was brought under Egyptian control, while the south was controlled by the Kingdom of Sennar in the sixteenth century. The entire region came under Egyptian control during Muhammad Ali's rule in the early nineteenth century, and later became a joint Anglo-Egyptian condominium. 21st-century archaeology In 2003, archaeologist Charles Bonnet led a team of Swiss archaeologists to excavate near Kerma and discovered a cache of monumental black granite statues of the Pharaohs of the 25th Dynasty of Egypt, now displayed at the Kerma Museum. Among the sculptures are ones belonging to the dynasty's last two pharaohs, Taharqa and Tanoutamon, whose statues are described as "masterpieces that rank among the greatest in art history". Craniometric analysis of Kerma fossils that compared them to various other early populations inhabiting the Nile Valley and Maghreb found that they were morphologically close to Predynastic Egyptians from Naqada (4000–3200 BC). Dental trait analysis of Kerma fossils found affinities with various populations inhabiting the Nile Valley, Horn of Africa, and Northeast Africa, especially to other ancient populations from the central and northern Sudan. Among the sampled populations, the Kerma people were overall nearest to the Kush populations in Upper Nubia, the A-Group culture bearers of Lower Nubia, and Ethiopians. Contemporary issues Nubia was divided between Egypt and Sudan after colonialism ended and the Republic of Egypt was established in 1953, and the Republic of Sudan seceded from Egypt in 1956. In the early-1970s, many Egyptian and Sudanese Nubians were forcibly relocated to make room for Lake Nasser after dams were constructed at Aswan. Nubian villages can be found north of Aswan on the west bank of the Nile and on Elephantine Island. Many Nubians now live in large cities like Cairo. Ancient DNA Sirak et al. 2021 obtained and analyzed the whole genomes of 66 individuals from the site of Kulubnarti situated in northern Nubia between the 2nd and 3rd cataract, near the modern Egyptian border, and dated to the Christian period between 650 and 1000 CE. The samples were obtained from two cemeteries. The samples' genetic profile was found to be a mixture between West Eurasian and Sub Saharan Dinka-related ancestries, with ~60% West Eurasian related ancestry that likely came from ancient Egyptians but ultimately resembles that found in Bronze or Iron age Levantines, and ~40% Dinka-related ancestry. The two cemeteries showed minimal differences in their West Eurasian/Dinka ancestry proportions. These findings in addition to multiple