This gallery contains 13 photos →
The National Museum of Kenya – a Mecca for Archaeologists
The King’s Palace Museum in Nyanza
This gallery contains 9 photos →
Archaeology and the Rwandan Genocide
Skulls and other remains of victims at the Karongi Genocide Memorial, Photo: George Wood
The Rwandan genocide was built on a lie about ethnicity. But how true is the story invented to encourage reconciliation? And can the hunt for the Rwanda’s real prehistory disturb that effort? Here’s an opinion article I wrote on the issue for my African Archaeology course:
Egypt’s Colonial Empire in Nubia
Artist’s reconstruction of Buhen in the Middle Kingdom, Image: Wikimedia Commons
“Nubians, I was hoping to avoid them” (from “The Jewel of the Nile”)
Egypt’s ventures south, into Lower Nubia (Wawat) and Upper Nubia (Kush), were colonial, to secure access to resources, both those available through direct mining and quarrying as well as those procured through trade. In mineral wealth, Nubia offered primarily, gold, but there was also amethyst, turquoise, copper, and gneiss. It was also the channel for exotic items from the African hinterland from ivory, giraffes, and incense to a famous dwarf.
Gudings slott
The ancient gate in the walls of Guding slott
In mid-July I finally had an opportunity to take part in an archaeological excavation. I spent four days on a dig by the Gotland Archaeological Field School at a place called Gudings slott, near Eke in southeastern Gotland.
Watering Deir el-Medina
Deir el-Medina, Photo: Steve Cameron, Creative Commons
This is the paper I wrote for Archaeology B, describing how the Egyptian New Kingdom workers’ village of Deir el-Medina, the desert home of the men who built the tombs in the Valley of the Kings, was provided with water. Basically, it was all carried in on donkey back (although an attempt was made to dig a well):