16.9333°N, 33.7167°E.
Capital of the Kingdom of Kush from approximately 590 BCE to 350 CE, on the east bank of the Nile in modern Sudan. Meroe is the location of more pyramids than all of Egypt combined: approximately 200 royal pyramidal tombs across three cemeteries (Begarawiyah North, South, and West), each pyramid steeper-sided than the Egyptian style at angles of 70° and ranging from 6 to 30 metres in height. The Meroitic script, derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs but representing a distinct, unrelated language, was used from approximately 200 BCE to 400 CE; it was deciphered phonetically by Francis Llewellyn Griffith in 1909, but the underlying language remains incompletely understood. Meroe was the world's largest iron-producing center outside Han China during the Roman period; slag heaps still surround the city. The kingdom collapsed in the 4th century CE under pressure from the kingdom of Aksum.
More pyramids stand in Sudan than in Egypt — and we can read the writing on them but cannot fully translate the words.