“Archaeology is always a race against the clock,”

August 13, 2018 7:41 AM

A research team from the British Museum is excavating and recording a site at Amara West in Sudan, along the Nile, in what was ancient Nubia. But can people save and Rediscover Ancient Nubia Before It Is Too Late?

Amara West - 1 - A pharaonic town in Nubia (English)
Amara West - 2 - A planned town (English)
Amara West - 3 - Life in the ancient town (English, for mobile)
Amara West - 4 - Nubian culture at Amara West (English, for mobile)
Amara West - 5 - Eating and health (English, for mobile)
Amara West - 6 - Preparing for the afterlife (English)
Amara West - 7 - From ancient town to archaeological site (English)
Podcast: Amara West (Nubian)

Amara West Research Project: Living In New Kingdom Nubia


The New Kingdom settlement of Amara West (Nubia, Sudan): mineralogical and chemical investigation of the ceramics, Michela Spataro, Marie Millet, Neal Spencer. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 7(4) · January 2014 

Mycenaean pottery from Amara West (Nubia, Sudan), Spataro, M., Garnett, A., Shapland, A. et al. Archaeol Anthropol Sci (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-017-0552-z

Cemeteries and a late Ramesside suburb at Amara West, N. Spencer — Sudan & Nubia, No 13, published by The Sudan Archaeological Research Society, 2009

From Raw Resources To Food Processing, Philippa Ryan

Amara West: Health and Diet in ancient Nubia through climate and political change

Living with a changing river and desert landscape at Amara West


Valuing archaeology - Past, Present and Future of Nubian Communities in Sudan, Tomomi Fushiya

posted by the man of twists and turns (2 comments total)

In a slightly serendipitous moment, I was learning about the Nubian language earlier, which still continues. I like to think of myself as educated, but there is so much rich history - especially non-Western or non-Mediterranean - that I have yet to discover.

Rescue archaeology is so very important. It would be wonderful if we never had to build or develop on any significant sites, but I also recognize that the needs of the current people living in a place outweigh my fascination with the past. (Okay, one of the posts makes a point that locals don't always benefit from development projects - but other times they do.) We have to do what we can to balance the needs of the region with the interest of scholarly study.
posted by jb at 10:11 AM on August 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

Man, this seems so terribly romantic: gather a team, collect gear, and jump on a plane flying into a danger zone!

Are there considerations of whether a "digital-only" approach of purely documenting the site, but not taking out artifacts, is more likely to be approved by the host country? Is it as valuable, on a "better than nothing" basis?

My first world intuition is that poorer societies would favor development activity over archaeology, but there are lessons from their own past that could inform current life (e.g., where water used to run versus where it is found now). How do they convince host countries to stop everything while they work?
posted by wenestvedt at 12:53 PM on August 14, 2018