 Well, I'd like to welcome back our Internet audience to what is our final offering in our Unsilencing the Archives series. It's hard to believe that this all began back last September, but here we are. Very excited for today's presentation. But before we get into the details around that, I'd like to welcome Dr. Melissa Craddock, who is our body museum curator to do a presentation of our decolonization statement. Melissa. Thank you, Erin. We would like to begin by acknowledging that Berkeley, California is on the territory of the who tune the ancestral and unceded land of the church in your own. We respect the land and the people who have stewarded it throughout many generations, and we honor their elders both past and present. We're living in a moment that warrants deep reflection, where an even our most venerated figures deserve reasonable scrutiny. During his time directing the archeological excavations at Tella Niles Bay, WF Bade participated in harmful stereotyping of local populations that was common among white Americans and Europeans conducting fieldwork in British Mandate Palestine. Some of these attitudes appear in print in his popular 1934 book, a manual of excavation in the Near East. Museums are also scrutinizing their collections, including evaluating the legal status and ethics of which they were acquired. As stewards of the legacy of the body museum and its holdings, it is our responsibility to faithfully evaluate the process by which the collections were acquired within the context of our contemporary moment. One approach is to ask new questions of the archival materials in order to examine critically the manner and impact of archeological work on indigenous and to investigate the colonial conditions in which it played a part. The body museum recognizes that its location and collection are part of ongoing and painful colonial legacies that contributed to historical inequalities. These legacies have directly and indirectly impacted populations locally and abroad in Palestine, where excavations were conducted under the authority of the British Mandate Government of Palestine. In an effort to bring light to these issues, to serve a broader public audience online and to connect to the local community that it serves, the museum is taking action to become a more inclusive, welcoming and equitable institution that practices the philosophy of radical inclusion adopted by its parent institution, Pacific School of Religion. One of these steps is the creation of open access web exhibitions and public programming like the lecture series, this lecture series, which highlights decolonizing themes. We invite you to participate in these programs so that together we can listen, learn and work toward creating a more inclusive museum community. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you very much, Melissa. What is my distinct pleasure to introduce Dr. Elizabeth Minor this morning or afternoon or evening wherever you are in this beautiful globe of ours. Elizabeth Minor is a lecturer in anthropology at Wellesley College. She earned her PhD in Near Eastern Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, focusing on cultural connections between ancient Egypt and Sudan. Elizabeth Minor's research reinterprets historically collected archaeological data using the lenses of post-colonial and feminist theory to bring ancient Africa into larger discussions of world history. She has excavated in Egypt, Sudan and California and is currently director and co-director of two excavation projects. She directs her field school students to dig the burned remains of a turn of the last century women's dormitory on Wellesley campus in Massachusetts. She also co-directs the S. Celine R4 Archaeology Project at a Kerma Periods regional settlement site in the northern Dongola reach of Sudan. Her 20 years of museum work include educational outreach, registration, development, and digital imaging projects. She first visited a museum basement as a child and wanted to stay there forever. Me too, by the way. She loves sharing the fascinating stories that can be told through global collections and hearing new perspectives from museum visitors. I'm very pleased to welcome Dr. Elizabeth Minor and to yield the floor to her. Thank you, everybody. Let me get my screen sharing started. You think I would have done this enough at this point? All right. Can you see it okay? This looks great. All right. So thank you for the invitation to speak today for the SILENCING THE ARCHIVE SERIES. What I will speak about will bridge between this series focused on decolonizing excavation archives and last year's new perspectives on ancient Nubia. I think that's why you invited me to share this particular research. I'm glad to have the opportunity to contribute to these important conversations. I plan to join the Nile Valley collective roundtable just about a year ago, but had to cancel at the last minute, unfortunately. Today I will talk about my work that reinterprets the Reisner excavations in Sudan, which is part of the research I did from my PhD thesis at UC Berkeley. The big thank you to the ARF, in fact, Estal Grant funded the research trip at the core of this case study. The Reisner archive held at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston captures the excavation efforts at the site of karma from 1913 to 1916. There are over 2,000 glass plate negatives, handwritten day books, tomb cards, object registers, packing lists, like this one pictured here, but lists, quote, unimportant beads, etc., as found by Hamid. I chose this example to start with as it captures the essence of the problem at hand. How do the judgments and biases of the excavator trickle down and color every detail of archaeological data? And can we disentangle these interpretations, especially negative ones that deny the agency and history of this ancient African kingdom and what is waiting for us when we do? And something else to think about is can this even rightly be