I’ve just got back from a really intense month of fieldwork in Sudan.
Our field season was from 5th March to 2nd April 2026. As well as Dr. Mohamed Eltoum (NCAM inspector), our team was joined for a few days by Mohammed Abbas (NCAM Jebel Barkal, drone pilot), Abd el-Magid Mahmoud Abd el-Rahman (NCAM Dongola) and Majhoub Ebrahim (drone pilot). Also, Huda Magzoub, my former NCAM inspector, came by and was with us from 26th March to 2nd April. We stayed in our dig house in Ginis and we’re really grateful to Mr Mohammed Khater Bashir, who was a great cook, and Mr Magzoub Hassan Mohammed, who was a great driver and head of logistics. We’d also like to say a big thank you to our workman and boatman Sameer Ali Saleh and our workman and police officer Mohammed Osman.
Mohammed Eltoum, Sameer and I are heading over to the west bank (photo: M. Eltoum)Mahjoub is operating his DJI Mavic 2 Pro drone.Mahjoub is recording for his video about our work in Attab and Ginis (photo: M. Eltoum)
Thanks to Majhoub Ebrahim, we’ve got a short video about our work in Attab and Ginis. It was shown on Sudanese TV and is now available on the YouTube channel of Amwaj Al-Sabah Media Services.
There are two main things we wanted to get across: first, northern Sudan is safe for foreigners to work and second, especially in these challenging times of war and increased illegal gold mining, it’s really important that international missions work together with the local authorities to protect the rich cultural heritage of Sudan.
I’m really thankful that, with my friends and colleagues from NCAM, we managed to put on such a successful season, even though things are still tough in Sudan.
A while ago, I had the great pleasure of being interviewed for the ÖAW podcast “Hiccup: Through Time with a Hiccup”. This fantastic series invites academics to travel through different eras – from Ancient Egypt to the Byzantine Empire and on to the Early Modern Period. I myself chose the year 1454 BC on the Nile island of Sai in Upper Nubia – you can hear why in the podcast.
Today I had the wonderful opportunity to revisit the inscription of Nehi in Sai that was highlighted in the podcast. The whole experience was truly a lovely, nostalgic glimpse into the past – as I undertook the excursion with Sudanese friends and colleagues, particularly Huda Magzoub, who worked with me in Sai for many years.
Huda and I at the imposing stone block bearing Nehi’s inscription (photo: Mohammed Eltoum)
Especially in these difficult times in Sudan, where war still rages in parts of the country, this trip down memory lane is also, for me, a glimpse into the future – we will all work together again in Sudan and help to preserve the cultural world heritage.
There are many urgent tasks to be dealt with, and I am very grateful to be able to spend some time here in this beautiful country with its rich archaeology and wonderful people.
We would like to thank everyone who submitted proposals for oral and poster presentations. We currently have more than 260 presentations scheduled alongside posters which will be displayed throughout the conference. Please be advised that the provisional programme, which is now available on the conference website, is still subject to change.
The main theme of the Munich conference, Multiple Nubias, is linked to the latest research findings of the ERC DiverseNile project. New research is starting to show that ancient Sudan was a lot more diverse than we thought, and that there were actually several different forms of Nubia. This goes against the common idea that Nubia was just one single place in the past. So, we’ve invited in particular sessions and papers to look at different experiences, regional traditions and individual actors – both human and non-human – over the millennia. There will also be four keynote speeches that will look at the main theme of the conference from a diachronic perspective, employing a variety of methodological approaches.
In light of the ongoing situation in Sudan, particular emphasis will be placed on safeguarding and conserving cultural heritage, along with related initiatives and projects.
Please note that it is mandatory for all participants to register for the conference in order gain access. Online registration is now open, for details see https://nubianstudies2026.de/tickets/. Colleagues from Sudan and Egypt are entitled to complimentary tickets (free of charge). Due to the ongoing situation in Sudan, the conference will be a hybrid event.
