Late morning in Khartoum. Inside a low, dusty building in the center of the Sudanese capital, there are boxes of artifacts, a 7-foot replica of a 2,000-year-old stone statue of a Nubian god, and students running through the halls . Outside there is noisy traffic, blinding sunlight and both branches of the Nile.
Down a ladder are Sabrine Jamal, Nadia Musa, Athar Bela and Sabrine al-Sadiq, all studying archeology at the University of Khartoum. None of them are more than 24 years old, and they see themselves as pioneers breaking new ground in a continent that has long attracted Western expeditions, specialists and adventurers, but whose archaeologists have received less attention in the foreigner
“It is very important for Africans to do African archaeology… because then we will have our own archaeological cultures. We understand many things because we are from here. The idea that people in the West know better is changing,” Sadiq said.
Jamal, 22, from the remote war-torn province of South Kordorfan, said the stereotypes promoted by films and literature in the West were outdated. “There’s an idea of what an archaeologist looks like… But they shouldn’t have a certain image, color, features or gender,” he said.
Sabrine Jamal: “There’s an idea of what an archaeologist looks like.” Photograph: Jason Burke/The Guardian
For decades, the popular image of archaeologists in Africa has been at odds with an increasingly diverse reality. Dr Ghalia Garelnabi, acting director of Sudan’s national museum, said that when she was at university 30 years ago there were only three women studying archaeology, and now there are 20.
“This is a very big and important change. There are more and more young women in Sudan who are interested in knowing their history and deserve to know… Twelve years ago we only had foreign missions working here, but that is changing. Now we have many Sudanese missions digging at our sites,” Garelnabi said.
Alex Vines, now Director of the Africa Program at Chatham House in London, spent more than 30 years as an archaeologist in Zimbabwe and East Africa.
“Archaeology was dominated by white Western archaeologists and has been completely transformed. Now it is increasingly driven by indigenous research,” he said.
Proponents of greater involvement of African archaeologists on the continent argue that this would help a discipline that has become “disconnected from reality”.
“The cost of living, the climate crisis, migration, reflection on our identity… Archeology can and should talk about all these things. We need to build something new, something that is equitable, richer and more relevant,” said Dr Sada Mire, a Swedish-Somali archaeologist who is currently an associate professor of heritage studies at University College London.
Mire recently helped launch a two-year project in northern Kenya that has involved 35 people from local communities in the study of rock art. “These are people who have never thought about archeology… They have a lot of knowledge that we don’t have and this only shows what people can do when they are not accompanied or infantilized, but only given the team and know-how. It’s a way to connect two worlds,” he said.
The link between the imperialist exploitation of the continent and archaeological research was already established in 1798 when Napoleon invaded Egypt accompanied by teams of French specialists who dedicated themselves to understanding the country’s past but also to taking large quantities of artifacts.
Sudan was a British colony for almost 60 years, then ruled by a series of autocrats often beholden to outside powers. Few paid much attention to archaeology. In these circumstances, Western support was important to preserve the little activity that continued.
Dr Eglal el-Malik, director of the conservation department at the Sudan National Corporation of Antiquities and Museums, said she was grateful to foreign archaeologists who “never stopped coming even in our darkest times. This. it was a big help for us. They really helped Sudan sustain and sustain our work, and they helped build the capacity of young archaeologists. We needed professionals. Now we have a lot of them.”
A handful of Sudanese archaeologists have recently traveled to Europe to work on sites there, reversing a centuries-old flow in the other direction. “We’re looking forward to the day when African archaeologists regularly travel to Europe or the United States to do archaeology,” Malik said.
This appeals to 24-year-old Sadiq, who has never left Sudan. “We want to discover more and travel. I want to know more about my story but also the whole story. Why should we not come and study your history in the West as you have done here? We could teach you something, maybe,” he said.
Sabrine al-Sadiq: “We want to discover more and travel.” Photograph: Jason Burke/The Guardian
But the new wave of young archaeologists in Sudan and elsewhere on the continent faces many obstacles. In particular, for women, the choice of profession involves resistance from family members and schools.
“For three years my family was against it. There were all these questions: What are you doing with this degree? Why be an archaeologist if you are a woman? How are you going to travel alone? But he was very determined,” Jamal said.
Men also face prejudice and ignorance. Joshua Kumbani, 31, who has done ground-breaking work in southern Africa on prehistoric music-making, said he was often laughed at when he told people he was an archaeologist.
“They cannot understand why I chose this profession. They think I work in the dirt with old stuff. Some even accuse me of being an undertaker. I have to explain that this is not what archaeologists do,” Kumbani said. “I think they get it from Indiana Jones and the movies. They don’t have all the information.”
There is an acute shortage of resources. The Covid pandemic and the current economic crisis have paralyzed governments across the continent. In Khartoum, classes are held in a 50-year-old building that has constant power cuts in heat of over 40ºC. Even in relatively wealthy countries like South Africa, funding and facilities are often insufficient.
“The big challenge is to increase. There is much of Africa’s heritage that remains unexplored and is now threatened by development and population growth,” said Vines.
Malik has been at the forefront of a new push for artifacts looted during the colonial period to be returned, where practical, and sees the development of a cohort of young colleagues as important for Sudan. “We believe it is time for our history to be written from the Sudanese point of view,” he said.
For Sadiq and her classmates in Khartoum, there is more at stake than the task of researching and discovering past lives, important as that is. A military coup last year dashed hopes for a quick transition to democracy after the fall of veteran dictator Omar al-Bashir in 2019. Since then, more than 100 people have died in protests against the new regime , which maintains close relations with various repressive agents. Gulf States and Russia.
“To be a free country, we need our own archaeologists,” Sadiq said.