called decolonizing? I first presented this case study back in 2014 and since then there have been major changes in the terminology and practice of decolonization in Near Eastern studies, which is now often called ancient Middle Eastern studies or ancient MENA studies. And there's even a question of why ancient Nubia is included under all of this. There's a lot to unpack here, but we'll look at a case study today. There's a few key content warnings before we begin, especially as this is a publicly available talk online. So please note that this lecture will include the discussion of human remains, line drawings of the variables will be used for most illustrations. There's a limited number of slides that include black and white images of human remains when necessary to demonstrate key examples. I think I've actually removed all of those in this version. Sudanese antiquities regulations do not restrict the display of ancient human remains. And there will also be quotes from archival and published sources that include racially and gendered bias language to try to select again to illustrate points. So I'll revisit my 2014 paper Decolonizing Reisner and talk about what has changed in almost a decade since I did that research and think a little bit about the action of decolonizing and whether it can be achieved within academia and who can and should be undertaking it. I'll present a case study showing how reassessing colonially biased archaeology archives can create new knowledge. It's a small but limited stuff and decoloniality. There's very much the need for publicly engaged work that breaks down systemic biases and promotes representative multi-vocality. So I think the Baudet Museum is doing a wonderful job of especially with the new perspectives and ancient Nubia series, the series and you just shared your story map as a result of the ancient Nubia series. So we can start by looking at the history of Sudanese archaeology. George Reisner's American archaeologists who excavated many major sites in Sudan, which are the capitals of the Kushite kingdoms. This methodology was detailed, comprehensive and helps set modern technical standards for archaeology, but he was working with an early 20th century theoretical frameworks and had colonialist biases. His interpretations under emphasize the importance of local Nubian cultures and magnified ancient Egyptian influences. My research focuses on the archive and collection from his excavations, the cemetery of the classic Kerma period, which is the earliest of these Kushite capitals. So Reisner worked at the site of Kerma from 1913 to 1916. In three years he cleared the major mortuary monuments and religious temple complex of this ancient kingdom's capital. And as we will see, his interpretations were formed through his training as an Egyptologist and as an American working under the auspices of the Anglo-Egyptian colonial rule of Sudan at the time. And in many ways his colonialist biases were typical of archaeologists at the time, especially in comparison from what we've heard about Breasted, for example, in this series already. He saw all cultural achievements of Kerma as inspired by ancient Egyptian colonists with a then gradual disintegration of their quote, quote, civilization after ancient Egyptian rule dissipated. This was due to the presence of some Egyptian material culture, especially inscribed statuary fragments in the massive funerary monuments. Reisner's biased interpretations were rectified by the more than 50 year career of Charles Bonet, who's led the Geneva University excavations that reassessed and expanded upon that which Reisner had uncovered. Bonet has shown the undeniable growth of a major indigenous ancient Nubian kingdom centered at Kerma. But echoes of Reisner's biased interpretations haunt the earlier archival data. The archive holds massive research value, but you have to disentangle it line by line, as we'll see today. A quick background for the classic Kerma period, which is roughly equivalent to the second intermediate period in Egypt for 1700 to 1550 BCE. So Kerma is down by the third cataract of the Nile. During the classic Kerma period, the Nile valley was split between Kerma in the south, Egyptians, so there's Kerma's sphere of influence, Egyptians centered just at Thebes, and then the King and the Hixos in the north. The Kerman kings actively expanded the area of influence northwards, consolidating their political and social power on international and local scales. And the state formation progressed, the monumental temple and workshops at the center of the city of Kerma grew as did the temples and tumulus burials of the Kerman kings and elite to the east of the city. We don't have any textual records written by the Kermans themselves in this Kushite period, they didn't have recourse to written texts, but we know a lot about them from their art. So for example, in classic Kerma royal art, we see almost a complete lack of human figures, unlike say a pharaonic model showing off the figure of the king. So there's focus on animals, especially dangerous and powerful animals like lions, hippopotami and this amazing scorpion from glazed quartz. And then outside of the royal cults, funerary religion draws on a more diverse set of animal imagery, some of the same dangerous animals like lions and hyenas and some much less so like ostrich chicks. I'll leave it up to you to decide whether a flying giraffe, which you can see the top right here of the ivory inlays is dangerous or not. An important clarification should be made right now. And other historical context that were close ties between Egyptian and Nubian religious and political structures. And these are two areas that are often approached as separate cultural entities were engaged in periods of prosperous cooperation, or even as a single religious and political polity. For example, during dynasty 25 and the rulership of King Tarka. In the classic Kerma period, however, the archeological and textual evidence