A bronze medal believed to date back 128 years to the Ottoman era has been found in a village in eastern Sudan’s Gedaref state, according to local Sudanese media.
Residents of Ban village, in the Qala al-Nahl locality, discovered the medal bearing the Islamic calendar date 1316 AH, corresponding to 1898.
The medal, measuring about 30 millimetres in diameter, carries the Ottoman-script word “Iftikhar,” meaning “pride” or “distinction,” on one side. The other features a crescent and star along with an inscription stating that it was struck in Istanbul in 1316 AH, surrounded by a laurel wreath.
The object is attributed to the reign of Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II, who ruled from 1876 until 1909.
Ban lies in an area with strong historical links to supporters of Sudan’s Mahdist movement. According to local accounts cited in the report, groups from Kordofan and Darfur settled in the area following the Mahdist capture of Khartoum in 1885.
How the medal reached the village remains unclear.
One possibility raised in the report is that it belonged to a Sudanese soldier who had served in the Turco-Egyptian army. Another is that it was obtained by Mahdist fighters during military campaigns in Gedaref and Kassala in 1883 and 1884. No documentary evidence has so far established either explanation.
The area around Ban also contains burial sites locally known as the “Anaj graves,” consisting of large circular stone mounds, some reportedly reaching about 80 metres in diameter. The sites include central graves surrounded by smaller burials as well as animal remains.
Local traditions associate the Anaj with remnants of the Christian kingdom of Alodia, which controlled parts of central Sudan before its fall to the Funj Sultanate in the early 16th century.
The wider region has also attracted archaeological interest. Studies using satellite imagery in Sudan’s Atbara desert have identified ancient sites believed to date from roughly 4500 to 2500 BC.
The newly discovered medal adds another historical object to an area already associated with several periods of Sudanese history, ranging from prehistoric settlement and the Christian kingdoms to the Mahdist and Ottoman eras.
