Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan 9781841716398, 9781407327112

Table of contents :
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Table of Contents
Abstract
Acknowledgement
Transliteration and Abbreviations
List of Maps
List of Figures
List of Plates
Glossary
Preface
Methodology
Presentation
Major conclusion
Chapter I. THE GEOGRAPHY AND HUMAN SOCIETIES OF THE SUDAN ON THE EVE OF THE COMING OF ISLAM
Chapter II. THE ISLAMISATION OF THE SUDAN
Chapter III. Part I. THE NATURE OF ISLAMIC EVIDENCE IN THE SUDAN
Chapter IV. SECULAR MATERIAL CULTURE
Chapter V. RELIGIOUS MATERIAL CULTURE
Chapter VI. MILITARY MATERIAL CULTURE
Chapter VII. CONCLUSIONS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Plates
CAMBRIDGE MONOGRAPHS IN AFRICAN ARCHAEOLOGY

Citation preview

BAR S1289 2004

Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 60 Series Editors: John Alexander and Lawrence Smith

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan ELZEIN: ISLAMIC ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE SUDAN

B A R

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

BAR International Series 1289 2004

Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 60 Series Editors: John Alexander and Lawrence Smith

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

BAR International Series 1289 2004

ISBN 9781841716398 paperback ISBN 9781407327112 e-format DOI https://doi.org/10.30861/9781841716398 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

BAR

PUBLISHING

Table of contents Abstract ................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ................................................................................................ iii Transliteration and Abbreviation ............................................................................. iv List of Maps ............................................................................................................. v List of Figures .......................................................................................................... v List of Plates .......................................................................................................... vii Glossary ................................................................................................................ viii Preface ................................................................................................................... ix Chapter I: The Geography and Human Societies in the Sudan on the eve of the coming of Islam ...................................................................... 1 Chapter II: The Islamisation of the Sudan ............................................................. 12 1 Introduction ................................................................................................... 12 2 Phase I CE 640-1300 .................................................................................... 12 3 Phase II CE 1300-1500 ................................................................................. 15 4 Phase III CE 1500-1800 ................................................................................ 17 Chapter III: The Nature of Islamic evidence in the Sudan ..................................... 20 Part I: Islamic Archaeology: definitions ............................................................ 20 Part II: The Nature of the evidence .................................................................. 24 Chapter IV: Secular Material Culture ..................................................................... 35 Part I: Early Islamic Urban Centres .................................................................. 35 Part II: Artifacts ................................................................................................. 67 Chapter V: Religious material Culture ................................................................... 85 1 Architecture ................................................................................................... 85 2 Burial superstructures and tombstones ......................................................... 99 3 Artifacts ....................................................................................................... 102 Chapter VI: Military material Culture .................................................................... 110 1 Architecture ................................................................................................. 110 2 Artifacts ....................................................................................................... 119 Chapter VII: Conclusions ..................................................................................... 122 Bibliography ........................................................................................................ 129 Plates .................................................................................................................. 137

i

Abstract The Sudan with its vast region, varied geographical zones and peoples presents a unique pattern of the archaeology of Islam in Africa. The inhabitants of the Nile Valley had, before the coming of the Arabs, some 3000 years of urban and literate civilisation. This influenced the development during the spread of Arabic-speaking nomads, who entered since the 7th century CE, via the Suez land, the eastern desert and the Red Sea. The rise of the al-‘Umari Emirates in the eastern desert, the Tunjur and then the Keira Sultanates in the west and the Fung King in the centre was only the culmination of this slow process of Arab migration. Such a slow and complex process can not be studied unless divided into Phases. Each Phase had its distinctive evidence and impact on this process and must be considered separately. We recognise three Phases in this slow complex process as follows: 1. Phase I CE 640-1300 (AH 20-680) 2. Phase II CE 1300-1500 (AH 680-920) 3. Phase III CE 1500-1800 (AH 920-1480) The nature of Islamic evidence in the Sudan shows that considerable difference in regional material culture, to be expected both in time and space. It is also to be expected that there will be great differences except in religious matters between the sedentary population of the Nile Valley and the Savannah belt population as well as nomads. The evidence ranges from archaeological, ethnoarchaeological, historical and Ethnohistorical. The study of settlement sites showed that there were four building traditions in the Islamic Sudan. The mud or mud brick rectangular house with flat roof, the rectangular stone, or mud brick house with barrel vault, Red Sea coral buildings and the round conical roof house. There is a more wide range of objects that one expects from the archaeological excavation of settlement sites. Objects connected with agriculture, sewing and weaving beside objects that are kept with families or at khalwas like copper objects and nisba documents. It is evident that Islamic religious remains in the Sudan are numerous and vary greatly. There is a wide range of architectural and artefactual evidence. The early and gradual spread of Islam from the north can be deduced from the tombstones, Fatimid manuscripts, early mosques, religious documents and other artifacts. Islamic military architecture in the Sudan is another field that needs urgent work since most of these structures are still visible e.g. castles and forts. The military artifacts that are considered here came from Phase III. Except for some cannons and armour all were of iron. They include firearms, spears, swords, chainmail, stirrups, slings and shields. So far very few early objects are reported. The study proposes some recommendations for further researches. A general survey could be achieved through a long-term plan to be conducted under university staff members, with cooperation from the National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums. This beside selected projects for surveys and excavations.

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Acknowledgement I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Dr. Ali Osman for his interest in the topic, valuable guidance, comments and discussions. My grateful thanks, gratitude and appreciation to Dr. John Aexander, St. John’s College, Cambridge for his guidance, criticism, discussions and above all his patience throughtout the preparation of this thesis. I also owe tremendous debt of gratitude to the Master and President and the fellows of St. John’s College for their kind invitation to visit their college April-July 2000. The facilities provided for me there were invaluable. They made every thing possile and allowed me to finish this study in time. Many thanks also go to my friends and relative in London and Cambridge; Miss Thoraya Soghayroun, Mustafa and Majda Soghayroun, Eiman and Abdelwahab el-Affendi, Shadia and Ghanim Wahida and their children. To my friends and colleagues, Dr. Lawerance Smith, Dr. Jackie Philips and Dr. Pamela Rose who made my stay in Cambridge a pleasant and wonderful one many thanks. I must thank my friends and colleagues at the Dept.of Archaeology, University of Khartoum for their great help, Ust. Yahia Fadl, Ust.Hweida M.Adam and Mr. Jamal S. Murad. Special thanks go to Ust. Azhri M. Sadiq for drawing some of the figures and for the final touches together with Miss. Nadia M. Mustafa. Iam greatly indebted to my father Soghayroun Elzein to whom this thesis is dedicated for his spiritual and financial support. Finally many thanks to my beloved spouse Tariq and children Ahmed, El-tayib and El-Tigani for their unfailing encouragement and support.

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Transliteration and Abbreviations 1. Transliteration: The system of transliteration used in the text follows that of encyclobedia of Islam except for the following changes: j

instead of dj

q instead of k 2. Abbrevations: Adumato: -Journal of the Arab world, Riyadh. ANM : -Archeolgie du Nile Moyen, Lille Azania : -Journal of the BIEA, Nirobi. BIEA : -British Institute in East Africa, Nirobi. BSOAS: -Bulletin of School of Oriental and African Studies. CE : -Christain Era. CHA : -Cambridge History of Africa. CMAA: -Cambridge Monographs of African History. EES : -Egypt Exploration Society. E.I : - Encyclopedia of Islam. JAH : -Journal of African History. JEA : -Journal of Egyptian Archaeology. JWP : -Journal of the World Prehistory. Kush : -Journal of the Sudan Antiquities Service, Khartoum. SAD : -Sudan Archive, Durham. SARS:- Sudan Archaeological Research Siociety, London. SNM : - Sudan National Museum. SNR : - Sudan Notes and Records, Khartoum. SNR.NE: -Sudan Notes and Records, New Series. SMOD:- Sudan Museum Objects, Durham.

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List of Maps Map (1) The physiography of the Sudan Map (2) The rains of the Sudan (Barbour 1971) Map (3) The vegetation of the Sudan (Andrews 1948) Map (4) The inhabitants of the Sudan, Phase III, (Adams 1984) Map (5) Arab immigrants, Phase I & II, (Adams 1984) Map (6) Trade routes Phase III, (Alexander forthcoming) Map (7) Badi’ and ‘Aidhab, (Kawatoko 1993) Map (8) Derheib and the eastern desert, (Castiglioni 1998) Map (9) Settlement sites of the Nile valley and Eastern Sudan (Elzein 2000) Map (10) Settlement sites of the Western Sudan (Elzein 2000) Map (11) Castles of the Middle Nile region

List of Figures Fig. (1) The list of Fung king as recorded by J.Bruce, Phase III, (Crawford, 1951) Fig. (2) A page from the document of Ibrahim al-Qalawbawi, Phase III, (MSS) Fig. (3) Remains of underground cistern, Badi’, Phase I, (SAD.7/17/157) Fig. (4) The Plan of Aidhab, phase II, (Kawatoko, 1993) Fig. (5) Remains of the ‘Allaqi forts (Castiglioni 1998) Fig. (6) The audience platform of the palace of Uri, Phase I, (Balfour Paul, 1955) Fig. (7) Plan of AinFarah, Phase II, (Yunis, 1979) Fig. (8) Plan of Kokka royal Palace, Phase III, (Sadiq, 1999) Fig. (9) Plan of Ali Hatti deffi, Phase III, (Sadiq, 1999) Fig. (10) Decoration on the facade of a house Khandaq, Phase III, (Sadiq, 1999) Fig. (11) Sketch map of Arbaji, Phase III, (Mohammed, 1979) Fig. (12) Sketch map of Sennar, Phase IV, (Elzein, 1982) Fig. (13) Remains of the Mosque of Sennar, Phase III, (SAD/Ag, 198) Fig. (14) Drawinng of the remains of the Palace of Sennar, Phase III, (Cailliaud, 1821) Fig. (15) Suakin in CE 1540, Phase III, (Greenlaw, 1976) Fig. (16) Aerial photograph of Suakin early 20th century (MSS) Fig. (17) The site of Shoba, Phase III, (Reed, 1994) Fig. (18) Plan of the Palace of AinFarah, Phase II, (B. Paul, 1955) Fig. (19) Kurra Palace, Phase III, (B.Paul, 1955) Fig. (20) Plan of the Palace of Shoba, Phase III, (Reed, 1994) Fig. (21) Plan of House B 115, Qasr Ibrim, Phase III, (Alexander, 2000) Fig. (22) The Castle-House DI, Kulubnarti, Phase III, (Adams, 1994) Fig. (23) Side elevation and cross section of house DI, Kulubnarti Phase III, (Adams, 1994) Fig. (24) Plan of late Houses, Kulubnarti, Phase III, (Adams, 1994) Fig. (25) Plan of Original House (no. 120/250), Phase III, (Greenlaw, 1976) Fig. (26) A door hood, Suakin, Phase III, (SAD, 1/7/24) Fig. (27) A diwan entrance, Suakin, Phase III, (Greenlaw, 1976) Fig. (28) Plan of a large house (no. 64), Suakin, Phase III, Greenlaw, 1976) Fig. (29) Plan of a blockhouse (no. 163), Suakin, Phase III, (Greenlaw, 1976) Fig. (30) Wooden locks, Phase III, (Jaritz, 1973) Fig. (31) Remains of the houses of Sennar, Phase III, (SAD/Ag/272) Fig. (32) Plan of the ‘Ailafun danga, Phase III, (Elzein 2000) v

Fig. (33) Plan of one & two room houses/Darfur, Phase III, (Musa 1986) Fig. (34) Plan of compound houses/Darfur, Phase III, (Musa, 1986) Fig. (35) a) The Kalmasiyia of the Fur Kings, Phase III, (B.Paul, 1955) Fig. (35) b) The crown of the Meks of Sennar, Phase III, (Arkell, 1955) Fig. (36) The royal seals of the Fur, Phase III, (Abu Salim, 1975) Fig. (37) A land certificate, Phase III, (Abu Salim, 1967) Fig. (38) Hand made utility vessels, Phase III, Kulubnarti, (Adams, 1998) Fig. (39) Potsherds from Khandaq and Wad Nemeiri, Phase III, (Sadiq, 1999) Fig. (40) Potsherds from Sennar, Phase III, (Elzein, 1982) Fig. (41) Pottery containers, Darfur, Phase III, (Musa, 1986) Fig. (42) A wooden bowl, Kulubnarti, Phase III, (Adams, 1998) Fig. (43) A leather water container and a leather bag, Kulubnarti, Phase III, (Adams, 1998) Fig. (44) Mud censors, Phase II, Kulubnarti, (Adams, 1998) Fig. (45) Roshan and Lattice work grills, Suakin, Phase III, (SAD.1/7/26) Fig. (46) Wooden door, Suakin, Phase III, (Greenlaw, 1976) Fig. (47) Window grills, Phase III, Suakin, (SAD/1/7/27) Fig. (48) A wooden door with carved stone hood phase III, Suakin, (SAD/1/7/24) Fig. (49) Smoking pipes, Kulubnarti, Phase III, (Adams, 1998) Fig. (50) Smoking pipes, Arbaji, Phase III, (B. Paul 1951) Fig. (51) Shoes, Kulubnarti, Phase III, (Adams, 1998) Fig. (52) Fayyumi Ware, Abu Mina, Phase I, (Engeman, 1990) Fig. (53) A glass bracelet, Kulubnarti, Phase III, (Adams, 1998) Fig. (54) A glass weight, Kulubnarti, Phase III, (Adams, 1998) Fig. (55) The mosque of Ibrim, Phase III, (Alexander 2000) Fig. (56) Plan of the alleged mosque of Abu Sarh, Phase I, (Eisa, 1992) Fig. (57) Cross section of the mosque of Abu Sarh, Phase I, (Eisa, 1992) Fig. (58) The dedication stone of the mosque of Old Dongola, Phase II, (Arkell, 1955) Fig. (59) Mosque of Artul, Phase III, (Crawford, 1961) Fig. (60) Ruins of the mosque of Sennar, Phase III, (SAD./Ag/196) Fig. (61) Entrance of the mosque of Sennar, (SAD 2/24/58) Fig. (62) The interior of the mosque of Sennar, Showing th e mihrab, (SAD.Ag/197) Fig. (63) Columns of the mosque of Sennar, (SAD/Ag/199) Fig. (64) Plan of the Mageedi mosque-Suakin, Phase III, (Greenlaw, 1976) Fig. (65) Plan of El-Rih island mosque, Phase III, (Greenlaw, 1976) Fig. (66) Plan of the Hanafi mosque, Phase III, (Greenlaw, 1976) Fig. (67) Plan of the Shafi’i mosque-Suakin, Phase III, (Greenlaw, 1976) Fig. (68) Plan of the mosque of AinFarah, Phase II, (Musa, 1986) Fig. (69) Plan of the mosque of Bora, Phase II, (Musa, 1986) Fig. (70) Plan of the mosque of Shoba, Phase III, (Reed, 1994) Fig. (71) The interior of the mosque of Shoba, Phase III, (SAD/214/98) Fig. (72) Sketch map of a mesid, Phase III, (Elzein, 1999). Fig. (73) The zawyas of Suakin, Phase III, (Greenlaw, 1976). Fig. (74) Sketch map of Qoz al-Mautraq, Phase III, (Elzein, 1999) Fig. (75) Sketch map of the Khalwa at Abu Haraz, phase III, (El-Hussein, 1978.) Fig. (76) Plan of Qubbat Sheikh M.Yunish, Phase III, (Elzein, 1987) Fig. (77) Tomb towers a) Khor Garrar, b) Halaib, c) M. Gol, Phase III, (Crowfoot, 1922) Fig. (78) A burned clay rakwa, Sennar, Phase III, (Elzein, 1982) Fig. (79) Hijabs, Phase III, (Elzein 1999) Fig. (80) The nehas of the Fung, Phase III, (Elzein,1999) vi

Fig. (81) Ostrakas, Kulubnarti, Phase III, (Adams, 1998) Fig. (82) Bookbinding, Gezira, Phase III, (Elzein, 1999) Fig. (83) Oil lamp, Sennar, Phase III, (Elzein, 1998) Fig. (84) Plan of Qasr Ibrim, Phase III, (Alexander, 2000) Fig. (85) palm-logs bonding, Qasr Ibrim, (Adams, 1994) Fig. (86) Plan of Fortress of Sai, Phase III, (Alexander, 1997) Fig. (87) The castle of Tinari, Phase III, (Bellefonds, 1820) Fig. (88) The castle of the Kings of Shenndi, Phase III, (Hoskins, 1833) Fig. (89) plan of the castle of al-Kab, Phase III, (Crawford, 1961) Fig. (90) Plan of the castle of al-Koro, Phase III, (Crawford, 1961) Fig. (91) Plans of the karaba-Shereik Forts, Phase III, (Eisa, 1996) Fig. (92) Plan of the Fortifications of Shoba Palace, Phase III, (Reed, 1994) Fig. (93) Plan of Shoba Fort, (Reed, 1994) Fig. (94) The Sword of Vizier, Abu Likailik, Phase III, (Sadiq, 1999)

List of Plates Pl. (1) a) Tombstone, Khor Nubt, Phase I, (Mustafa 1995) Pl. (1) b) tombstone, Derheib, Phase I, (Mustafa 1995) Pl. (2) a) Tombstone, Badi’, Phase I, (Mustafa 1995) Pl. (2) b) Tombstone, Meinarti, Phase I, (Mustafa 1995) Pl. (3) a) A mosque at al-Mesid village, Phase III, (Sadiq 1998) Pl. (3) b) A mesid, Kokka, Phase III, (Elzein 1999) Pl. (4) a) A qubba and the burial enclosure of King Diab’s daughter, Kokka, Phase III, (Elzein 1999) Pl. (4) b) Al-Khandaq, Phase III, (Elzein 1999) Pl. (5) a) The castle of Wad Nemeiri, Phase III, (Elzein 1999) Pl. (5) b) The castle of Khandaq, Phase III, (Elzein 1999) Pl. (6) a) A loah, Umm Dawan Ban, Phase III, (Gadal 2000) Pl. (6) b) The tughaba, Umm Dawan Ban, Phase III, (Gadal 2000) Pl. (7) A basin for washing loahs, Umm Dawan Ban, Phase III, (Gadal 2000) Pl. (8) A khalwa in the mesid of Sheikh Soghayroun, Goz al-Mautraq, Phase III, (Mohammed 1998) Pl. (9) a) The tekiya, mesid Umm Dawan Ban, Phase III, (Gadal 2000) Pl. (9) b) The conical qubbas of Debbat al-Fugara, Phase III, (Elzein 1999) Pl. (10) a) A conical qubba , Khartoum, Phase III, (Elzein 1987) Pl. (10) b) A conical qubba, 3rd cataract region, Phase III, (Elzein,1999) Pl. (11) a) Qubbas at Wad Nemeiri, Phase III, (Elzein 1999) Pl. (11) b) roofless burial, Wad Nemeiri, Phase III, (Elzein 1999) Pl. (12) a) The qubba of Sheikh Abdullah al-Tiraifi, Abu Haraz, Phase III, (Elzein 1987) Pl. (12) b) The qubba of Sheikh Ahmed Yunis, Abu Haraz, Phase III, (Elzein 1987) Pl. (13) a) A Nehas of the Fung, Phase III, (SNM) Pl. (13) b) A Fung bowl, Phase III, (SNM) Pl. (14) a) Wooden Sceptre, sword and robe of Sultan Ali Dinar, Phase III, (SMOD) Pl. (14) b) The kakar of the Fung, Phase III, (Elzein 2000) Pl. (15) a) A deffi, Kokka, Phase III, (Elzein 1999) Pl. (15) b) Foundation slab, the mosque of Kokka, Phase III, (Elzein 1999)

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Glossary Alfiya: A rosary, which consists of one thousand beads. ‘Angaraib: bed Birish: mat. Danga: A room with high ceiling and massive walls. Dhikir: religious chanting and/or prayers. Fagir: religious person who teaches at a khalwa, pl. Fugara/Fagirat. Figh: Islamic theology. Hadith: The traditions of Prophet Mohammed; said or done or ordered by him. Hijab: An amulet written by a fagir. Ijaza: Religious Islamic certificate. Jiba: garment. Kakar: a royal seat made out of one piece of wood with four or six legs. Khalwa: Quranic school. Loah: writing tablet made out of flat wood. Manjil: Title of the Fung viceroy. Mesid: A complex that includes a khalwa, a mosque and student lodging; all enclosed within walls. Nihas: kettledrum made out of copper. Nisba: Genealogy. Noba: kettledrum. Nuqara: a kettledrum that consists of four drums. Rakuba: temporary shelter made out of straw and stalks. Rakwa: A mud or leather water container for ablution. Sudan: The Republic of the Sudan. Tekiya: A place within a khalwa where food is prepared. Tughaba: Fireplace where students read and recite Quran in a khalwa. ‘Ulama: Scholars of Islam. Yasor: red Sea black plant from which the yasor rosary is made.

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Preface The Middle Nile Basin, which is in effect the present Republic of the Sudan, from the 7th century CE accepted Islam through influences from both the north and the east and responded to the changes which have taken place in the Dar al-Islam. From the north these influences, through Egypt, have been largely from ‘Sunni’ sources and from the east, through the Red Sea Coast which have been ‘Sufi’. This has profoundly affected the spiritual life of both the immigrant Muslims and the indigenous population who converted to Islam. Political divisions through the centuries maintained those differences and as a result they are visible in the archaeological evidence on which this piece of research concentrates. The territory of the Sudan, as we know it, was never part of an Islamic Caliphate except for the period CE 1550-1821 when the Sanjak of Ibrim (The strip of the Nile valley north of the 3rd Cataract to the 1st Cataract) and part of the Sanjak of Habesh (Suakin) were parts of the Ottoman Turkish Empire. Thus the architectural and other features we come to associate with Islamic countries are not necessarily found in the Sudan. South of the Sanjak of Ibrim was the Fung kingdom which preserved its independence until CE 1821. Islam became the state religion in Lower Nubia in the AH 800/ CE 1400, and in the Fung kingdom ca. 1504. The first Fung rulers were very occupied with legitimizing their rule by encouraging Muslim reformers from abroad and by claiming Arab pedigrees more than with building magnificent edifices to the new religion. The extensive use of mud as the main material and the abandonment or rebuilding of earlier structures has led to few being available for study today. The greatly increased documentary evidence discovered in recent years and new archaeological research, however, allows the main ways in which Islam came to be accepted by Christian and animists can be understood. Aims of the research I set out with the following objectives: 1) To define and analyse the archaeological evidence for Islam in the Sudan. This contrasted with the usually accepted definition of Islamic archaeology which concentrates on fine objects d’art and magnificent buildings. 2) To establish a basis for future Sudanese study in the field of the archaeology of Islam, by considering the present evidence in all aspects. 3) To point out the variations in archaeological evidence in the domains of Ottomans, Fung and Fur. 4) To analyse main influences that came from the east, north, north-west and west Africa and their impact on material culture in the Middle Nile Valley. 5) To draw attention to the long misunderstood Ottoman presence in Lower Nubia, the importance of the Mahas mekdom in its relation with the Ottoman and Fung sultanates. 6) To draw attention to the evidence of the Islam of the nomads and their material culture. 7) And also to contribute to a better understanding of: a) The true nature of the foundation of Islam in the Sudan from archaeological remains and written documents. b) The importance of documentary evidence in the understanding of Islamisation of the Sudan. ix

Methodology I have undertaken: 1) Analytical study of previous archaeological surveys and excavations which recorded evidence of the Islamic period. 2) I also studied the results of fieldwork carried at different times in the Fung, Ottoman zones and have myself carried out fieldwork in the 3rd Cataract region as well as Sennar. 3) Analytical study of all written records that relates to the topic directly or indirectly. It included travelers’ accounts, modern historians’ studies, published and unpublished researches and manuscripts. 4) Collected the evidence from the archives library and collections of the Antiquities Service in Khartoum, the Sudan Archive at Durham, the British Museum, and the Oriental studies, St. John’s and University Library at Cambridge. Presentation The material is presented as follows: Chapter I: The Geography and Human Societies in the Sudan on the eve of the coming of Islam Chapter II: The Islamisation of the Sudan 1 Introduction 2 Phase I CE 640-1300 3 Phase II CE 1300-1500 4 Phase III CE 1500-1800 Chapter III: The Nature of Islamic evidence in the Sudan Part I: Islamic Archaeology: definitions Part II: The Nature of the evidence Chapter IV: Secular Material Culture Part I: - Early Islamic Urban Centres Part II: - Artifacts Chapter V: - Religious material Culture 1 Architecture 2 Burial superstructures and tombstones 3 Artifacts Chapter VI: -Military material Culture 1 Architecture 2 Artifacts Chapter VII: - Conclusions Bibliography Plates Major conclusion The study has fulfilled its aims. It has also opened up new venues for the study of Islam in the Sudan. The study has also posed many new academic and cultural questions which, future students of the discipline will hopefully pursue.

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Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

Chapter I THE GEOGRAPHY AND HUMAN SOCIETIES OF THE SUDAN ON THE EVE OF THE COMING OF ISLAM 1.1. Introduction

which have a refuge for many minority groups and afforded fortified areas for the earliest states in western Sudan. The Nile crossing the country from the south to the north, with its tributaries, affording more areas for settlement and facilitating trade and human movement.

Different people in different languages has used the term ‘Sudan’ in a variety of ways, and in studying the sources on information about the spread of Islam, great care has to be taken in defining it. Arabic ‘Sudan’ has a very wide meaning, ‘the land of the blacks’, which extended from East African coast to West African coast, called the land of the Sudan ‘Bilad al-Sudan’. This term was adopted into European languages with the same wide meaning. In English it was used in this general sense but came to be restricted in the 19th century to the Upper and Middle Nile Valley after the conquest of the region by Egypt when a new province was created from Aswan southwards and called the Sudan. The name was later adopted as the ‘Anglo-Egyptian Sudan’ and now as the Republic of the Sudan. When ‘Sudan’ is used here it will always mean the Republic which lies between latitude 21º 55’ N and 3º 53’ N and longitude 21º 54’ E and 38º 30’ E. The wider region ‘Bilad al-Sudan’ will be used to refer to the area west of modern Sudan.

1.2. The Physiography of the Sudan The Sudan as part of north-east Africa, shares with other countries, its most characteristic feature, the flat peneplaned surface that dominates the area. This plain rises gradually from about 300m above sea level in southern Egypt to about 800m in the far south and west of the Sudan (Vail 1978: 3). Along the Red Sea coast, a relatively narrow strip of hills no more than 200 km. wide rises up to peaks over 2000m high. There is a narrow coastal plain up to 30km wide, bordering the sea and underlain by young marine and lagoonal deposits which abut abruptly against the basement granites and metamorphosed sequences which make up the hills. The drainage divide between the Nile Valley and the Red Sea lies usually less than 50 km from the coast.