demonstrate competition over territory and natural resources. And this antagonistic relationship was likely very complex. There's also evidence for some Kermans living and working within Egypt and the capital of thebes and in the Egyptian delta for the Hyksos rulers in Averis. The mainline ancient Egyptian historical texts, however, pose the relationship as fully antagonistic. Pharaoh Kamosa laments the fact that he only has control of the theme and area. While he cites evidence of a desert route messenger who carried a letter from the Hyksos King proposing a political alliance that would crush Kamosa between southern and northern forces. And then subsequent changes to the Kermans, the Kermans, the Kermans, included sailing home with the bodies of defeated Nubians hanging from the crowds of the ship. The only direct in the ancient Egyptian textual record about Kermans military raids into Egyptian territory comes from the burial of Sobek Nakhde al-Qaab. In his tomb inscription, he boasts of how his forces repel Nubian looters in the sun, but the situation must have later reversed a stone vessels like the one shown here. With the name and titles of that same so that knocked are found in the graves, the last generation of classic hermo period back in by the third cataract. This is also inscribed statuary like the life size statue of Lady Senui and the Stila of the man named in tough who is known and tested to an active at as one. These are objects for use in Egyptian funerary occult that were deposited in tombs they're not luxury goods designated for trade. The Egyptian divorcing these objects from the original context would mean the spiritual death of their owners. So they were not willingly given to be taken to karma. And so following the social lives or object biographies of these Egyptian imports can outline a framework of collection and control by both the ancient Nubian rulers of karma. And then my archaeologists embedded in early 20th century colonial structures. In both timelines, the statues were collected during context of violence that are wrapped into larger imperialist systems that sought control and territory, people and natural resources. And what's interesting is many of these statues they take on the form of people. And these inanimate objects can in a way represent the living people also subsumed into these systems of violence. And this historical instance supplies us with thick evidence of how the collectors and creators own situation of power within colonial structures strongly affected their interpretations. Going back to Reisner, these Egyptian imports were the answer to his puzzle. He used them as literal descriptors of the people interred in the graves. The texts directly related to activities at karma. So there are the backbone to his interpretation of the site as an ancient Egyptian colony, so their context of use was completely different to anything observed in Egypt. And this has been really disproved that there was any colonial presence of Egyptians at karma at this time. So let's look at his collecting practices. And again in three years he recovered over 5000 objects, ranging from distinctly Nubian pottery to clear Egyptian imports, and a whole class of artifacts that seem to come from a mix of artistic traditions. When we look at his interpretations of the site, it immediately becomes clear that he's heavily influenced by the imperialist system of the time. So again, he reconstructed the site as an Egyptian outpost of the Middle Kingdom, manned by what he saw as a few Egyptian officials. The history of collection interpretation of this and other African immaterial culture was also subject to displaced or directly violent conditions. For example, Reisner was collecting only 15 years after the bloody defeat of Mahdes forces by the British, and this ancient Nubian material elucidates power structures inherent in the control of objects. And Reisner's interpretation of the archaeological record was directly influenced by this chaotic and violent colonial process. And he stated this colonialist perspective outright, as you can see here. His ability to work and collect in Sudan was controlled by the Anglo-Egyptian administration, which was relatively newly formed. And the stage was set from the beginning to deny any agency to ancient Nubian and by extension modern Sudanese polities. I went back through his daybooks or journals from the excavation and found some insights. Nothing quite as detailed as others have presented in this excellent lecture series. The handful of images from life around the excavation, the main points that stand out are that he brought his trained Egyptian excavators to supervise Sudanese workmen. He only allowed Egyptians to excavate Sudanese workmen carried baskets of fill. He commented generally on the poverty in the Kerma area, which might be incidental observations of the effects of war and the new Anglo-Egyptian colonization. Currently, Kerma is one of the more agriculturally rich areas in northern Sudan. He always focused much more on any finds with Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions, often spending half a page on each fragment, while complex stratigraphy and unique Nubian finds were glossed over summarily. He would mention the Egyptian excavator who found each statue fragments, and we know from other sites that he often gave a monetary bonus for such finds, the idea that it cut down on illicit sales. He also gave out bonuses on extremely windy days, which anyone who's worked during a sandstorm in Sudan would appreciate. There are moments where he almost breaks out of his preconceptions and is close to making new connections. For example, on December 21, he says, his work continued with astonishing results. From 307 came two razors, among other things, as near as I remember, exactly like those found in the cemetery at Carthage, and like those still in use in Central Africa. From 308, four jars, unlike anything I've ever seen or that the men have ever