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Makurian Dongola in Nubia Author(S) Title: Medieval transcultural medium: beads and pendants from Makurian and post- Makurian Dongola in Nubia Author(s): Joanna Then-Obłuska Journal: Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean 22 (Research 2010) Year: 2013 Pages: 679–720 ISSN 1234–5415 (Print), ISSN 2083–537X (Online) Publisher: Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, University of Warsaw (PCMA UW), Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego (WUW) www.pcma.uw.edu.pl – www.wuw.pl Abstract: Dongola between the 6th and the 17th centuries AD experienced several cultural shifts from a post-Meroitic center through a capital city of the Christian kingdom of Makuria to a post- Makurian settlement with encroaching Islam. Beads have always constituted a traditional element of personal adornment in Nubia and their production, use and circulation did not cease despite religious, political and social changes in the medieval period. On the contrary, beads and pendants preserved their ornamental and apotropaic functions and quite probably took on new roles. Moreover, a material analysis of preserved beads reveals the potential of this small medium in tracing interaction among medieval cultures. Keywords: beads, glass, faience, medieval, Makuria, Nubia, material culture Medieval transcultural medium: beads and pendants from Makurian and post-Makurian Dongola SuDAN MEDIEVAL TRANSCulTURAL MEDium: BEADS AND PENDANTS FRom MAKURIAN AND poST-MAKURIAN DonGolA IN NUBIA PREliminARY ASSESSMENT Joanna Then-Obłuska Research Associate, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago Abstract: Dongola between the 6th and the 17th centuries AD experienced several cultural shifts from a post-Meroitic center through a capital city of the Christian kingdom of Makuria to a post- Makurian settlement with encroaching Islam. Beads have always constituted a traditional element of personal adornment in Nubia and their production, use and circulation did not cease despite religious, political and social changes in the medieval period. On the contrary, beads and pendants preserved their ornamental and apotropaic functions and quite probably took on new roles. More- over, a material analysis of preserved beads reveals the potential of this small medium in tracing interaction among medieval cultures. Keywords: beads, glass, faience, medieval, Makuria, Nubia, material culture INTRODUCTION Nubia has long been perceived as a link of Christian and Islamic Nubia, this between the Mediterranean and Near connection is not always clearly visible. Eastern world on the one hand and More than three hundred beads and indigenous African cultures on the other. pendants were documented between However, despite the diversity of bead 1971 and 2011 by a Polish team from the material found in Dongola,1 one of the PCMA excavating the medieval site of most important and complex centers Dongola (headed successively by Stefan 1 In a letter describing a visit with his sister Margaret to Old Dongola in 1948, Vincent Eyre wrote: “At Old Dongola, at one time a large and important town but now a ruin largely buried by sand, but with the great fortress church of Christian times perfectly preserved, we climbed the three stories to its roof to get a marvelous view of all the surrounding countryside, and then spent a couple of hours searching the ground over a wide area on our hands and knees collecting antique beads. With the assistance of the custodian of the site, a policeman and several members of the steamer’s crew we managed to collect enough to provide Margaret with quite a respectable sized bracelet” (SAD.693/2/15, cited in Żurawski 2001: 136). The personal correspondence ofV .E.F. Eyre, born in 1914, in 1938–1955 in the Sudan Service, is in the holdings of the Sudan Archive at the Durham University Library. 679 PAM 22, Research 2010 Joanna Then-Obłuska SuDAN Jakobielski and Włodzimierz Godlewski).2 and religious change. Indeed, beads and They are associated with layers ofC hristian pendants were a medium that was associ- Makurian (6th–14th century) and Islamic ated with religious symbolism and practice post-Makurian (15th–17th century) date. across all periods. In the following discussion, a general Beads provide evidence for varying chronological division into two main trends and influences over a long and periods has been adopted. Within each rich history, allowing cultural contacts to period, the beads have been classified be traced when studying Dongola from by material. Nevertheless, the transition a broader territorial and chronological per- between the two periods was long and spective. Although in a majority of cases complex (Godlewski 2004), an opinion beads are preserved in very generally dated that the bead assemblages apparently contexts, as the smallest objects of material bear out. Some bead types and the use of culture and art, their study still provides certain materials appear to extend across an important contribution to the history the two phases, despite cultural borders of cultural shifts and interaction. BRIEF HISTORICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL