An archaeologist is racing to preserve Sudans heritage as war threatens to erase its cultural past

PARIS — In a dimly lit office in a corner of the French National Institute for Art History, Sudanese archaeologist Shadia Abdrabo studies a photograph of pottery made in her country around 7,000 B.C. She carefully types a description of the Neolithic artifact into a spreadsheet.

As the war between the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese Armed Forces rages on, the curator from Sudan’s National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums is on a yearlong research grant in France with one mission: to build an online database of the African nation’s…