Lavish clothes worn by royalty and clergy in medieval Christian Nubia have been re-created based on 1,200-year-old murals of these elite people painted in a cathedral. These costumes were made using only fabrics and dyes that were available in medieval, northeastern Africa; Nubia was located in what are now parts of Egypt and Sudan. The clothing then donned by models and presented in performances that brought onlookers to tears. The live portrayals of these elite individuals — two kings, two royal mothers and one bishop — are a "powerful means of communication," Karel Innemée , an archaeologist at the University of Warsaw who co-authored a study about the re-created Nubian costumes, told Live Science in an email. The work was published March 30 in the journal Antiquity . He recalled how, at a photo shoot at a church in The Hague, Netherlands, Sudanese models "assumed an aristocratic demeanour when they put on the costumes, while we, the audience, were literally moved to tears when we saw them.…