Urban biography of a cosmopolitan African capital

Introduction

The project aims at writing an urban biography of Tungul (Old Dongola, Sudan). The use of the native Nubian designation of the city underscores its medieval African heritage, while the “biographical” approach aids in conceptualizing the city as a complex, living organism.

Historical Context

Tungul was originally the capital of the kingdom of Makuria, which transformed into a city-state under the patronage of Funj sultans (16th–19th cent.). Makuria was a medieval African kingdom that thrived in the Middle Nile Valley from the end of the 4th cent. to the late 15th cent. CE.

Project Goals

This project is a multidisciplinary attempt at gaining a profound understanding of settlement persistence in riverine Africa. It intends to amass extensive documentation of a medieval and pre-modern city.

Methodology

The biography will be based on analyses of:

• Tungul’s urban design and planning
• Built structures
• Material culture
• Bioarchaeology
• Micromorphology
• Geochemistry

Expected Contributions

The results will significantly contribute to the Nubian datasets and offer new perspectives for broader archaeological and theoretical studies on urbanism and complex societies.

Research Themes

The proposed biography will focus on three entangled and mutually inclusive research themes:

1. The capital’s cityscape, its design and planning
2. The city’s inhabitants
3. Climate and environment

Narrative Approach

The project intends to venture beyond the traditional narratives, steeped in either ecological or political determinism, to create a balanced narrative devoting equal attention to climatic, environmental, socioeconomic, and political factors.

Data Collection Focus

The majority of work will focus on the collection and analysis of data on Tungul in the Makurian period (4th–15th centuries). However, the research objectives require combining this material with data for the Funj period (16th–19th centuries), which constitutes an outcome of the ERC Starting Grant UMMA, and with other information obtained through decades of excavations, to consolidate the results of all research conducted at Tungul.