The country is a vast one, of about 1,000,000 sq. miles (1,600,000 km). Its territories linked with nine countries; Egypt and Libya to the north, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east and south-east, Kenya, Congo and Uganda to the south, Chad and Central Africa to the west and south-west. The only natural boundaries are the Abyssinian massif in the east and the Nile-Chad watershed in the west.

In the south-east the interior plains give way to the high plateau of Ethiopia. The main rivers flowing off these high lands, the Blue Nile, Atbara, Setit and Gash have cut deep gorges exposing the basement metamorphic complex and cover of Mesozoic sediments.

This vast region has a varied climate that resulted in different ecological zones, vegetation and adaptations. The Sahara in the far north gives way to poor Savannah, rich Savannah and the equatorial forests. To the east, the Red Sea coast, the high mountains and the Sahara are three different ecological zones, offering different ranges for exploitation. In the west again, the plains are dotted with high range of mountains,

Southern Sudan and northern Uganda share high ground rising to over 3000 m in Immatong Mountain near the border (map 1). These are formed by basement complex rocks, which underlie the central plateau of Karamoja, and west Nile in Uganda, through them flows the White Nile. 1

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

Map (1) The physiography of the Sudan.

Western Darfur is another area of high grounds formed by the volcanic masses of Jebel Marra and Jebel Meidob. Jebel Marra rises to 3042m, the highest area in western Sudan. Streams flowing from here drain south-east towards Bahr al-Arab and White Nile, or westwards by way of Wadis Tiwal, Azum and Kadja to join the Chari, and its tributaries flowing into lake Chad. In previous times Wadi Hawar and Wadi Magrur flowed north-eastwards around the Jebel Abyod plateau to join the Nile at Wadi al Ga’ab near Dongola. The

drainage system is now completely blocked by sand dunes but the extensive drainage features, both here and elsewhere in northern Sudan testifies to more humid conditions that existed in the 3rd millennium BC. Throughout the central plains of the Sudan isolated Jebels rise above the peneplain surface to make often-prominent landmarks. These are invariably associated with rock types geologically different from the surrounding country. They 2

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

are usually either granite masses or as in the Ingessana hills in the Blue Nile province, the hilly ground is underlain by serpentines. Another upstanding area is the Nuba Mountains of southern Kordofan province. Here we have isolated granite hills and gneissic ridges rise about 600m above the plain, the highest point is Jebel Dair at 1412m elevation.

represented by the sand dunes and the deposit of riverain powdery silt along the eastern bank of the Nile. The wind facilitates the navigation on the Nile upstream but at the same it leads to the encroachment of dunes on agricultural lands, particularly on the west bank of the Nile. In central Sudan, south of Dongola, there is more rain but in the northern part of the area is restricted to 7-8 weeks. Towards the southern part it increases and is spread over three months until the equatorial region rain falls almost around the year.

The Nile and its tributaries (map 1) dominated the drainage of the Sudan. The White Nile coming from Lake Victoria enters the Sudan over rapids otherwise running through a flat Savannah country. For most of its course it flows north except for one section of about 200km between Lake No and Malakal, where it turns sharply eastwards. It flows for several hundred kilometres through the swamps of the Sudd, emerging at last into bush Savannah between Malakal and Kosti, then through grass savannah until its junction with the Blue Nile in Khartoum.

In eastern Sudan, the coast has a narrow strip of shelving plain, from which the hills lift their abrupt and serial ranges, falling away gradually to the distant reaches of the Nile and Atbara. The coast has the Red Sea climate with its winter rains - high mountains climate, the semi-desert and desert climate. The whole area from Halaib to Atbara has high temperature in summer beside the sandstorms and dust storms of June-September. Evidence show that the dry climate here as elsewhere extended back into the past for the period of 3000-4000years (Paul 1954: 13). Thus all over the Sudan conditions in the period here being studied the same as today, although camel herding and the development of charcoal industry in the hills may have led to further dryness in recent times. Although rainfall is scanty north of the latitude of Port Sudan, the winter rainfall can afford good grazing areas, the mountains afford running waters and ample grazing all the year round.

In its course it collects the waters of Upper Nile, Bahr alGhazal, Bahr al-Zaraf and Sobat to produce regular water supply all the year round. The Blue Nile and the Atbara Rivers collect their waters from the Abyssinian Mountains and cause the annual Nile flood, which brings silt and forms the cultivable land on the Nile banks. It rises in June, maximum in August and begins to fall in September. North of Khartoum, and between the 4th and 5th Cataracts, the Nile executes a remarkable loop around the Bayyuda desert and flows south-west towards ad-Debba (Vail 1978: 4).

To the west in Darfur, the great plain is dotted with isolated hills and ranges like the Nuba Mountains and Jebel Marra. A deterioration in the climatic conditions started 3000 BC, when the Sahara witnessed a rapid desiccation and from that time onwards it acquired its present physiography (Mauny 1961: 135). The rainy season is between June-September. The area was recently struck with rapid desiccation.

The course of the Nile is entirely controlled by the underlying basement fold structures. When it enters Nimule it turns sharply left as the great Aswa shear zone controls the course. Then it crosses quaternary sands and silts until the Blue Nile joins it. From Khartoum it crosses the only outcrops of basement gneisses seen in hundreds of kilometres and near Atbara it cuts through crystalline basement gneiss’s. The Nile also cuts through a series of rapids (Cataracts), the most important ones are the 6th, the 3rd and the 2nd, and the waters of Lake Nasser now drown the latter.

1.4. The Vegetation The country is essentially a vast plain, interrupted by a few widely separated groups of hills and mountains. The Nile divides the country from south to north, therefore, the effect of topography on vegetation is small and confined to: mountain massifs of Jebel Marra, Immatong and Dongotona Mountains, small hills of the Nuba mountains, the Red Sea and Ingessana Hills, upland country of the southern Sudan and the Nile-Congo watershed, the Nile Valley and its tributaries (Andrews 1948: 32).

1.3. The Climate of the Sudan The Sudan lies between the Tropic of the Cancer and the Equator, and thus falls entirely within the tropical zone. There is, nonetheless, a progressive change of climate from North to south, from true desert to semi-desert and to arid Savannah, semi-arid grasslands to acacia bush. This has been shown to have changed in the last four thousand years.

Since the climate ranges from extreme aridity of the northern part to the long rainy seasons of the south, the vegetation vary from barren desert to closed tall forest. The climate has most influence on the peoples’ life, as it determines the fauna and flora of the region, its fertility and the nature of the crops and therefore the way of life of people. Owing to the variation of rainfall the vegetation belts run west-south-west and east -north-east. In the central Sudan rainfall is concentrated within 3-4 months and during the bulk of the year the plain is covered

The isohyets show rainfall rising from almost nothing in the north to more than 2000mm annual rainfalls over the highlands of Ethiopia and southern parts of the Sudan (map 2). The northern part of the country is rainless and the high temperature is only mitigated by absence of humidity. The highest temperature is 120 degrees in summer and 40 degrees in winter. In winter there are strong winds and sandstorms, but generally the wind blows all the year around. Its effect is 3

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

Map (2) The rains of the Sudan (Barbour 1971).

a) Desert region

with parched herbage, drought-resisting trees and shrubs, which could survive the dry season. Southwards the rainfall period lengthen the vegetation becoming forests.

It includes the area between north of latitude 16 and east of longitude 24 to south of ad-Damer and north to Mohammed Qol. It includes both the Nubian eastern desert and the Libyan Desert. Away from the Nile the vegetation is extremely scanty and is generally found in depressions or in almost permanently dry watercourse. Woody species are absent and the few to be found are usually deep-rooted and often thorny.

The vegetation can be divided into seven principle types which in general from a consecutive series from the north to the south (map 3). There is no abrupt line of division between each type, but outliners of one type push out into adjacent types as localised climatic, soil and topographical conditions make it possible (Andrews 1948: 33). 4

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

Map (3) The vegetation of the Sudan (Andrews 1948).

Near the Nile, plants are more plentiful like the woody scarletflowered ‘dahassir’ (Indigofera Oblongi-Folia) date palms, sunt (Acacia Arabica), ‘talh’ (Acacia Seyal), ‘haraz’ (Acacia albida). Inland from the river, the shrubby ‘sallam’ (Acacia flava) is famous, which decreases in quantity as we move westwards from the river.

but is in general scattered where we find areas without trees, supporting only a scanty shrubby plants. Towards the southern boundary we find the ‘la’ot’ (Acacia orfota) and ‘kitr’ (Acacia inellifera) beside the nabaq and ‘heglig’ (balanites aegyptiaca) and ‘ushar’ (Cabtropis procera) and ‘qummaiz’ (Ficus sycomorus) as well as haraz and talh on the higher ground. The ‘arak’ toothbrush tree (Salvadora persica) occurs with ‘usher as we approach the Nile.

The southern part of this region consists of the bushy thorny plants, which grow in patches in stretches of country without any other vegetation. Towards the southern boundary near the river there appear the ‘samr’ (Acacia tortilis), ‘tundub’ (Caparis decidua), the ‘nabaq’ (Ziziphus sprachrich) with its edible fruit.

The Red Sea hill-slopes are characterised by the samr, the dragon’s blood tree (Dracaena ombet) and other drought resisting herbs. In the area that receives winter rain, evergreen vegetation persists particularly in Erkawit. Along the Atbara river, groves of dom palms and scattered trees of sallam, samr, heglig and tundub. In the northern part of the region, west of the Nile we find tuffs of annual grasses including ‘haskanit’ (Blepharis), ‘maharaib’ (Cymbopogon proximus) and seyal (Acacia raddiana). This area, to the west, contains vast stretches of ‘goz’ country, a country of rolling sand varying from the gentle undulations to dunes 100 ft high. Here we find grasses and scattered bushes including haskanit.

b) Acacia Desert Scrub region This region includes the area south of Tokar to just north of Medani and westwards to ad-Dueim and al- Fashir. It has an annual rainfall from 2- 12-in. with a drought period of about 8 months. In this region the shrubs and trees are more plentiful 5

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

c) Acacia Short-Grass Scrub region

heglig, la’ot, ‘aradaib’ (Tamarindus indica), hashab and sahab.

This region is bounded in the north by ad-Dueim and Fashir and in the south by Gadaref, Singa and Umm Ruaba. It skirts the northern boundary of the Jebel Marra massif, where the belt narrows considerably. The annual rainfall of this area is from 12-20 in. with a drought period of 4-6 months. Here the rain is sufficient in quantity and in time, which leads to the maturity of many grasses and herbs and to maintain the rather open woodland type of country.

Jebel Marra is of interest in that its upper slopes are sparsely covered with an olive tree (Oleachrysophalla) which represents the sole representative of arboreal life in the zone above 8500 feet. Down the Jebel exists only dwarf trees and bushes (Andrews 1948: 46). e) Broad Leafed Woodland and Forest Region

The dominant trees are still acacia species but with great variety. The ‘tabeldi’ (Boabab) is abundant in the western part, while in the Gash area large forests of ‘tarfa’ (Tamrix articulata), nabaq, ‘ushar with tundub as dominant shrubs. In the Butana, thorn scrub and kitr, while near river Atbara, we find taller grass and denser shrubs and trees like tarfa and nabaq. Along its banks, a mixture of thorn bushes, grasses, and Dom palm towards its upper reaches.

This region includes both east and west of the Nile. It is bounded on the north by Bahr al-Arab and on the east by type “d” and Bahr al-Jebel. Thus it lies for the most part in the south-western portion of the Sudan. It has an annual rainfall of 40-60 in. In the north- eastern part of the region we find large stretches of seasonally inundated land known as ‘toich’. High grass, the tallest grass in Africa and forests of different types are among the plants of this region. The density of the tree growth varies from closed canopy to open orchard bush, while the ground cover consists of shrubs, herbs and grasses from 6-15 feet high.

Between the Dinder and Rahad rivers, scatter the thorny shrubs, densely wooded at Dinder. Along the banks of the Blue Nile, tarfa, willows (the two types of the Sudan) while in the Gezira region the same kitr, la’ot, nabaq and tundub beside the shrubs. West of the White Nile and in the Qoz area ‘marakh’ and haraz beside drought enduring plants. Further to the west the famous gum Arabic trees ‘hashab’ (Acacia Senegal).

Two mountains, Bengenze and Loka interrupt the area. The former south-west of Meridi and the latter to the north-east of Yei. Bengenze Mountain has comparatively little vegetation on it except in gullies, while Mount Loka is covered on its slopes with bamboo of varying density and other trees. East of the Nile we have medium grass woodland with swamps in the north.

d) Acacia Tall Grass Forest Region This area takes triangular shape (map 3). It has an annual rainfall of about 20-40in. It includes the important groups of high lands, the Jebel Marra group, the Nuba Mountain and the Ingessana Hills, beside the swamps (Sudd) of the White Nile.

f) Forests Forests are of three types; the gallery forests, the bowl or depression forests and the cloud forests. The gallery forests occur as fringes along the margins of the larger streams and are enabled to exist under a lesser rainfall by the more abundant ground water. The second type occurs in depressions where there may or may not be a stream, but where they receive the run-off in the wet season from the surrounding slopes. They are small in extent and the nearest approach in the Sudan to the true climate rainforest such as exists on the Amazon or the Congo. One of these depressions is near Sudan-Uganda boarders. The third type, the cloud forests, occur at the higher altitudes of tropical and are generally subject to prevailing mist and clouds. They are limited to the upper slopes of the Immatong and Dongotona Mountains.

Here acacia species are still dominant, but with change of some species e.g. south of Jebelain sunt rarely occurs and instead we have ‘kuk’ which becomes one of the most important acacia of southern Sudan. Still we have hashab, heglig, talh, kitr, tabeldi, ‘homaid’ (Sclerocarya birrea), ‘adar and Dom palm. The latter became common as we approach the Ingessana Hills, beside the bamboo (Oxytenanthera abyssinica). Around Kurmuk near the Ethiopian borders, the tebaldi is common. West of Ingessana, talh, heglig and Dom palms are common to the White Nile, but Dom is replaced by ‘dalaib’. East of Malakal and along the Sobat river are still the talh, haraz, and dalaib palm and hashab up to the swamp area.

g) Swamps and Grasslands West of the White Nile and to the north of the Nuba Mountains there is an open grass and larger trees which increases in density as we approach the Nuba Mountains. Khor Abu Habil east before the Nuba Mountains has sunt, talh, and tall and medium grass. The Nuba Mountains consist of bamboo, small trees, red-flowered poison tree (Adenium honghel) and the ebony. In the valleys again we meet talh, haraz, nebaq and heglig. To its west occur the

The Sudd is the principal constituent of the swamps of the White Nile. Here we find papyrus as the dominant vegetation beside other types. The papyrus has stems up to 15 feet high crowned with a head of fine rays up to 1 feet long. The toich area is the seasonally inundated land and this in the long dry seasons the toich form vast meadows of pure 6

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

1. Racial and Linguistic groups present at the coming of Islam

grass that suits the Dinka and Nuer cattle herders. Grasslands are present only in few areas in the Sudan. They occur as short turf on rocky hills and plateaux. Another type of grass is the mountain meadows that occur at the higher altitudes. They are only prominent on the higher slopes of Immatong and Dongotona.

a) Nile Valley 1st-6th Cataracts: At the Arab conquest of Egypt, there lived in the Middle Nile valley Nubian speakers. They were a hybrid type of a mixed Caucasian-Negroid stock. This type is preserved today in the Kenuz, Mahas, Sukkot and Danagla. They lived on the banks of the River Nile probably from Dongola to Aswan. They speak today different dialects of one language, the Nubian language. Before the development of camel nomadism in the last centuries before the Hijra the Sahel was apparently uninhabited.

1.5. The Inhabitants The same diversity we have in climate and vegetation of the Sudan is repeated in its peoples. This study deals with only the most recent 1200 years and in this period three categories can be distinguished; racial and linguistic peoples present in CE 600, Arab immigrants after that date, groups resulting from amalgamation (map 4).

b) Nile Valley south of the 6th Cataract: - In the sixth century CE, the region of the Gezira, perhaps as far as Sennar was the kingdom of Alwa. The language spoken or the Physical characteristic of the inhabitants are except in the Jebel Moya

Map (4) The inhabitants of the Sudan, Phase III, (Adams 1984). 7

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

not yet known but were probably like the Nubian of mixed Hamitic-Negro origins. It became the Fung kingdom in the 16th century CE. From records of the 16th century onwards, regions south of Sennar-Kosti are shown to have been occupied by Negroid tribes divided by Seligman into three great sub-racial groups. Since, except for the Shilluk, Muslims did not reach them in the period being studied they will not be dealt with thereafter. These groups are: the Nilotes group that includes Shilluk, Nuer and Dinka. They are tall, long legged and very dark-skinned and have Hamitic elements. They are all pastoralists and cattle herders. The second group is the Nilo-Hamites which includes the Bari and various Latuko-Didenga and Turkana speaking tribes who are chiefly herdsmen but also agriculturists. The third group is the southern-western group which include the Azande and tribes of Ironstone plateau, Bongo-Mittu and kindred groups. They are in complete contrast to the two previous groups in physical appearance and in culture. They are of medium stature and copper coloured. They are essentially agriculturists and had no cattle (Seligman 1912: 47).

For Darfur the main tribes are the Daju, the Tibbu, the Masalit and the Fur. The Daju originally inhabited central Darfur. Now they are scattered in Kordofan, Darfur and northern Chad. They are regarded as one of the five original races of Darfur (B.Paul 1955: 9). They were thought to be Berbers (Arkell 1951:60), from the far west Kanem or from the Nuba Mountains (MacMichael 1912: 53). Their language belongs to the eastern Sudanic group. The Tunjur were thought to come from Dongola by Barth (1857: 429) and from the east and north by Nachtigal (1971:372). After conquering the Daju they spread their power to Wadai. The Tibbu are regarded as northern Negroid-Hamitic of the eastern Sahara. They include the Zaghawa who still live on the hills of Northern Darfur and Bedayat of Ennedi high land. The Zaghawa’s language belongs to the Nilo-Saharan group. The Masalit were and are one of the sedentary indigenous races who occupies the area between Wadai and Darfur and like the Zaghawa divided between Sudan and Chad in the northern Savannah belt. The Fur was and is a Negro race inhabiting Jebel Marra. Their language is different from others in the area and is rather an isolated one among African languages, being distantly related to that of the Masalit (Musa 1986: 9).

c) Eastern Sudan: - Here Beja speaking Hamitic, nomadic pastoral tribes lived in the desert between the Nile, the Atbara and the Red Sea. The Red Sea Hills and the hills south of Tokar were part of their domain. The main tribes mentioned are the Bishareen, Amarar, Hadendowa and the Bani ‘Amir. By intermarriage with Arab pastoralists they, like many of the other indigenous groups, became at least bilingual in Beja and Arabic. The Beja tribes mentioned below are classified broadly in three distinguishable groups (Paul 1954: 18). The first group include the Bishareen, and Amarar who mixed with Kawahla and other Arabs, and the Hadendowa who mixed with Kimmeilab, Shukriya and Ja’aleen. In this group the Hamitic blood and characteristics predominate. The second group consists entirely of the Tigre speaking sections of Bani ‘Amir, who is originally Hamitic stock, mixed with Semitic groups. The third group, the other tribes, which include the Halenqa, Hamaran and other small tribes are Beja partly by blood and wholly in language and customs. They are the descendants of the Medieval Arabs who came later to the Red Sea shore and settled in the Beja lands and married Beja wives.

2. Arab Immigrants These are a series of groups west and east of the Nile who speak only Arabic and claim Juhayna ancestry. They include most of the camel owning nomads of Kordofan, the Kababish, Dar Hamid and Hamar. East of the Nile in the Butana, are the Shukriya, Bataheen and Rufa’a. These groups today are practising both sedentary and nomadic life. The nomadic tribes differ greatly from the settled groups. This is because of the radically different influence of pastoral and settled life more than blood, for some tribes of Arab Nomads like the Kawahla and Kinana have Hamitic element (map 5). The desert has a unifying effect upon races that were originally distinct and their peculiarities have disappeared through their uniform environment (Asher 1986: 24). The nomad tribes fall into two distinct groups determined by the land, mode of life and type of animal bred (Trimingham 1983: 25). The camel people ‘Ahl al-Ibl’ and the cattle people ‘Beqqara’. The camel herders are in turn divided into two groups, all living between the 18th and 13th degrees of latitude. One group is that west of the main Nile and the other groups those who range east of the Blue Nile.

d) Western Sudan: - So little research has been done in Kordofan that its inhabitants at the coming of Islam are unknown but it seems probable that inhabitants of the Nuba Mountains of southern Kordofan were ancestors of the present Nuba-speaking Negroes still living there. Groups speaking related languages in isolated hills further north suggest they once widely spread through the northern plains. Nuba is a general term used in Kordofan for any black nonMuslim. They are aboriginal tribes inhabiting the isolated hills and ranges of the southern Kordofan plain. They are not a homogenous group for they are the remains of many African tribes who have sought refuge in the hills, so they differ in physical appearance, language and culture (Trimingham 1983: 34). But according to Hillelson (1930: 144) that the linguistic evidence suggests the existence of three distinct groups; the speakers of Hill Nubian, to whom the name Nuba is historically justified, speakers of Sudanic languages and speakers of prefix language.

Generally, these nomad tribes move from place to another according to the availability of good pasture for the camel owners and to avoid the Tese-Tese fly in the case of the Beqqara. 3. The Arabised groups Following the Arab conquest of Egypt, nomadic camelkeeping pastoralists from Arabia were encouraged to migrate into North Africa. Some groups moved by land and others by sea into the semi-desert pastures east of the Nile and others, probably rather later, into the semi-desert west of it. 8

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

Map (5) Arab immigrants, Phase I & II, (Adams 1984).

a) The Nile Valley: - Between Aswan and ad-Debba we have three main tribal groups who differ in dialect, customs but speak Nubian and Arabic. These groups from the 1st Cataract are:-

sections who migrated to Khartoum area and ‘Ailafun since the 16th century CE claim an Arab pedigree and speak Arabic. Their inhospitable land, rocks and desert is thought to be the main reason for their being less Arab influence (Hassan 1967:143). They speak of themselves as having three groups; the Mahas, the Sukkot and the Fadija

1- The Kenuz dialect speaker who occupies the immediate vicinity of Aswan and were the first Nubians to be Arabised and converted to Islam. They got their name from Banu Kanz who were influential during the last days of the Christian Kingdom of Makurra. Their dialect is different from that of the Mahas to the south. Most of them claim the traditional Rabi’a ancestry of Beni Kanz but some have adopted the claim of descent from al-Abbas, the Uncle of the Prophet, which is common to the Ja’aliyin tribes.

3- The Donglawi dialect speakers’ area extends from the south of the 3rd Cataract to ad-Debba. They possess strong Hamitic facial characteristics. They show far more Arab influence than the Mahas. Since the decline of the Makurra kingdom, the Danagla lived in close and continuous contacts with the Arabs of the eastern and western deserts. The geography of the Dongola reach, with marginal pasture on the south and west allowed for Arab nomads grazing their animals like the Kababish and the Hawawir. The Danagla consider themselves members of a number of different Arab tribes, each of which until the 20th century CE had its own Mek (Adams 1984: 561). Such tribes as

2- The Mahas speakers occupy the Nile Valley from Maharraqa in the north to Kerma in the south. They are the Nubian least affected by the Arabs. However, the many 9

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

the Bedayria whose Mek resided at Old Dongola in the 17th and 18th centuries CE, Tarafiya, Hakimab and the Jawabra. The Jawabra, originally a branch of the Beni ‘Ikrima who are said to have been expelled from Lower Nubia by the Turks. (Hassan 1967: 144). The Donglawi dialect is close to the Kenuz one. They claim descent from al-’Abbas, the uncle of the Prophet.

3- The Hadendowa: - The Hadendowa are today the largest and most modified. They developed into a tribe from a small hill group who from CE 1600 conquered and intermarried with kindred tribes. They live between Atbara and the Red Sea and reach as far south as the borders of Eritrea and Ethiopia. They were camel owners and caravan guides. They started recently cultivating cotton in Gash and Tokar.

b) South of Debba: - South of Debba, the riverain tribes as far south as Khartoum are the so - called the Ja’aliyin. They are Arabised Nubians who speak Arabic. Staring from the north, the most important Ja’ali tribes are the Shaiqiya , the Rubatab, the Manasir, the Merafab and the Ja’aliyin proper.

4- The Beni ‘Amir: - The Beni ‘Amir, live in Tokar and near Kassala and along the Eritrean frontier. But the majority of the tribe lives in Eritrea. Those in the Sudan are cattle owners with few cultivators. Most of them speak the Semetic language, Tigre.

c) Kordofan: - The Dawalib, Jawabra, Bedairiya, Jawam’a and Shuwaihat, left the Nile in the 16th century CE at the time of the rise of the Fung and settled in Kordofan. By the passage of time they themselves became absorbed into Negroid races although they still call themselves Ja’aliyin. The present Bedairiya of Kordofan consists of two main sections, the Dahmashia and Awlad Na’amia. Many of the Dahmashia are said to be descended from Dahmash, the great- grand- son of Ghullam Allah Ibn ‘Aid. (MacMichael 1912: 72). In the Shaiqiya area there is a group today which calls themselves Bedairiya Dahmashia. The Jawam’a settled in the neighbourhood of al-Rahad and Birka, close to the north of the main ranges of the mountains of southern Kordofan. Their tribe is divided mainly into two; the Homran and the Gima’ia, each of which is further sub-divided into many sections. At al-Haraza, one of the northern Kordofan hills, live the Dawalib. They are called after Mohammed Dolib. They are thought to have migrated from the Blue Nile in the early parts of the 18th century CE and claim a Rikabi ancestry. A group of Zaghawa, in the early 18th century migrated to the hills north of Kagmar and settled there. According to their own tradition their leader was Feki al ‘obayd, the son of one of the smaller Zaghawa meks of Darfur. They are now completely cut off from their western kinsfolk and speak only Arabic. One of their sub-tribes is the Bedayat.

Other minor tribes are the Halenqa and ‘Ababda. The Halenqa, who live in Kassala district, are supposed to come originally from Serai in northern Abyssinia. The ‘Ababda, the most northern of Beja speaking are dispersed mainly between Sudan and Egypt.