OVERVIEW OF THE DONGOLA SITE The historical and archaeological record for slaves.3 For over six centuries this treaty bears witness to the changes that occurred allowed Muslims and Nubians the freedom in Dongola and the influences local society to travel through each other’s territories was subjected to. Christian missionaries until the baqt was finally abandoned in probably came to Makuria from Constan- 1172 (Godlewski 2004: 213). tinople. Sometime in the 570s a bishopric The foundation of Dongola on a forti- was established at Dongola. After the fied hilltop (Kom A = SWN4) above the Muslim conquest of Egypt and the Near Nile, with its stone-and-mud-brick wall East, the isolated Nubian Church main- enclosing the citadel, seems to date from tained contact with the monophysite the Early Makurian period, possibly the Coptic see of Alexandria. According to late 5th or early 6th centuries AD. The a 7th century bilateral peace treaty called Church of the Granite Columns (RC1) the baqt (651), the Arabs were to provide dates between the 9th and the beginning Nubians with diverse goods in exchange of the 11th century AD. On the site of 2 Material in storage at the site, from excavations of W. Godlewski conducted from 1990 through the present, was studied in 2011. A small collection from the excavations of S. Jakobielski between 1971 and 1992, stored at the Christian Art Department of the National Museum in Warsaw, was examined there in 2010; the archaeological context of most of the beads was identified thanks to access to archival documentation kindly granted by the respective mission directors.S ome objects stored at the Sudan National Museum in Khartoum were included based on documentation presently at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. 3 The earliest sources regarding the baqt come from the 8th century AD, a hundred years after the treaty was reportedly concluded. 4 For an explanation of site coding at Dongola, see below, page 697. 680 PAM 22, Research 2010 Medieval transcultural medium: beads and pendants from Makurian and post-Makurian Dongola SuDAN Building X and the later Church of the member of the ruling class became king of Stone Pavement, the Cruciform Church Makuria. In 1364, the royal court moved (CC) was raised after 836; this building out of Dongola. has Syro-Palestinian parallels (Godlewski Residential structures (SWN houses) 1990; 2004: 210; 2008: 263). appeared on the citadel and in the ruins To the north, outside the citadel and of the Cruciform Church (CC) and cathedral complex, a vast urban housing area around the cathedral (Godlewski 2004). was uncovered (PCH houses). The build- These architecturally distinctive buildings ings go back to the 7th–8th century. In the represented post-Makurian settlement 9th century, an impressive throne hall was in the 17th century when Dongola was erected east of the citadel (Godlewski occupied by both orthodox and ecstatic 2004: 212). Buildings of the 13th century Muslim sects (El-Zein 2004: 240–241). on the riverside of the citadel (C) may have Religious, monastic and residential served as magazines for the local harbor architecture richly decorated with wall (Obłuski, forthcoming). paintings flourished during the Makurian Out of town there were two monasteries, period, despite the kingdom being like one on Kom D (DM) with a church (DC) an island surrounded by diverse Muslim originating from the 7th century (Jakobiel- political entities (among others, Martens- ski 2001: 20–21) and another one on Kom Czarnecka 2001; 2010; Jakobielski 2008; H, comprising a large compound with Godlewski 2008). A painted dance scene, burial grounds and including a Central unique in that it combined indigenous Building (H-CB) and Monastery Church African dance styles, masks and musical (HC), which were raised in the 7th century instruments with Arabic clothing, is (Jakobielski, Martens-Czarnecka 2008). particularly telling, as it exemplifies the The monastery functioned through the diversity of Nubian society in the 12th– end of the Kingdom of Makuria in the 13th centuries AD (Martens-Czarnecka 14th century. In the course of its develop- 2011: 234–236 and Cat. 109). Nubian ment it accrued various edifices, such as the wall painting, especially the scene with Northwest Annex (NW) erected in the dancers wearing beaded masks, necklaces 11th–12th century, the Southern Building and other adornments, is an excellent base (NW-S) from the 10th and 11th centuries, for beadwork studies. the Southwestern Annex (SW-E) that was A distinctive Nubian style in art and not earlier than the 10th century and the architecture was created by combin- Southwestern Building (SW), which may ing Syro-Palestinian, Byzantine and/or be dated to the 8th century, Coptic, Arabic and African elements with Increasingly poor relations with the indigenous Nubian characteristics and local Arabs of Egypt, culminating in the Mamluk materials. The beads from Dongola, made raids on Nubia and siege of Dongola in the from both local and imported materials, 13th century, led to the fall of the Maku- now found as separate examples, could have rian kingdom.
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