AL-GHAZALI, SUDAN—Polish archaeologists are excavating a large Byzantine-era church made of sandstone blocks in Sudan that was located on a busy trade route. “Along the east wall of the monastery we dug out a row of 15 toilets. However it may sound and look, it is an important discovery. Nowhere else in Nubia has such a large sanitary complex been discovered,” Artur Obluski of the University of Chicago told Science & Scholarship in Poland. The team also conserved the plaster walls of the church, which date to the first half of the seventh century and were decorated with Christian images and the names of the four archangels. “By removing a thick layer of mud, we restored part of the original appearance of the church, which is now glowing white from a distance,” added Cristobal Calaforra-Rzepka, head of the conservation team.