Conclusions In the following chapters the pattern of events by which the present Muslim population of the Sudan developed will be discussed and the relative importance of migration, commerce and conquest distinguished. It has become clear that the Nile Valley was never the main way of Islamic and Arab migration. It has a chain of six cataracts and long bends specially the Abu Hamad bend. Arab nomads entered the Sudan via the Suez land bridge and the eastern deserts and across the Red Sea. They moved south across the desert to the central and western Sudan and from Egypt through the desert to central and western Sudan. The desert routes also proved, with the increased use of camels, to be quicker and cheaper for trade and traders. Several routes developed from the south to the north e.g. Darb al-Arba’in, and from east to west e.g. the Sahel route. Only stretches of the Nile facilitate trade between cataracts. Thus transport has been by a combination of both river traffic and desert caravan.

d) Eastern Sudan: - There are today four main tribal groups who speak Beja as well as Arabic: 1- The Bishareen: - They occupy the area, which extends from the plains of the Butana to Egypt and eastwards to the Red Sea Hills. They first emerged between CE 10001400 and they trace their descent back to an Arab ancestor called Bishar Ibn Marwan Ibn Ishaq Ibn Rabi’a who came to Wadi ‘Allaqi in the 4th century AH/ CE 9th century. They are nomadic with the camel as their chief wealth. Their sub-tribes are the ‘Aliab, Hamadorab, Amrab and Atbai Umm Naji.

Today the inhabitants of the Sudan north of the Sudd show a blending of the different peoples present before the coming of the Arabs with the incoming Arabs at different times and different places. This process has affected the nomads of the eastern and western deserts as much as the sedentary farmers of the Nile Valley and all north of the Sobat River became Muslims except for few pockets in the Nuba Mountains.

2- The Amrar: - They became a tribal entity in about CE 1750 (Trimingham 1983: 12). They occupy the slopes of the Red Sea Hills and the coastal plain north of Port Sudan. Some divisions of them moved to the area between Khor Arab and Atbara River, herding their sheep and camels. A small group became cultivators in and around Khors and at Tokar and the Gash.

The inhabitants of the Nile Valley had, before the coming of the Arabs and Islam, some 3000 years of urban and literate civilisation. This influenced the development during the spread of Arabic-speaking nomads westwards resulting in Islamic state formation and the Fung and the Fur sultanates. Both lay at the southern limits of Dar al-Islam, the ‘Dar alHarb’ lying south of the Sobat river and lake No in the east 10

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

and the Nuba Mountains to the west. This boundary gave the sultanates access to gum, Ivory, slaves and other products in

great demand in the Dar al-Islam. These patterns of trade were maintained all through the period studied here.

Map (6) Trade routes Phase III, (Alexander forthcoming). 11

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

Chapter II THE ISLAMISATION OF THE SUDAN 1.2. Phase I: CE 640-1300 (AH 20-680)

1.1. Introduction

(Discussed in detail in Chapters IV, V and VI) Since the Sudan, the largest country in Africa was highly diversified both geographically and culturally, before the coming of Islam (see chapter 1); the response to the new religion and the immigrant peoples who brought it was very varied. Geographically the country occupies at least three different ecological zones; the Sahara to the north, the Savannah in the middle and the equatorial forests in the south, with the Nile crossing it from the south to the north, its tributaries stretching from Ethiopia to the west, and the Red Sea to the east.

This phase witnessed two important events. The first event was the continued existence of two powerful Christian kingdoms in the Sudan; Makurra with its capital at Old Dongola and Alodia (Alwa) with its capital Soba, near the junction of the Blue and White Niles near Khartoum. The second event was the conquest of Egypt in CE 640/ AH 20 by Arabic speaking Muslims camel herders from Arabia. The coming of the Arabs to this area had its socio-economic effect as well as its religious impact. They brought to Africa numerous groups of camel herders who occupied the existing unexploited ecological niches of the northern Sahel. From that time onwards immigrant Arabic-speaking nomads moved southwards and westwards.

Culturally, the country possessed a considerable diversity of ethnic and cultural components. There were the Nubianspeakers in the north and central Sudan; the Beja- speaking tribes in the east, Nuba and Fur speaker to the west and Nilotic tribes to the south. The country before Islam had a variety of individual expressions of religious beliefs, the most archaeologically visible being the Kushite and Christian kingdoms in the Nile Valley north of latitude 10°N.

Arab armies tried twice to conquer Makurra, and in the second trial, they reached as far south as Old Dongola, the capital. The attempt ended up with a peace treaty in CE 651/ AH 31, the first of its type in the Dar al-Islam, known as the Baqt. It was in essence a commercial treaty, which gave the Middle Nile Valley peace for six hundred years. As a result of this treaty and conquest of Egypt, the nomad tribes of Arabia began to immigrate into the semi-desert as they did throughout North Africa. This movement was probably of mixed composition that may have contained among other tribesmen of Fezara and Bani Umayya and some Ansar (MacMichael 1967: 8). A group of the Rabi’a tribe established itself in the Aswan region of the Nile Valley, but the main occupation was in the eastern desert whereby, they intermarried with the Beja and thus a process of Islamisation and Arabisation was started. By means of the Beja matrilineal system of inheritance the children of Arab fathers became

Much of the country to the north of the Sobat River has from the 7th century CE been open to slow Arab Muslim penetration. It accepted Islam and the changes, which have taken place in Dar al-Islam, from both the north (Egypt), and East (Hijaz). Thus the rise of al-’Umari Emirates in the eastern desert, the Tunjur and then the Keira Sultanates in the west, and the Fung kingdom in the centre was only the culmination of this slow process of Islamisation and Arab migration. Such a slow and complexed process can not be studied unless divided into three phases, each one had its distinctive evidence and impact on this process and must be considered separately. 12

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

rulers. The Rabi’a extended their influence over the Nubians of al-Maris (1st-2nd Cataract region). In the early 11th century CE the chief of northern Rabi’a in Aswan received the title of Kanz ad-Dawla (Treasure of the State) from the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim bi Amr Allah, in recognition of his services to the Fatimid dynasty. This title became hereditary until the end of the Fatimid dynasty CE 1171.

in the northern part of the country, while trade beyond the second cataract remained exclusively a royal monopoly and was still conducted entirely by barter (Osman 1978: 23). Before the 7th century CE, the eastern desert between the Red Sea coast and the Nile was inhabited by a series of nomadic non-Muslim Beja confederation from Egypt to Eritrea. According to Ya’qubi, by the end of the 9th century there are six Beja kingdoms between Aswan and Masawa’; the Tankish, Belgin, Bazin, Jarin, Qita’a and Nagash (Ya’qubi 1964: 218-219)

The Baqt treaty freed Nubia from Islamic conquest and hence made possible the prosperity of Makurran and Alwan civilisation as well as the institutionalisation of trade relations with the Islamic world (Adams 1984: 507). The Baqt also has thrown light, on the otherwise untraceable archaeologically, on the extent of the slave trade in Nubia (annual payment of 360 slaves) and admitted Makurra into the special relationship with the Dar al-Islam (Dar al-Sulh).

Knowledge of the eastern desert and the Red Sea has increased greatly since the 1990-95 survey and test excavation of some 200 sites by Castiglioni (1991 & 1992; with Sadr (1994); with Vercoutter (1995). The work has been particularly important for the period AH 20-710/CE 6401310, and the preliminary reports allow an assessment here (Sadr & Castiglioni 1994: 66-68). The Wadi al-’Allaqi gold mines and the Zabara-saker emerald mines near Ras Benas have long been known, mainly from literary evidence, to be exploited from the second millennium BC onwards. The discovery of a large well- preserved town at Derheib in the Wadi al ‘Allaqi provides archaeological evidence of major importance showing that it was long occupied with 2m of stratified building. Castiglioni suggests that it was the city of ‘Allaqi, the capital until AH 245/CE 885, of a Beja state which controlled the gold mines and the trade/pilgrim routes from the Nile Valley to ‘Aidhab. It would have been with its ruler that the Muslim governor of Aswan made a treaty in AH 216/ CE 831 to safeguard those routes and receive annual tribute of 100 camels; this resembles the Baqt treaty with Makurra made earlier and the Wadi ‘Allaqi may have been under Makurra overlordship.

The Baqt treaty led to the revival of the Nile valley trade route as well as the Red Sea route. Trade with the savannah continued to flourish in this period as it had done for 2000 years. The discovery of the Fatimid period texts at Qasr Ibrim has thrown more light on the commodities traded and the way in which trade organised. Qasr Ibrim was an important centre of trade, it was the residence of an Eparch (Sahib alJebel). He was responsible for supervising the commerce between Egypt and Makurra, and for levying the approximate duties on goods, beside permits to reside in Nubia (Adams 1984: 448). These documents had thrown more light on the commodities traded and the way in which trade was organised (Saratain per.com). The commodities that move northward included gold, ivory, slaves, leopard skins and ebony. To the south went manufactured goods like glass, pottery, clothes and wine. The last item was stopped by the ‘Abbasid Caliph alMu’tasim. From Qasr Ibrim documents it is evident that Nubia received other goods like dyestuff, perfumes and spices probably from the Red Sea ports. The trade continued to flourish during the Fatimid dynasty and continued to a lesser extent during the Ayyubids dynasty CE 1171-1250, this time including silk. The trade volume decreased by the Mamluks time CE1250-1517, who started to intervene in Nubian affairs since their first expedition in CE 1272. This is remarkably observed in the disappearance of all kinds of imported goods from the one site excavated in Makurra. According to Adams (1984: 521), of the catalogued objects recovered from Kulubnarti, fewer than 10% were of foreign manufacture.

By the 4th century AH/ 9th century CE immigrant Arab nomads were numerous in the region, the Rabi’a tribal confederation becoming the most powerful and with its Beja -Hadareb allies dominating from Aswan to ‘Aidhab. This included the Wadi al-’Allaqi gold mines that were being increasingly exploited by Muslims and the Hajj- pilgrim routes through the desert. In AH 272/ CE 885 al-Qummi with an Arab force defeated the Beja and a Rabi’a sultanate of ‘Allaqi was founded and continued for some 400 years (Sadr 1994: 22). Ibn Battuta (1927: 123), reported that the sultan of the Beja had 2/3rds of the ‘Aidhab revenues in the 14th century. This may have been the Rabi’a sultan.

Evidence of such trade further south and east was found in the 12th and 13th centuries sites at Soba south of Khartoum, Fatimid ceramics and other Egyptian pottery and glass vessels (Welsby 1991) and from the eastern desert (Castiglioni & Sadr 1994) and from the Red Sea ports of Badi’ and ‘Aidhab (Kawatoko 1993).

The literary evidence suggests that there was an extension of the gold fields in the 10th-13th centuries CE. Perhaps after disuse in late Roman times and that Muslims carried out the renewal activities. The emerald mines continued into the 16th century when a Sanjak Beg of Ibrim was granted the profits from them (Hinds & Sakkout 1988: 11).

From the Ibrim documents and from the accounts of Ibn Salim and other writers (al-Maqrizi 1906: 323) we know that trade in Lower Nubia was in the hands of Muslims, where Arabic coins were in circulation, although few were found archaeologically (Adams 1988: 32). The Muslims traders after the 9th century CE were allowed to travel and settle freely

On al-Rih island where the town of Badi’ was located, the increase of Muslim islanders was mainly due to the increase of trade by Muslim merchants from the last half of the 10th century (Kawatoko 1993: 188). ‘Aidhab flourished from the early 11th century until the middle of the 14th century. It was a major port for commercial and Muslim pilgrims’ 13

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

movements to Mecca. It had a mosque in CE 1350 and was under Beja control until the 14th century CE when a Mamluk army from Egypt sacked it. Hence the rise of the port of ‘Aidhab which by the 12th century CE attained importance as a great trading centre. Large caravans crossed the eastern desert between ‘Aidhab and Qus transporting merchandise and carrying provisions to the miners. Also for more than two hundred years, from CE 1058-1261, pilgrims from Egypt and north-west Africa on their way to Mecca used the same route. This intensive traffic exposed the Beja tribes to further Muslim influence (Hassan 1980: 119).

Arab merchants reached as far south as its capital Soba, for Ibn Selim al-Aswani reported that there was a Muslim quarter and presumably a mosque (Maqrizi 1906: 311-12) but no evidence of this has so far been found in the excavations of 1991 (Welsby 1991). It is possible that the Muslim settlement was some distance from the native capital since this was the common practise in the western Sahel as at Kumbi Salah. West of the Nile, after CE 1000 Arab nomads spread throughout the Sahel and Savannah as camel and cattle herders. Some gradually developed, after the 13th century CE, states in Darfur by joining similar groups who had opened the camel caravan routes across the Sahara including the Darb al-Arba’in through the desert from lower Egypt to Darfur (map 7). Many settlements of round huts with defensive walls

‘Alwa, the Christian kingdom was the earliest state south of the desert in the Nile Basin. It might had extended its influence westwards and southwards but no evidence that it did so.

Map (7) Badi’ and ‘Aidhab, (Kawatoko 1993). 14

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

sometimes enclosing a whole settlement as have been located as in Bora, AinFarah and Uri. The Tunjur sultanate of Darfur was founded in this phase with palaces and mosques and imported objects (Musa 1986: 220-22). In this phase early Muslim contact was probably at individual- traders level in which Muslims could become acquainted with local chiefs or the elite around them. As mentioned in the oral tradition some of the early Muslims might have also established marital relations with some individuals of local community as the story of Ahmed al-Ma’qur (Musa 1986: 226). In such a phase Islam may not have to any degree, affected the bulk of population or their material (Trimingham 1983:43), and the movement of Muslims was probably restricted to very few areas in the north-west part of Darfur. Other groups like the Kababish, who claim the Beni Hilal as ancestors, remained camel-herding nomads between the Nile and Wadi Howar.

13th century. But further confirmation by excavation is required. 6) Imported Islamic objects especially pottery, textiles particularly the Fatimid silk and glass were among the traded commodities which have been found in excavations conducted at Kulubnarti ((Adams 1998), Qasr Ibrim (Adams 1994), Soba (Welsby 1993), Badi’ and ‘Aidhab (Kawatoko 1993), Derheib (Castiglioni &Sadr 1994). Politically the period witnessed the rise, prosperity and decline of the Christian kingdom of Makurra. Nobatia that became part of the kingdom of Makurra between CE 700710 came to be known by Arabs as al-Maris, where they settled in the 9th century. During this phase Umayyads, Abbasids, Tulunids, Ikhshids, Fatimids, Ayyubids and Mamluks ruled Egypt after the Caliphates.

Archaeological and literary evidence of the process of Islamisation during Phase I

1.3. Phase II CE 1300-1500/AH 680-920 (Discussed in details in chapters IV, V and VI)

The Baqt treaty opened the way for Arab migration into the Makurra kingdom and the acceptance of Islam from the north and east. Muslim merchants during the rule of Kanz ad-Dawla and his successors at Aswan continued it between the first and the second Cataracts i.e. Lower Nubia.

There were two major events in this period. The disintegration of the kingdom of Makurra and the flow of Arab tribes south of Makurra into ‘Alwa and further west of the Nile, was one of these events. The second major event was the arrival of ‘ulama (Scholars) from Arabia and the establishment of mosques and khalwas among the settled Nubian population.

Mosques: The earliest references to mosques are in the Baqt treaty CE 651 and the Beja treaty CE 831. Ibn Selim al-Aswani in his mission to convert the king of Makurra in the late 10th century said that he had performed the Barium prayers in the mosque at the Makurra capital with other sixty Muslims.

By CE 1317, Muslim members of the ruling family had become kings of Makurra. This was the result of a long period of Mamluk rulers of Egypt interventions in the internal affairs of this kingdom. At least six expeditions were sent against Old Dongola in support of their claimants to the throne between CE 1272-1397. But no attempt was made to annex it. Between CE 1317-1323 the throne was occupied by four kings; Barashambu, Kanz ad-Dawla, Abram, the same previous Kanz ad-Dawla and Kerenbes. By CE 1365, the kingdom collapsed with the last Egyptian interfere on the accounts of revolts developed by the Banu Kanz, Banu Ja’ad and Banu ‘Ikrima in upper Egypt (Trimingham 1983: 70). Old Dongola was left in ruins and was abandoned perhaps temporarily by most of its inhabitants and then replaced by Muslim town nearby.

1) Documents from Qasr Ibrim indicate that there had been settlements of Arabs in Lower Nubia since the 9th century (Adams 1984: 464). And many documents have been found there from the Fatimid period. 2) Tombstones from Nubia and the eastern desert and Red Sea port, show gradual spread of Muslims e.g. Northern Sudan: Tafa AH 207(CE 822), Kalabsha AH 317 (CE 929), Qertassi AH 321 (CE 933), and Derrin AH 418 (CE 1027); eastern Sudan: Badi’ AH 367, 405, 408, 446 (CE 977, 1014, 1017, 1045); Khor Nubt AH 264, 277, 315, 329 (CE 877, 980, 927, 945).

Arabs in Egypt suffered badly from Mamluk rulers after CE 1270. They were barred from any share in government and the spoils of war. Many of them were forced to emigrate south chiefly along the Red Sea Hills where they found the Beja lands already occupied by Arabs. Thus some were obliged to move further south and penetrated the Butana (Area between the Blue Nile and River Atbara), the Suakin hinterland and the Gezira (Area between the Blue and White Niles) (Hassan 1980: 122). But the Christian kingdom of ‘Alwa though was cut off from outside influences still survived until the very beginning of the 16th century CE. The destruction of the kingdom of ‘Alwa came in the later 15th century CE when Arab tribes of the ‘Abbdellab confederation overran the Gezira and dominated its population apparently destroying Soba in the process, but no archaeological

3) Towns and ports of the east like Derheib and Badi’. The former has extensive remains that include two smallfortified buildings, which Castiglioni considered might be of Roman date but if so then condition suggests that the Muslims used them for there was much Muslim Egyptian pottery. Badi’ flourished through export and import between the 7th-11th centuries CE. 4) Further south in the ‘Alwa kingdom there was a lodging house, (a ribat) as mentioned by Ibn Selim al-Aswani (Maqrizi 1906: 311-12) at Soba where a number of Muslim merchants lodged and Muslim Egyptian pottery was found. 5) To the west of the Nile, in Darfur, reference to mosques and palaces of Uri and ‘AinFarah which are dated to the 15

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

evidence of this has yet been found. In CE 1476 Arabic speaking people developed the town of Arbaji, 180 km south -east of Khartoum which developed into a commercial centre during the Fung period, Phase III.

other members of the Fezara. Thus the Nile trades declined while the western desert routes and those through the Ethiopian foothills to Suakin were developing (map 7). The incoming Arabs in the Nile Valley, eastern desert and the Savannah were absorbed in varying degree by the people of the land, Their descendants speaking Nubia, Fur or Beja languages as well as Arabic. Though indigenous people offered little resistance to this process they remodelled it considerably and preserved not only the local racial elements but also their own identity to be seen in language, customs and traditions and material culture.

To the east, Ibn Battuta reports the presence of Arabs of the Kawahla confederation living among the Beja in the vicinity of ‘Aidhab (Ibn Battuta 1927: 124). According to Paul they are the Kimmeilab who fled from Dongola in the 13th century CE. Unlike Rabi’a and others they were interested in pasturing of their flocks (Paul 1954: 75). The present Amarar and Bishareen consider themselves as the descendants of Kahil. This Phase witnessed arrival of the Ashraf (descendants of Prophet Mohammed’ family) from Arabia in Suakin in CE 1350.

Archaeological and literary evidence of the process of Islamisation during Phase II

The prosperity of ‘Aidhab as the main pilgrims port in the 12th century CE was because of the closure of the overland pilgrims route by the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. By the late 12th century CE Salah ad-Din of the Ayyubids dynasty defeated the Latin Kingdom and the pilgrims route through ‘Aidhab became very much less important. Since the middle of the 14 th century CE gold and emerald mines were extensively used and then abandoned which added to the destruction of ‘Aidhab. Its end was in CE 1426 as a result of a punitive expedition sent by the Mamluk sultan Barsbey. According to Ibn Battuta who visited ‘Aidhab in CE 1326, the Beja ruler collected two thirds of the imports through his agents whereas the Mamluk sultan received one third only. The same pattern was later practised between the Beja chiefs and the Ottomans and after them the Egyptians at the port of Suakin.

1) The period witnessed the coming of learned ‘Ulama whose main concern was not to conquer or trade but teaching the right practices of Islam. The introduction of Islam had been started by merchants but did not led to widespread conversion among the settled indigenous Nubian speaking population. The merchants and Arab nomads had not been moved by religious zeal, that is why the Muslims of this phase were in perplexity and confusion, not only in Dongola but also, in the White Nile region, even in Phase III. This resulted in the building of khalwas, specialised settlements devoted to teaching and religious studies as well as the building of mosques (or conversion of churches into mosques) as the cases of Old Dongola and the Middle Nile region. 2) In most of the northern Sudan, the people became bilingual specially the Beja, Nubian or Fur using local domestic languages and having Arabic as their international and religious language. Arabic spread from the Red Sea to Chad in the west and from Aswan in the north to latitude 10°N in the south (Hassan 1973: 134). People acquired Arabic as well as Islam, which spread among the indigenous population through Quranic schools. Documentary evidence from this phase is almost all Islamic and in Arabic but some use was still made of the old Nubian script by Christians (Qasr Ibrim & Jebel ‘Adda).

The 14th century CE witnessed the arrival of holy men (known as sheikhs in the Nile valley and Marabuts further west in the Maghreb). Rikabi Ghullam Allah Ibn ‘Aid whose father came from the Yemen, is described as a descendent of Abu Talib “The Prophet Mohammed’s uncle”, and according to MacMichael his ancestry is specifically traced through alHussein Ibn Ali Ibn Abu Talib. The family therefore claimed to be Ashraf (MacMichael 1967,11: 16-59). The family is thought to have migratory habits on the fringes of the Dar alIslam. His grandfather is called ‘Uthman al-Zayla’i who according to Holt suggests an earlier domicile of the family on the Somali coast (1967: 10).

3) There is archaeological evidence from the west, where the Tunjur kingdom was in its heyday in the 13th-14th centuries CE. Palaces and mosques were reported from different capitals of the Tunjur sultans.

Ghullam Allah is said to have founded mosques and Khalwas in Dongola, ‘for its Muslims were in extreme perplexity’ (Dayf Allah 1992: 8). It is possible that more fieldwork will locate these sites. He taught the Quran and religious sciences. His descendants the four sons of Jabir developed these schools in the 16th century CE.

4) Imported objects were found at many sites. At Ibrim, where Ayyubid and Mamluk metal work was found (Plumely 1971:12). Thai ceramics of CE 14-16th centuries, white porcelain and celadon of the CE 14th century from ‘Aidhab (Kawatoko 1993: 206). Fustat and Fayyumi wares were found at Kulubnarti (Adams 1998: 80), Soba (Welsby 1993: 323), and from the eastern desert (Castiglioni & Sadr 1994: 22).

West of the Nile, part of Juhayna confederation overran the kingdom of ‘Alwa and went on to Kordofan and Darfur. A big group of the Kawahla who crossed the Red Sea went to Butana region and western Sudan. In a third period of movements, the Juhayna and Kawahla began a final wave of nomad migration directly from Egypt to Kordofan and Darfur following the caravan route west of the Nile, Darb al-Arba’in. Some of these immigrants were the Howara of Egypt and

5) The political situation in the domain of ‘Alwa is unknown until the end of the 15th century CE when Soba was sacked, 16

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

but it was disintegrating under the pressure of nomad Arabs who surrounded its boundaries.

towards conquering the whole of north east Africa including the land between Suakin and the Blue Nile as sources of slaves, gold and ivory. In the Dongola reach, near the 3rd Cataract they met with such strong resistance from the Fung that in CE 1585 the frontier between the two sultanates was fixed at Hannek 10 km. south of the 3rd Cataract where it was to remain until CE 1820. To defend the new frontier, they constructed the fortress of Sai to garrison the area as at Qasr Ibrim. In February CE 1584 the Imperial Divan created a new African province, the Eyelat of Ibrim and a Sanjak of Mahas was added as it was conquered. By December CE 1885, the Eyelat of Ibrim was abolished and it became part of the Sanjak of Ibrim under a kachif (Udal 1998: 25). These alien, Arabic and Turkish speaking garrisons were regularly reinforced and in time became landowners and Nubian speaking. As part of the Sunni Ottoman Caliphate the religious connections of the region north of 3rd Cataract were with Egypt, the Qadis and Imams being appointed from Cairo.

1.4. Phase III CE 1500-1800/ AH 906-1215 (Discussed in detail in chapters IV, V and VI) This is the period from which comes most of the Islamic archaeological evidence and it is characterised by three major events. The first was that the kingdom of ‘Alwa disappeared and was replaced by the Fung kingdom. It had been left isolated and by the beginning of the 16th century CE it became overrun by Beja/Arab nomads. Its end was inevitable for it was in no position to offer resistance to the marauding nomads (Hassan 1980: 122). The actual down fall in CE 1504 is generally supposed to have been caused by alliance of the ‘Abdellab with the Fung. The latter suddenly appeared east of the White Nile from south-west; though the ‘Abdellab traditions claim that they defeated ‘Alwa alone and kept the golden crown of its kings for generations. Thus Christianity completely disappeared and Abyssinia was left the sole Christian kingdom in Africa.

The third development was that in the early 17th century CE, Whereby Darfur witnessed the rise of the Islamic Keira State. Before that the last of the Tunjur kings were driven out by Dali Afna, the viceroy of King Mohammed Idris of Kanem CE 1526-45, who occupied Uri. A new capital was the walled town of Turra. The hegemony of the Bornu kings continued under the second great king Idris Aloma CE 1571-1603 who built red brick palace and mosque in hills near Uri. This was the last period of the Bornu Empire and with his death, it disintegrated which coincided with the rise of the Keira. The Keira emerged under the impact of long distant trade and Islam into a rapidly expanding sultanate. It was one of a series of states in the belt of the Savannah, the Bilad al-Sudan. To the west of Darfur lay the sultanate of Wadai and between them a series of petty states.

The Fung kingdom, the first Islamic state in the Middle Nile Valley, came to existence early 16th century CE. It ruled from its capital Sennar on the Blue Nile, to the south of the 3rd Cataract region in the north, to the east to the hinterland of Suakin which was seized by the Ottomans in CE 1523, to the west part of Kordofan was annexed. Fung trade was mainly through Suakin. The kingdom marked the supremacy of Islam in the present Republic of the Sudan. Under this new regime many khalwas, qubbas and mosques were established.

