Bruce Graham Trigger (1937-2006)
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2007 Varia Bruce Graham Trigger (1937-2006) Bruce Trigger excelled in multiple fields of research obtained his B.A. in Anthropology at the University and analysis of many cultures. In terms of culture, of Toronto in 1959, and his Ph.D. in Anthropology his foci from the outset centred on Nubian Egyptian at Yale University in 1964, the latter funded by a on the one hand, and Canadian Amerindian on the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship award. His thesis other. His first academic publication investigated “sought to trace the changing size and distribution ‘The destruction of Huronia,’ (Transactions of the of population of Nubia from the beginnings of Royal Canadian Institute 33.1.68 [1960] 14-45), and agriculture in that region to the Moslem conquests he continued to write in both of the 1500s [and] sought to disciplines simultaneously prove that most changes in for virtually the rest of his population size and life. At the same time, and distribution could be whilst also teaching full- accounted for by four time at McGill University variables: environmental in Montréal from 1964, he changes, changes in also developed to an agricultural technology, incredibly high standard changing patterns in what has become the best warfare and trade,” and was known of his three ‘hats’ – co-supervised by William that of historian, theologian Kelly Simpson and the and critic of archaeological New World archaeologist theories and developments Michael Coe. During this in their various time he also served as chief manifestations worldwide. archaeologist for the 1962 Within this last discipline Yale/Pennsylvania he produced one of his excavations at Arminna several magnum opi and Bruce G. Trigger, photographed by his daughter West in Egyptian Nubia unquestionably his most Rosalyn, whom I thank for allowing its publication here. directed by Simpson, and as influential publication, staff archaeologist with the A History of Archaeological Thought, in 1989. His 1963-1964 Oriental Institute Sudan Expedition, both second edition of the volume, published in 2006 only for the UNESCO campaign and his only Old World months before his death from cancer on 1 December, fieldwork. He accepted a teaching position at the fully justifies the term ‘revised.’ It is indeed “in many Department of Anthropology of Northwestern ways a new book,” as noted by Norman Hammond University in Illinois for 1963-1964, then returned in his excellent obituary of Trigger on 7 December to Canada when he was hired by McGill University’s 2006 in The Times. Department of Anthropology in Montréal, Québec Bruce Trigger was born in Preston, Ontario, on in 1964. 18 June 1937. Although excited by ancient Egypt He remained at McGill for the remainder of his from boyhood, he had from the beginning career and his life, by personal choice although consciously decided to study in departments of repeatedly offered more lucrative positions by more Anthropology rather than Egyptology, as the latter ‘prestigious’ universities elsewhere, and was made “focused mainly on philological and art historical Professor Emeritus in 2006 shortly before his death. approaches” that he himself declined to do. He His wife Barbara Welch, herself an academic in the 219 Varia MittSAG 18 field of Caribbean economic and physical series, considered early Nubian development from geography, died only seven weeks later of heart the Palaeolithic through into the Napatan period, failure on 18 January 2007. Married in 1968, they are explicitly “treat[ing] Nubia as a case study of the survived by their two daughters, Isabel and Rosalyn. social, economic, and cultural development of the He often was the invited, guest or main speaker adjacent hinterland of an ancient civilization”(p. 9). at multiple academic conferences and sponsored All but the first of these four volumes, it may be lectures throughout his career, and has been the noted, deal with distinctly different research data, recipient of numerous academic awards and other foci and methodologies as well as different periods honours: Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada of Nubian cultural development. He brought from 1976 and recipient of its Innis-Gérin Medal in History and Settlement up to date at the 1980 Nubian 1985, recipient of the Québec government’s Prix conference published in Meroitica 7 (1984), but Léon-Gérin award in 1991, Officer of the National Trigger’s interest in Nubia already had waned by this Order of Québec in 2001, and Officer of the Order time and he had returned to his long-standing of Canada in 2005, amongst many others not interest in Egyptology from an anthropological mentioned here. Perhaps his most cherished honour rather than the art historical or philological was his adoption in 1989 into the Great Turtle Clan viewpoints he had earlier eschewed as an incoming of the Wendat (Huron) Confederacy, with the name undergraduate. The lack of post-UNESCO Nyemea. His research was the subject of a full session progression of