We’re really looking forward to meeting all of you who are interested in Nubia and Sudan in Munich!
I’m delighted to announce that a new publication is now available in open access. Me and my co-authors – Fabian Dellefant, Giulia D’Ercole, H. Albert Gilg, Rosemarie Klemm and Johannes H. Sterba – show how archaeometric techniques used as part of the DiverseNile Project can be used to investigate human-environment interactions in the Middle Nile during the Bronze Age.
We present case studies from our recent investigation of landscape properties in the MUAFS concession area in northern Sudan, the Attab to Ferka region, and associated material remains. We also included some materials from Sai Island, the main urban site of this region. Our article looks at different ways to combine archaeology and geology, like taking rock samples and studying the composition of sandstones (see also an earlier blog post by Fabian). It also shows how these methods can be used to understand past landscapes and mobility patterns. We’re looking at the material culture, especially ceramics, in a bunch of different ways using a bunch of different scientific methods. We’re combining compositional bulk analysis (INAA) with mineralogical (XRD) and petrographic data via optical microscopy (OM) to check out the physical properties, where the ceramics came from and how they were made (you may want to check out an earlier blog post by Giulia). We’re also using Raman spectroscopy to see what temperatures the ceramics were fired at.
This paper shows how new developments in landscape archaeology and the archaeometry of material culture are helping us to understand the big ecological and social changes that happened in the Bronze Age Middle Nile. We think this combined analytical approach, which we’ve used in the Attab to Ferka region as an example, can also be successfully used in other regions around the world.
Full reference of the new publication:
Julia Budka, Fabian Dellefant, Giulia D’Ercole, H. Albert Gilg, Rosemarie Klemm & Johannes H. Sterba, Investigating human-environment interactions in the Middle Nile: The contribution of archaeometric techniques to understanding landscape use and social practices in Bronze Age Sudan, Egypt and the Levant 35, 2025, 101−134, https://austriaca.at/0xc1aa5572_0x00412ff6.pdf
For Flooded Pasts, Carruthers did a really thorough review of the archival material produced during the famous UNESCO Nubian campaign. He says it’s clear that the archives we’re talking about are part of a (post)colonial context, where modern Nubian communities and their sites have been ignored in the past. The focus of the archives, archaeological investigations and historical narratives is exclusively on the ancient past, thus giving rise to the necessity of „repeopling Nubia“, the subtitle of the conclusion of the book (pp. 274–283).
One result of the UNESCO campaign in Sudan was the opening of the National Museum in Khartoum on 25 May 1971. Even though its garden had temples from Aksha, Buhen, Semna East and Semna West, the museum and its collection weren’t given World Heritage status (unlike Egypt; check out the reviewed book for more on this, on pp. 239–241). Carruthers (p. 242) rightly puts this in context, pointing out that Sudan at the time was “a state in some degree of turmoil” (p. 242). It’s interesting that on page 241, above the heading “Forgetting Sudan?”, there’s a picture of the Sudan National Museum (Carruthers‘ Fig. 7.1). As with so much of Sudan’s cultural heritage, the museum has suffered destruction and looting in a ‚forgotten‘ war, which has been going on since 2023.
Destroyed front of the Sudan National Museum, 15 May 2025 (photo: National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums.
The current conflict in Sudan shows just how closely linked archaeology is to the society around it. The archaeology of Sudan is closely tied to the history of colonialism, and it’s been affected by different forms of exploitation and manipulation by governments and powerful groups who have used it to push their own national agendas. It’s clear that this is just as true today as it was in the past.
At the time of writing, Carruthers said that discussing the future of the Nubians was a tricky topic (p. 283). The war in Sudan has been going on since 2023 and has affected millions of people all over the country. This also shows why we should be interested in creating Nubian histories. It’s not just the institutions involved in the so-called Nubian campaign or archaeologists working in Sudan who should be interested, but everyone on a global level. There are new versions about the Nubian presence in Egypt, Sudan, the United States and other places that are still to be written! And these are anything but marginal.