In its heyday in the 18th century and 19th centuries CE the Keira sultanate was at the centre of a network of trade routes, from west to east across the central Bilad al-Sudan, northwest to Tripoli and Tunisia and the famous Darb al-Arba’in across the desert to Asyut in upper Egypt (map 7). The sultans through a small group of large -scale traders controlled the long distance trade, while local and inter-regional trade was in the hands of petty trader or Jallaba. The commodities that moved to Egypt included slaves as the main export, ivory, gold, rhinoceros horn, ostrich feathers, gum and some copper (Browne 1799: 301-4). Mainly pilgrims from western Bilad al-Sudan used the route west to east across Darfur, Kordofan to Suakin. According to Petheric (1861:266) there seems to have been considerable trade between Darfur and Tunisia and Tripoli until the 2nd half of the 18th century CE. Each of the main trade routes through Darfur had its own particular centre within the sultanate; Kabkabiyya and Gerli in the west, Ril and Manawashi in the south, Suwaini and Kobbe in the north and later al-Fashir in the east.

The descendants of Ghullam Allah, the four sons of Jabir and their nephew sheikh Soghayroun developed seats of learning. With them the Islam entered a much wider stage for their descendants and students can be shown to have dispersed all over the Fung kingdom. In the Sudan the religious life became bound up with Sufi holy men especially those coming from Arabia, Yemen and Iraq, and to think of Allah without his intermediaries is impossible. This aspect, as in the Maghreb, shows the impact of local beliefs on Sunni Islam in a direct way (Elzein 1987: 10). The second major event was that in CE 1517 Selim 1, the Ottoman Turkish sultan defeated the Mamluk sultans of Egypt and from then until the 19th century CE it was administered as a province of that empire (Alexander 2000). Suakin, as part of the Mamluk domain, submitted to the Ottomans in CE 1527. The Ottomans defeat in Abyssinia in CE 15501570 transferred the their interest to the Middle Nile Valley where they attacked the Fung kingdom. In fact, fighting between the sultanates, in the hinter land of Suakin may have broken out few years after the submission of Suakin to the Ottomans CE 1523(Paul 1954: 76/82). According to a series of documents of CE 1525-1550, the Ottomans were aiming

This trading complex was to a significant extent responsible for the opening up of Darfur to a variety of external influences, for the settlement of Muslim teachers and holy men throughout the state and the transformation of the Fur kingdom into a multi-ethnic Islamic sultanate. 17

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

Archaeological evidence for the process of Islamisation during Phase III

Throughout the 300 years period the influence of the Ottomans must have been immense and extended into the frontier mekdom of Mahas. Some of the Mahas are attested historically as they left their homes beyond the 3rd Cataract region 16-17th centuries CE (Reid 1935: 20), and settled in the Fung domains, namely Tuti island, Burri and ‘Ailafun. The Tuti group according to local tradition was from a village called Gamai (personal research 1999). The holy men who were Sufi came first like Arbab al-’Agaid of Khartoum and Idris Wad al-Arbab of ‘Ailafun. It is probable that the Sunni Islam of the Ottomans and their harshness were among the factors that led to the migration of the Mahas. In the 18th century boys from Qasr Ibrim were sent to the khalwas in the Shaiqiya area for education.

With the establishment of the three Islamic regimes; the Ottoman “Sunni” north of the 3rd Cataract region and the Red Sea port of Suakin, the Fung in central Sudan including the Beja lands and parts of Kordofan, and the Keira sultanate of Darfur, the stage of proselytisation came to its end and a new era of reform and of teaching the Quran and its sciences began. The three regions will be considered separately as well as the region south of latitude 10°N. a) The Sanjak of Ibrim: - The Sanjak of Ibrim includes two important military sites, Qal’at Ibrim and Qal’at Sai and a number of civilian ones especially El-Dirr (the capital), Jebel ‘Adda and Faras. The garrison of Ibrim had left much archaeological, documentary and oral tradition evidence. The fortress at Ibrim was restored and utilised in a way that reflect its importance as the main riverine defence guarding the southern frontier of Egypt from the Fung aggression (Alexander and Schlee: forthcoming).

Suakin flourished with three phases of buildings, the original houses, the Ottoman style after CE 1530, and after CE 1860 the Egyptian style. The rise of the port of Port Sudan early 20th century led finally to the abandonment of the site by most of its inhabitants who have taken the roshans and coral stones for their new houses leaving the town decaying. By CE 1996, only parts of the Egyptian style buildings are there, the rest has gone beyond any hope of restoration.

Architectural remains include houses of conventional Islamic type related to the earliest Ottoman houses at Suakin. Part of the cathedral at Ibrim was converted to a mosque after CE 1600. No Muslim burials within the fortress, but near it were mud brick domed tombs (qubbas).

b) The Fung kingdom: - The first rulers of the Fung kingdom were very occupied with legitimising their rule over Muslim Arabs by claiming Arab pedigrees. When the Ottomans occupied Suakin, ‘Amara Dunqas was said according to tradition, to have sent a genealogy showing his Arab descent to the Ottoman sultan. This, if true, could have been for two reasons; the first was to show that the Fung sultanate was part of Dar al-Islam and to stop the Ottomans from progressing southward to conquer the Fung main domain and the second is to claim their right on the port of Suakin and the eastern desert.

Documentary evidence shows that there were Shari’a courts at El-Dirr and in the fortress of Ibrim in 17th and 18th centuries CE with details of 19 Imams and 15 Qadis. The documents reveal the successions of Kachifs, about twenty-four names are known. In the 18th century there were forty administrative officials in the Sanjak of Ibrim with the Sanjak Bey at ElDirr. Artefactual evidence includes textiles, ceramics, water skin bags, basketry, glass vessels, household equipment like bridles, straps, pads, querns and farming equipment like Saqiya parts and tethering pegs.

The examination of the careers of the Muslim holy men of the Fung kingdom as recorded in the Tabaqat show that the faith of Islam spread deeply among the people of the kingdom in the early 17th century CE. From the Fung chronicles it appears that the reign of ‘Adlan the 1st in the early 17th century CE saw a marked increase in number and significance of Muslim sheikhs in Sennar. Some came from abroad such as Taj ad-Din al-Bahari who came from Baghdad and introduced the Qadiriya order to Sennar, and Hassan Wad Hassuna alAndalusi who came from the Maghreb. About the same time the first indigenous holy men appeared in the historical record of Sennar like Mahmoud al ‘Araki, Idris Wad al-Arbab and Ibrahim al-Bulad (one of the four sons of Jabir). Though few in number it is highly significant that some of these indigenous holy men had been trained abroad, more than possibly in Egypt. About the middle of the 17th century CE a new stage was achieved in the advance of Islam. The great majority of holy men were not only indigenous but had received their training within the Fung kingdom.

Qal’at Sai was a pre-Islamic fortress extensively rebuilt near 3rd cataract because of the confrontation there between the two powers-Ottomans and Fung (Alexander 1997: 4). Archaeological survey work at the site showed the existence of well-defined streets and at least nine long used dwellings of conventional Islamic type as recognised at Ibrim and Suakin. The fortress itself has the same general plan as at Ibrim but was in mud brick. It housed janissaries in barracks, had few public buildings which included, a Friday mosque. It is similar to Ibrim in that it had no Suq (market) no Hammams (baths), no artisan shops and no Khans or Caravanserai. Qal’at Sai is still awaiting thorough excavations to elucidate much of its general history. The scatter of ceramic material suggested that the wares and forms were similar to those of Qasr Ibrim (Alexander 1997). Documentary evidence from Ibrim explains the increase of the garrison in CE 1608 during the rule of the strong Fung king Dakin CE 1596-1614. It also shows how the soldiers became landowners at the end.

The form of Islam that prevailed in the 17th century CE reflected the duality that widespread at that time throughout the Dar al-Islam. Islam in the Fung Kingdom bore the two faces; the orthodox and the ecstatic. Each brought a distinctive set of institutions; the orthodox emphasised the mosque while 18

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the Sufi emphasised the khalwa in which the teacher was a holy man who possesses ‘Baraka’ (blessing).

a Fung province for another 10 years and by CE 1774 Hashim the son of Eisawi of the Musaba’at ruled again until 1786. From that time Kordofan was a province of the Fur. It is important to note that Hashim retreated to Shendi region and with Shaiqiya support he defeated the Ja’aliyin and founded a new base on West Bank of the Nile. Although finally he was executed by Mek Nimr but his followers continued to live there as cultivators (Spaulding 1985: 391-410). No sites so far have been recognised in Kordofan.

The archaeological remains include towns like Old Dongola, Khandaq, Qerri, Sennar, Arbaji, Suakin. Fattovich’s excavations at Mahal Teglinos (Kassala) in CE 1984-88 refer to the existence of a Fung site in the southern Gash Delta. The site is known as the Gergaf group and is dated to CE 1500-1800 and was found in the Sahel between Kassala and Khashm al-Girba (Fattovich 1993: 280). Mosques, khalwas and mesids are every where, while qubbas were built throughout the country reflecting the effect of Sufi trend in the Sudan. The 3rd-5th Cataract castles and fortified houses show something of the civil development. Artefactual remains include pottery, glass objects, metal objects, basketry, leather objects, metal objects, wood objects and written documents.

d) South of Latitude 10°N: - South of Sobat river there is no evidence for Fung control or of the spread of Islam before the 19th century CE. Muslim traders penetrated this area late 19th and early 20th century but with no intention to propagate for Islam. The main archaeological work so far conducted in southern Sudan revealed the existence of Stone and Iron Age cultures. According to Philipson this area is of major importance of the later prehistory of East Africa as a whole as it borders the Ethiopian high lands (1979: 56-61).

c) West of the Nile Valley: - Kordofan was disputed territory between the Fung and the Keira, populated in the north by nomads especially the camel- owning Kababish, in the central hinterland by the cattle owning Beqqara and in the south by the Nuba of Tegale Mountain kingdom. The latter was subdued to Sennar in CE 1650.

The archaeological work conducted on Debbas near Renk and Malakal as part of studying the every day life within the Fung revealed the presence of Fung potsherds and smoking pipes. The Shilluk in this area are known as using ceremonial stools and as having the tradition of killing the king, which might help in clarifying the identity of the Fung. Ethnoarchaeological and ethnohistorical studies were carried on pottery tradition (David: 1979) and (Siirialinn 1984).

Islam entered Darfur with the Tunjur, one of their early rulers, Ahmed al-Ma’qur being a Muslim. The Tunjur are said to be Berber who had been moved by Banu Hilal pressure in north Africa or people from the Nile (Trimingham 1983: 89). Arkell posits that they came from Tibesti or from Kush (1952: 264) while Udal identified them with the Beja or ‘Anaj of Alwa (1998: 168). One of their centres was Uri where remains of a mosque and palace were found. It was strategically placed where Darb al-Arba’in from Egypt and the road from Tripoli via Fezzan and Tibesti met. Between the Tunjur and the Keira dynasties two viceroys from the kingdom of Kanem occupied Uri and drove out the last of Tunjur kings CE 1526-1603. They made Turra their new capital where mosques and palaces were attested archaeologically as well as in the hills near Uri. They were built with red brick.

There is no evidence of major Arab penetration, and if Cohn theory (1973: 114) is to be accepted, that the first Lwoo migration were stimulated probably as result of pressure from peoples to the east. The immigration of Arabs nomads into the northern cattle-keeping zone during the 13th-14th centuries CE must surely have had impact on the western Nilotes. Slave trade before CE 1898 led to the penetration of Arabs which resulted in the disintegration of tribal organisation and the reduction in human and cattle population (Ferguson 1948: 24).

The Keira sultanate 1600-1800 remains include palaces, mosques and town sites like Uri, Kabkabiyya and Kobbe. Al-Fashir was founded in CE 1791-2 by Sultan ‘Abed alRahman. Uri and Kabkabiyya were abandoned consecutively for lack of fresh water while the merchants who moved to al-Fashir abandoned Kobbe the commercial capital. Generally the palaces vary in size as well as mosques. Houses and palaces were reported by early travellers and will be dealt with in chapter IV.

Conclusions It is evident from the historical and archaeological evidence that Islam entered the Sudan as early as the 7th century CE and co-existed with Christianity until the end of the Christian kingdom of Makurra. By this time a new era of reforms began with the coming of ‘Ulama from Arabia who settled in Dongola region and from there their descendants moved south wards to the Shaiqiya area where they established more khalwas for teaching Quran and other religious sciences. When the Fung kingdom came into existence there were already Muslims in the Gezira and Butana areas, the domain of the Fung. The first Islamic state in the Middle Nile Valley came into being without a ‘jihad’ (Holy war) which emphasise the existence of a big Muslim community in the area.

In the 18th century CE Kordofan was a Fur province divided into two, the south and the north. It was ruled first by King Sulayman Solong’s brother or cousin Tunsan known as Musaba’awi (He who went east). The Fung sent two expeditions in CE 1747 and 1750 but were defeated. In CE 1755 Abu Likailik the vizier of the Fung king defeated Musaba’at and himself ruled for the Fung until he overthrew Badi IV and became the King of Sennar. Kordofan remained

19

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Chapter III Part I THE NATURE OF ISLAMIC EVIDENCE IN THE SUDAN results of such studies try to explain the actual physical setting in which a culture developed. This need a combination of talents i.e. archaeologists, historians, philologists, ecologists, architects and art historians. In order to outline the main features of early Islamic urban settings, it is necessary to compile data from several different towns of this period. Though this is difficult in many cases in sites like Damascus and Aleppo which have been occupied without interruption till now and have undergone many alterations.

1.1. Islamic Archaeology: Definitions Islamic archaeology is not a young sub-discipline of archaeology, thanks to the efforts of the great epigraphist Max Van Berchem, who during the last decade of the 19th century saw the need for the development of Islamic archaeology. But only a handful of especially Islamic excavations took place before 1939, and these were of major architectural remains on well-known sites. It is only in recent years that there has been a broader study. a) Islamic archaeology is running in the same line as Biblical archaeology which is oriented towards looking for the relics of the past mentioned in the Old or New Testaments. Thus linking the historical accounts in the Bible with archaeological sites in the Near East. Since the 19th century we come to read about Holland and Palmer’s exploration of the desert of exodus (Chapman 1990: 18). Another example of this is the problem of the emergence of Israelites settlement in the Holy Land, a process that is still going on today. So the Bible was used as historical source, which has to be proved or disproved through archaeological investigations. In the Holy Quran, there are many stories about nations, places and events. Thus Islamic archaeologists have looked for the places of these nations like ‘Ad and Thamoud. Such a definition of Islamic archaeology is still followed in the institutions and universities of Saudi Arabia. An example of this is their activities looking for the cities of Prophet Salih, which dates back to the 8th century BC (Al-Manhal 1987: 218). We also read in al-Maqrizi about the prison of Prophet Yusif, which he sited at Giza in Egypt (al-Maqrizi 1906: 207).

1.2. The Scope of Islamic Archaeology The Islamic world extended from Spain and Morocco in the west to the Far East, and from south of the Sahara to the steppes of Siberia. This Dar al-Islam is hardly united except in its acceptance of the faith and precepts of Islam. This vast region includes different geographical, ecological and climatical zones, and different ethnic groups. These regions witnessed unrelated historical and cultural developments since their ancient times. Thus, we would expect different manifestations of Islam. But to the contrary, despite different ways of life, nomad and sedentary, town and country, cultural and geographical factors, different societies, economy, social structures, the remarkable thing is the extent to which Muslim societies resemble each other (Gellner 1981: 99). The existence of regional traditions led some scholars erroneously to differentiate between the Islam of each region, creating many “Islams”. The location of the Muslim world between China and India and Europe has exposed it to effects and influences by all three, which can be traced in the architectural and artefactual remains. This can help in getting more information about trade and relations between Asia, Europe and Africa.

b) Elsewhere Islamic archaeology developed as a study of Islamic sites i.e. the study of city-sites like Fustat in Egypt, Merv in Iran, Sennar in Sudan, and Aleppo in Syria. The 20

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Unity in diversity is one of the characteristics of Islamic art. It can be applied here to universality in regionality in the example of the mosque, the symbol of Islam. The mosque’s essential features like the orientation i.e. the mihrab, the minaret and minbar are present in most mosques, yet the style of the mosque’s decoration, architecture can vary greatly.

culture within its social contexts through interpretation of material remains. d) To emphasise the importance of the study of material culture as a way of furthering our understanding of Muslim society in the past (Insoll 1999: 2).

1.3. Characteristics of Islamic archaeology

e) To demonstrate that the presence of a Muslim community is recognisable in the archaeological record, where doctrine and requirements of the religion are reflected. f) To carry out formal excavation i.e. systematic research for new evidence. It was, for example, through a series of excavations in Syria and Palestine that the understanding of early Islamic aristocratic life was understood and so a new chapter in the history of Islamic art was made possible. A good example is Qusayr ‘Amra in Jordan (Creswell 1968: 18). Another example was the excavations in Afghanistan and Central Asia, which have brought to light the first royal art of Turkish dynasties, which dominated Asia between 11th and 13th centuries CE (Tretiak 1970: 221-231).

a) As Islamic archaeology is still in the period of formation it must set the kind of problems to be solved. It is not fettered by traditions and enough work has been done by philologists, ethnographers and historian to define what can be known through archaeological exploration. b) The heart of the Islamic world is located in western Asia, where some of the most important developments in its archaeology happened. Thus talking about its methodology, Islamic archaeology is in a unique position to formulate some of the problems posed by differences in purposes and methods between pre-Islamic and historical archaeology.

h) A broader aim of excavation is to describe and explain the actual setting in which the culture developed. Much of these settings are urban, so the one exciting aspect of Islamic archaeology lies in the study of sites which need a combination of talents; archaeologists, philologists, historians, ecologists and architecture historians e.g. Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi of the Abassid in Syria. This site was an excellent source for the establishment of an urban type between the desert and the town providing a ceramic sequence for comparison. For ecologists it appeared as a unique example of the ecological development of the area.

c) Islam is a living religion, and although great changes are affecting contemporary Muslim material culture, the core doctrines have altered little since the first century of Islam which facilitate our understanding of the tenets of the religion (Insoll 1999: 2).

1.4. The Objectives of Islamic Archaeology

For the Islamic period in the Nile valley the worst example of lost opportunities has been in the archaeological surveys which proceeded the flooding of Lake Nasir (1959-65). The archaeologists were told not to excavate or record sites later than 900 AH/ 1500 CE. As a result almost all the Islamic sites between the 1st and 3rd cataract were destroyed.

Since Islam did not negate all cultural forms that existed before, the objectives of Islamic archaeology are: a) To answer questions about the mechanism and the degree of Islamisation of different cultural groups in a region, and the cultural outcome of the coming together of Islamic culture and the different regional and ethnic cultures. Islamic archaeology thus is seeking to know whether what happened was cultural assimilation, or consolidation or all these processes grouped together.

All these examples are mere scratches when we consider the immensity of the task and its urgency, for the expansion of the modern world will not wait for the archaeologists and many sites have already been destroyed. So the combination of talents is important. The study of sites from different regions is of vital importance to provide that particular balance between the uniqueness of any site and its topographical value and between sites of regions ruled by Islamic caliphate and newly Islamised countries outside it.

b) Islam is a living force in almost all the areas which had, at one time or another, became Muslim, therefore the process of Islamisation is an ongoing process. The question here is whether there is varying degree of the force and rate of Islamisation through time and whether this is reflected on the material remains. c) To provide accurately the features of standing or buried monuments and the chronological and spatial setting of the objects. In one sense Islamic archaeology is in service of the history of art. For Grabar, it was a tool for the authentication, dating, localisation and explanation of works of art (Grabar 1971: 198). But this is of course a very 19th century view of what archaeology can reveal. Now Islamic archaeology should place Islamic material

1.5. Methods and Techniques of Islamic archaeology While methods and techniques in archaeology are the same everywhere, Islamic archaeology deals with one of the most complex cultures. This was a result of the effect of Islam on different nations, experiences and regions. Thus it is a 21

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1.6. The Subject Matter of Islamic Archaeology

necessity to employ a combination of modern methods for its study. a) Topographical archaeology: - Topographical archaeology takes earth’s surface as an approach to the past through visible but non-excavation evidence (Fowler 1977: 35). Since many Islamic sites are still in use, this makes them the subject matter of topographical archaeology because its nature is nondestructive. It follows certain principles of field archaeology like utilising maps, cultural records, aerial photography and landscape studies. It also studies documents as well as artefactual evidence. Generally topographical archaeology, to quote Fowler (1977: 35) can contribute to the identification, record and ultimately understanding of the artefactual components in the landscape. In the Sudan, road surveys (i.e. Mallinson and Smith 1998) have proved useful discovering hundreds of new sites.

The main subjects of Islamic archaeological study as taught in institutions and universities are still Islamic art and architecture. That is to say the art and architecture, which are the products of Muslims in all countries, which were ruled directly by the Muslim Caliphate. According to Rice, the appreciation of Islamic art is the reason behind the development of Islamic archaeology, for in art, the archaeologists can follow the expressions of beliefs, faith and ideas (Rice 1965: 7). However, such a view makes Islamic archaeology subservient to art history, a provider of fine objects to museums. The function of Islamic archaeology in this case is restricted to collecting, classifying and cataloguing of grander objects at the expenses of interpretation and theory building (Insoll 1999: 5).

b) Scientific Archaeology: - A combination of the techniques used in physics, chemistry, geology, zoology and botany (Brothwell & Higgs 1972) have greatly increased the amount of information coming from excavations and enabled many questions to be answered. One example of the type of question could be when did the horse become common in the eastern Savannah? The introduction of the horse and the development of the Dongolawi breed which was used by the Fung cavalry allowed the development of a savannah kingdom similar to those in the western savannah; a study of horse bones form sites and possibly DNA analysis could answer it.

The studies in this field have always concentrated upon the art and architecture, no attempts are made to study other aspects of the culture in question. The real life of the public, household furniture, food and its objects, every day pottery and wooden objects... etc. Thus we end up with a wealth of information about the development of Islamic art or architecture in certain period or certain geographical area without understanding the social and economic situation of its makers.

c) Historical Archaeology: - Historical archaeology is the study of material remains of any historical period (Osman 1979: 19). By historical periods we mean those periods in which the culture in question have documentary records whether inscribed in stone or written on paper, parchment or papyrus. The historical archaeologist has to investigate the nature of the document he uses, how complete and reliable they are e.g. through the study of dated Islamic tombstones and mosques dedications we can follow the gradual Islamisation of the Sudan.

Also this definition denies the archaeology of the Islamic periods of other countries which lack such magnificent manifestation and high quality art. Because of this lack of understanding, Islamic archaeology is far behind other branches of archaeology where developments in theoretical studies and self-examination are advancing. The only advance that occurred in Islamic archaeology until recently was the classification of Islamic architecture either according to function or architecturally as will be shown below. a) Islamic Art: - Islamic art is made up of many compounds and influences, especially from different pre-Islamic traditions. It includes the Arabs, art of the Turks of the steppes of central Asia, Persian, Indian and Mediterranean traditions. All contributed to the overall richness of the art of Islam which is a Quranic art (Bamborough 1976: 19). The following are the general characteristics of Islamic art: -

d) Ethnoarchaeology: - Ethnoarchaeology has its role in Islamic archaeology. It is a discipline which studies present day man, animal and land relationship (Hodder 1982: 28). It seeks to understand regularities in modern human behaviour, which may be used to understand the past. In ethnoarchaeology we make analogy between past and present. In our case we can make analogy with cultures, or features, which have remained through the Islamic period, e.g. The Beja in eastern Sudan, their habitat, structure distribution and activities. All are practices of people from pre-Islamic period but not by necessity anti-Islam. Ethnoarchaeology is not only the study of materials but also the sociology of the people who produced them.

1. Uniformity in using artistically the Arabic language. 2. Abstraction which is seen in the stylisation of naturalistic figures to avoid the typical imitation of nature. 3. Successive combination of modules that leads to the formation of larger infinitive patterns (Farougi 1986: 162).

e) Anthropology and Sociology: - Anthropological and sociological studies are essential in the study of the archaeology of any period; the study of human society, institution and beliefs. As Islam is not only a religion but a way of life, hence study must include beside the architecture of the religion, the domestic environment, death, burials, magic, food...etc.

4. Repetition of designs to create the infinite pattern. 5. Intricacy,which is created through multiplication of internal elements. 6. Dynamism as in the case of arabesque. 22

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

The use of these characteristics will vary with the societies using them. They were adopted to suit specific edifices and objects. Such objects as: -

Egypt. Fine jewellery was made under all the dynasties especially the Fatimids in Egypt. The jewellers combined the art of metalwork in gold and silver with lapidary (Bamborough 1976: 153).

1- Pottery: - Although pottery is a public art the production recovered can be of high quality like lustre ware.

11- Ivory: - Ivory oliphants are ranked amongst the finest examples of Islamic art beside jewellery boxes of al-Andalus and Sicily. The motifs carved included arabesque, hunting and dancing scenes.

2- Calligraphy: - According to Safadi it represents an outlet for Muslim genius to compensate the lack of pictorial representation (Safadi 1978: 116). It is used in books, decoration of some object d’art, interiors and exteriors of buildings especially mosques, palaces and urban village houses.

While masterpieces are rare in the Sudan the influence of other regions on artefacts will be studied. b) Architecture: - Islamic architecture is all the architecture produced in Muslim lands or by Muslims residents in the Dar al-Harb, whether to serve Islam as a religion, referring to mosques, tombs and schools, or secular architecture like palaces and houses, villages, towns and nomad camps, or military installations. It refers to an architecture that can be recognised as different from other architecture created outside Islam (Michel 1976: 10).

3- Miniatures painting: - Miniature painting was confined to manuscript illustrations and Quran illumination. Rare examples of wall paintings as in Qusayr ‘Amra in Jordan where figures are represented and in Persia and Mogul India. 4- Bookbinding: - Bookbinding is another field in which Muslim court artists excelled. The binding technique started with wood covers, replaced by leather with the introduction of paper. Decoration is achieved through geometrical, floral, abstract designs and medallion motifs.

1- Religious architecture: 1.1 Mosques are divided functionally into three types: masjid for daily prayers, jami’ for daily and Friday prayers i.e. provided with minbar, and madrasa or collegiate mosque where students study and live in cells arranged along the intermediate walls. Each of the three types must have essential elements like mihrab, minaret, sahn and ablution fountain, while the minbar is restricted to Friday mosques and schools. This is beside other less important elements like dikka and kursi.

5- Rugs and Carpets: - Rugs and carpets are the most familiar of all Islamic art. They embody all forms of Islamic art, geometric, figurative, floral and arabesque. 6- Textiles: - Textiles also reflected the popular artistic fashions of the day. Its production flourished all over the Islamic caliphate. Special industries were erected by the ‘Abbasid and Tulunids called ‘Dar al-Tiraz’ (Alfi 1985: 289). Decorative elements were various, like geometrical, floral, animal and birds motifs. Again here the concentration is on the masterpieces which are kept as treasures on European churches.

1.2 Khanagah or monastic mosque is a place where community of dervishes or Sufi orders can perform their prayer, dhikir and live in it. All of them consist of a mosque, ceremonial hall, kitchen, retreat cells, refectory and library. Such buildings appeared by the 11th century CE.

