920 – 2008).
Disappearing Heritage of Sudan, 1820 - 1956
Many of the Sudan’s old colonial buildings have fallen victim to wider economic development or lack of a preservation campaign.
Stories from Tuti: Tuti’s Crocodile
The people of Tuti were well acquainted with seeing crocodiles all around the island, but they were not familiar with it murdering a human being.
Darfur Women’s Museum: A Darfur Hero’s Story
Fatima founded the Darfur Women's Museum in her home in Nyala, the capital of Sudan's South Darfur state, in 1985.
The Lyrical Revolution
The Sudanese revolution, which began in December 2018, with a new government in place by August 2019, ignited many other parallel revolutions.
The Garden Between the Niles: The Reminiscences of Juju Abboudi
Nearly every night they had a different film. I enjoyed it—but not much. I went for his sake. He likes the cinema, he loves cinema! So, I go for him.
Munira Ramadan: Sudan’s First Female Football Referee
Munira Ramadan Abkar Muhammad Warsha is a pioneer, being the first Sudanese woman to work as a football referee and the first known woman football referee in the Arab world and Africa.
Sudan’s Lost Jewish Community
Today, the majority of Sudanese Jews live in Israel, America, England and Switzerland. They remain united by their memories, experiences, and identities formed in Sudan.
Delicious Decadence in the Darfuri Royal Court
Islam teaches believers to respect one’s guests, show good hospitality and aspire to maximize the comfort one can afford their guests. The Darfuri royal court extended this understanding of Islamic hospitality even further.
The Spanish Influenza Pandemic as Reported in The Sudan Times of 1919
The Covid-19 influenza outbreak, with its global reach and high mortality rate, has often been likened to the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918-1919.
The Annual Ceremony of the Al-Sharifa Maryam Al-Mirghaniyah in the City of Sinkat
Al-Sharifa Maryam Al-Mirghaniyah, known as the ‘Mother of the Poor’ is one of the most influential figures in the Beja community's modern history in eastern Sudan.
Medicinal Plants Used by El Kababish Tribe in Ga’ab El Lagia Oasis
In many parts of Sudan, indigenous knowledge on usage of medicinal plants as folk remedies has been lost.
Abd al-Qādir von Slatin
Before becoming the most famous prisoner in Omdurman, Slatin had been the governor of Dāra in southern Darfur since 1879 and since 1881, the governor of the whole of Darfur.
A Camel’s Story
Having travelled far along the centuries-old routes across Sudan and through the Red Sea Hills, taking rest at Shennawi’s Palace was the part of the journey the camel always looked forward to.
Sharhabil Ahmed - Sudan's King of Jazz
The legend of Sudanese music Sharhabil Ahmed, who earned the title of Sudan’s King of Jazz for his unique style of music, is equally renowned for his art.
Suakin or ‘Sawa Ginn’: Legend and Myth
One of the most known stories of Suakin's name relates to the name ‘Sawwa Ginn’ which translates to ‘together with the jinn’ or ‘the jinn did it.’
The Sudanese Press: A Story of Industry, Resilience and Creativity
The story of the Sudanese press is one of an industry that was set up by foreigners to further colonial interests and which for decades, after independence, continued to struggle under the grip of military dictatorships.
Leo the Lucky: Sudan’s Hollywood Lion
Born in the Nubian Desert in Sudan in 1915, Jackie the lion was brought to America as a cub.
Miss Khartoum 1956: The Reminiscences of Anonymous
The story about Miss Khartoum in 1956.
The British Secret Weapon
When the British forces led by the Colonel Holled-Smith (1845-1926) captured by surprise the Mahdist administrative centre of Afafīt, in the immediate vicinity of Tūkar, and forced the troops of ʿUthmān abū Bakr Diqna (c. 1840-1926), the amīr of Eastern Sudan, to retreat to Aṭbara, they seized a trove of documents.