Dissertation by Henriette Hafsaas
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Articles by Henriette Hafsaas
The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Nubia, 2020
During the timespan from ca. 2500 to 1500 BCE, cattle-herders termed the C-Group people inhabited... more During the timespan from ca. 2500 to 1500 BCE, cattle-herders termed the C-Group people inhabited Lower Nubia - the stretch of the Nile between the First and the Second Cataracts (Fig. 9.1). At this time, the Nile was a fertile artery through the Sahara and thus a meeting place for ethnic groups with different forms of political organization and different modes of food production. The C-Group people lived on the southern frontier of the Egyptian state, and the Egyptians invaded and thereafter occupied Lower Nubia from ca. 1938 to 1725 BCE. The proximity to the Egyptian state was of fundamental importance throughout the history of the C-Group people, and the relationship with Egypt will be the overarching perspective in this review. However, the C-Group people also interacted with other ethnic groups in Nubia (i.e. the Kerma people in Upper Nubia and the Pan-Grave people of the Eastern Desert).
Keywords: C-Group people, pastoralism, interethnic relations, Egypt, Kush
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Journal of Social Archaeology, 2011
During the construction period of the controversial Merowe Dam in Sudan, foreign archaeologists w... more During the construction period of the controversial Merowe Dam in Sudan, foreign archaeologists were surveying and excavating in order to save the cultural heritage of the land to be flooded without considering the local people's attitude towards the development project that would resettle them. This article addresses the ethical implications of conducting salvage archaeology when the local people are in opposition to the development project that necessitates both their resettlement and the archaeological salvage.
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Norwegian Archaeological Review, 2009
The Kingdom of Kush flourished in northern Sudan between 2000 and 1500 BCE. During this period, t... more The Kingdom of Kush flourished in northern Sudan between 2000 and 1500 BCE. During this period, the capital Kerma emerged as a major economic and political centre in the Nile Valley. After a short review of the application of world system theory and centre-periphery perspectives in archaeology, the author proceeds to a presentation of the Bronze Age societies in northern Sudan and their wide-reaching trade relations. A central argument is that an incentive for the rise of the Kingdom of Kush was its intermediate position in long-distance trade between the north and the south. The article concludes with a discussion of Kush as a centre on the periphery of the so-called Bronze Age World System in Afro-Eurasia.
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Antiquity, 2013
The author revisits the celebrated cemetery of the Bronze Age Kerma culture by the third cataract... more The author revisits the celebrated cemetery of the Bronze Age Kerma culture by the third cataract of the Nile and re-examines its monumental tumuli. The presence of daggers and drinking vessels in secondary burials are associated with skeletal remains that can be attributed to fighting men, encouraging their interpretation as members of a warrior elite. Here, on the southern periphery of the Bronze Age world, is an echo of the aggressive aristocracy of Bronze Age Europe.
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Dotawo, 2019
During the centuries of religious transition from Christianity to Islam in Nubia, the area betwee... more During the centuries of religious transition from Christianity to Islam in Nubia, the area between the First and the Third Nile Cataracts was a contested frontier between opposing polities. From c. 1200 CE, this Nubian frontier was between the Muslim Ayyubid and Mamluk rulers of Egypt in the north and the Christian kingdom of Makuria in the south. From c. 1500 CE, the Nubian frontier was between two Islamic empires – the Ottomans and the Funj. Especially the inhospitable region of Batn el-Hajar has been considered as an area of refuge during these tumultuous times (Adams, 1977: 513). According to Christopher Boehm (1984), people taking refuge in inhospitable terrain may turn into a “refuge area warrior society”, which is a cross-cultural adaptation. Michael Galaty (2012) has identified four features of refuge area warrior societies: 1) Location on a frontier, 2) Relatively high population density in areas with low carrying capacity, 3) Permanent residence in defensible locations, 4) Evidence for inter- and intragroup violence. In the article, I discuss if the Nubian frontier is compatible with a refuge area warrior adaptation, and how the frontier situation affected the religious transition from Christianity to Islam.
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Pharos Journal of Theology, Special Issue: Angels, Ancestors, Alchemy and the Arts of Africa, 2021
The Christian population in Medieval Nubia created numerous manifestations of their faith in vari... more The Christian population in Medieval Nubia created numerous manifestations of their faith in various forms from monumental cathedrals to minuscule inscriptions. Among the latter are monograms, cryptograms, and cross-shaped symbols. Researchers of Medieval Nubia have only seldom studied closely these epigraphic categories. Moreover, the study of the cult of the archangels, especially of the archangel Michael, who held a primal position in the belief system of Christians in Nubia, has only recently attracted the attention of Nubiologists. This article employs theory about the interface between the written and the visual in order to discuss grapho-linguistic evidence for this type of epigraphic devices and the use of such devices as multivocal symbols in the cults of the archangels in Medieval Nubia. A careful analysis of cryptograms of the archangels Michael and Raphael offers a key to the decipherment of an eight-pointed cross as a multivocal symbol connected with the cult of the archangels. The study pivots around observations made during fieldwork on Sai Island in northern Sudan.