7- Glass work: - Glasswork witnessed new techniques and innovation like wheel cutting, relief carving and gilding. The glass objects range from mosque lamps to oil and perfume flasks, beside glasses and cups. The mosque lamps combined the art of metalwork in gold and silver with lapidary (Bamborough 1976: 153).

1.3 Tomb mosque is either a congregational, collegiate or monastic foundation with the tomb of the founder. It shows the desire of the founder to have his name perpetuated by being associated with charitable work. The earliest one is the mosque of al-Juyushi in Cairo CE 1085.

8- Metalwork: - Like the glasswork, it was affected by ancient traditions specially Sassanian Persia. Designs and decoration range from simple engraved decoration to inlay with silver, copper and gold to ornament bronze vessels (Fehervari 1976: 22).

1.4 Mausoleums are mostly for Muslim rulers. They express power and glory. They have variant nomenclatures like qubba, turba, Mashhad and margad. Their shapes are either square substructures surmounted by a dome or cylindrical towers.

9- Coinage: - Coinage had long been used in all conquered areas beside the existing currency of the conquered people. Adding Arab governor name or Kufic inscription as it happened to the Sassanian and Byzantine coins modified the latter. This continued until the time of ‘Abdel al-Malik Ibn Murwan the Umayyad Caliph, that coinage was fully Islamised with the removal of images and replacing Greek or Persian writing with Arabic script.

2. Secular architecture: 2.1 Palaces: the Islamic palaces were built for ceremony and comfort. Some of them were erected in remote areas of which the external appearance is like a fortress while in the inside they are furnished with every luxury e.g. Qusayr ‘Amra in Jordan. They included living quarters, common area, a bath and small mosque. Generally the palaces are the earliest

10- Jewellery: - Jewellery has of course played an important part in the Islamic world especially in the court circles in 23

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examples of the architecture of the powerful, which was started by the Umayyads. They are lavishly decorated with stucco paintings, mosaics with different topics.

Caravanserais were built for merchants and pilgrims along the main caravan routes. Architecturally, it is a square or a rectangular walled exterior with a single portal, wide enough to permit large heavily loaded camels to enter. The courtyard is almost always open to the sky. Along the inside walls are rooms to accommodate merchants. The animal stables were separated form the lodgings. There are special magazines for storing merchandises.

2.2 Towns and villages: The suq along with the jami’ and occasionally the hammam defined the very essence of an Islamic town (Michel 1976: 99). Capital cities and larger towns were divided into many quarter each containing different groups with their own mosque, suq and hammam on small scale. Village houses are often versions of preIslamic styles modified to suit the Islamic social pattern.

The trading posts are free standing minarets with exceptional decoration. They served as bacon for travellers on the trade and pilgrimage route. They have interior staircase giving access to the balcony and to their very top. The best examples came from Khurasan road where a great number of them dating from the 11th and 12th centuries CE.

2.3 Houses: Houses are designed with entrances that do not lead directly, in the most elaborate types, to the courtyard, instead they lead to a square entrance which in turns leads to a hall that finally opens into the courtyard. Around the courtyard arranged the main rooms. One of them is called the ‘mag’ad’ which is for men in summer’s nights, it is connected with the divan, which is higher than the other rooms. To the end of the divan is a wooden door that leads to small square room called ‘khizana’, with stairway that leads to women section upstairs. Openings and windows that face the street are very high and narrow. Women rooms are fitted with ‘mahsrabiya’ to watch outdoors ceremonies and for ventilation.

3. Military Architecture: 3.1 Citadels: - A citadel is a fortified defensive unit within a city occupied by a king or a feudal lord. It is usually built astride the city walls and rarely remained outside the city. A citadel can include palace, houses, and mosque with barracks. Others were more exclusively military with barracks, arsenals, granaries, jail and small mosque. They vary in shape and size.

2.4 Hammams: - The bath was an urban institution inherited by the Muslims from the Roman world (Creswell 1968: 88). It is a familiar aspect of any market, as well as, in many building complexes like fortresses, palaces and caravanserais. The earliest known public baths dates from the middle of the 12 th century CE. But other baths connected with palaces like Qusayr ‘Amra dates back to the 9th century CE. As in the classical bath, it consists of three rooms; the cold, the warm and the hot room besides the disrobing room.

3.2 Forts: -These are purely military structures with garrisons placed at strategic points or pilgrim routes by powerful Islamic states like the Ottoman Empire. In North Africa, small forts seem to have been constructed primarily either to control Berber tribes or to protect the coast line against Christian incursion. In Spain similar forts overlooked the major roads to the north. 3.3 Ribats: - These resemble the fortified Christian monasteries and technically are fortified settlements preserved for temporary or permanent warriors and resident holy men. They are to defend the frontiers or control and proselytising frontier regions. The mosque with a minaret inside the ribat identifies its special needs for keeping arms and prayer.

2.5 Bridges: - Islamic bridges are usually built benefiting from their site and the techniques required. It might be combined with a dam. The most impressive Muslim bridges are those of Anatolia, where the Roman prototype is modified by raising and widening the central arch instead of semicircular arches. A high point of Islamic bridge building is reached in Isfahan where functional and aesthetic considerations are combined (Michel 1976: 85).

Part II THE NATURE OF ISLAMIC EVIDENCE IN THE SUDAN

2.6 Markets: - The standard urban suq plan was a network of streets covered with vaults and domes, often with higher domed or open areas at the crossing-points. It is one of the classics defining features of an Islamic town, it links the mosques, baths, khans and schools. Shops selling the same goods are always grouped together like spices leatherworks.... Etc.

2.1. Historical and literary evidence In Phase I, AH 30/CE 640- and II, AH 900/CE 1500, the written sources are in Arabic and written by the Muslims or in Greek and written by Christians. There are the accounts of historians or geographers, records of successive Egyptian dynasties, especially the Fatimids and letters and documents found in the Qasr Ibrim. It is only in Phase III that the Ottoman archives in Cairo and the reports of Turkish and European travellers give knowledge of both of the Sanjak of Ibrim and the Fung kingdom. In Phase I the Baqt treaty was the main

2.7 Caravanserais, Khans and trading Posts: - A khan is a simplified caravanserai, which is located within a city, with more space for storage and commercial transaction. They were generally two or three storeys high, rectangular or square in plan with a single portal. Upper floors for merchants’ chambers, the ground floor used for stables and shops. 24

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

element in Muslim-Nubian relations from AH31/651CE to about AH700/CE1300, i.e. through the history of the kingdom of Makurra. Its conditions, as shown in chapter II discussed mainly the commercial relations between Makurra, Alwa and Egypt. Its direct effects can be grouped in the following observations. Firstly, one of its direct consequences was the spread of Islam in the 1st and 2nd cataract region. Secondly, the rest of Nubia was left in peace throughout six centuries, during which the Muslim army were conquering North Africa, Spain, Byzantine Empire and Central Asia (Adams 1984: 453). Thirdly, it determined the course of Makurran foreign relations. Lastly, the fact that Makurra was never brought under the control of Muslims during the early centuries of Islam, had made possible the prosperity of the Christian Nubian civilisation and led to what Adams calls the institutionalisation of trade relations with the Islamic world (Adams 1984: 504).

Egyptian Muslims, which was judged by a Muslim shari’a judge, whose judgement was accepted by the Nubian king. From that time onwards Lower Nubia was opened to settlement by Muslims. Another example was during the Ayyubid Caliphate when Nubians attacked Upper Egypt and Salah ad-Din sent his brother Shams ad-Dawla who occupied Qasr Ibrim and converted its main church into a mosque. Also during the Mamluks rule, the Makurrans attacked the port of ‘Aidhab in AH 671/CE 1272. As a result the Mamluks sultan sent a campaign to lower Nubia. From that time onwards some Makurran princes started taking refuge in Cairo, asking help to the throne in Makurra. This marked the beginning to the Mamluks interference in the internal affairs, which continued until the first Nubian Muslim took the power in Makurra in AH717/CE1317. The nomadic pastoralists of the Red Sea hills and eastern desert have been known as the Beja since the early history of the Sudan. Their attacks on the Egyptian frontiers since Roman times are well-recorded (Paul 1954: 72).

As far as this thesis is concerned, the failure to fulfil these conditions and the violation of some of them are among our direct evidence for the early and slow process of Islam in the Middle Nile Valley.

During the Abbasid caliphate, their governor in Egypt AH141/CE758 had complained to the king of Makurra of the Beja attacks in Aswan district. The Beja continued their attacks on Upper Egypt and in AH/216/CE831 a punitive campaign was sent against them by caliph al-Mu’tasim. According to Hassan (1967: 176), this was a decisive event in opening up the Red Sea hills to Arab settlement. The Beja were defeated and forced to sign a treaty. The agreement contained many of the same conditions as did the Baqt but it was a unilateral conditions which guaranteed nothing to the Beja in return for their submission. Thus the treaty opened up the country to Arab influence, as Arabs were free to move about the area and settle. Two types of migration seem to have taken place. One was the gold fever and the mines in Wadi al-’Alaqi and Wadi Tomat (Sadr 1994: 121). The other was by camel pastoralists who gradually spread south over the whole area of the Beja up the borders of Abyssinia. The indigenous tribes then converted to Islam through intermarriage with Muslim Arabs. The Rabi’a were the confederation responsible of forming the Banu Kanz (MacMichael 1967: 138-9). They migrated from Arabia to Upper Egypt in the early ages. They established their rule in the Red Sea hills and got intermarried with the local Beja. As their numbers and influence grew they extended their control over Aswan and adjacent portions of the Nile Valley.

In one of these clauses, there is an explicit indication of an existence of a mosque at Old Dongola, which must indicate the presence of small group of Muslims in the area as well as the volume of trade, and traders who might have been passing by Dongola: “ You have to look after the mosque which the Muslims have built in the courtyard (square or plaza) of your capital, and you are not to prevent any one from worshipping in it, or interfere with any Muslims who goes to it and remains in its sanctuary until he departs from it. And you are to sweep it, keep it lighted and honour it” (Adams 1984: 451). On the other hand the failure to fulfil the conditions had its direct consequences in the spread of Islam. Evidence from Qasr Ibrim, which among them are the letter of the Abbasid governor of Egypt to the king of Makurra in CE 758 (Adams 1984: 455). And the letter of the Caliph al-Mu’tasim demanding the arrears of fourteen years. The latter ended up with the famous diplomatic mission of Prince George to the court in Baghdad. The mission was a success and resulted in the renewal of the bilateral treaty of non-aggression, nonintervention, guaranteeing security of Muslims frontiers and the reduction of the Baqt treaty to every three years. Again during the Tulunids and Ikhshids, the kingdom of Makurra violated the treaty but when the Fatimids assumed power in Egypt, Jawhar sent an envoy with a letter to the Makurran king requesting that he either embrace Islam or to resume the payment of the Baqt. Thus the failure to fulfil the payment conditions indicates the failure of other conditions e.g.

In the western desert it is probable that Muslim camel-nomads began to reach the Sahel from the 4th century AH/ 10th century CE onwards with the immigration of the Banu Hilal, claimed as ancestors by the 17th century tribe of the Kababish in later times.

“That you may enter our territory passing through but not taking up residence in them. You are to look after the safety of any Muslim or ally of the Muslims who lodge in your territories or travels in them, until he departs from you” (Adams 1984: 451).

2.2. Muslim Historians These had tackled many topics concerning Makurra and Alwa in particular and the rest of the Sudan in general. We find description of the land, its resources, its people, climate, the source of the Nile, towns, beside important historical events

These conditions were violated many times. The first example was when the Nubians of Aswan had sold their lands to the 25

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

like the Baqt and the Beja treaties, the different events of conquest since the time of Abu al-Sarh to the Mamluks time in Egypt, the flight of the two sons of Murwan through Nubia, the kingdom of al-Abwab and other topics.

of the founder of the Fung kingdom (Crawford 1951: 140). He also described the life in the court of Sennar where he found a warm welcome when he claimed to be a sherifi from Mecca, which shows the great respect given to the ‘Ulama since the establishment of the kingdom.

For our purpose we find many references to the Baqt and the Beja treaties, to the first mosque built and other mosques, important events and the Islamisation in the Sudan. Many writers have mentioned the Baqt, discussed some of its terms or quoted all the treaty. Ibn Khardadhibeh (CE 885), Abu alFaraj al-Baghdadi (CE 930), Ibn al-Furat (CE 1405) and al Magrizi (CE 1445) are among them. The latter in particular quoted all the treaty and mentioned the incidents of its violation. The Beja treaty on the other hand was mentioned by Abu al-Faraj al Baghdadi, Ibn Miskawaih (CE 1030) Ibn al-Athir (CE 1234). References to early mosques are abundant. Ibn Hazm (CE 1063) mentioned the place of the mosque of Abu al-Sarh as at the gate of the capital Old Dongola. Later al-’Umari (CE 1348) mentioned Old Dongola as having a great mosque where travellers can stay. Nasr-iKhsrwa (CE 1050) on the other hand described ‘Aidhab as has a Friday mosque. Later Ibn Battuta (CE 1377) attributed this mosque to a certain Qastallani. Among the important events mentioned by these writers is the mission of Ibn Salim al-Aswani to the king of Makurra. Ibn Salim mentioned that he had performed the Barium prayers in Dongola which was attended by sixty Muslims as quoted by Ibn al-Mugafa’ (CE 1000). Ibn Khaldun (CE 1406) attributed the Islamisation of the Sudan to the Nubian princes like Kerenbes and Shekenda. Lastly and most importantly are the names of some Nubians as ‘Sahaba’ i.e. the followers of the Prophet like Zha alNoon al-Misri and Bilal and Lugman (the wise) and Yazid Ibn Habib the sahabi who was a Nubian from Dongola (Mus’ad 1972 & Vantini 1976).

Evliya Celebi was an Ottoman Turkish official who left account of the conditions in the Sudan in the second half of the 17th century CE (1671-72). The journey was claimed to be undertaken from Egypt through the Sudan to Abyssinia and back. He had left description of Qal’at Ibrim and Sai, the Mahas mekdom, Old Dongola, Qerri, Halfaya, Arbaji, Soba and Sennar (Celebi 1939 book X). Poncet and Brevedent were the first Europeans to reach Sennar. Poncet (1699) gave description of the towns he passed by like Dongola, Qerri and Halfaya. Brevedent (1699) recorded the villages south of Qerri whose house roofs were conical on account of the rains. He also referred to the importance of the king’s mother. From their accounts we come to know that Qerri was a checkpoint for travellers and customs (Crawford 1951: 197). The next Europeans to visit the kingdom of Sennar, was a Franciscan missionary. Two of this mission stayed in Sennar for different periods Joseph (CE 1699-1703) and Pasquale who stayed for two years as the king’s doctor (CE 1705). Krump visited the country in CE 1701. He gave full description of Dongola and the customs dues there; King of Argo, his attire and tobacco pipes; Dabba as a place of “fugara” religious men, their “dhikir” religious songs and Noba (drums), the “loah” tablets for writing verses of Quran and Arabic characters; Qerri, Arbaji, Halfaya and Kutranj. At Qerri he found a palace, which he described as well as the king’s attire and his court and attendants. He described Qerri as a feudal castle round which a small village has grown up (Crawford 1951: 217,221). He also gave description of the court of Sennar, the king and his attire and attendants.

From the commercial documents we come to know that the international trade of Medieval Nubia was chiefly in the hands of Muslims who after the 9th century were allowed to travel and to settle freely in the northern part of the country in an obvious violation of the Baqt treaty. This is also attested with Arabic tombstones of Lower Nubia. According to Adams (1984: 573) the numerous documents in Arabic from Qasr Ibrim bespeak a high degree of literacy in Arabic at the close of the Christian period, and that is why most of the religious and Sufi Sheikhs of central Sudan are of the Mahasi origin. Thus Qasr Ibrim represent a connecting link between the learning literacy of the Christian age and those of the Islamic age. In Debeira West, Shinnie found ‘In the name of Allah, the compassionate, the merciful’ in Arabic painted in black on plaster together with the names Eve and Adam which attests the presence of Muslims in that site during the 2-4th AH/8-10th centuries CE (Shinnie 1963: 262).

James Bruce on his way to discover the source of the Nile (CE 1769-72) has given us a description of a place called Teawa as the capital of Atbara Province. In Sennar he wrote out the list of kings (Fig. 1), described the king his attire, his troops and horses. He met Ahmed Sid al Qum (Crawford 1951: 251) whose chief duty was to kill the king if the council decided it. From him he got information about the country, religion and government. Bruce also noticed several qubbas on his way back from Sennar, in Medani, Arbaji and Kamlin. In Shenndi he met a lady whom he called the queen of Shendi, Sittina, the sister of the ‘Abdallab sheikh. Burckhardt (CE 1819) is regarded as the most reliable of the European travellers for his precise and minute description and observations. He was the first to give information about the political situation in Northern Sudan before the arrival of Mohammed Ali Pash 1821. The relation between the Ottomans garrisons and the Nubian kings, the Shaigiya supremacy over Dongola, the war between the rebel Mamluks and Shaigiya are among the topics that he had tackled. He gave full description of many towns like Berber, Shendi, Damer, Suakin and Dongola. The information included the

2.3. Travellers Report The first traveller to visit Sudan in modern times was David Reubeni, an oriental Jew (Udal 1998: 76). Reubeni (CE 1521) described many villages, mosques and qubbas on his way to Sennar. He has confirmed the date, name and the existence 26

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

The History of the Kings of the Fung kingdom in the city of Sennar the well guarded 1.

After the Nubian Kingdom the first who settled in Sennar was the sultan ‘Amara ibn Adlan in 910 A.H. He died 940 A.H. Ruled 30 years.

2.

After him ruled his son sultan Nayil 940 A.H. He died 957 A.H. Ruled 17 years.

3.

After him ruled his brother sultan Abdelgadir ibn Amara the above-mentioned in 957. He died 965 A.H. Ruled 8 years.

4.

After him ruled sultan ‘Amara ibn Nayil in 965 A.H. He was deposed 965. (sic) Ruled 11 years.

5.

After him ruled sultan Dakin ibn Nayil 976 A.H. He died 994 A.H. Ruled 17 years.

6.

After him ruled his son sultan Dura 994 A.H. He was deposed 996. Ruled 3 years.

7.

After him ruled Taiyib ibn Abdelgadir 996 A.H. He died 1000 A.H. and ruled 3 years.

8.

After him ruled sultan Unsa 1000 A.H. He was deposed A.H. 1012. Ruled 13 years.

9.

After him ruled his son sultan ‘Abdelgadir A.D. 1012. He was deposed in Rejab A.H. 1015. Ruled 4 years.

10. After him ruled sultan Adlan ibn Unsa, he of the Karkoj battle, in A.H. 1016. He was deposed in 1020. Ruled 5 years. 11. After him ruled sultan Bady ibn Abdelgadir in A.H. 1020. He died 1025. Ruled 6 years. 12. After him ruled sultan Rabat 1025 A.H. He died 1054. Ruled 30 years. 13. After him ruled his son sultan Bady in 1054 A.H. He died in 1091 on. the 6th of the month Dhu el hijja. Ruled 38 years. 14. After him ruled the son of his brother Unsa ibn Nasir ibn Rabat in A.H. 1092 He died in 1130 [sic]. Ruled 12 years. 15. After him ruled his son sultan Bady on Saturday 21st Ramadan 1103. He ruled 25 years, and died 1128. 16. After him ruled his son sultan Unsa on Friday 20th Rabi’ el thani, 1128. He was deposed 1132. Ruled 3 years and 14 days. 17. After him ruled his son NoI ibn Bady on Saturday the 1st of Sha’aban 1132 A.H. He died 1136. Ruled 4 years. 18. After him ruled his son sultan Bady on Saturday after the evening meal 16th of Showal, 1136. He was deposed on Saturday 2nd Ramadan 1175. 19. After him ruled his son sultan Nasir on the Monday after his father’s deposition on the 3rd of the month. He was deposed on Tuesday 27th of Shaaban’. Ruled 8 years. 20. After him ruled his brother the victorious with the assistance of God Sultan-Ismail 1183 A.H. (=A.D. 1769). Fig. (1) The list of Fung king as recorded by J. Bruce, Phase III (Crawford, 951).

agriculture, commerce and markets, handcrafts, houses and pastoral activities. He wrote about the Islamic kingdoms and Arab tribes in western Sudan and Bahr al Ghazal region.

Western part of the Sudan in general and Darfur in particular has been an important topic for many travelers. Browne visited Darfur in CE 1793 and stayed there for three years. He was not trusted by Sultan ‘Abdel Rahman (CE 1787-1802) and therefore was not allowed to go further than Cobbe and El Fashir (Browne 1799: 121). He did not mentioned the Tunjur and made inquiries about the origin of the Fur which he claimed quite wrongly to be Moors driven by the Arabs from the south. El-Tunisie (CE 1803) came during the reign of Sultan Mohammed Fadul and stayed for eight years and from there he left to Wadai (Al-Tunisie 1965: 21). He collected good information about the history of the Fur Sultanate, the court, the social and religious life. His work reflects on the Islamisation of the Fur people and the main

After Mohammed Ali Pasha conquest of the Fung kingdom, travel became easier. Waddington and Hunbury (CE1822) had written full description of the main cities in Dongola region and the Shaigiya region. The information availed included the environment, social and religious life, saints, khalwas, folklore and women status. Among other travelers P. Muskau (CE 1837), and F. Werne (CE 1840); the latter had written his observation about the Dinka, Shulluk and Baqqara tribes. 27

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

Arab migrations to that area. In his book he gives precise description of its people, revenues, court, clothes, social customs and traditions, food, plants, magic, charms and amulets.

Father Vantini’s book “Oriental sources concerning Nubia” (1975) contains translation of what more than 130 Arab authors, writing in Arabic, had to say about Nubia between CE 555-1700. The work is of an enormous value and is based on the previous great work of M.M. Mus’ad “Al-Maktaba as Sudania al- ‘Arabia” (1972) which includes most of the statement concerning peoples of the Nile valley and the eastern desert, their climate, resources, names, and important historical events.

Barth traveled from Tripoli to Chad (CE 1849), he relied on oral tradition and statements made by the Arab writers among them he mentioned Ibn Sa’id, Abu al Fida and Ibn Khaldun. He postulated that the Tunjur came from Dongola, conquered the Daju and extended their Empire in Wadai and part of Bagirmi and were overthrown by the Fur (Barth 1857: 425). In CE 1874 G. Nachtigal visited Darfur and stayed for six months in al-Fashir. Like Browne, he was not allowed to travel about. He was able to collect as much information as possible about the history of Darfur from oral tradition and from the few documents, which he found. He divided the history of Darfur chronologically into three kingdoms; Daju, Tunjur, Fur. (Nachtigal 1971: 272).

Osman (1982) divided the Islamisation of the Sudan into two stages according the activities of the ‘Ulama. Stage I between CE 1317-1504 which witnessed the activities of Ghullam Allah Ibn ‘Aid in Dongola and Hamad Abu Dunana who settled west of al-Mahmiya. The second stage coincided with the rise of the Fung kingdom. Thus the second stage took place under an Islamic government which attracted ‘Ulama elsewhere from Dar al-Islam (1982: 344).

2.4. Modern Scholars

2.5. Other Literary Evidence

Many scholars have contributed to the understanding of the Arabization and Islamization of the Sudan. MacMichael (1967: Vol. 1) has collected a mass of genealogical traditions recording the coming of Arabs to the Sudan. This compilation forms the basis for our knowledge of the spread of Arabs and the coming of the first Muslims.

Beside documents that deal with genealogies ‘nisbas’ mainly in the Fung kingdom, there are many other documents written on different materials, parchment, papyrus, paper, leather and even on walls, and for different purposes such as religious and confirmatory documents, dowry, corn distribution registers, endowment, wills, pass permits and commercial documents. The value of these documents is enormous. Scholars of different specialties can study them. They can throw light on the religious, political, commercial and socio-economic life. From such documents we can get information about the land tenure system, social organization, family relations, trade and money in circulation. The documents can be used in comparative study e.g. the medieval documents to be compared with documents from the Fung time. This will throw more light on the continuity of some cultural aspects from that time down to the Fung. Also we will come to know about the type of seals and who has the right to stamp, who has the privilege to be a witness, how the document starts and how it ends, type of scrolls, ink…etc.

Trimingham (1965), emphasizes the Arabs pouring into the country starting with the punitive expeditions which increased during the Mamluk rule. According to him, this process was slow because early expeditions were not for annexation for the unattractiveness of the country except as a supplier of slaves by the Baqt treaty. To Trimingham the victory of Islam in the Middle Nile valley arose from the weakness in the Christian communities themselves. This process resulted in the indigenization of the Arabs and the indigenous people acquired Arabic as their second language (1965: 100). Hassan (1973) argues the spread of Islam in the Sudan in various stages, through the coastal areas and Egypt. According to him the Baqt opened the way for Arab migration as well as the penetration of Islam from the north. This pouring of Arabs either as traders or miners led finally to the presence of new centers of power like the ‘Abdallab, the Kababish, Fung, Fur and Tagale (Hassan 1973: 134).

These documents are still being found with sheikhs and some notable families and in some archaeological sites like Qasr Ibrim and Sai. Qasr Ibrim has yielded more documents than have come from all other sites combined (Adams 1984: 445). It includes religious texts along with a large number of commercial, military and legal documents.

Adams (1984) argues that the pressure upon the Christian communities was brought simultaneously from the north and south with different results in different areas. To him, Islam is not a wave that swept over Christianity on its way southward. Evidence for this are the scrolls of Qasr Ibrim that shows that there was still a bishop in Lower Nubia fifty years after the capital Old Dongola had officially adopted Islam and at Jebel Adda (Adams 1984:542). A series of dated Islamic tombstones, e.g. Tafa (CE 822), Kalabsha (CE 929), Qertassi (CE 933), and Derrin (CE 1027) mark the gradual spread of Arab immigrants up the Nile.

Among the documents, which are collected but unpublished, is the one about the virtues of Sheikh Ibrahim al-Qalobawi, written by his son shaikh Medani in AH 1192/CE 1778. The document is partly a nisba one, and partly full of information about other issues (Fig. 2). One of the first inferences is that the shaikh was attributed to his paternal grandmother Qaloba a descent of Jabir al Ansari, one of Prophet Mohammed companions. Centres of learning like Berber and Qoz al shaikh Soghayroun are mentioned among other places like Suakin, al Abwab, Shendi and Dongola. Sennar the capital 28

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

Fig. (2) A page from the document of Ibrahim al-Qalawbawi, Phase III (MSS).

of the Funj is mentioned as a village in which was the royal mosque of the king. This reminds us of the small size of the

mosque of Sennar, reinforcing the idea that Islam in Sennar in the beginning was largely nominal (Elzein 1982: 20). 29

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

2.6. Ethnohistorical Evidence

6.a.2.1 It contains the history of the Fung claiming that they originated in Arabian Peninsula, migrated southeast to Oman and to east Africa and then the Sudan to Lamu and from Lamu to Jebel Moya.

a) Popular historians Fortunately a great body of records of the propagation of Islamic faith and the coming of Arabs has also been compiled and written down by learned Sudanese of the 19th and early 20th century. It is not the purpose of this dissertation to analze these records and they are merely recorded here.

