Nubian Desert in the context of "Nabta Playa"

Abu Hamad (Arabic: أبو حمد, Sudanese Arabic: [abuˈħamad]), also spelled Abu Hamed, is a town of Sudan on the right bank of the Nile, 345 mi (555 km) by rail north of Khartoum. It stands at the centre of the great S-shaped bend of the Nile, and from it the railway to Wadi Halfa strikes straight across the Nubian Desert, a little west of the old caravan route to Korosko. The population of Abu Hamad is 69,056. A branch railway, 138 mi (222 km) long, from Abu Hamad goes down the right bank of the Nile to Karima in the Dongola mudiria.

A 19th-century traveler described the town:

Black-topped pottery is a specialized type of Ancient Egyptian pottery that became the main pottery of the Egyptian Badarian culture, down to Naqada I and the middle of the Naqada II culture. The oldest finds are from Nubian archaeological sites, including Elephantine, an island on the Nile River, Nabta Playa in the Nubian Desert, and Kerma in present-day Sudan. This type of artifact dates predominantly to the Predynastic Period, but “a handful of examples made in the Early Dynastic Period are known to exist.” These vessels were used “exclusively for ritual and funerary purposes” and were discovered in ancient cemeteries and settlements. The majority of these pots are variations of the Egyptian hes-jar form and feature red bodies with black tops and interiors. The red color is derived from the natural iron that occurs within Nile silts which oxidizes upon firing, and the black top and interior is a product of reduction firing and carbon smudging.