seen, one of them is a fine red-wear bowl with handle, a cow's head for a spout, and also a six-legged crocodile. But then, when he gets to his larger interpretations, he returns to his colonialist mindset. The outcomes of Reisner's collecting and interpretation created a deeply biased foundation for the understandings of ancient Nubian history with long-lasting results. But even at the time of his first publishing, dissenting voices spoke up against this denial of African history. The effects of colonialist archaeology were pointed out, in particular by African American writers, such as W. E. B. Du Bois, who added his voice to the protest against the process of African colonization. In one article, he says, quote, The anthropology that's being taught and the expedition's finance for archaeological and ethnographical explorations are for the most part straining every nerve to erase the history of black folk from the record. This was written in 1935. He refers to Reisner directly elsewhere. And public audiences were also involved, as quoted in several African American newspapers, reports included, is Harvard report propaganda. In the face of Harvard's recent attitude on the Negro, it would seem to indicate this contradiction of existing biblical and historical records on Egyptian civilization. This but a continuation of the white man's propaganda to deprive the Negro of any connection whatsoever to any form of ancient civilization. Again, it's important to remember that Reisner was not working in a vacuum then. And also the implications for interpreting premise past are far reaching. They're especially important for contemporary Sudanese communities. Archaeological work does not happen in a vacuum, and there's much pride and interest in Sudan's cultural heritage today. So returning to the archive. I want to present what can be a reassessed and reinterpreted in terms of common women in particular. There's one burial that stood out to me with enormous potential for understanding the life of a high status common woman. And tracing through the archive. This case lays out the dangerous intersectionality of Reisner's biases colonialist racist misogynist. But with what I would argue results that show the importance of reengaging with this archive. And the more difficult quotes from his work. So one of the distinctive funerary practices of the classic hermit period is the inclusion of human sacrifices and elite graves on a very large scale in the case of what are now known to be the royal graves. If you want to know more about this, I can refer you to a talk I have online from the Harvard Museum of ancient Near East. So Reisner searched for an explanation for this deviation from ancient Egyptian practices as he wanted to show that these are ancient Egyptian burials know the form is completely different. So he posited that ancient Nubian women insisted on this practice, imposing it on their ancient Egyptian husbands. So again this entire structure was in this case a colonialist imagining. So the top of the share here I have to say I've actually cut out the worst of what he's had to say this kind of the least harmful language. If you want to read it unedited it's available through happy trust excavations that occur in volume six. In order to address the practice of human sacrifice Reisner draws upon almost every system of bias available at the time. African women are equated directly with animals are said to be uninvolved. They're also conflated with orientalizing tropes that are highly sexualized like using the term Harim. And the implied violence of sacrifices even posed as pathological or disease that's spread by the ancient Kermit women. So we can clearly find the intersectionality of racist and misogynistic factors and Reisner's writings about karma, a clear example of misogynoir and colonialist thoughts. So what then is left and what can be learned from the archive and can researchers navigate these ethical pitfalls in a way that is justice to ancient lives. So understanding these interpretations are based on data created through the exploitation of indigenous bodies. It's the labor that uncovered them and the people whose remains were collected. I hope that this case study shows this conversation can be important to grapple with. So, looking at the archaeological setup. This is the Eastern cemetery the classic hermer royal burials. And the one we'll be looking at today is tumulus K 10 is over, or it's about 100 meters in width. The Kings burial was at the center, but we're going to look at one of the elite graves that's inserted into the desk of the tumulus grave K 1053. The burial with one intact funerary bed, and the Kermit laid on this bed as an adult female. As confirmed by recent osteological research doctors, Margaret Judd and Sarah Schroeder were both kind enough to share the results with me for this study. The adult woman body D was buried with significant personal adornments and grave goods, including a silver headdress and Reisner's excavation documents present a mix of factual records and interpretation. The archive shows she was buried on an inlaid bed reconstruction of that bed, decorative local animals and Egyptian tower at goddesses. She held an imported Egyptian scarab strong with carnelian and amethyst beads at her hand. She had a wealth of Nubian luxury goods like this glazed crystal necklace on the bottom right. And this beautiful example of black top redware with a spout, just distinctly Nubian ceramic. Reisner's interpretation, however, sets her within his colonialist perspective. He thought body D was a sacrifice. Negroid wife, his words, part of his reconstruction of the site of karma as an Egyptian outpost again in which he thought Nubian women married Egyptian officials and again long since disproven. Reassessing this burial using the archival records to reconstruct this woman's set of burial goods and disentangling Reisner's bias assumptions can instead give us evidence of the role of high status