Nubian studies over the 1970s and at the 2004 Society for American Archaeology (SAA) early 1980s undoubtedly was a factor in his declining conference, which was published in expanded form interest. He had been so very positive of future as The Archaeology of Bruce Trigger: Theoretical prospects in his glowing 1978 Antiquity review of Empiricism in October 2006 as a volume outlining W.Y. Adams’ theoretical directions and perspectives his influence in, almost exclusively, New World of Nubian cultural history in Nubia: Corridor to archaeology. He outlined his own academic Africa (1977), envisioning further disciplinary development and career in a reflective and insightful progress that, in Nubian studies, simply did not occur interview by his former student, Eldon Yellowhorn until much later. Nonetheless, few other than he (‘Bruce Trigger on his Life’s Work in Archaeology: would have been able to pen his thoughtful An Interview,’ Journal of Social Archaeology 6.3, contribution on such a sensitive subject as ‘racial 307-327), from which his own descriptions of his identity’ to Brooklyn Museum’s Africa in Antiquity academic streamlining and thesis goals have been exhibition that year. Nubia also loomed large in quoted above. another essay published in 1978 in which he compared Trigger published his first book, History and and contrasted ‘The Inter-Societal Transfer of Settlement in Lower Nubia (1965), a revision of his Institutions’ in Christian Nubia, the Kushite state, and 1964 Ph.D. thesis, wearing the hat of what would Anglo-Saxon England. For Nubian studies, 1978 later be called a ‘Nubiologist.’ His first and only site essentially was his last ‘hurrah.’ Thereafter, with the report, The Late Nubian Settlement at Arminna exception of a few contributions to Festschriften West (1967) is the direct result of his UNESCO honouring friends and colleagues and the occasional fieldwork, as is also The Meroitic Funerary use of Nubia as a case study, he maintained his hand Inscriptions from Arminna West (1970). Ironically, in Nubia only through invited reviews. given his remarks concerning Egyptological Switching to his Nile Valley Egyptological hat in academic emphases, virtually all his other early the late 1970s, he is best known for his contribution Nubian articles as well as the occasional later paper to Ancient Egypt: A Social History (1983), where he discuss aspects of the Meroitic language, and he outlined Egypt’s development from earliest times also edited three issues of the Meroitic through to the end of the Early Dynastic period and Newsletter/Bulletin d’Informations méroitiques set the scene for his co-authors Barry Kemp, David (1, 5 and 9). His far more general volume, Nubia O’Connor and Alan Lloyd to continue. The first Under the Pharaohs (1976) for Thames and three of these four papers, including Trigger’s, Hudson’s wide-ranging ‘Ancient People and Places’ already had appeared the previous year in the first 220 2007 Varia The Cambridge History of Africa volume. After the archaeology of areas beyond the Nile Valley nearly a quarter-century, it remains an insightful itself. And, secondly, Trigger’s Egyptological and read. His (surprisingly) first direct venture into non- Nubiological publications themselves are for the Nubian Egyptology, a 1979 essay investigating most part more ‘traditional’ than his writings ‘Egypt and the Comparative Study of Ancient elsewhere, and most often are published in journals Civilizations,’ for a small and lamentably under- and other volumes most of our departments are appreciated volume entitled Egyptology and the unlikely to have obtained for their libraries and our Social Sciences: Five Studies, already had prepared the students unlikely to browse in libraries where they way for Trigger’s use of Egyptian civilisation for one are found. of his main theoretical interests stated explicitly in It would seem more than appropriate, at this time his title. He developed the theme for his last book to and for this journal, to include a bibliography of focus specifically on the Nile Valley, Early Bruce Trigger’s direct contributions to Nubiology Civilizations: Ancient Egypt in Context (1993), the and Egyptology, as many are not found in direct result of a series of four lectures he presented mainstream publications for the disciplines. Most I the previous year at the Department of Sociology, cannot find cited elsewhere in Egyptological or Anthropology and Psychology at the American Nubiological literature, whilst those I have found University in Cairo. In large measure, this volume is extensively cited there inevitably are his both more the genesis from which he then developed his ‘accessible’ and ‘traditional’ publications. What monumental Understanding Early Civilizations follows below is but a small portion of his 50 years (2003), as he himself noted in its preface (p. vi). He of academic publication, in order to provide an repeatedly discusses and integrates various periods immediately accessible collation for future of ancient Egyptian civilisation over varying lengths consumption in our field.