As we said a few weeks ago at the UNESCO conference in Berlin, we’re never going to give up on Sudan! But we also need more people to talk about Sudan, to care about the Sudanese people and to help protect their rich cultural heritage.
With the festive season here in Europe and another awful war going on just next door, we should remember that millions of Sudanese people have lost everything and are struggling to survive. Sudan is the biggest humanitarian crisis of 2025, and we’re really hoping things will change in 2026.
I am delighted to announce the next DiverseNile seminar!
Fatima Siddig, a Sudanese PhD student funded by a DAAD Hilde Domin scholarship and based in Münster, will present her recent research on Nov. 25.
The title of her lecture is: Unravelling Ancient Nubian Beauty: A Multi-Analytical Approach: Chemical and Archaeological Study of Kushite Cosmetics
Fatima is one of a new generation of Sudanese scholars applying interdisciplinary methods to their work, and she is truly the future of Sudanese archaeology. In light of the ongoing war in Sudan, I am both proud and grateful that Fatima is able to conduct her vital research here in Germany. Don’t miss her presentation!
I am delighted to announce the first translation of a DiverseNile article into Arabic. Our dear friend and colleague, Elhassan Ahmed, translated the recent article entitled ‚Reconstructing Contact Space Biographies‘. You can find the full article here.
To kill two birds with one stone – making important texts more accessible to Arabic-speaking colleagues, but also alleviating the financial hardship of at least some Sudanese colleagues – the Sudan Cultural Emergency and Relief Fund (SCERF) of the International Society for Nubian Studies has launched a translation initiative. All articles translated to date can be found here: https://nubianstudies.org/maqalat/
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Collegium Aegyptium for their considerable financial support, which has made the translation of our article a reality.
I am delighted to announce the upcoming DiverseNile seminar!
Our next speaker is Victoria Arroyo, a PhD candidate in Egyptology at the University of Münster, who has received a scholarship from the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service).
She will be talking about her PhD thesis and the title of her lecture is: ‚Funerary Amulets in the Nile Valley‘. Cultural and Social Interactions Between Kush and Egypt in the Napatan period (c. 750–270 BCE).
I’m really looking forward to this, which promises to offer an updated perspective on the use of funerary amulets during the Napatan era.
Within the DiverseNile project, we focus on developments and dynamics in the Bronze Age, particularly in the Late Bronze Age. The collapse of the Late Bronze Age is also a key consideration here, and I have recently revisited Post New Kingdom evidence from the MUAFS concession.
I am delighted that a publication is now available. In this new article (Budka 2025), I have attempted to shed new light on an old topic. In recent decades, the concept of a ‘Dark Age’ in ancient Sudan at the beginning of the first millennium BCE has increasingly been questioned within Nubian archaeology. This is primarily due to new archaeological discoveries at urban sites such as Tombos and Amara West, as well as new theoretical approaches that have emerged since the post-colonial shift. My recently published study aims to demonstrate that remote sensing, surveying and excavations in the Attab to Ferka region of Sudan have also yielded significant evidence of sustained habitation following the termination of Egyptian colonial rule over Nubia. Studies of settlement patterns and pottery, in particular, enrich our understanding of people’s lives between 1070 and 750 BCE, allowing us to shed light on dynamic processes, local forms of resilience and innovation.
This new understanding of the resilience of communities after the collapse of colonial Nubia under Egyptian rule enables a more nuanced interpretation of the development of the Napatan Empire and challenges the conventional concept of secondary states.
The Attab to Ferka case study shows that marginalised regions and communities made a significant contribution to cultural dynamics and achievements in Sudan during the first millennium BCE.
I’m very much looking forward to receiving feedback on this discussion and my theory!
Reference
Budka, J. 2025. The End of the Egyptian New Kingdom in Colonial Nubia: New Perspectives on Sociocultural Transformations in the Middle Nile. Humans. 2025; 5(4):26. https://doi.org/10.3390/humans5040026
