Newer Older

Death, the great equaliser: Christianity on the

Middle Nile
Julie Anderson, Assistant Keeper (curator), British Museum
A herd of Sudanese camels (photograph J. Anderson)
People are often surprised to discover that two of the largest Christian kingdoms in the
medieval world were in Sudan in northeast Africa. Ibn Selim Al-Aswani, an Arab
traveller, visited Sudan in the 10th century AD and described the region north of Old
Dongola, capital of the medieval kingdom of Makuria, situated roughly 750 kilometres
upstream of Aswan Egypt, as an area of about thirty villages, with beautiful buildings,
churches and monasteries, many palm-trees, vines, gardens, cultivated fields and
broad pastures on which one can see camels.
Further to the south, Soba East, capital of the medieval kingdom of Alwa, located near
modern-day Khartoum, was said to have fine buildings and large monasteries,
churches rich with gold and gardens. This conjures up quite a romantic picture of
medieval Sudan and provides us with an insight into the world in which the Sudanese
female mummy, now in the exhibition Ancient lives, new discoveries, had lived. Was
medieval Sudan as idyllic as it sounds?
Enter your email address
Subscribe to the British Museum blog
Enter your email address to follow this blog and
receive notifications of new posts by email.
Join 8,134 other followers
Follow
Pages
Comment guidelines
Copyright information
Categories
Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient
World (10)
African rock art (1)
Amara West (74)
Ancient lives: new discoveries (6)
Archaeology (126)
At the Museum (30)
Beau Street Hoard (7)
Beyond El Dorado: power and gold in ancient
Colombia (3)
Chiseldon cauldrons (12)
Collection (70)
Conservation (36)
Domuztepe dig 2011 (5)
Egypt and Sudan (10)
Exhibitions (66)
Germany Divided: Baselitz and his
generation (2)
Grayson Perry: The Tomb of the Unknown
Craftsman (13)
Hajj: journey to the heart of Islam (11)
Italian Renaissance drawings (5)
Journey through the afterlife: ancient
Egyptian Book of the Dead (2)
Life and death in Pompeii and Herculaneum
(4)
London: a world city in 20 objects (19)
Mildenhall treasure (7)
Ming: 50 years that changed China (2)
Money Gallery (22)
Money in Africa (7)
North American Landscape: Kew at the
British Museum (1)
Norwich shroud (10)
Pharaoh: King of Egypt (4)
Portable Antiquities and Treasure (20)
Research (44)
Room 38-39 Clocks and Watches Gallery (1)
Room 41, Sutton Hoo and Europe, AD 300-
1100 (5)
Room 55 (Mesopotamia 1500539 BC) (1)
Frontpage Browseby topic Subscribe rss
Search the archives...
August 8, 2014 10:52 am
Visiting Membership
Whats on Support us
Explore Channel
Research Blog
Learning Shop
About us
converted by Web2PDFConvert.com
Wall painting of a Nubian queen protected by the Virgin Mary and Child (Sudan National Museum
Room 64 (1)
Samsung Digital Discovery Centre (2)
Shakespeare's Restless World (22)
Shakespeare: staging the world (10)
Studying in Shanghai (6)
The horse: from Arabia to Royal Ascot (4)
Treasures of Heaven (5)
Uncategorized (6)
Ur Project (1)
Vikings: life and legend (10)
What's on (29)
Follow @britishmuseum on Twitter
My Tweets
British Museum
599,124
Facebook social plugin
Like Like
Links
Amara West project blog
British Museum
British Museum and BBC A History of the
World
British Museum International Training
Programme
Portable Antiquities Scheme
UCL Lunch Hour Lectures at the British
Museum
converted by Web2PDFConvert.com
24362). (photograph Rocco Ricci The Trustees of the British Museum).
I am captivated by the medieval wall-paintings of saints, apostles, bishops, royalty,
biblical stories and archangels, particularly those unearthed by the Polish
archaeological mission in the Cathedral at Faras, Sudan, a site situated near the
modern Sudan/Egypt border and now beneath the waters of Lake Nubia/Nasser. The
paintings were discovered and rescued during the 1960s UNESCO salvage campaign
to save the monuments of Egyptian and Sudanese Nubia threatened by the creation
of the Aswan High Dam reservoir, and it is their singular beauty that inspired me as a
student to focus on Sudanese and Nubian archaeology. To this day, I remain
entranced by the richness of Nubian culture. The portrait in the Sudan National
Museum of a Nubian queen or noblewoman, held within the protective embrace of the
Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus, is particularly striking. Splendidly attired, the queen
bears a small cross on her forehead demonstrating her Christian faith to the viewer
whom she gazes directly at. The age at which she was depicted is perhaps close to
that of the Sudanese mummy, who would have been between 20 and 35 years old at
time of her death.