women in the classic karma community. There's many available archival resources to work from. His recording systems are relatively very thorough and can be cross referenced. There's tomb cards with sketch plans and lists of finds, object registers with drawings, dimensions, materials, handwritten diaries. There's over 2000 field photos from the Kermit excavations, including pictures of objects in situ, like this inlaid funerary bed, which can be compared to its state today. And the MFA collection. So for my research, I designed a database that could bring all of this related archival resource together for each grave. And I give you insight into the raw data available. So the most unique object presence in this grave is this silver headdress. It was buried wearing it and shown here as it had been displayed at the MFA Boston on a mannequin head. It's silver, it was worn on the head, but it was displayed, labeled and published as an Egyptian vulture crown. And a big question in my research has been if there's evidence of Nubians adopting Egyptian ideology for kingship or queenship, or as they argue instead, many others have argued since then. Did the Kermans develop their own programs of ideology and contra distinction to their northern rivals at this time. And this vulture crown would have been the only example of an Egyptian crown used at the site. The Egyptian queens were vulture crowns to associate themselves with the goddess Nefet. They're realistic, it's very codified, it looks as if a vulture was set on their head. The Kermans example is highly stylized, there's no noticeable feathers, seems odd to go from what would have been to them an exotic foreign example to the very abstracted version. So I wanted to know more about the crown and its archeological context. It's a very hard sketch, body on the inked plan. The silver was sewn onto a cap of cloth, and, and you can see it's as illustrated in C2 on the head of the deceased. The original orientation of the headdress was horizontal coming forward like this, instead of vertical like in the Egyptian examples. There is a field photo of the silver headdress that confirms it on place on the skull of the deceased. I've decided not to show it here due to the graphic dehumanization of the way the photos compose the skull has been detached and it's a very literal objectification of the woman. If you're interested is available in Reisner's publications again through happy trust. Multiple layers of the archive show that it's that horizontally coming past the ear and close to the eye. The shape and orientation of the silver silver headdress are more similar to Ram's horns. And of course in subsequent Nubian cultures Rams and Ram horn crowns are highly significant. On the left is the statue of Anlamani found at karma from a later period that depicts the king wearing a double crown, the addition of that downward curled Rams horns, and Nubian queens could also be depicted with such crowns. So those is a significantly later Marawitic ruler. I'm on a chiquete shown here on the right. So the orientation and form of the Kerman silver headdress suggests a locally embedded Nubian significance rather than an Egyptian one, which then leads to the question of who was this woman, and what was her role in the community. There is some hints to do an answer and some of the wall painting preserved in the royal mortuary complexes. In this case a woman is the main figure and a boat of rowers poorly preserved now. This is a line drawing reconstruction from Bonaise excavations on the top, it's visible and Reisner's field photo. And so the wall painting of the woman includes the same personal adornment found on the woman in K 1053 in particular decorated skirt with the silver beaded drawstring. This is the skirt as it's preserved today. You can see the silver beads that would have been decorating along the top down the front. And in the painting there are white dots showing exactly that same decoration. She also wore a set of armlets and bracelets and gold and you can see the armlets and place in the drawing in the wall painting, and as found on the woman and a necklace of glaze quartzite beads, you can see the necklace in the drawing as well. So this is not to say they're the same woman. And so they're both important female figures, perhaps a royal relative, a daughter sister way for a combination of the above or somebody who held like a priestess status, which we can actually learn more about the activities that she would have done. And in this case through an Egyptian import. This is a typical Egyptian scarab that was found strung with amethyst and carnelian buried with her, showing she had access to foreign luxury goods, but she also probably use the seal and life. The archival documents show the scarab was worn or held near her hand, emphasizing its use as a stamp seal rather than as a protective amulet. They were not the same seal as this one, which sealed the royal burial chamber of the same tumulus, making this impression would have been part of the royal burial ceremony and sealing the king away for the afterlife. It would have been amazing if they were exactly the same seal, but none of the scarabs found at karma match with this impression, unfortunately. There are hundreds of other seal impressions from the religious center of the city of karma, showing the individuals who use these Egyptian imports were key players in the religious and economic life of the community. And then looking at the motifs used on the woman's and late bed also hit at an important religious role. And in fact, you can track the form of kermin towel where it's over time. You can see an evolution and adaptation of an Egyptian motif into karma religion. So classic karma in the early generation, which is the example we're looking at now. It's very similar to the Egyptian models without any hieroglyphic markers she's not holding an onk or a gen pillar, for example. But then by the second generation of her use and karma, her