ISAC Visiting Lecture Series: Artur Obłuski University of Warsaw

Title:

Old Dongola. New collaborative archaeology. Tackling paradigms in research on African past.

ABSTRACT

The lecture consists of two different but entangled parts. The first presents the most recent discovery at Dongola, the capital city of medieval African kingdom of Makuria, called a top ten archaeological discovery by the Archaeology Magazine. The painted decoration of the tiniest sacral space excavated in Nubia consists of unparalleled representation of Mary, depictions of Christ, and the Ancient of Days—accompanied by inscriptions characteristic of Nubian liturgical contexts. In the later phase one more painting was added: an extraordinary composition featuring Archangel Michael, a prostrate Nubian king kissing Christ’s hand, and a divine figure on a cloud. An inscription in Old Nubian invokes King David and petitions divine protection over the city. These unprecedented visual and textual elements challenge dominant narratives concerning cultural agency in so-called peripheral regions and allow for reassessing how centers of artistic and theological innovation are conceptualized within global medieval studies.

The second part of the lecture explores the community archaeology model developed by Sudanese-Polish expedition at Old Dongola. It challenges extractive colonial paradigms of archaeological practice, and focuses on local empowerment, sustainable heritage management, and the co-creation of knowledge. By integrating local Sudanese communities into all phases of research—from excavation to interpretation and tourism—this model redefines heritage stewardship as a collaborative, ethically engaged process.

BIO

Artur Obłuski is an archaeologist specializing in the study of medieval Nubia. He has been the director of the Poilish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, University of Warsaw, since 2018, having previously headed the PCMA UW Research Centre in Cairo. He advocates a change in the approach to archaeological research in Africa and the Middle East from considering it as a purely scientific endeavor towards using heritage to foster economic development of local communities and their active involvement in the research process.

He received the first European Research Council grant in Poland in the field of archaeology (2017, ERC Starting Grant for the project "UMMA – Urban Metamorphosis of the community of a Medieval African capital city) followed by an ERC Consolidator grant "Afropolis Tungul: Urban biography of a cosmopolitan African capital" in 2023. In 2022, he received the Public Choice Award in the ERC Public Engagement with Research Award competition for sharing the results of his research through collaborative archaeology. His work at Old Dongola has been selected as one of the world’s top 10 discoveries by Archaeology magazine in 2023. He was also awarded the Polish Prime Minister’s Award for scientific excellence.

He has received grants from the National Science Center of Poland, as well as, among others, the Columbus Scholarship from the Foundation for Polish Science held at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (former Oriental Institute), University of Chicago.