Archeology discovered along the Nile River has opened a window into the ancient Nubian civilization that flourished in ancient Sudan.
At the archaeological site of Tumbos in northern Sudan, round stone mounds are scattered throughout the desert. These represent ‘Tamuli’. Tamuli are underground tombs that were built at least 2500 BC by the ancient inhabitants who called the area Kush or Nubia.
As a bioarchaeologist, I have been analyzing the remains of human structures found in these graves here for the past 20 years, along with their burial equipment.
Discussions about the ancient history of Africa tend to be buried under the rise of Egypt, but there were several societies that became major powers in the Nile region from the mid-3rd century BC, including Egypt’s relatively anonymous neighbors to the south. were also included.
Although the ancient Kush had rivalries with Egypt and sometimes even conquered Egypt, this civilization has received little attention in modern times.
Research conducted here in the early 20th century increased understanding of the ancient Kush, but interpretations were permeated with colonial and racist biases that obscured the civilization’s power and achievements.
I am the co-director of Excavating the Tombs with Stuart Tyson-Smith. From these tombs, our archeology team has learned about many aspects of life and death at the site centuries ago.
Muhammad Farooq inside a stone tomb (Stuart Tyson Smith, CC BY-ND)
Like those living along the Nile River today, ancient peoples faced a variety of challenges, including environmental change, socio-political change, and interaction with other groups.
Our discovery of the past is also important so that we can share our research with local communities and help Sudanese people who want to pursue archeology as a career.
The remains of the ancient inhabitants of Tombos provide information about their physical activities as well as the infectious diseases they suffered from and their diet.
Conditions such as heart disease, cancer and the effects of hard work leave traces on the human body that can provide information about past illnesses. They help us identify factors that indicate their health conditions and their social roles. For example, we have found the remains of an adult woman and a child who had developmental problems. It shows that people with different physical conditions were part of the society.
By analyzing the isotopes or chemical elements in the teeth of some ancient inhabitants, we have been able to learn about their childhood.
As the team of experts explores what lies beneath the earth we try to learn about individual members of the ancient community. For example, we found the remains of an elderly woman in her 60s who suffered from joint pain, a younger woman buried with a child, and a middle-aged woman with a basket that proved and was filled with broken figurines, beads and other items.
Discovering people with seemingly different lifestyles helps our team build a picture of who populated Tombos as it flourished.
Tomb structures show us how people wanted to publicly represent themselves and their families even after death.
We can relate the position of the bodies and the objects buried with them to their different cultural and religious practices.
A spectacular burial of a middle-aged man included both a bed and a coffin, a fusion of traditional Nubian and Egyptian culture.
The tomb also contained brass bowls, a carved wooden box and a pile of amulets believed to be items used for magic, and a collection of iron weapons, indicating the early use of iron in Nubia. There is evidence.
There are six places along the Nile River where the water flows rapidly. Tombos is such a place (Michele R. Buzon, CC BY-ND)
We learned that when the Egyptians ruled the people of Nubia during the New Kingdom around 1200 BCE, some immigrant Egyptians and local people also began to build Egyptian-style pyramids and chambered tombs for their burials. Some of the people of Tombos at this time also built local tumulus-style tombs similar to ancient tombs in Nubia, which shows how different the people of that period thought about burial.
The archaeological team’s success in learning about past inhabitants also depended on active and close collaboration with the local community.
Our interaction with the residents of the town revealed that they are proud of the ancient civilization of the area and want to know more about the ancient inhabitants.
Together with our Sudanese colleague Rima Abdulrahim Kabashi Ahmad, we organized a lecture and discussion for the women of Tombos, which showed us how curious they are to learn about the past and the present.
Rima and I answered their questions like what kind of medicine did the ancients use? How old was the child at the time of death? Why did people put beds and jewelry in his grave? He observed how similar the beds of this period were to the beds of recent times.
They asked us how physically difficult this work is for us as women.
Importantly, she said that she wants to attend more such presentations because the men in her family who work with us do not tell her much about archaeological discoveries.
As a result we have expanded our reach in many ways including developing some teaching materials in collaboration with local schools about archaeology, local history and the tombos site.
We also had a teacher and his students visit our excavation site.
We work closely with Sudanese administrative bodies overseeing archaeological research, including the National Corporation of Antiquities and Museums, but this is not enough. It is important for foreign researchers to study the past in collaboration with community partners and Sudanese students.
These partnerships are important steps to learn new information about the ancient history of the region and to overcome the exclusionary and racist perspectives of past researchers.
Muhammad Farooq Ali, a Sudanese archaeologist at the International University of Africa in Khartoum and a member of the Tombos team, took a leadership role in establishing the ‘American Sudanese Archaeological Research Center’ to encourage international research and cooperation in Sudan.
We have organized virtual lectures and provided scholarships for Sudanese students pursuing degrees in archaeology. We are also working to develop a degree program at the International University of Africa.
Our goal is to help train Sudanese citizens so that local people, who have a greater and more direct connection to this ancient civilization, can participate in these archaeological projects at all levels.
Promoting and practicing ethical research among the present-day natives of this ancient region is as important to the Tombos team as learning more about the lives of the ancient inhabitants.
Note: This text is taken from ‘The Conversation’ and is being translated here with their permission. Its author, Michelle A. Rabozon, is a professor in the Department of Archeology at Purdue University in the United States.
