Salaam! My name is Tohamy Abulgasim and I am the co-director of the Community Engagement arm of the Jebel Barkal project. I’m here today to tell you a little bit about our work during the 2023 season.
During the 2022 season we had established a very good connection and built trust with the community that allowed us to go deeper in 2023 and work toward our planned goals.
The 2023 season aimed to:
- 1. Address trash dumping on the site
- 2. Begin establishing a site Advisory Body
- 3. Organize collaborative discussions at the Jebel Barkal Visitor’s Center
- 4. Throw an end-of-season party
The latter is a very important ceremony that brings everyone together—archaeologists, the local excavation team and local people—in a relaxed way: having conversations, drinks, food and playing games.
To kick off the season, I started by visiting our old stakeholders and saying hi, as well as meeting with new stakeholders who we believe are going to help and participate in achieving our goals. This is the basic mode of community engagement: walking and talking! (or ‘walkie talkie’ for short!)
Trash dumping
Addressing the trash dumping issue was and is still not an easy thing to deal with, so Barkal’s resident manager, Sami Elamin, and I started meeting with the local authorities in Karima and Marawi. We talked with them about the importance of the site and how all the officials and the community can participate in protecting the archaeological sites by placing trash in alternative locations. As a result, we all agreed to work together and, as a start they began removing and burning the trash in the north-west side of the site. This was not necessarily our main goal (we thought they would start with the east mound, where the current excavation is) but it was a good start, nevertheless.
Establishing a site Advisory Body
In the 2022 season we had a member from the community say to us, “we do not need you to think for us—we need you to think with us” and what is the best way to do that except having representatives from the community to work with us?
So, Geoff, Suzanne, Sami, and Tohamy sat together and produced a suggested list of people whom we think have a big influence on the community, and who might be willing and able to contribute their time. We approached many of these people, most of whom agreed, so our next step will be to write up and mutually sign a membership document.
Collaborations
Community engagement is not about two or three people from the team engaging with the community: the whole team must be involved in the process. So, building on what we learned in 2022, we established two activities which we used as a platform to work as one team with the community.
The first activity was organizing public lectures and, this season, we organized two lectures. Both took place at the Visitor’s Center at Jebel Barkal. The two lectures were very collaborative because everyone in the team presented information on what they have been doing, why, and how. Members of the community also spoke on what they thought were the priorities and possible strategies to address them.
One of the main pieces of feedback that we got from the people was that the meetings were very important to them, and they suggested having such discussions every season, which we whole-heartedly agree with.
The second full-team activity was the end-of-season party, which is a tradition for many missions in Sudan. The Community Engagement team (me and Rebecca Bradshaw) have hosted a number in other places in Sudan that have been extremely successful, so we were really keen to have one at Barkal, too.
As mentioned above, the main rationale for the party is to let the workmen and the archaeologists engage outside of the excavation, to talk and have fun. We all worked together to organize this event, had a lot of food, played music, took photos together and had a donkey cart race!
Certain team members (who I will not name) *think* they won the race…but almost certainly cheated…apparently trying to bribe the donkey with a carrot didn’t work 😉
part of the conservation team this season.
Overall, we had a really successful season and are pleased with the progress we made.
However, while we ended the season happily by regrouping to begin planning for 2024, on April 15 conflict once again broke out in Sudan, beginning in a town near Jebel Barkal called Marawi and quickly spreading to Khartoum, Darfur and elsewhere. Most critically this has resulted in the deaths of civilians and the destruction of whole communities—but of course it has also put Sudan’s heritage at risk. For those interested in learning more, Rebecca and Tohamy wrote a piece for The National: ‘Sudan’s conflict has put its cultural heritage in harm’s way’, featuring important comments by Geoff and Sami.
For the time being, our thoughts and wishes are with the people of Sudan, and a speedy resolution to the conflict.