6.a.2.2 There is more than one reference to the name Lul e.g. the inscription on the drum of Sultan ‘Ajeeb. 6.a.2.3 Paris copy refuted the statement that no school of learning flourished before the Fung Kingdom. It mentions the seven sons of ‘Awn Allah during the time of the ‘Anaj (the pre-Muslims of the Sudan). On of them al-Darrir was a Qadi. Their graves are at Abu Halima. It also mentions the Sudanese delegation to Caliph Haroun al-Rashid, the Abassids Caliph. The delegation asked the Caliph to send with them “ulama” which he did, and they arrived and settled in Dongola.

6.a.1- Mohammed al-Nour Dayf Allah has compiled in his book “Al-Tabaqat”, innumerable biographies of Saints and holymen and scholars who first carried the teaching of Islam to the Sudan. According to Adams (1984:570) the book forms at present the basis for nearly all our knowledge of the spread of Arabs. The book covers the period between 1500-1800. Four copies are known to exist at ‘Ailafun, the Beriab of Medani, Zubayr Pasha’s family and shaikh Ahmed al Sunni. The value of the book can be summarized as follows: -

6.a.2.4 Vienna copy bears referecne of the Fung genealogy of Bani Umayya.

6.a.1.1 The opening statement is important as it gives historical information about the foundation of the Funj kingdom and the stablishment of Sennar and Arbaji and Halfaya.

6.a.2.5 It gives insight into the layout of Sennar during the rule of King Badai Abu Dign, the great builder. 6.a.2.6 It also gives description of Arbaji and makes reference to other towns like ‘Ailafun, Kassala and Abu Haraz. It refers to some of the famous shaikhs of that time.

6.a.1.2 It gives genealogical traditions e.g. the teachers under whom the first students studied and their disciples. 6.a.1.3 It is remarkable because it is written in colloquial Arabic.

6.a.3 Al-Nibr al-‘Abassi wrote a manuscript called “Egaz alNas –I-Sharaf Beni al-’Abbas”. It belongs to a category of Nisba manuscript. It differs in many aspects from the latter that will be shown later. The ‘Ababsa is one of the many clans of the Sudan who claims descent from al-‘Abass, the Prophet Mohammed’s uncle. They have many documents of various kinds, genealogical dowry, bills of sale, letters and manuscripts in religious topics (Mu’tasim & Osman 1983: 81). The book provides us with much information on the following items: -

6.a.1.4 It tells of religious teachers in the Sudan at a still earlier period than is generally known about the spread of Islam e.g. Ghullam Allah Ibn ‘Aid who came from Yemen and settled in Dongola and built a mosque in late 14th century. 6.a.1.5 The book attests the first historically known shaikhs like Mohammed al- Araki and Ibrahim al Bulad

6.a.3.1 The history of the family and its dealings.

6.a.1.6 The book tells for whom the majority of the qubbas in the Sudan were built. (MacMichael 1967: 218,11)

6.a.3.2 The movement of several branches of the ‘Ababsa. 6.a.3.3 Their relation with the ‘Abbasid Caliphate, ways and means and reasons of their arrival in the Sudan.

6.a.1.7 The book gives insight into the ways and thinking of the people of central Sudan at that time e.g.belief in saints’ miracles and blessings, which continue up to these days.

6.a.3.4 Reference to early Muslims before the Fung kingdom e.g. their grand father Sharaf ad-Din who died and buried at Kassinger in the Shaiqiya area. It is said that he made alliance with Ja’al and defeated the ‘Anaj’ at Takaki area (Rubatab).

6.a.1.8 It contains careful description of material culture; folkcrafts, money in circulation, food, drinks, armor, jewelry, dresses, diseases, agriculture equipment, weights, 6.a.1.9 Sufi poems and musical instruments.

6.a.3.5 It refers to the Baqt and Beja treaties and the famous mission of the Nubian prince to Baghdad.

6.a.1.10 It contains good information about early mosques. 6.a.3.6 It mentions the first Arab tribes to enter Sudan. 6.a.2- Ahmed al-Haj Abu Ali’s book “Makhtutat Katib al Shuna” is the second after Tabaqat. There are five copies of this manuscript, the earliest in Egypt. The manuscript is mainly concerned with the Fung kingdom and the Egyptian administration up to 1838. The importance of the book can be summarized in the following points: -

6.a.3.7 It contains list of the Fung kings with an attempt to identify the word Fung as of Shulluk origins. 6.a.3.8 It contains the genealogy of Ja’aleen and Rubatab, their customs and traditions. 30

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

6.a.3.9 There is a chapter about the famous ‘Ababsa in the Sudan. One of their traditions of branding animals is claimed to be of ‘Abbasid date and is called Bab or shahid.

the older and more widely current Sudanese tribal genealogies are compiled originally by El-Samakani-an immigrant fekiwho produced on demand the noble pedigree for the Fung Kings and other tribes. Since then most of the Sudanese genealogies have been produced by fekis who became the keepers of genealogical tradition

6.a.3.10 It extends our knowledge outside the Gezira and the Fung domains where we find manuscripts in Arabic about the Islamic families in eastern Sudan. 6.a.4. Ash-Sherif Yusif al-Hindi was one of the greatest popular historians of the 20th century who documented the oral traditions of different cultural groups in the Sudan. His unpublished document is called “Tag al-Zaman fi Tarikh al-Sudan”. Abstracts of this document were published in 1919 and 1920 in the “Nahda” newspaper. It consists of 13 pamphlets, which contains: -

2.8. Ethnoarchaeological Evidence Ethnoarchaeolgical evidence is the most direct, tangible evidence, which ironically, has never attracted the attention of Islamic archaeologists in the Sudan. Such things as settlements plans, house plans and objects are treated as folkloric, and hence escaped the attention of archaeologists who treated them as part of folkloric studies. Most of these objects are in use for long periods and had undergone slight modifications, which allows for comparative studies based on stylistic variations. Few of these objects are no longer suitable for modern life and have been discarded in villages and towns, though are still used by nomadic groups. Only in the 2nd- 3rd cataract region have been studied properly (alBattal 1991).

6.a.4.1 History of the different tribes of the Sudan especially those on the borders. 6.a.4.2 History of the Sudan from Kush to national movements. 6.a.4.3 It shows great care in giving dates for the arrival of different tribes to the Sudan. His methodology was very scientific as he refers to different contacts with other historians to exchange information and to authenticate his own.

8.1 Settlement plans both of deserted settled villages and nomadic encampments are particularly important to archaeologists and give evidence, which is rare in written records.

2.7. Genealogical Evidence (Nisba)

8.2 Objects can be grouped into types according to materials; clay, wood, gourd, leather, palm leaves, and metal. For the purpose of this study, the objects are grouped according to Function: -

The main significance of genealogical manuscripts is that they contain more than plain genealogies. Their collection concerns well defined historical groups in the Sudan. It forms the basis for our cultural study of how individual Islamic families established themselves in the Sudan in Phase II and III.

a) Objects connected with administration: 1. Court objects like the stool ‘kakar’, sceptres, and seals.

The genealogies comprise the different manuscripts, which record the tribal traditions of the Sudan and the genealogical trees. These documents are one of the main resources for the study of Islamization and Arabization.

2. Military objects like swords, spears, kettledrums (nehas), saddles flails and guns. b) Objects connected with households: -

Some of these documents deal with the foundation of the Fung kingdom and how it was followed by a largely increased immigration of the Arabs into the Sudan (MacMichael 1967: 354). Others record the Origin of some of the tribes of the Sudan e.g. Mahas (A, B, C, X), the Mesallamia (BA, CCXIII). Another one (D4) speaks of the Muslims armies which reached as far west as the hills of the Nuba at the time of the conquest of Egypt (MacMichael 1967: 7). From such manuscripts MacMichael posits four tides of Arab migration into the Sudan, through Egypt in the 8th and 14th centuries CE. And across the Red Sea in the 8th century CE and after the foundation of the Fung Kingdom.

1. Furniture like the ‘angaraib (bed), birish (mat), cloth boxes, doors and their lock parts and keys. 2. Utility ware like wooden and gourd bowls, pottery cooking pots, beer (marisa) containers, beer strainers, dokas for kisra (bread) cooking, silos for storage of grains, water skins, carrying objects, trays, lids, copper objects which are kept as the pride of each family. 3. Marriage ceremony objects like the coloured mats, censors, and deep large china ware plate for henna (a dye used to decorate the hands and the feet of the bride and the groom), latheturned perfume container, yasor rosary, hafted awls to plait the hair of the bride.

According to Adams (1984: 564), the importance of the genealogies is social rather than political. Good examples are the Nubians who claim Arab ancestors, although their language, culture and even physical characteristics are not those of the Arabs. According to the same author, many of

c) Objects connected with religious orders: 1. kettledrum (noba). 31

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

2.9.1. Settlement sites

2. kakar and spear for coronation purposes. 3. khalwas objects like loah (tablet), ink containers, wooden bowls (qadah), Sheepskin mats, rosaries especially the alfiya (one thousand beads).

In Phase I Islamic settlements, except possibly in the Wadi ‘Allaqi, have not yet been excavated. In Phase II the majority of the later Christian sites of the Third Cataract region show a normal continuation of the Islamic features and graves contemporary with later terminal Christian features. This is good evidence not only for the dating of the Islamization, but also for the peaceful process of Islam replacing Christianity. There are three excavated sites in Lower Nubia, which show definite evidence of continued occupation in the Islamic period. These sites are Qasr Ibrim, Gebel’Adda and Faras. The three had been great urban centres in the north since Meroitic period. Other sites in Lower Nubia like Bullonarti and Kulubnarti in Batn al-Hagar region. But there is a lot of cultural and social conditions may be gained at some of the larger town sites, to quote Adams (1984:583) at the residence of the local meks like Old Dongola and Khandaq. Old Dongola for example was still the most important political centre in Upper Nubia and the residence of the Bedayria mek at the end of the 16th century CE. Unfortunately the excavation here have not yet extended beyond the magnificent churches of the earlier period.

4. Prayer mats. d) Objects connected with agriculture and animal husbandry: 1. The saqiya (water wheels) and shadoof 2. Axis, sickles... etc. 3. Palm leaves ropes, tethering wedges... etc. This is beside the imported objects such as metal containers, copper objects (nehas) and glass objects. The importance of these objects Examples of these objects are exhibited in the Ethnographic Museum in Khartoum, beside other stored objects. Their importance can be summarised in the following remarks: -

The major Islamic towns, which existed in the Fung kingdom, were deserted when the kingdom collapsed in CE 1822. Sennar, Shendi, Qerri, Arbaji and Kokka are good examples for the study of the process of Islamisation through archaeological investigations.

1. They give an idea of many discarded utility objects that can be uncovered in an archaeological excavation. 2. They help in understanding of the function of excavated objects.

Also most of the villages were abandoned but fortunately the new settlements were built near by. Examples are numerous in the northern Sudan e.g. Kulubnarti and on Sai Island. In the Savannah Sahel especially western Sudan in Kordofan and Darfur the deserted villages are recorded. Some nomad sites are well known as they continue to camp on the same sites for centuries.

3. They cover most of the Republic of Sudan allowing for comparative studies. 4. The smoking pipes for example, introduced from the 17th century onward are important category for compare and contrast Ottoman with Fung pipes. 5. Some of the imported objects are still kept with families and sheikhs of Sufi orders, and chiefs of tribes as source of pride like the Nehas objects (basins, bowls, pitchers and drums). The Chinese blue and white dishes and bowls are among such objects.

2.9.2. Castles and Palaces The Nile valley north of Khartoum before CE 1823, was divided into mekdoms; Qerri, Shendi, Berber, ad-Damer, ‘Amri, Kajabi, Dufar, Abkur, Dongola, Khandaq, Khanaq and Argo. The meks lived in fortified buildings, castles, which remain today among the most impressive archaeological remains in the Sudan. Nubians castle buildings reached its fullest development in the region between the Third and the Fifth Cataract, where we find many examples of such sites.

2.9. Archaeological Evidence Generally, the Islamic sites in the Sudan has suffered from negligence until the present day. During the UNESCO Campaign 1959-65, the very few identified remains of the Islamic period were generally passed over as too recent and too familiar to be informative.

The term palaces can often be used interchangeably with the term castle especially in the Middle Nile region. A good example is the castle of Wad Nemeiri, which is locally known as a palace (Qasr). Travellers reported many other palaces, however, actual remains are only found in Darfur where palaces were built with stone and in some cases stone and redbrick.

Preliminary classification of the material culture of the Islamic period in the Sudan shows that there are a variety of Islamic sites and Islamic artifacts. The sites include towns, cities, villages, nomad camps, castles and cemeteries. While the minor artifacts are very limited. They range from tombstones, pottery, hand written religious books, leather “hijabs”, oil lamps, metal work, and imported objects like Ottoman silks.

A fortified house ‘deffi’, is a distinctive type of Islamic houses which is common in the ‘Abri-Delgo area (Adams 1984: 518). 32

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

They are said by Adams to represent a natural development of the two storey houses of the late Christian period. The house comprises a residence, an open courtyard enclosed by high blind wall, and a tall square tower or two at the corners. Such deffi are widespread in the domain of the Kokka mekdom, (the Mahas region), and as far north as Qasr Ibrim.

Kulubnarti was wheel made Aswani wares. A small amount of the glazed Fatimids ware from Fustat ruins at Cairo, were found in Ibrim, ‘Aidhab and Soba. In Phase III, these disappeared and the pottery was handmade. At Old Dongola imported Islamic wares were not common, and in the smaller villages, if Kulubnarti is representative, the domestic pottery continued the previous styles until the 18th century.

2.9.3. Religious Structures

Generally the pottery of northern Sudan is confined to plain red and plain black vessels. Most of the vessels are thick, heavy and unevenly formed. The shapes range from big jars to small bowls and plates, cooking pots, smoking pipes, oil lamps and ablution pitchers. The Fung ware had the same shapes but with decorative elements as zigzag and criss-cross patterns. It has been discussed in details in chapter (iv).

2.9.3.a. Burials: - Since all Muslims are buried, cemeteries are present outside all settlements while many nomad groups also mark the places of the dead. There are cemeteries without elaborate tombs, but the graves are often low mounds marked by stones or pebbles occasionally with tombstones. Burials with superstructure (Qubba) in the Sudan are substantial buildings only over the graves of sheikhs or holy men. Their followers and relatives are buried adjacent to the qubba in widening circles. The qubbas are the centre of innumerable cults. They can be used as evidence of occupation when no other evidence is available as in the case of Soba in the 16th and 17th centuries (Shinnie 1961: 15). Other structures include mastaba, ordinary roofed rooms and roofless rooms.

2.9.4.b- Wooden objects which include bowls, whisks, doors and their locks and keys, cloth boxes and kakars. 2.9.4.c- Leatherwork like hijabs, water skins, pouches, carrying bags, knives sheaths. 2.9.4.d- Metalwork like sickles, coins, imported metal objects such as basins, pitchers, plates. Armour like swords and spears.

2.9.3.b Other religious buildings: - Other religious buildings in the Sudan include mosques, tekiyas, mesids, and khalwas.

2.9.4.e- Imported glass objects like bottles, kohl containers, and glass bracelets.

9.3.b.1 Mosques use is limited to the prayer times only. Their architecture generally shows locally developed styles except for a few influenced by Egyptian and Arabian architecture as in the case of the mosque of Sennar and the mosques of Suakin. Generally it is a rectangular structure built of mud bricks with mihrab and some times a wooden minbar of no distinctive designs.

2.9.4.f- Hand written Quran and other religious books and manuscripts. 2.9.4.g- Tombstones that are the earliest Muslim remains in the Sudan, are found in Nubt in the Beja land and at Badi’ and in Lower Nubia.

2.9.3.b.2 The tekiya is where Sufi sheikhs live and perform their religious duties. Now it is part of the mesid where the food is prepared.

2.9.4.h- Basketry and basket making, mats, trays, carrying objects and lids are among the objects reported from Ibrim and Kulubnarti and which we expect to find in other Islamic sites.

2.9.3.b.3 The term mesid is generally applied to the whole area that covers the tekiya, khalwa, mosque and qubbas of the sheikhs in any religious centre. In northern Sudan, the mesid is where people gather for their daily needs, chats, rests, and it is also where guests are received during the time of celebrations and mourning.

2.9.5. Islamic Art in the Sudanese Desert While the settled communities of the Nile valley shared in the general character of art discussed before, a quite distinct art tradition existed among the camel-nomads of the desert/sahel. This category is usually left out of the canon of Islamic art, but if Islamic art is the art of the Muslims then it is an important category for among the nomads and transhumants it is almost the only form of pictorial expression. For this reason it is placed here. In Africa it includes all depictions of camels in the Sahara, Berber, Arab and Beja dominated regions. This is 75% of northern Sudan and deserves study. Few studies of it have been undertaken but since scenes with men and camels must be Muslims it is important. Another field of art study is the remains of food containers and covers, women bracelets and necklaces made of ivory or metal.

2.9.3.b 4 The khalwa is a settlement where the Quran and Islamic sciences were taught. Architecturally they do not show any distinctive features. They are ordinary square or rectangular rooms with open courts, but they are local to the extent that they are different from any counterpart in the other Islamic world. All these religious buildings have been discussed in details in chapter (V). 2.9.4. Artefactual Evidence 2.9.4.a-Pottery: - Islamic wares in Phase I are those imported from Aswan. Much of the pottery found at Qasr Ibrim and 33

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

Conclusions

The lack of research into the Islamic period has been discussed above, yet the archaeological material on which chapters iv, v and vi will be based, has been assembled from the following sources: -

This review of the nature of Islamic evidence in the Sudan show that it is to be expected that there will be considerable differences in regional material culture, both in time (over 1000 years) and space (1,000,000 mile). It also to be expected that there will be great differences, except in religious matters, between the sedentary population of the Nile Valley and the savannah and nomads.

1- The only two Islamic sites in the Sudan which have been fully excavated and their material made available to me are Kulubnarti and Qasr Ibrim. 2- The reports of excavations and surveys in the National Antiquities Corporation archives.

In the Nile Valley in Phase III when conditions in the Sanjaks of Ibrim and Habesh were so different for over 200 years from those in the Fung kingdom, distinctions should be clearly visible. In the Sanjak under Ottoman authority military, financial, legal and religious control meant that centres of population like Qasr Ibrim, El-Dirr, Sabua and Suakin would have had residents officials (Kachifs), ‘Ulama (Qadis and Imams) and Janissaries recruited from all over the Empire as well as merchants and craftsmen from outside Nubia.

3- The published reports of road and pre- dam surveys as well as the Mahas survey. 4- Excavated and collected artefacts in the National Museum, Khartoum. 5- Ethnographic material in the Museum of Ethnography at Khartoum which incorporate the Wadi Halfa Museum collection, as well as the British Museum, and the Sudan Collection at Durham. 6- Air photographs in the National Collection, the Institute of Archaeology London and the Sudan collection Durham.

Further south, although the Fung kingdom had its trade and pilgrim route through Sennar to Suakin connections with the rest of Dar al-Islam, it was much more isolated than the Sanjaks and developed, like the Islamic sultanates further west in the savannah, a different organisation.

7- My own research and field works at Suakin, Sennar, Arbaji, Soba, Shendi, Debba, Dongola Reach, and the Third Cataract region (Mahas).

34

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

Chapter IV SECULAR MATERIAL CULTURE approximately about 215 km. south of Port Sudan. It is a peninsula, connected to the main land with a narrow strip of coral land, which is in places cut. Badi’ is located on the southern tip of the starfish shaped area of the island (Kawatoko 1993:186). The site flourished through export and import between the 7th-11th centuries CE.

Part I 1.1 Early Islamic Urban Centres Burckhardt rather strangely compared cities and towns of the Sudan with European ones and then concluded that the word city could not be applied to any place in the Sudan (1819: 263). But according to documentary and archaeological information, at least twenty settlements were important in commerce, administration and industry may therefore referred to as towns (Bushra 1971: 63). The caravan routes and the foundation of the Fung and Ottoman sultanates were of great importance in developing trade and towns (Map 7). These towns performed functions of both trade and administration not only for themselves but also for the surrounding areas. Through time some of these towns reduced while others developed into big or small centres. Sennar, Qerri, Arbaji, ‘AinFarah, Suakin declined while Shendi, Damer developed slowly as market centre for Shendi and a religious centre for Damer. Abu Haraz is an example of a centre of trade and religious men, now reduced to a small village of only religious importance.

The archaeological remains include remains of rectangular houses built of coral blocks set with mortar, underground cisterns used to collect rain water (Fig. 3), and cemetery areas to the north of the town where tombstones of the 10th and 11th centuries CE were found (Crawford 1911: 543-55; Kawatoko 1993: 186). The site received a preliminary survey with test digging in 1992 by M. Kawatoko as part of study of East-West relations by sea routes. The test pits showed part of floor surface finished with white plaster (test pit A), and in test pit (B) shells, bones of livestock, fish, poultry and sherds of earthen ware which might have been a refuse heap (Kawatoko 1993: 208). The surface collection included glassware fragments, Chinese ceramics, glass weights and beads of the 9th-12th centuries CE. These will be dealt with in the second part of this chapter.

Phase I: CE 640-1300 b) ‘Aidhab The earliest Islamic centres that represent this phase are the ports of Badi’, ‘Aidhab and the city of ‘Allaqi. It was trade, pilgrims undertaking the Hajj and the mineral mines that motivated Muslims to settle in these sites. The ports started as centres that trans-shipped products from Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf to Egypt and vice versa (Insoll 1996: 450). With the increase of Muslims in central Sudan they became as well pilgrims ports.

‘Aidhab lies to the north-east of the country, close to the modern Egyptian border (Map 8). It prospered through trade and proximity to Wadi ‘Allaqi gold mines and owing to its position opposite Jeddah, it benefited from the pilgrims routes. The major archaeological work was conducted as part of a joint Sudanese- French expedition (Hakim 1981). In 1991 another survey was conducted with test digging (Kawatoko 1993). Three distinct settlement zones have been identified archaeologically; the port, the rectangular coral houses linked with the port and an area covered with ceramic scatters (Fig.

a) Badi’ Badi’ is situated at al-Rih island (Map 8). The latter is about 30 km. west south west of ‘Aqiq city in Tokar province, 35

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

4). The latter is interpreted as the former site of nomad encampments (Hakim 1981: 97-109). It is probable that the numerous cisterns as wells beside the extensive cemeteries which are beyond the needs of the local community, are evidence for the Hajj route via ‘Aidhab. In 1992 survey and from a test pit, a large amount of ceramics from Fustat, coastal regions of east Africa and Chinese and Thai sherds were recovered. Glass sherds and bracelets of the 13th-14th centuries CE beside few remains of Ayyubid and Mamluk glassware were recovered. The Mamluk and Thai wares of the 14th-16th centuries CE confirms that ‘Aidhab existed continuously until 15th century even after its destruction in the second half of the CE 14th century. Details of artefacts will be dealt with in the second part of this chapter. c) ‘Allaqi The city Derheib was certainly the city of ‘Allaqi of the Rabi’a Arabs. The Rabi’a were known as the masters of the gold and emerald mines in the eastern desert CE 9th-14th centuries. The place was also on the way of pilgrims route from the Nile Valley to ‘Aidhab (Map 8). Some of the early tombstones were reported from Derheib as well as tomb-towers. The work on the eastern desert and this site started ten years ago which revealed the existence of mining villages, cemeteries and Medieval Islamic Aswani and Fustat wares (Fig. 5). The future results might reveal the early Muslims settlement in Wadi al-’Allaqi (Castiglioni & Sadr 1994). Phase II CE 1300-1500 a) Old Dongola Old Dongola is certainly the most important site for the study of the peaceful process of Islam replacing Christianity (Map 10). It is the site where the first mosque was built in the Sudan in the middle of the 7th century CE, while the Christian kingdom of Makurra was flourishing. This was the site where Abu Salim al- Aswani performed the Barium prayers with other 60 Muslims in the late 10th century CE, and it is the site which received the first holy men who came to reform the Islamic practices in Dongola. Excavations here have so far not extended beyond the magnificent churches of earlier age by the Polish expedition since 1960s and a small-scale excavation at the so-called mosque of Abu Sarh. The following information is pieced together to give an overall picture of the site since the last days of Makurra Christianity until the 19th century. The kingdom of Makurra had fallen at the beginning of the 14th century CE, not as result of direct military attack as the case of ‘Alwa, but as a result of internal weakness, conflicts and interference by the Mamluks of Egypt which was initiated by the members of the Makurra royal family. Still by CE 1349, Makurra was described as a Christian kingdom ruled by Muslim family of Kanz ad-Dawla and the kingdom was tributary to the Mamluks of Egypt (‘Umari 1924: 29). In CE 1365/6 the Mamluks once more interfered on accounts of an unnamed Nubian king who complained of Arab tribes attacking the kingdom. They were thought to be Banu Kanz,

Map (8) Derheib and the eastern desert, (Castiglioni 1998). 36

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

Fig. (3) Remains of underground cistern, Badi’, Phase I (SAD.7/17/157).

Fig. (4) The Plan of Aidhab, Phase II (Kawatoko, 1993). 37

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

Map (9) Settlement sites of the Nile valley and Eastern Sudan (Elzein 2000). 38

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

Fig. (5) Remains of the ‘Allaqi forts (Castiglioni 1998).

Banu Ja’d and ‘Ikrima (Adams 1984: 530 & Udal 1998: 70). Dongola was now in ruins and had been abandoned probably by most of its inhabitants and was given up to Arabs.

was in great perplexity and extreme confusion for lack of learned men. This statement shows that there were Muslims in Dongola who needed reformation. He built mosques there and taught Quran and religious sciences. This situation which is suggested in the Tabaqat statement agrees with what was known about Dongola at that time in other sources (Adams 1984: 531).

According to the Tabaqat (1992: 10), the 14 th century witnessed the arrival of Ghullam Allah to Dongola, for it 39

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

Map (10) Settlement sites of the Western Sudan (Elzein 2000).

b) Uri

complex were more single masonry terraces with circular stone rooms, which Arkell interpret as store rooms (1946: 189).