figures includes the addition of that decorated skirt can see the little notches to show that the beaded decoration. And then finally there's a move to fantastical or magical form with addition of wings still wearing a skirt. Line drawing that helps with comparison. By reassessing the archival record for the woman and K 1053 a very different picture emerges. In the case of the silver headdress, a direct connection to Egyptian royal iconography is not likely. The horizontal orientation suggests the locally embedded religious significance instead perhaps that of Rams Warns. At the same time, we see the use of Egyptian imports like the scarab seal that have been adopted for economic use in the community. And the start of the adaptation of an Egyptian goddess to have associations with high status kermin women are reframing her within newbie and personal adornment. So it's an active and creative role in classic karma religious and economic life. And in continuing with this research I found less well preserved burials of women with very similar personal adornment, whether beaded skirts, some fragments of silver headdresses though none complete enough to see the form like this example. This serves to show that there's much further research to be done to better understand the presence and roles of women in the karma community. So reflecting on what has has changed over the past decade or so. Following the entanglement of collection control and knowledge production within this archaeological archive highlights the imperative need for reimagining the relationship between Africa and museums. The question remains, however, if the complexity of how artifacts were used and they're changing contexts over millennia can be captured for contemporary public audiences. I've seen in 2020 special exhibit at the Museum of Finance Boston called ancient newbie now address some of this biased history and public reactions to the southern interesting. It's been traveling it was in St. Louis. I'm not sure if it's still open there. But I think it's going to continue to to tour. And the entrance to the exhibit signage acknowledged the fact that the MFA is not previously prioritized the display of ancient newbie and collection. And the state that the history of the collection is quote, complicated by our growing awareness of the far reaching impact of European colonialism, although the Boston expedition held permits to excavate at newbie insights. Those permits were in fact issued not by the Egyptians and Sudanese but by British colonial officers exhibition included videos of interviews with scholars about the content of the collection, but more importantly about the racist and biased interpretations in the past. A young woman who is student needs and a college student in the Boston area speaks to visitors about how she feels strongly connected to Lady Senui as experienced by viewing the sculpture on display. Exhibition labels also state, quote, we acknowledge the privilege and obligation that comes with being stewards of these masterpieces. We also commit to interpret this collection together with the communities we serve. Public reactions can also be gauged to the social media dialogue around the exhibit. It's included people gushing about how much they love Egyptian art, who then were corrected by other posters who point out the objects are in fact from ancient newbie. Some commenters are writing from Sudan. One person invited anyone who sees the exhibit or his comment to come visit him in in Dungalow. There are recent grassroots movements to decolonize museums and then museums who have addressed the colonial foundations of the collections and the body sent Diego museum us the pit rivers museum. I've opened a public dialogue about the intersections of violence collection creation and display of ancient and modern cultures, and Kerman now stands as an important case study in the ancient historical and contemporary instances of this dialogue. It's important to focus on how understandings of the past are built in the future, especially through collective and collaborative dialogues. So here's a few resources through the body and through the ARF. If you're interested, I kind of talked a lot about community based archaeology is kind of a solution moving forward in terms of more equitable, or like the term radical inclusion that the body is using. If you want to hear about my own projects on the same channel you'll find an asking archaeologist episode. And also emphasizing the importance of public facing scholarship like these talks, the new perspectives and ancient new via a story map that you've just released I think, two days ago yesterday. And also, again, collective discussion among scholars, thinking about how to prioritize our own research and connect with public audiences and getting input that way. I'm a member of the Nile Valley collective I suggest you look back at the round table that was also hosted here. Thank you, I think that's the end of my slides and I look forward to all of your questions. Thank you so much Dr minor for sharing your fascinating research with us. And it's really remarkable to, and he does such a great job to consider, you know, the changes since your early, early article in that it was early to tackle some of these theoretical, some of the questions was published. And it's such a wonderful contribution and it's so great. In essence how, you know, aspects of multiple fields are kind of catching up to to you and your many others, not just me. Small part of this. Typically we all make small contributions. So I'm just waiting on. Looks like will socratic maybe joining us with some questions. Yeah, thank you so much for this incredibly informative and illuminating talk and for sharing your work today. So I have a couple of questions and also thank you for putting in the plug for the new story map web exhibit I'm going to get the link and put it in the YouTube chat for the audience to help publicize that a bit. My first