religious centre in Nubia. It was the location of Gebel Barkal, a massive sandstone hill resembling a rearing cobra in the eyes of the ancient inhabitants. Egyptian priests declared it to be the home of the ancient deity Amun, further enhancing Nepata as an ancient religious site. This was the case for both Egyptians and Nubians. Egyptian and Nubian deities alike were worshipped in Nubia for 2,500 years, even while Nubia was under the control of the New Kingdom of Egypt. Nubian kings and queens were buried near Gebel Barkal, in pyramids as the Egyptian pharaohs were. Nubian pyramids were built at Gebel Barkal, at Nuri (across the Nile from Gebel Barkal), at El Kerru, and at Meroe, south of Gebel Barkal. Architecture Modern Nubian architecture in Sudan is distinctive, and typically features a large courtyard surrounded by a high wall. A large, ornately decorated gate, preferably facing the Nile, dominates the property. Brightly colored stucco is often decorated with symbols connected with the family inside, or popular motifs such as geometric patterns, palm trees, or the evil eye that wards away bad luck. Nubians invented the Nubian vault, a type of curved surface forming a vaulted structure. Genetics Autosomal DNA has been extensively studied in recent years, and some of the findings are as follows: Babiker, H.M., Schlebusch, C.M., Hassan, H.Y. et al. (2011) revealed that individuals from northern Sudan clustered with those from Egypt, while individuals from South Sudan clustered with those from Karamoja (Uganda). They conclude that "the similarity of the Nubian and Egyptian populations suggest that migration, potentially bidirectional, occurred along the Nile river Valley, which is consistent with the historical evidence for long-term interactions between Egypt and Nubia. Dobon et al. (2015) identified an ancestral autosomal component of West Eurasian origin that is common to many Sudanese Arabs, Nubians and Afroasiatic-speaking populations in the region. Nubians were found to be genetically modelled similar to their Cushitic and Semitic (Afro-Asiatic) neighbors (such as the Beja, Sudanese Arabs, and Ethiopians) rather than to other Nilo-Saharan speakers who lack this Middle Eastern/North African influence. The study showed that these populations formed a "North-East cluster", which included Northern Sudanese. This may be explained by the aforementioned groups being a mixture of a population similar to Modern Coptic Egyptians, and an ancestral Southern African one. Hollfelder et al. (2017) analysed various populations in Sudan and observed close autosomal affinities between