Uri, the first Tunjur capital has not yet been excavated but was first mentioned by D’Anana in CE 1668 as having trade with Egypt (O’Fahey & Spaulding 1974: 111). Arkell has given a good description of the site and its audience platforms (1948, 1952), although he missed the mosque that was found by Balfour-Paul in 1956 (Map 11).

Arkell has reported two cemeteries in the lower slope near Wadi Uri (1946: 194). One was found near Wadi Uri with ordinary graves and no superstructures. The other cemetery lies to its north-east with ordinary graves but several of them had stone walls around them. One of the exposed graves yields a body on its right side with flexed legs and grave goods like glass beads and iron spearheads. This shows that the cemetery was an old one that continued to be used by Muslims.

It was a walled town of about 4-5 miles in circumference (Arkell 1952: 246). The walls run around the town except when there is natural fortifications. It was of dry stone masonry. In the town upper part, a large complex house was found enclosed by its circular wall. Inside the circular enclosure was one of these audience platforms which is described by Arkell as follows: -

The presence of this number of platforms suggests public gatherings, which is according to Musa (1986: 202), either a religious or secular. It would rather be a secular one as wrestling is one of the activities still practised in western Sudan. The type of fortification of the site is similar to that of ‘AinFarah where walls run when no natural fortification is available.

“A massif, rough circular wall, about 9 feet high, up to the top of which from the west side leads an imposing flight of nine steps. Inside this wall are fine masonry pillars and approximately in the centre of the space enclosed is a rock of about 5 feet cube“ (Arkell 1946: 186) (Fig. 6).

c) ‘AinFarah Another feature of this part is the mosque which was located by B. Paul (1955: 11) and which was described in chapter V. A road built with large stone blocks was found in this part (Musa 1986: 201). Between this part and the lower part several compounds of houses scattered all over the area.

‘AinFarah, which has not yet been excavated, is locally famous as being traditionally the headquarters of Sultan Durshid, the last of the Tunjur rulers (Balfour-Paul 1955: 13). It is located on the Furnung hills in northern Darfur, about 120-km. north-west of al-Fashir. It is situated on the top of a rocky plateau as most of the sites of that period. The site was chosen deliberately for many factors. One of them

In the lower part a complex building contained several compound houses and a circular platform. Around the 40

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

Map (11) Castles of the Middle Nile region.

Fig. (6) The audience platform of the palace of Uri, Phase I, (Balfour Paul, 1955). 41

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

was obviously the natural fortification and because of the spring of ‘AinFarah and the caravan route -Darb al-’Arba’inwhich links Darfur with Egypt and African caravan routes which link west and north Africa with the Nile (Map 11).

It was also circular, diameter about 40m. and surrounded by a low wall, 40cm. high. Similar ones are used throughout Darfur (Yunis 1979: 50).

The archaeological components of the site include fortifications, mosques, palaces, houses, a cemetery and other general utility structures (Fig. 7). Walls were built to fortify the parts of the site without natural fortification, which is the southern part of the site. Mosques and walls will be dealt with in chapters V and VI. Palaces and houses will be dealt with in parts 1.3, 1.4 in this chapter. The cemetery lies north of the site and across the river. The graves of local inhabitants were found on the edge of the stream and bounded by a small ravine at the western side. East of this and about 500m. is an oval mound of stones, known locally as ‘The grave of the mother of the sultan’. It is oval, measures 9x5x2m. in a centre of low circular stone wall (Yunis 1979: 52).

Phase III CE 1500-1800 In this phase the Ottoman, Fung, and Fur sultanates controlled separate regions. 1. The Fung towns This kingdom ruled through a series of local rulers ‘meks’. In the Nile Valley these were Qerri, Shendi, Berber, Damer, Amri, Merow, Kejebi, Hannek, Dufar, Abkur, Old Dongola Khanaq and Argo Island. a) Kokka

Other utility buildings were the granaries, which were constructed of stone and dug to the level of the rock bed. Also there was a ‘madaq’, a place where grains was threshed

The Mahas or Kokka mekdom has flourished since the 17th century (Osman 1978). Evliya Celebi (CE1672), Burckhardt

Fig. (7) Plan of AinFarah, Phase II (Yunis, 1979). 42

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

(CE 1813) and Shuqair (CE1968) (Map 10.) referred it to. According to historical records, the Mahas mekdom was one of the mekdoms ruled by a mek appointed by the Fung rulers or their viceroys, the ‘Abedallab which at the same time had an Ottoman kachif. According to Celebi (1938: 484) there must have been other centres for the Mahas mekdom, such as Tinareh which lies to the north of Jebel Sese and reported as having a garrison of 800 men in the 17 th century. Burckhardt who saw it attacked by the Kachifs of al-Dirr, described it as the chief place of the Mahas (1819: 49-54).

In Kokka Osman identified a royal palace and a mosque (1987: 210). The palace consisted of two main parts, inner and outer. The queen- mother, wives and slave women servants occupied the inner part. Each of the queens had an inner quarter within this part. The outer part was the government seat where the first floor was for guests and royal visitors. The tower today is a solid mud structure in which guards’ rooms occupied the first floor. Two other towers of lesserdefended north-west and south-west corners of the palace (Fig. 8), still exist. The mosque was built close to the royal palace at its eastern corner. It is rebuilt now but a stone with the date of its erection is still there. It is dated to AH 1244/ CE 1828. Thus according this foundation stone the mosque was rebuilt early in the second Turkiya (Pl. 3a).

According to Udal (1998: 25), Sese had probably been the furthest point south occupied temporary by the Ottoman Kachifs of the Sanjak of Ibrim in CE1582-3. During Evliya Celebi’s visit the capital was at Hafir al-Kabir and the mek was Kor Hussein. Celebi’s host was a governor named Kan Da’imuddin who had a garrison of 700 men (Celebi 1938: 848-9). There was a fortress as there was at Tinareh and few public buildings.

In my 1999 survey of the area more than a dozen fortified houses were located. Most of the houses were abandoned

Fig. (8) Plan of Kokka royal Palace, Phase III, (Sadiq, 1999). 43

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

but local people know their owners. Some of them were past meks like Diab, Zubair and ‘Abdel ‘Aziz, others were wealthy merchants (Pl. 15a & Fig. 9).

& Udal 1998: 32). In CE 1698, Poncet described Dongola houses as ill built the city half deserted and filled with heaps of sand occasioned by floods from the mountain (Poncet 1709: 14). Krump in CE 1701 was impressed by the site of the hill fortress (the palace) in the middle of the town, which incorporated on the first floor the ancient church (Krump in Crawford 1951: 301-302).

The cemetery consisted of ordinary graves and two qubbas. The sheikhs are known here as ‘Fagirs’, so in this cemetery we have the qubbas of fagir Ali and fagir Abu Bakr. In the qubba of fagir Abu Bakr, mek Diab was buried with him, which represent a new phenomenon in burial customs in the Sudan. According to my informant Mohammed Osman, he was buried inside the qubba because he was a ‘Alim ‘religious scholar’. A low enclosure beside this qubba contains the graves of mek Zubair and his daughter.

It is historically attested that Old Dongola in the 17th and 18th centuries CE was ruled by the mek of the Bedayria for the Fung king. When Bruce visited it in CE 1772 the mek of Dongola was still nominated by the Fung king (Bruce 1805: 370,428-9) and the tribute they paid was in horses for which Dongola was famous since the Napatan time.

Thus the area yields a palace, a mosque and a cemetery in which some of the royal figures were buried. Still more work is needed for the dates and its position relative to the Mahas mekdom with its main centres at Tinareh, Hafir al-Kabir and Kokka and its relation with the Ottomans at Sai.

Khandaq: - Khandaq was the capital of another Fung mekdom, which ruled in the Middle Nile Valley in the 17th19 century CE (map 10). The 19th century CE reporters, Bellefonds, Gleichen and Monnert de Villard mentioned it. Their reports showed the existence of several churches and Christian pottery. In this area other sites were found which reveals the existence of earlier occupations from the New Kingdom and the Meroitic period (Grzymski 1987: 30). Thus Khandaq may have been a city in the Napatan or Meroitic times. Linant de Bellefonds found in the castle a big granite vase measures 3x11/2 feet with hieroglyph but no other remains of the same period.

b) Old Dongola In Phase III the description of the Old Dongola varied. Celebi in CE 1671 described it as large but partially ruined; it comprised a square red brick fortress with three gates, 650 mud brick houses, seven mosques and six schools (khalwas). One of these mosques was a Friday mosque as Celebi was impressed that at Friday prayers first mention was of Sennar king, due concern was directed to acknowledge the Ottoman sultan as “Servant of the two Holy Cities” (Celebi 1938: 498

The Islamic features of the site include the castle, the town and the cemetery. The castle was built on a high area facing

Fig. (9) Plan of Ali Hatti deffi, Phase III, (Sadiq, 1999). 44

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

c) Qerri

the Nile. It was the palace of a certain mek Chowes (Crawford 1951: 36). The castle walls were battlemented and have towers. Waddington mentioned the existence of a mosque supported by pillars inside the castle (Waddington 1822: 66). The castle architecture will be dealt with in chapter VI.

Qerri was the political centre from which the ‘Abdellab manjils ruled the northern part of the Fung kingdom. It lies near the main Egyptian caravan route via Selima, Moshu and Dongola. Thus it became customs post and checkpoint of small box (Crawford 1951: 66). The caravan routes from Egypt and Suakin met in Qerri (Map 7). No excavation has yet taken place but there are two 18th century descriptions and two surveys.

The town extended for nearly half a mile along the river and was surrounded by a mud wall whose remains were visible in the early 20th century (Crawford 1951: 36). Doorways of the houses were decorated with keel arches (pointed arches without a key stone like the inverted V). This type of arch is found in many qubbas at the mihrab niche. Facades were decorated and wall crenellated (Fig. 10). The streets were wide and the market well supplied, as Khandaq was the terminus of the caravan route to Kordofan. When I visited the site in 1999 I recorded that many of the mud brick houses had been two storeys high. The walls had denticulate crenellations, now in ruins. The recessing of shelves and cupboards was a general practice.

Krump’s description of Qerri was a small collection of houses grouped around the residence of the sheikh (Krump CE 1701). In Bruce’s time (CE 1772), Qerri consisted of about 140 houses, none of them were two storeys high and no town wall is mentioned. They were well built and flat roofed. Crawford’s 1951 survey located a defensive wall with a strong tower attributed to Sheikh or Manjil Hanaballah. He did not find any of the typical burnished black Fung ware that was found in the 1978 survey. According to that survey the main archaeological features were the town walls, stone houses, the cemetery, the forts and surface scatter of Fung pottery and grinding stones (Sanjak 1978: 63-91).

The cemetery lies to the north of the town and it was said to have had many qubbas beside the ordinary oval graves (Crawford 1951: 38). In my survey of this site only three qubbas still standing but were decaying. They were built of stone and were conical. No one of the local inhabitants knew the sheikhs buried there.

The defensive walls extended from the western side of Jebel Qerri to the bank of the Nile. Some were made in the gaps between the different parts of the Jebel, some on its top others on the land.

There was a heavy concentration of Christian potsherds and glazed Fatimids ware and some structures that might be Christian buried under building debris and sand.

Remains of a number of stone houses were found built on the top of the Jebel on a flat circular area about 50m. in

Fig. (10) Decoration on the facade of a house Khandaq, Phase III, (Sadiq, 1999). 45

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

diameter. Most of them were rectangular and the rest were circular. The rooms were associated with potsherd, fireplaces, animal bones, grinders and hammer (Sanjak 1978: 59). No mosque or palace was reported and I saw none in my research there.

It is marked every two kms. by two long slabs of stone planted in the ground (Mohammed 1979: 5). There are two cemeteries to the north and the south. Both are outside the settlement boundaries. The northern, an ancient one contains five big qubbas of red brick. Four of these qubbas have collapsed, the last one is partially ruined. The southern cemetery contains ordinary graves and a big new qubba. Some of the graves were covered by large red bricks as superstructures.

The cemetery lies on a rocky plateau about 2km south of Qerri. Most of the burials were inside rooms. The rest were in the corridors. They were ordinary oval graves, some were surrounded by large red bricks, others by small red brick or quartz stones. In one of these rooms a single burial was found which was identified by local inhabitants as Sheikh al-Na’im.

Mohammed carried out in 1979 a surface collection. It included pottery of many periods and is discussed in Part 2.

d) Arbaji e) Sennar Arbaji lies on the left bank of the Blue Nile about 148km. south of Khartoum and 3km. south-east of Hasaheisa (Map 10 ). The site in the first half of the 20th century was only low mounds covered with a scatter of potsherd and broken stone artefacts. North of the mounds were the cemeteries with three qubbas built of unfired mud brick and known as the tombs of sheikhs Abu Sinayna, Dushayn and Abu Zaid (Crawford 1951: 68). The site has been surveyed in 1979 (Mohammed 1979). It measures about 1000x750m. and is between two khors on the north and south boundaries. The surface was covered by scatters of pottery, stones implements, bones, shells and glass. There were foundations of large mud brick rectangular and square structures with thick walls (Mohammed 1979: 4). No public buildings were identified.

Sennar, the capital of the Fung kingdom, was a royal, administrative, military and trade centre (map 10). It was founded in CE 1504 and continued to be the capital until its replacement by Khartoum after CE 1821. Why Sennar was chosen as the capital so far away from its northern frontier is still a matter of controversy (Crawford 1951: 77) that was probably to control the east-west pilgrim and trade route form Kordofan to Suakin. There are several reports on it in the 17-18th centuries. It was a large unfortified town with a circumference of about 3 miles. The main archaeological features of the site were the palace, mosque, market places and the cemeteries (Fig. 12). In the early 20th century, the mosque walls were still standing with its elaborate entrance and mihrab and red brick columns (Fig. 13). In 1982, its walls were in ruins that made taking reliable measurements a difficult task (El-Zein 1982: 26). A surviving mosque is situated near the royal residential area towards the southern limits of the town and about quarter of a km. to the south-east of the identified market place. It was built of large red bricks and roughly measured about 10x15m. which is too small for a Friday mosque in a town of that size. Generally in Islamic towns the mosque is usually built next to the ruler’s palace.

Arbaji is said to have been founded in AH 880/ CE 1445 by Hijazi Ibn Ma’in (Dayf Allah 1992: 5). But historical records show that Hijazi was taught by Taj ad-Din al-Buhari who began his career under sheikh ‘Ajeeb i.e. not before CE 1570 (Dayf Allah 1992: 44). From the archaeological survey of 1979, it became obvious that there was certainly a town on or near the site long before the arrival of Hijazi but that the visible remains belong to the Fung town of the 16th-18th centuries. If the information given to Bruce in 1770s was correct it had been in existence in 1504 and was the capital of the ‘Abdellab chiefs. The modern town to the west is encroaching on the ruins, which are being destroyed.

The palace was already in ruins in 1833 (Fig. 14), and in 1982 the surviving parts were its foundations. The description and drawings of the palace has been dealt with in the palaces section.

Evliya Celebi (CE1672), Luddfus (CE 1681) and Bruce (CE 1772) visited Arbaji. Bruce mentioned it as the seat of Wad ‘Ajeeb and as a large and pleasant village. Bruce was the last European to see Arbaji and he recorded a tradition that after a battle there in CE 1504, ‘Amara Dunkas removed the seat of Wad ‘Ajeeb to Arbaji to be more immediately under his own eyes (Bruce 1772: VI, 423). Thus Arbaji could have been an urban centre of administration. It was in Arbaji and not in Qerri, that the sheikh of Qerri received the customs tolls of Krump’s caravan in1700 (Krump 1710: 256).

According to Bushra (1971: 66), there were two market places. One of them occupied a wide area in the centre of the city. Crawford (1951: 79) mentioned that there were three markets in the 19th century. The main market including slave market was an essential part of the town. When surveyed in 1982 its interior yielded no finds. Sennar was known as having a daily market, which shows its commercial significance, as markets in other towns were restricted to certain days of the week.

The main archaeological features of the site are the foundations of mud brick structures of which there are several concentrations. Another important feature of the site is a track, nowadays used by the lorries, which crosses the site from north to south very near its western boundaries (Fig. 11). It was called Darb al-Jamal (The camel road) and was a caravan route, probably the main one between Sennar and the north.

There are two cemeteries, the Fugara (Sheikhs) and the common cemetery. The first one is the most prominent Islamic feature of Sennar. The names of the sheikhs are well known to the local inhabitants while I could find nobody who knew any of the famous kings’ burial places. This shows the degree 46

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

Fig. (11) Sketch map of Arbaji, Phase III, (Mohammed, 1979). 47

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

Fig. (12) Sketch map of Sennar, Phase IV, (Elzein, 1982).

Fig. (13) Remains of the Mosque of Sennar, Phase III, (SAD/Ag, 198). 48

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

Fig. (14) Drawinng of the remains of the Palace of Sennar, Phase III (Cailliaud, 1821).

of the importance of those sheikhs in the past and present. The Fugara were buried under substantial superstructures and then their followers are buried around them in ordinary oval graves. The common cemetery was an extension of the Fugara cemetery and lies to its east.

an example of the Red Sea coral building tradition, which was used at Jeddah and Massowa and has now disappeared. The mosques were in the style of the Mecca and Medina early simple mosques. Today nothing is left from the coral buildings but thanks to the efforts of Jean-Pierre Greenlaw who made architectural drawings of the buildings and building methods and the charming woodwork much is known.

The surface collection included Fung tobacco pipes Chinese ceramics and glass of recent date, which will be discussed, in Part II.

The houses belong to two major phases of building. The first in Phase III when it was under Ottoman Turkish rule. The later was in the Egyptian period, which was after CE 1864. Houses were designed to accommodate Muslim families with the harem hidden from the diwan, the main reception area.

f) Suakin In Phase III this, on its island, was the main trading town on the Red Sea coast (map 10). Yaqout reported Suakin in CE 1213 as a small village but from the destruction of ‘Aidhab in early 14th century CE it became the principal port between Qusair and Massowa’. Its oldest houses go back to at least CE 1415, when members of the Ashraf came from Mecca and stayed there for part of the year. The Fung annexed Suakin before CE 1517 when the Ottoman conquered Egypt but it had a Mamluk garrison when it surrendered to the Ottoman rule in CE 1523 (Greenlaw 1976: 13). It became part of the Ottoman Sanjak, and the Eyelat of Habesh. It remained an important market until the building of Port Sudan in 1910.

Other buildings like Muhafaza, which was built by Mumtaz Pasha in 1866, and the caravanserai, which was built in CE 1881 to replace the old khan, were in Egyptian style and are outside the period here being studied (Greenlaw 1976: 76). g) Shoba The deserted Keira settlement of Shoba lies about 12 km. to the south-east of Kebkabiya, and has not yet been fully surveyed and is unexcavated (map 11). The total area of the site from 1994 survey is one km. in length from east to west and 700 m. wide from north to south. It includes a palace, the sultan’s mother’s house, at least one mosque, a fort and the area occupied by the settlement (Fig. 17).

Don Juan de Castro described it in CE 1510 (Fig. 15) and Burckhardt (CE 1813) also visited the site and estimated that there were six hundred houses on the island. Greenlaw (1976) reported many features before its destruction in the 1970s and 1980s (Fig. 16).

The palace lies to the south-east of the site surrounded by three circuits of defensive walls (Reed 1994: 13). They are of dry stone construction and about one metre high. The burned brick palace is rectangular 33x26.5m and had two

The features of the site were its mosques, qubbas, zawyas, houses, caravanserai and Muhafaza (Governate). Suakin was 49

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

Fig. (15) Suakin in CE 1540, Phase III, (Greenlaw, 1976).

Fig. (16) Aerial photograph of Suakin early 20th century (MSS). 50

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

Fig. (17) The site of Shoba, Phase III, (Reed, 1994).

families, it had no mosque or other public buildings except a castle house, which in Phase III housed an Ottoman kashif. Adams found no streets and many houses were not of traditional Muslim type (section 1.5). The usual Nubian villages are widely spread out with rectangular single storey flat roofed houses well separated from each other.

storeys. It will be described in detail in part 1.4 of this chapter. A thorough survey and excavation of the palace might reveal another mosque. The sultan’s mother’s house lies to the north of the fort area, on top of small rise and was constructed of red brick. It is in ruinous state but with some walls standing. To its south lies the forts which will be described in detail in chapter VI. A ruined mosque lies to the north limit of the settlement and which has been discussed in chapter IV, section 1.1. The cemeteries have not yet been located and there are no qubbas.

b) Savannah South of the junction of the Blue and white Niles the house and village types vary to suit the climate. Houses are now rounded with pointed thatched roofs, termed wrongly by European travellers, historians and archaeologists as “tukuls”. They are grouped within wood or straw enclosure. They are similar to those of Kordofan and Darfur and because stone is used Musa (1986) was able to plan a number of them. In Sennar both types were used as obvious from the drawings of the 19th century and the photographs of the early 20th century kept at the University of Durham’s Archives Library.

1.2 Villages In the Nile valley the majority of the population had lived in villages for millenia before the Islamic period and has continued to do so until today. Two types of villages can be distinguished in the period being studied, those of the desert and Sahel zones and those in the Savannah. a) Desert and Sahel

1.3 Settlement of Transhumants and Nomads

Here the villages are close to the Nile banks or on islands are mostly built of sun dried mud brick. Only one, Kulubnarti, has been excavated fully (Adams 1994). Here on an isolated island near the Dal Cataract there was a community of Nubians throughout our period. A small settlement of a few

It is necessary to include these since over much of the northern areas of the Sudan they were the only Islamic settlements throughout the three phases. There has as yet been no excavation of any of them, but ethnographic evidence shows their plans. They can be recognised by the stones used to 51

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

secure tent-ropes, hearths, grinding stones and scatters of domestic rubbish. Transhumants return to them regularly over many generations. The only report on them by an archaeologist is on the Kababish (Bradley 1990).

dated by tradition to the Tunjur and Keira dynasties although none have been excavated. Uri one of the Tunjur capitals had two remarkable palaces. A characteristic feature of both was a ‘platform of audience’ with stepped approaches. The palace here was attributed to Sultan Shau Durshid. Six palaces south and east of ‘AinFarah were attributed to him. They all consisted to a number of red brick rooms, some of them once lit by windows of carved glass (Balfour Paul 1955: 11). The palace of ‘AinFarah is entered through an entrance in the west side which leads through a twisting walled road to the red-brick rooms. Near this entrance there were two red brick rooms, equal in size 4x5m (Fig. 18). It was suggested that this was the diwan of the sultan although it was too small (Yunis 1979: 44).

1.4 Palaces The distinction between a fortified palace and a castle house is one of size only, the palace being the seat of a local ruler, often fortified. The palaces in the Nile Valley are numerous. The term ‘Qasr’ is being used to describe them. For example the castle of wad Nemeiri is called locally Qasr Wad Nemeiri, and the palace of ‘AinFarah was called citadel of palace by Balfour Paul (1955: 11). Therefore there is a need for a criteria to differentiate between the two structures. Most of our information about palaces is gained from travellers’ description and drawings but where the actual remains of palaces are found, as in Mahas and Darfur they have been recorded but not excavated. a) Sennar The most famous palace in the Sudan was that of the Fung kings of Sennar (Fig. 14). It is said to be built by Badi II in the mid of the 17th century CE. According to manuscript (D7) the palace had a five storey high tower with council hall inside it and the whole was surrounded by high wall with nine gates (MacMichael 1967: 363). However, a contemporary description of the palace by Poncet (CE 1699) described it as a confused heap of building, without a symmetry or beauty surrounded by high walls of mud brick, inside which was a large court paved with small square tiles of different colours. Near by was an open hall where the kings usually give audience to ambassadors (Crawford 1951: 189). Krump (CE 1701) described the palace as composed of single storied rooms, which though high, were dark and bare of furniture. Floors were covered with mats and the buildings were surrounded for the most part by a ‘zareeba’ (barricade) of thorns in place of walls which had presumably collapsed and had a slightly inclined roof covered with earth (Crawford 1951: 189). Bruce in CE 1774 found buildings of one storey built of clay with floors of earth. The king’s room was small, less than 20 feet and was reached by ascending two short flights of narrow steps, so that it must have been in the tower which was still standing in CE 1821. The floor was covered with a broad square tiles over which was placed a Persian carpet and walls were hung with tapestry (Bruce 1805: IV, 352). The drawings of Cailliaud and Linant de Bellefonds agree on showing the palace as having a tower with four storeys. We can accept the analysis of Crawford that the palace must have first been built in the 16th century and was enlarged or changed from time to time by later kings. It was demolished after the conquest of Mohammed Ali Pasha. b) Western Sudan Palaces When we turn to western Sudan specifically Darfur, we will be confronted with a large number of buildings called palaces

Fig. (18) Plan of the Palace of AinFarah, Phase II, (B. Paul, 1955). 52

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

1.5 Houses

The Keira palaces have a standard type, varied only in size and layout. Its basic feature is a cluster of a row of round stone huts with flat roofs surrounded by a ring-wall. The wall has two entrances opposite each other. The palaces were generally built on a hilltop, which was needed to be levelled. The characteristic feature of these palaces are stone seats for door keepers (Balfour Paul 1955: 21) projecting from the walls outside the entrances, stone cupboards and shaped like large ovens built into the inside walls of the rooms (Fig. 19). The palaces vary in size from three to four hundred metres in diameter of the Keira kings to thirty metres of local chieftains. Red brick came back to fashion by the late 17th century and early 18th century. Many palaces were built across the western foothill of Jebel Marra. New inventions appeared like the round pillars of brick shaped like truncated wedges e.g. the palace of Omer Leil. Sultan Tayrab’s palace at Shoba is a three storied palace with labyrinth of stone walls and blind entrances and forty doors (Fig. 20).

Houses were designed with topography and climate as basic considerations, as well as the inhabitants’ economic conditions and social structure and are therefore very different in different regions (Jaritz 1973: 49) in the Nile Valley, the Red Sea Coast and in Darfur. Only at Kulubnarti are Nile valley houses of Phase II known from excavations. All the others probably belong to Phase III and can therefore be considered in three groups; those of the Ottoman provinces of the Sanjaks of Ibrim and Habesh, those of the Fung kingdom and those of Darfur. a) The Sanjak of Ibrim As a general rule, houses throughout the Sanjak were one storey high, built with flat roofs. The dominant building materials were mud brick, jallus or stone. In the most northerly

Fig. (19) Kurra Palace, Phase III, (B. Paul, 1955). 53

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

Fig. (20) Plan of the Palace of Shoba, Phase III, (Reed, 1994).

part of the country, the Kenuz area, there continued the ancient rectangular mud brick houses with barrel vaulted roofs which had developed in Nubia during the Meroitic, XGroup times and lasted through the Christian period. In this region they never adopted Jalus construction, which is the characteristic of Muslim building in the Nile Valley south of the 2nd Cataract.

in the houses of Attiri island in which houses of later date, after 17th century were of jalus. The earlier large compounds were subdivided into smaller units by the blocking of doorways and building of additional partitions (Alexander: forthcoming). Large houses of conventional Islamic type were recognised at Ibrim. They have many similarities with the earliest Ottoman houses at Suakin. They comprised a windowless, rectangular walled enclosure pierced only by two doors, a main one for male visitors and a rear one for women. Within the enclosure were a series of separate units. In the most

At Qasr Ibrim two different kinds of Ottoman houses were identified. The later ones often had a part that was two storeys high were very spacious, built around one or two courtyards were built of large thin bricks. The same technique was used 54

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

elaborate, at the main entrance was a door keeper’s room allowing entry to an open courtyard containing an alcove (dihlis), for ordinary business and a large room, better furnished for visitors. Beyond this might be the largest

chamber (diwan), with recessed cupboards and well made floors. A door from the “hosh” led into the harem where there would be separate provision for each wife, a bathroom and a strong room (Alexander: Forthcoming) (Fig. 21).

