Daw

Daw, known in Nubian sources as Atwa, stood on a steep-sided hill above the Nile in Lower Nubia. Its fortified settlement occupied a commanding position between the river's cataracts. After struggles for Dongola in the fourteenth century, the Nubian royal court withdrew northwards; Daw became a centre of the late Christian kingdom. Churches and fortified dwellings recall the life of a community that endured after the decline of Makuria's old capital.