The Sudanese mummy was very likely not a queen, but in death rich and poor alike
received similar burials. The conversion to Christianity in the 6th century AD by
missionaries from the Byzantine Empire brought about one of the most profound
changes ever experienced in the Middle Nile Valley. Churches and cathedrals herald
the arrival of Christianity as they replaced the earlier temples to pagan gods. The
traditional system of rites and beliefs was swept away and, in its place, totally different
attitudes towards death and the afterlife were introduced. Unlike earlier burials, those
of the Christian period were not provided with sumptuous grave goods or food
offerings. They were sparsely endowed, if at all. Death was a great social equaliser.
Christian graves were simple tombs with small, flat-topped rectangular superstructures
of brick or stones that covered a narrow grave shaft. The deceased was wrapped in a
shroud, and the head was often protected by a brick or stone. Bodies were placed on
their backs in an extended rather than crouched or contracted position. More
elaborate tomb superstructures were plastered white; they might be cruciform in shape
or have rounded tops. Graves were orientated eastwest, though in some places this
was done according to the orientation of the Nile rather than true north. The west end
of the tomb, the end which corresponded to the location of the head of the deceased,
was sometimes equipped with a lamp-box, a small niche which provided protection
from the wind for a lit lamp.
Pottery lamp from Faras Cemetery 4, grave 39, excavated by the University of Oxford Expedition early
converted by Web2PDFConvert.com
in the 20th century. (British Museum EA 51771)
One such lamp (EA51771) was excavated from Faras Cemetery 4 early in the 20th
century by the University of Oxford Expedition led by Francis Llewellyn Griffith, and is
now in the British Museums collection. The disc on the top of the lamp is decorated
with a rosette, and a retrograde Greek inscription reading Great is the name of God
adorns the shoulder.
Decorative relief frieze with an eagle or dove from the First Cathedral at Faras, 7th century AD
(British Museum, EA 606).
Artistic expression was not restricted to wall-paintings or ceramics (though traces of
wall-paintings have so far been found in over 50 medieval churches), but also
encompassed many minor arts such as basketry, leather and metal-work and textiles.
Architectural elements were often embellished with Christian motifs. Such powerful
religious symbolism is evident in a 7th-century decorative sandstone frieze (EA 606)
from the First Cathedral at Faras. It depicts an eagle or dove surmounted by a cross,
standing between columns and altars with its wings spread. This piece, originally part
of a sequence of 24 birds, may have adorned the cathedrals apse. Its yellow
background with the relief features highlighted in black would have created an eye-
catching, yet pious band of decoration which alluded to the resurrection of Christ, and
it may have been something upon which our Sudanese mummy or her contemporaries
gazed during their lives while contemplating salvation and paradise.
Ancient lives, new discoveries is on at the British Museum until 30 November 2014.
The exhibition is sponsored by Julius Baer. Technology partner Samsung.
The exhibition catalogue, Ancient lives, new discoveries: eight mummies, eight
stories, is available at the Museums online shop for 15 (13.50 for Members).
Share this:
Filed under: Ancient lives: new discoveries, Archaeology, Alwa, Ancient Egypt and
Sudan, Aswan, British Museum, burial, Byzantine, Christianity, death, Faras, Makuria,
mummies, mummification, Nubia, Sudan, Sudan National Museum
446 234 2
Loading...
Related
Tattoos in ancient Egypt and Sudan
Wine and monks in Christian Egypt
Violence and climate change in prehistoric Egypt and Sudan
converted by Web2PDFConvert.com
4 Responses
ashokbhatia says:
August 9, 2014 at 4:48 am
Thank you for posting this!
Reply
ounoginiri says:
August 9, 2014 at 5:40 pm
Reblogged this on ounoginiri.
Reply
Roger Smith says:
August 10, 2014 at 9:37 am
Most interesting.To learn is to live. Thank you.
Reply
Approaching the week of the Nubian Studies conference | Medieval Sai Project says:
August 11, 2014 at 6:03 pm
[] the ISNS is Julie Anderson who works as curator in the British Museum (BM). Julie offered us
the first post on Medieval Nubia in the BM blog after a couple of posts on Kushite topics (mainly
from the Amara East project) and []
Reply
Leave a Reply
Blog at WordPress.com.
The Grid Focus Theme.
Enter your comment here...
Follow Follow
Follow British Follow British
Museum blog Museum blog
Get every new post delivered Get every new post delivered
to your Inbox. to your Inbox.
Join 8,134 other followers Join 8,134 other followers
Enter your email address
Sign me up Sign me up
Powered by WordPress.com Powered by WordPress.com
converted by Web2PDFConvert.com