Team of ERC Starting Grant „UMMA – Urban Metamorphosis of the community of a Medieval African capital city” holds a workshop to summarize the results of the first fieldwork season.
In the 2018–2019 season, PCMA UW mission spent four months at Old Dongola. The primary focus of their fieldwork was on localizing and investigating the latest archaeological remains at the site, which proved to date from the 18th century. The work of the “UMMA” project, headed by Dr. Artur Obłuski, aims at researching the recent history of Dongola to gain insights on the changes that took place in the city after it had seized to be the capital of the christian Kingdom of Makuria.
Old Dongola is a site of great importance, excavated by PCMA teams for over half a century. As the Makurian capital it flourished between the 11th and the 13th century. After Makuria’s downfall, a small kingdom centred round the city, which upheld intensive trade contacts both with the Far East and with Europe. The UMMA project’s team are not only interested in the collapse of one state organism and the erection of a new one, but also in the transitional period which sees Dongola’s transformation into a Muslim city and the formation of a new society.
During the workshop entitled ERC Starting Grant UMMA. A glimpse at an 18th-century African urban landscape: Dongola 2018–2019 season results various specialists will present the results of work in their respective fields and summarize the information obtained within the project at its present stage.
The workshop will be held on 3–5 July 2019 on PCMA premises at ul. Nowy Świat 4, room 207