Portions of the city of Meroe itself have been excavated, so we know a bit about the plan of a few of the larger
buildings at the site. Some of the buildings cleared by archaeologists were built of burned brick, but the majority of the
city was probab ly built of plain mud-brick, dried in the sun. The largest excavated part of Meroe was called by the
excavators the "Royal City." This area consisted of a series of buildings surrounded by a large enclosure wall; the area
inside was about 300 yards long by 150 yards wide. One of the buildings inside was identified as a bathhouse, similar to
Roman baths found in Europe. There was a temple to Amon attached to the eastern.
Another important Meroitic site was Musawwarat es-Sufra. The plan of this temple complex seems to show no town
buildings or any cemeteries; the entire site was covered over with large scale buildings built of stone. The so called Great
Enclosure cons ists of a temple on a platform surrounded by a maze of stone walls. There are no formal inscriptions on
any of the walls to give archaeologists a clue about the function of the building, though over the centuries passersby have
scattered graffiti into the walls.
The many large scale ramps and corridors at Musawwarat, as well as the elephant reliefs
carved on the columns around the central temple, have suggested to some scholars that this site was used as a training
area for elephants. Though this theory about elephant training sounds farfetched, the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt did use
elephants as war animals, so perhaps the Meroites captured the elephants and trained them before trading them with the
Egyptians. There is a relief at Musawwarat that shows a king riding an elephant, and one wall at the site ends in a carved
elephants; both features seem to point out that the elephant was important to the people at Musawwarat.
inside was about 300 yards long by 150 yards wide. One of the buildings inside was identified as a bathhouse, similar to
Roman baths found in Europe. There was a temple to Amon attached to the eastern.