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With the purpose of providing insights into the position of the church on Sai Island among the bi... more With the purpose of providing insights into the position of the church on Sai Island among the bishoprics of Christian Nubia, the paper contextualizes archaeologically well-known Nubian cathedrals with monolithic granite columns as roof supports (Old Dongola, Faras and Qasr Ibrim), presenting them against the background of historically known bishoprics from medieval Nubia and archaeologically attested episcopal churches. Four granite columns at the locality 8-B-500 on Sai Island, identified with the site of a medieval cathedral, are compared with like roof supports from other Makurian buildings of the kind to show that the church was constructed at the beginning of the 8th century AD and modeled on the Church of Granite Columns from Old Dongola.
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Between the Cataracts, 2010
In this paper, I interprete the C-Group people’s response to the shifting political climate durin... more In this paper, I interprete the C-Group people’s response to the shifting political climate during the Middle Kingdom and the Second Intermediate Period with special reference to the shifting relationships to Kush in Upper Nubia and the Theban dynasty in Upper Egypt. Furthermore, I clarify two common misunderstandings of the relationship between the C-Group people and their neighbors: 1) that the trade between the Egyptians and the C-Group people ceased during the Middle Kingdom, and 2) that the Kushites occupied Lower Nubia during the Second Intermediate Period.
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Connecting South and North. Sudan Studies from Bergen in Honour of Mahmoud Salih, 2009
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Beiträge zur Sudanforschung, 2012
This paper presents the results of the second season of the Greek-Norwegian Archaeological Missio... more This paper presents the results of the second season of the Greek-Norwegian Archaeological Mission (GNM) on the island of Sai in northern Sudan. The main goal for the 2010 season was to begin the archaeological excavations at the site of a ruined church commonly referred to as the Cathedral of Sai. In parallel, the documentation of a very important site, identified as a port since the last season, had to be completed. Finally, the study of the material, both accumulated in the past and collected during this second season, was continued and thus, in comparison always to the historical sources, the understanding of the history of the island of Sai in the frame of Medieval and post-Medieval
Nubia (c. 500-1900 CE) further enlarged.
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Norwegian Archaeological Review, 2011
... Norwegian Archaeological Review. ... The book is divided into three parts. ... The office ass... more ... Norwegian Archaeological Review. ... The book is divided into three parts. ... The office assumed new importance only at the very end of this period when the weakened King Ramses VI dispatched his daughter Isis to Thebes and established her as a God's Wife of Amun in order to ...
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CRIPEL , 2007
This paper presents an anthropological perspective on pots and people with the C-Group people in ... more This paper presents an anthropological perspective on pots and people with the C-Group people in Lower Nubia as a case study. In Sudan archaeology, pottery studies have primarily focused on typology and its implications for identifying archaeological assemblages as well as establishing chronologies. An anthropological perspective, which seeks to uncover how people used the pots in the past, may provide information on subsistence, status display and competition, as well as the communication of ethnicity. The paper aims to go beyond typology in order to discover the people who made and used the pots.
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Norwegian Archaeological Review, 2011
... Norwegian Archaeological Review. ... The book is divided into three parts. ... The office ass... more ... Norwegian Archaeological Review. ... The book is divided into three parts. ... The office assumed new importance only at the very end of this period when the weakened King Ramses VI dispatched his daughter Isis to Thebes and established her as a God's Wife of Amun in order to ...
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Food and foodways in the Middle East, 2009
The article explores the prominence of wine as a favoured intoxicant from the early Bronze Age to... more The article explores the prominence of wine as a favoured intoxicant from the early Bronze Age to the advent of Islam in ancient Palestine. The Central Palestinian Mountains, notably along the west bank of the River Jordan, emerged as one of the earliest wine-producing regions on a commercial scale. This region, along with the adjacent Mediterranean coastal plain, is used as a case study to understand the origins of wine consumption and its prohibition. During the Bronze Age, alongside the cultivation of vines, the olive tree was also grown, leading to the luxury status of olive oil similar to that of wine. With the decline of wine production, a new industry of soap-making from olive oil emerged in Nablus within the Central Palestinian Mountains. This development catered to the common populace, contrasting with the historical use of perfumed oil for the elite. The creation of olive soap highlighted aspects of Muslim identity, particularly the emphasis on ritual purification before prayer, extending to personal hygiene practices that surpassed those of Medieval European Christians. The article demonstrates that the evolution of the wine and olive oil industries reflected shifts in societal practices and cultural identities in the long term.
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Beiträge zur Sudanforschung, 2010
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Beiträge zur Sudanforschung, 2010
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African Archaeological Review, 2012
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Fra haug ok heidni, 2007
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Dissertation by Henriette Hafsaas
Articles by Henriette Hafsaas
Keywords: C-Group people, pastoralism, interethnic relations, Egypt, Kush
Nubia (c. 500-1900 CE) further enlarged.
Keywords: C-Group people, pastoralism, interethnic relations, Egypt, Kush
Nubia (c. 500-1900 CE) further enlarged.