We know it’s been a mixed bag of news from us recently, what with one round of funding won and another lost; the release of new publications celebrating the results of years of work contrasting with the ongoing reports of cultural catastrophe at the National Museum.
But we can’t help but relish being back doing some good old excavation – not a small feat considering the war and the challenges it presents.
This season, JBAP team members led by Tohamy Abulgasim and Sami Elamin and involving many of our friends from NCAM and the local community are digging at Barkal for 3.5 weeks.
The team has started a trench cutting into the dirt track that runs between the Amun Temple and the East Mound. The dirt track divides our previous excavation on the East Mound and the area of temples and palaces at the site, so we want to know if and/or how the two areas are connected.
The coloured lines (green, orange, red, purple, blue) in Image 1 show the potential trench locations we were thinking about in our pre-season discussions.
To help us decide which location to choose, we asked ourselves some of the questions that face us in this particular context, such as: How can we best avoid areas of intense sandy terrain and/or big deposits of silt? Where does magnetometry indicate structures being nearer to the present surface? (Image 2 shows the team considering these factors on site.)
Alongside excavation, the team will train Sudanese staff and students in collecting and processing scientific samples (via flotation work, ceramic analyses etc.) as well as conduct community engagement (via meetings at site and visits by school and interest groups).
The rest of our team remains busy in the US, UK, Denmark, Germany and Holland, where we continue our studies in geomorphology, archaeobotany, 3D visualisations, ethnography, pottery and much more.
It promises to be an extremely busy season, but we’re very excited and hope that this post has piqued your interest, too!
Stay tuned for regular updates!