question. Let's discuss in a bit more detail. The reception of rise nurse interpretations at during during his lifetime, particularly the pushback that he received for his racist and gender abuse, you mentioned the critique by WB Du Bois. Did anyone else join that chorus to refute rise nurse harmful interpretations. Yes, that's, that's an entire other talk that you could have in the series. Within, within kind of academic Egyptology and and kind of like a weight American scholarship I guess I would say, or kind of within Near Eastern studies there was some pushback as early as 1940. Like, Yunker pointed out kind of the the fallacy in his argument in that Egyptian officials living outside of Egypt would have so completely changed their burial practices something that that's very essential to the core of their cultural practices. And really, it really didn't change in terms of kind of archaeological interpretation until the salvage archaeology that occurred in the 60s and 70s in in Sudan, and, and southern Egypt like northern Sudan and southern Egypt during the building of the as one dam. And that influx of information that came in about kind of rounding out evidence of Nubian archaeology and and cultures, and especially from archaeologists who hadn't been trained as Egyptologists there was sort of a worldwide call for archaeologists to come do this salvage archaeology. So it brought in a lot of different perspectives and without kind of that overburden of, of Egyptological perspectives. And then in terms of African American scholarship in particular. I would refer you to Vanessa Davies and Deborah Hurd, and also Solange Ashby's has talked about this, and looking at key scholars, especially Leo Hansberry, who who spoke out and, and kind of tried to to push back against these biased interpretations and we're very much kind of siloed into their kind of separate academic departments. In particular the Hansberry society, I could check out their webpage they have a lot of information. It's a coalition of black scholars today who are working on these topics and kind of talk about that kind of schism within academic archaeology at the time. Let's see so we have a both a comment and a question from our internet audience. Christopher, our Hoffman first of all wants to thank you for your presentation. And they say, I can sense that working through the Reisner writings has been and continues to be emotionally challenging. My question is, how do you keep going. It's a really important question. I mean for me, something that's important to you in terms of this kind of work is positionality and so I have the privilege working as a white American scholar to have some what more of a distance between what the writings say in my own self. I think that the motivation is the kind of, I don't know if there's ever truth in archaeology is the question of proof in archaeology, but just seeing the wealth of information every time I dip into this archive. Even just revisiting these slides you see new associations and new really amazing insights that are just sitting there waiting to be to be found. And, yeah, in terms of new being scholarship it's really blossoms and in the past 10 years and there's so many more scholars like you've seen through the new perspectives on ancient new BS series. The more people who are working on this the better just because it's if you dig something up and you don't take the time to actually use that information. That is, that's just a complete waste. Great. Thank you. Another question from our YouTube audience. Again, so Carl Walsh would like to thank you for an amazing talk sentiment that I'd like to echo. And they go on to say, it's amazing to see the photos of the silver diadem. It looks somewhat awkward to sit on the head. Do you think it was functional diadem, or perhaps funerary only. That's an interesting question. I can imagine it would be uncomfortable. We have to remember that it also probably had a lot of organic appendages that have been lost so there were remains of some sort of cloth cap. Likely had feathers there's sort of a little divot that sticks out here that probably had feathers attached to it as have been found say on on Ram or horns, Capred sacrifices at at Kerma like ostrich feather sun disks that were attached. So there could have been all sorts of different parts that are missing now. But I think showing off power isn't supposed to be comfortable. So whether she wore it on a daily basis or during ceremonies or just for funerary purposes. I think comfort was not an issue that they were worried about. The silver is remarkably well preserved silver doesn't usually preserve so well archaeologically. And I'm not quite sure I think, as it was reconstructed it's in a couple of different pieces, so the actual shape of it as it is now might not completely accurately reflect what it is like originally. Yeah, I can piggyback actually on Carl's question and ask. Is there any idea about the source or sources of over. Oh right. Yeah, because silver of course is much rarer than gold in like along the Nile Valley and especially in new be a. Yeah, that's a good question. Interesting we see a lot of these kind of like focus on particular decorative colors or materials and Kerma that come as sets. So the fact she has a silver headdress and silver beaded dress, I think is important and it's rarity and kind of showing off does it have lunar associations versus solar we don't really have that kind of textual evidence to explain these things but it was very intentional I think in terms of showing off as rarity. Yeah that's something that you could do more materials analysis to see like what the purity of silver is, but it was likely would have had to been imported instead of having a local source. You know, they've been, you know, even more valued as you alluded to, then gold since there are gold sources fairly close by and will be out of order but anyway, anything stuff. And sorry and not to interject too much myself but you know sometimes with metals to it's not just their color but also their sheen. Yeah, you know which of course is lost as they tarnish over time, but a reflective of the qualities can have social meanings, etc, etc. So yeah, and in fact the much more common had decorated headwear at in class the Kerma are caps that have mica inlays. So they would have also had that the more iridescent bit kind of. It's sort of silver colored mica. So, yeah, a lot of really interesting things going on. Those might be that the cheap knockoffs. But anyway, so another internet question from Brian, Mayor Ella asks if you could please provide the references to the quote you cited from you be the boys. Oh, the response to Reisner. Yes, I will follow up with a comment in the YouTube stream. It's from 19. 