Living Nubia: New perspectives on Nubian settlements

Living Nubia is a comparative study of indigenous Nubian habitation sites of the Early and Middle Nubian periods (c. 32001550 BCE), many of which have received little or no scholarly attention. Habitation sites established by Nubian communities including rock- shelters, campsites, and villages are the focus. Living Nubias post-colonial stance aims to challenge Egypt-centric views of the past by shifting the focus away from Pharaonic installations in ancient Nubian. The project is guided by the following research questions: What constitutes an indigenous Nubian settlement during the late-third to the mid- second millennium BCE? How far do variations in settlement style and spatial organisation reflect varying subsistence strategies and lifestyles? To what extent do Nubian built environments construct, maintain or challenge social structures and concepts of identity? Can changes in the character of Nubian built environments and settlement patterns be linked to broader cultural processes such as contact, conflict, and identity negotiations? What evidence is there for Nubian impacts on Egyptian culture and identity? Insights regarding the use of space will be gained by studying architectural styles, building technology, spatial organisation, and the objects associated with the buildings. The landscape is also taken into account, considering factors such as access to natural resources (e.g. water, minerals etc) and wildlife, as well as transport and migration routes. The project will also consider modern Nubian concepts of dwelling, domesticity, and the social role of the house.

The Living Nubia project was a first-of-its-kind study of ancient 'Nubian' settlements in the Nile Valley and surrounding regions (modern southern Egypt and northern Sudan). The project offers fresh interpretations of the culturally diverse living world of ancient Nubia during the Early and Middle Nubian periods (c. 3200-1550 BCE) by incorporating practice theory, border theory, concepts of mobility, and cultural entanglement. By focussing on overlooked settlement data, the project expanded our understanding of ancient Nubian cultures beyond the cemetery data that has long dominated the academic discourse. The project demonstrated that past assumptions about ancient Nubian settlements can no longer be sustained. In fact, it has never been explicitly stated that circular buildings should be identified as culturally 'Nubian'. This assumption most likely stems from colonial perspectives of the early 20th century that perceived Nubian cultures as 'primitive African' cultures in comparison to pharaonic Egypt. In fact, many well-known 'Nubian' settlements comprise rectilinear buildings, while other 'Nubian-style' buildings include Egyptian style material culture. It was therefore demonstrated that the existing definitions of what constitutes a 'Nubian' or 'Egyptian' habitation site are fundamentally incorrect. The project hypothesised that the shape and technology of the domestic structures are a product of landscape, resources, and function. New spatial analyses of these structures themselves raised new questions about building technologies and offer new insights into how ancient communities engaged with their built environment, and how these differences in lifestyle might challenge existing concepts of Nubian and Egyptian culture. The project also explored cultural identity and how it relates to material culture more broadly. This aspect of the project asked fundamental questions about how and why we identify sites as 'Nubian' or 'Egyptian, and if it is even possible to do so in many cases.