1935. If you look on JSTOR, it's there. That is how I found it apologies I don't have that directly at hand or if you also look at my academia.edu page that has the paper this is based on and the reference would be there. Okay. Sorry about that. No no wonderful. I believe that Melissa has one more question. I think she'll magically appear in just a moment. Hi. I think you already addressed this question in part. Could you discuss a little bit more detail how scholarship of ancient Kerma and of the history of archaeology of Sudan has changed in the past couple of decades as a response to decolonizing approaches. So, one of the interesting things about working in Sudan as an archaeologist is the emphasis on collaboration between international archaeologists and Sudanese archaeologists. And it's, it's something that has to be very much well integrated into any new research proposals. And I don't have time to list the many collaborative archaeology projects that are happening in Sudan here today. They're free to my other talk. And then also, especially if you look at the Kelsey Museum and University of Michigan work done by Jeff Emberling and his team. He's, he's spoken a lot about how they're, they're setting up their project to be very much a close collaboration with kind of an international archaeologists and Sudanese archaeologists kind of paired in as many roles as possible and to have that the framework in terms of the research activities themselves, having that kind of equity in in mind and collaboration in mind. And it's not like, in terms of infrastructure and sort of daily archaeological activities that can be very difficult, like challenging to work in Sudan, especially because of the weather. That's something that showed up over and over again in Reisner's excavation archives saying they had to stop work because of the sandstorm and the wind he couldn't even work on the maps at night because the wind was so strong. So I think the archaeologists that have international archaeologists who have gone to work in Sudan have been very motivated by the need to address these gaps and research and the research value of this area of the world to have to be very, very passionate in these terms. Thank you. Wonderful. So thank you so much. Dr. Elizabeth Minor. What a wonderful way to wrap up our series. And I just want to put in a few words of thanks, not only to today's speaker but to all of our speakers throughout this academic year. This has been an eyeopening series, and I hope has demonstrated the sort of the rich nuances that are available in some of these, you know, archives from from a time of of colonies throughout the, you know, the greater region. But by, as Elizabeth addressed today, by reconsidering them with, you know, current research questions. They're still rich data to be mined wonderful information to, you know, to be had. And then of course with all of the pluses and minuses that these that these archives produce as well. I'd like to thank our co sponsors the Palestine exploration exploration fund and archaeological research facility at UC Berkeley, and our host institution Pacific School of Religion, in which the body museum is found without that collaboration and support these other series really would not be possible. And especially a big word of thanks to Dr. Melissa Craddock, our curator and Sam Fister, who at the time was our collections manager, who jumped into this research and found such a treasure trove. And so we were kind and presented in our online exhibit, you know, related to these themes. And then of course, I'm hosted the round table which kicked off this year's lecture series. And just, you know, for me as someone sort of in the field, quote unquote, it's been such a wonderful set of learning opportunities because this is not where my research has has taken me in particular. Anyway, again, I think to our audience. And if they're, you know, young graduate students or scholars out there. It is such a rich arena for for inquiry. And also, you know, shows just the, the importance of, you know, continuing to maintain these archives. And, you know, a hat tip to our predecessors, who, with all of their faults, and all of their warts showing, you know, kept these materials that we can now reconsider, you know, going back to the sort of fundamentals of archaeology. I think it applies also to archives as well that, you know, keeping your data and your interpretation separate is extremely important, because future generations can always go back and reconsider your data and reinterpret it. So with that, I'd like to thank our both our presenters and of course all of the different institutions involved. And just to let you know, the internet audience that will be starting up a new series in the academic fall of this year. And its theme will be women and gender performance in antiquity. So stay tuned, we're going to have a little summer break, but then we'll come back in the fall with a new set of interesting and and I would think, you know, hopefully thought provoking questions and information. And again, thanks to all the scholars who've been so generous in sharing their, their research and their ideas with our audience.