Fig. (21) Plan of House B 115, Qasr Ibrim, Phase III, (Alexander, 2000). 55

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

Four kind of flooring was provided; plain earth, wet mud, white stone chips and flags. The roofs were flat with matting cover. The window holes suggest, all wooden frames were removed, the existence of elaborate wooden mashrabiya. Kitchens were recognised by fireplaces, very few fireplaces were deliberately built and were rectangular or circular setting of stones sometimes plastered. Remains of ‘dokas’ baking plates, stone pits and stone jars are common. Evidence of small roughly built animal pens is found from the remains of tethering pegs for Caprids and in open spaces for donkeys or camels.

to local tradition. The deffi /kourfa, is a distinctive type of Islamic fortified houses of the Islamic period. A deffi comprises a residence, which may be large or small, an open courtyard enclosed by high blind walls adjoining the residence and a tall square tower or two, projecting from the corners. The courtyard and the tower were always of jallus. The towers are tapering inwards and a single large, high room occupied the interior with an open parapet above it. The room and the parapet were both loopholed for the use of bows, before their replacement by musketry. The residence itself was irregular in size and plan (Fig. 22).

In Kulubnarti, near the Dal Cataract, Batn al-Hajar region, the two storeys house of late Christian period was converted in the Islamic period into a miniature castle (Adams 1987: 334). This shape was achieved by adding a walled compound and a bastion tower and parapet. The resulting plan is that of a deffi (kourfa), the distinctive type of Islamic fortified houses which is common in ‘Abri area. Adams surveyed the eastern bank and called these fortified houses kourfas. However on the western bank and in the Mahas region they were called deffi. His kourfas were associated with Kachifs while the deffi are associated with Kokka meks and notables according

Castle-houses vary considerably in size and plan, but share in common certain distinctive features that set them clearly apart from other structures. They are always two storeys high, square or nearly square in plan, and stoutly built, usually of mud brick but occasionally of mud brick upper storey, resting on a stone built lower storey. In the dimensions, the largest example yet studied, at Meinarti, measures 15x13m, while the smallest, at Kulubnarti measures 6x4.5m. The average size of the building is about 9.5x8m. Because of the partial destruction of the upper walls,

Fig. (22) The Castle-House DI, Kulubnarti, Phase III, (Adams, 1994). 56

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

the full original heights usually can not be determined. But in two houses in Kulubnarti where parts of the upper walls

are preserved to their full height about 2.4m. One of Kulubnarti houses (D1) has a total height of 7-m (Fig. 23).

Fig. (23) Side elevation and cross section of house D1, Kulubnarti Phase III, (Adams, 1994). 57

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According to Adams (1996: 18) entry to castle houses were through door ways at the level of the second floor, which must have been reached by ladders. The situation is different in the Mahas area, where entrances are not “crudely cut through into the lower room in post Christian times” (Adams 1996: 18) but are opened probably with wooden doors and in some cases very elaborate entrances with decorative designs. Another difference is that the first floor ceiling are

not vaulted but ordinary flat roofs (Elzein 1999). Thus the deffi of the Third Cataract region are still awaiting major archaeological work, to outline its distinctive features and characteristics. The late 17th-18th century CE houses of Kulubnarti had walls that are relatively light and are some what curving, employing a combination of mud brick and stone masonry construction.

Fig. (24) Plan of late Houses, Kulubnarti, Phase III, (Adams, 1994). 58

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

The roof is a light flat roof of poles and matting. They are regular in plan and their arrangement of rooms in several cases is reminiscent of that in the one storey unit house of Christian period (Adams 1994: 106). They range between one room house to those with many rooms. The one room house has a doorway at the south-east corner, gives onto a kind of entrance flanked by a wall. Many -rooms houses entered through a door way in the north wall. Small rooms occupy the middle part of the house, the last seems to have been a store room as no entrance between it and the adjoining room. There is another large and narrow room that occupies the eastern end of the house (Fig. 24).

The jallus houses represent special kind of late houses found at Kulubnarti (Adams 1994: 246). In plan they are relatively similar to other late houses, but walls are mostly of jallus. The walls sometimes rest on low foundations of stone masonry, either of previously stone compound walls or of natural boulders. The jallus houses range from one-room houses to four room houses. No definite ground plan has yet been established for the jallus houses of Kulubnarti. Qal’at Sai like Qasr Ibrim had an Ottoman garrison of nonNubians, and inspite of destruction, nine large houses of conventional Islamic type could be recognised. As at Ibrim

Fig. (25) Plan of Original House (no.120/250), Phase III, (Greenlaw, 1976). 59

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b) The Sanjak of Habesh

and Suakin these consisted of large high-walled enclosures with one main entrance. Inside, by the entrance were the male diwan and across an open courtyard the harem area. Several of the large houses had a two or three storeys tower and mud brick stairways leading to roof terraces. Houses next to the eastern rampart had large windows through them looking out across the river. According to Bellefonds drawing these had roshans. Living rooms were well plastered, furnished and often white washed. In general the houses seem better parallel at Suakin than at Ibrim.

Suakin was the capital of this Sanjak in the 16th century CE and remained the main port even when most of the Sanjak was lost. In Suakin we have four types of houses; the original type which are pre-Ottoman ones, the earliest Turkish houses, the larger houses and the block houses. All are of the Red Sea Coast style. The original type was a single storey house built in the same way as large houses in terms of the arrangements, proportions and dimensions of their rooms (Fig. 25). The rooms measured 3.8mx8-13m according to whether they form a single room or related parts of rooms. The smallest of the pair was the family quarter and the larger was guestroom, the same idea as the Bedouin tent (Greenlaw 1976: 23). Rooms had recessed wall shelves arranged in three with a ventilator at the highest part of each room. The doorhoods were ornamented, doors

Generally, it is noticeable that latrines were not recognised in most of our examples from northern Sudan. In the 1999 survey of the Mahas region, the same is noted about the deffi as well as most of the recent houses in many villages of the area. Thus at Ibrim, Sai, Kulubnarti and the Mahas areas, relief must have been sought out side the walls. In fact, the abandoned deffi of the Mahas area are used for this purpose.

Fig. (26) A door hood, Suakin, Phase III, (SAD, 1/7/24). 60

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were panelled and there were simple latticework windows (Fig. 26). This type is dated by Greenlaw to before the Turkish annexation i.e. before CE 1517 and therefore to Phase II.

dihlis and diwan. The diwan was divided into two portions by a pointed arch. The raised one was called ‘iwan’. The upper floor or ‘harmlak’, the harem area or women area was divided into a number of independent suits or ‘majlalis’, storerooms and latrines. The roof had two or three terraces called ‘kharja’ with shelters from the sun. Each had a kitchen area (Fig. 28) (Greenlaw 1976: 28).

The earlier Turkish houses of Phase III composed of an entrance hall called ‘dihlis’ that gave access to the main diwan with its carved doorhood over a panelled door. The diwan was raised from the level of the entrance hall. Its entrance was arched and decorated with carved stone fillets (Fig. 27). A stone stairway led from the courtyard to the living room, bathing and cooking area above. Usually the diwan walls were divided into a series of recesses, which contained doors, windows and recessed shelves. The walls were covered with geometric and floral designs incised in plaster.

The last type was the blockhouse. Usually the majority of small houses, both in Jeddah and Suakin were grouped in blocks of three or more. Sometimes the houses formed a haphazard conjunction, back-to-back or side-to-side. Sometimes they were built side by side to form a terrace and they were sometimes grouped with obvious internal symmetry, giving the idea of extended families (Fig. 29). Houses of Badi’ were also of this type.

The larger houses consisted of two or three storeys. The ground floor was the ‘salmlak’ which contained the usual

Fig. (27) A diwan entrance, Suakin, Phase III, (Greenlaw, 1976). 61

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Fig. (28) Plan of a large house (no.64), Suakin, Phase III, Greenlaw, 1976).

c) The Fung Kingdom

are the traditional wooden doors seen from the far north to central Sudan. Both entrances lead to the first room that has an inner entrance at its south wall leading to the second room. Part of the second room is occupied by the corridor entered by another entrance on the western wall. The corridor yields the staircase to its northern part, which lead to the upper storeroom.

In the northern part of the Fung domain, the mud brick houses were separated from one another by large courtyards, which were used for keeping animals. This resulted in the irregularity of the streets noticed in most recent villages. The large yard owned by each family was then divided into inner and outer courts. Around this yard were the family rooms, all of one storey, usually two of the rooms for the family another used as store room and a room for male visitors. Only one window high in the walls was made in each room and a wooden door, in contrast to the far north had no vertical slits for ventilation but doors were also of wood equipped with a wooden lock and moved by a wooden key (Fig. 30). The inner courtyard was used as animal pen while the outer one contained a well and it was in this court that the male inhabitants and strangers could sleep during the hot season (Bushra 1971: 68).

In the storeroom was abandoned furniture like ‘angaraib, clothes boxes, a shield and a spear of Mohammed Abd alSalam of the Mahdiya period. The store included complete Chinese blue and white dishes a copper pitcher and copper washing basin with its tripod stand that are kept as family heirlooms. d) The Fur Sultanate In Darfur Phase II and III houses were built of clay in both the rectangular and round style but the earlier period of the Tanjur witnessed building in red brick and stone. The red brick buildings of AinFarah are the most unusual architecture. Bricks were made locally in a kiln, which lies 1-km west of the defensive wall (Musa 1986: 198). At AinFarah the ‘mother of the sultan’s’ house was built of red brick. It consisted of a rectangular room and four circular red brick structures. All were enclosed by a stone wall (Yunis 1979: 48). The huts scattered over the site were built joined in groups of two or three. In most cases a low stone wall encircled these huts. Huts were connected with inner door. Each hut was provided by a cupboard cut against the inner face of the stone wall.

In the southern part of the Fung domain the houses were of two types; round huts with conical straw roof, and rectangular mud houses, some of which of two storeys type (Fig. 31). Ruins of houses show that some of them had old carved doors of excellent workmanship. (Crawford 1951: 82). At the village of ‘Ailafun I studied two still standing houses, representing an old type called ‘danga’, characterised by its massive walls and high ceiling. The oldest of these is said to be the first house built in ‘Ailafun, about CE 1600 in Phase III. This consists of two mud brick rooms, a corridor with staircase leading to a store room (Fig. 32). It has two entrances, one to the east and smaller one to the south. Doors 62

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

Fig. (29) Plan of a blockhouse (no. 163), Suakin, Phase III, (Greenlaw, 1976). 63

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Fig. (30) Wooden locks, Phase III, (Jaritz, 1973).

Fig. (31) Remains of the houses of Sennar, Phase III, (SAD/Ag/272). 64

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Fig. (32) Plan of the ‘Ailafun danga, Phase III, (Elzein 2000).

Browne (1799: 286-7) divided the houses in Darfur into three types: 1- Donga: which is a rectangular room 20x12 feet with mud walls, a flat roof, consisting of high beams laid horizontally and was covered with clay. 2- Kurnuk: which is larger than the donga, had no mud walls but was supported by rafters and was used for receiving visitors and sleeping. 3- A round kurnuk used by women for cooking. In most cases a shed was added to the house to provide shelter from the sun where people could sit and talk. Al-Tunisie (1965: 202-4), described two types of conical huts: 1- Suktaia: which is a tall narrow hut with steep roof. 2- Tukulti: which is shorter and had a rounded roof. Both were built of ‘dukhn’ stalks. Houses were bounded by inner and outer fence. The outer one which was made of thorny bushes to keep the cattle. Another feature of these houses was the well for men and animals. Houses were separated by wide intervals as people used to cultivate the fields next to their home. The result was haphazard and amorphous spread of buildings. A later survey of 1986 by Musa shows the existence of four types of houses. The first one is a simple single room without an enclosure (Fig. 33). The second type is double-room house

Fig. (33) Plan of one & two room houses/Darfur, Phase III, (Musa 1986). 65

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Fig. (34) Plan of compound houses/Darfur, Phase III, (Musa, 1986). 66

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

d) Textiles

directly connected with or without enclosure (Fig. 33). The third type is called a compound house of three or more with a single enclosing wall (Fig. 34). While the fourth type is a complex of types two and three within an enclosing wall but sometimes separated from each other by a wall (Fig. 34) (Musa 1986: 41-42). The site of ‘AinFarah yields houses of type one and two with few of type three. The site of Uri reveals the existence of houses of type one and two.

According to Bruce the Fung kings in the 18th century CE wore a blue cotton shirt sewn with silk thread (1772: 47677), while vizier Adlan of the Hamaj wore silk and satin. Nachtigal and al-Tunisie gave description of the garments of the rulers and rich people of Darfur; the sultan and his viziers wore two garments like shirts of a very light cloth, white or black. They were made in Darfur or imported from Egypt. The sultans alone put a Kashmir shawl on their shoulders and veiled the face in white muslin (Al-Tunisie 1965: 421).

Part II ARTEFACTS

e) The Crowns The sultan of the Fur wore a gilded crown surmounted by seven silver and gold feathers while princes had tasselled caps of red and gold embroidery called ‘Kalamsiya’ (Balfour Paul 1955: 26) (Fig. 35a). The crown of the Fung kings was the famous ‘Taqiya umm Qirainat’ the head cover with two horns (Fig. 35b).

2.1 Introduction The Middle Nile valley had had 3000 years of civilisation before the coming of Islam and a very varied and skilfully made range of tools and weapons were in use in bones, mud, wood, stone, metals, textiles and leather. There has been so little excavation of Islamic sites that it is too early to show where and when the changes in artefacts took place. Here only those felt undoubtedly of the Islamic period are considered. They fall into two groups, those brought from the Dar al-Islam at different times and those modified from local styles.

f) The royal seals The seals of the Fung kings were usually semi circular, made out of copper, about one and half cm. in length and one cm. in width, inscribed with the name of the king. Other shapes

2.2 Objects connected with administration and rulers 2.2.1- Insignia of the Fung and the Fur Sultanates a) The kakar A wooden seat made out of one piece of wood, with four or six legs used by the Fung kings. When a ‘manjil’ (viceroy) was chosen, the king invested him with a kakar, the chair of state, example of which exists in the National Museum (Pl. 14b). b) Wooden Sceptres The kings of the Fung and the Fur used wooden sceptres. They were covered with silver sheet and inlaid with gold. In the Fur court it was part of the regalia given to the newly appointed manjils (Shuqair 1967: 184) (Pl. 14a). c) The Nuqqara This consisted of a set of four drums, made out of hollowed tree trunk, or brass, or pottery and covered with ox, cow and calves skin (Abu Salim 1992: 140). In the Sudan it was used by the Fung and the Fur kings as well as by the main nomad tribes. It was used in war, hunting, caravan movements, tribal movements and ceremonies connected with appointing new manjils. Examples in Khartoum came from the National Museum and the Ethnographic Museum (Pl. 13a).

Fig. (35) a) The Kalmasiyia of the Fur Kings, Phase III, (B. Paul, 1955). 67

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were hexagons and octagons as in the case of the seal of the Nasir Abu Likailik. The Fung and the Fur inscribed the seals with the name of the king and his title. In the Fur sultanate the seals were not confined to the sultans and their viziers; the judges and notables had seals. The difference is the absence of dates on the seals of the latter. The dates inscribed were generally the dates when the seals were made which might coincide with the actual year when the sultan assumed power. The Fur seals were generally circular but more inclined to elongation as in the Fung case (Fig. 36). g) Documents A large number of documents in Arabic have been found either in archaeological sites or in the hands of their owners. Old Nubian was out of use for writing in the Fung domain. It was in use in the north until the end of the 15th century CE. Yet Qasr Ibrim has yielded Islamic documents from the 9th19th centuries. A few of them from Jebel Adda, Kulubnarti

Fig. (35) b) The crown of the Meks of Sennar, Phase III, (Arkell, 1955).

Fig. (36) The royal seals of the Fur, Phase III, (Abu Salim, 1975). 68

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and Sai have been examined. Arabic writing started in Nubia with the coming of Islam, most probably in the early 7th century CE, when the Baqt was agreed upon.

certificates were found with the successors of Sheikh Khojali of Khartoum North, the Dawaleeb of Kadro, the ‘Arakiyyin of Abu Haraz and the Ya’qubab of Sennar (Hassan 1973: 48). In 1933 more documents came to light before the Land Settlement Officer as proof of ownership of specific stretch of land (Al-Nour1956: 48). These documents are the first

The kings of the Fung and the Fur and their viceroys issued a large number of land certificates. Most of the Fung

Fig. (37) A land certificate, Phase III, (Abu Salim, 1967). 69

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a) Pottery

recorded evidence of land tenure in the Fung times. These documents deal with land donated by the king to tribal or religious chiefs. The significance of lands donated to the tribal chiefs lies in the fact that the tribe was kept within boundaries, thus avoiding disputes over grazing. It also facilitated the collection of taxes. While lands donated to Sheikhs as symbol of respect had a political idea behind it. Sheikhs were very influential among their followers and with consenting sheikhs, kings would win their confidence (An-Nour 1956: 52).

In Phase I most of the pottery was wheel made. The local wares presumably by Christians and the imported Aswani and Fustat wares by Muslims. Most of the pottery containers and bowl in Phase II and III are hand made. It has been argued that the disappearance of wheel made pottery at the end of the Medieval period was a result of the Ottoman tax on potter’s wheel (Adams 1984: 341), but this does not affect the Fung. Pottery products include big jars, bowls, cooking pots and ‘dokkas’.

Land certificates were of three types. The charter or granting certificate is the first one. The confirmatory certificate which was issued either by the king to confirm the ownership of certain land by certain chief’s ancestors, or issued by the judge when disputes arises between the owners which were settled according to the Shari’a law which represent the second and third types (Fig. 37).

In lower Nubia and the Dongola region, cooking pots are found, most of them unslipped and few have red slip. When decoration is attempted it is confined to geometric designs in black and white. Such objects were reported from Meinarti, Kulubnarti and Dongola (Adams 1998: 25) (Fig. 38). Cylindrical mud silos for the storage of grain and dates ‘qusaiba’. They are of two shapes; the tall tapered cylindrical one, one metre high, with flat bottom, and the shorter eggshaped one with fairly wide mouth and small round openings at the base with mud stoppers. They are made of hard mud with a heavy mixture of dung and reported from Kulubnarti (Adams 1998: 17) and are still used today in most of historic Nubia (Osman 1978: 95).

The system of writing these documents is consistent. The seal is on the top, then the opening verse of Quran “In the name of Allah, the compassionate, the merciful”. This is followed by the name of the king and invocations. Then the topic of the certificate, which ends with the name of the scribe, date and list of witnesses. The right to use the seal was confined to king, vizier, and sheikh of Qerri and in some cases the judge. From the list of witnessed we come to know the hierarchical system and the provinces of the kingdom. The witnesses were usually from the royal family, army, sheikhs of provinces, and the judge.

South of Dongola and after CE 1504, what is generally termed the Fung ware prevailed. Most of the finds were fragments, very few complete objects were found but all were hand made (Pl. 13b). The objects were polished and decorated in different patterns, the dominant was the crisscross pattern incised with rows of dots. Other patterns were the zigzag and impressed bands of rocked decoration (Fig. 39). The Fung sherds were reported from many sites; KarabaShereik region (Eisa 1996), Qerri (Sanjak 1978), Arbaji (Mohammed 1979), Sennar (El-Zein 1982), Abu Geili and Dar mek (Crawford and Addison 1957), Renk and Malakal (Kleppe 1982) (Fig. 40).

The Fur kings also have issued land certificates. Land were granted to the ‘Ulama to encourage them to stay and settle. ‘Hawakeer’ means that the ownership to the land was not absolute. There was no confirmatory document and if the sultan died the new sultan has the right to seize the land (Abu Saleem 1975: 62). The main differences in the method of writing documents was that the Fur did not put list of witnesses, and the seal was usually put on the top of the document before the invocation. Only the seal of Ali Dinar was put on the bottom of the document influenced by the Mahdi. The Fur documents generally were less symmetrical than the Fung ones, and less in style. Many colloquial words were mixed with eloquent Arabic words. If witnesses were mentioned they just put their names without their posts. The very large collection of Islamic manuscripts including over 200 dated ones of CE 1560-1750, excavated at Qasr Ibrim have already been partly published by Hinds and Sakkout (1988) and Hinds and Menage (1996). They included many details of Ottoman military and civilian administration in the Sanjak of Ibrim.

Western Sudan and the Darfur sultanate show different types connected with daily life. The ‘dollang’ is an oval bottomed pot with narrow neck, used today as jars for carrying water. Al-Tunisie (1965: 196) and MacMichael (1922: 125) also report it. The ‘dabanqa’, which was used for keeping grains, is a cylindrical container about half meter in diameter buried in the ground (Yunis 1979: 61) (Fig. 41). Generally the pottery objects of western Sudan are hand made, red or grey in colour. The grey one is decorated with mat impression, a technique common today in Darfur. b) Wooden and gourd objects Wooden and gourd containers were among the most common everyday eating dishes used until the more recent past (Fig. 42). They are relatively wide, flat and uniformly rounded with squared rims (Adams 1998: 37). Gourd bowls are also used to keep food overnight by hanging in rope baskets. Wooden boxes for keeping clothes were among the objects found commonly at Qasr Ibrim and to a lesser extent in Kulubnarti as well as central Sudan. Wooden combs are found at both and we expect to find them in the eastern desert and

2.3 Objects connected with households 2.3.1 General Utility Wares In the absence of excavation reports of Islamic period sites Kulubnarti and Qasr Ibrim no general analysis can be made of the wares. 70

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

Fig. (38) Hand made utility vessels, Phase III, Kulubnarti, (Adams, 1998).

d) Basketry

the Red Sea ports as the Beja use them as part of hair ornamentation. Gourd and wooden whorls and shuttles, which were made of acacia wood, are among the finds at Kulubnarti and are used until the recent past.

Making of baskets is an industry that is well attested in Christian period well into the Islamic period. It is one of the crafts that is still practised today. The materials used are date palm leaves and other fibre parts, Dom palm leaves, grass stems and animal hair. The fibres are either plaited or coiled or twined to produce different objects. The plaited technique is used to produce carrying objects and flat mats and roof coverings. While the coiling technique is used to produce rigid containers, trays, lids, disc shaped covers and measuring baskets. The twining technique is used to produce mats, small containers, bags and pouches and sandals.

c) Leather Objects Leather objects include water skins ‘qirab’, purses, bags, pouches, knife sheaths, handles and amulets (Fig. 43). The bags differ from the water skins mainly in having a large open end which corresponds to the waist of the animal, while the water skins has a small open end. The leather pouches are made from a single piece of leather, doubled over at the top to form a reinforced rim, with braided or twisted carrying strap at each corner. Women in northern, central and western Sudan carried pouches of this kind in the recent past. There is still a practice of carrying short often-curved knives inserted in leather sheaths that were worn on the upper arm, by settlers and nomads.

Hand brooms were made from thin split pieces of ‘gerid’ which have been doubled back on themselves and then tied around with a leather thong. It is still practised all over the country to the north of latitude 10 N. 2.3.2 Household furniture

Other leather objects so far recovered from Ibrim and Kulubnarti include leather thongs, sandal straps, and harness straps. Braided leather was used in the making of donkey bag handles (Adams 1998: 51).

This category includes beds ‘angaraibs’, floor covering, lamps, ceremonial objects, doors, locks and keys. 71

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Fig. (39) Potsherds from Khandaq and Wad Nemeiri, Phase III, (Sadiq, 1999). 72

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

Fig. (40) Potsherds from Sennar, Phase III, (Elzein, 1982). 73

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Fig. (41) Pottery containers, Darfur, Phase III, (Musa, 1986).

Fig. (42) A wooden bowl, Kulubnarti, Phase III, (Adams, 1998). 74

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Fig. (43) A leather water container and a leather bag, Kulubnarti, Phase III, (Adams, 1998).

‘Angaraibs are well known in the Sudan since the Kerma civilisation and C Group culture i.e. in the third millennium BC. The frame is usually of wood, it is woven by palm leaves ropes or leather thongs. The latter is known as ‘qid’. Generally in the far north people use mastabas along room sides and outdoors, they are used both in sitting rooms and bedrooms. In Suakin the same pattern of inside room mastabas was followed but then lavishly furnished with pillows and matrixes. There are high ‘angaraibs which are made for marriage ceremonies, while the nomads use very light low ones.

‘rahat’ a short skirt of braided leather tassels is one of the items connected with marriage, worn by the bride but was also widely worn by girls. It seems to go back to Phase II as remains were found in Kulubnarti (Adams 1998: 59), and Qasr Ibrim. The ‘huq’ is a lathe-turned vessel, smoothly finished. The exterior is painted dark yellow with a red strip around the middle and black strip at the rim. It is used as container for the dry perfumes used in marriage ceremonies. it was found in Kulubnarti in late Christian contexts. The huq is widespread in central Sudan. Door parts include pivot stones, lock parts and keys. The pivot stones are made of sand stone and occasionally of marble (Adams 1998: 55). Its function is to sustain the entire weight of the door. The door is closed by a heavy sliding wooden bolt, which passes through a square wooden lock, housing from two to four tumblers. The key proper is a narrow strip of wood having projecting teeth in the upper surface that matches the size and spacing of the lock tumblers.

Floor coverings include rugs and mats. The rugs are made from animal hair, goat hair, sheep’s wool and camel wool, while mats are woven from palm leaf strips. Large elongated ones are used for outdoors prayer and gathering. They are also used for making of temporary shelters ‘rakuba’. The coloured mats are used as bed covers but more frequently are used in marriage ceremonies. The lamps are simple shallow dishes, in which oil and a string wick were placed. Many were simply the base portions of footed bowls put to a secondary use. In Suakin oil lamps were made of glass. They are hung from a hook in the centre of the ceiling or mashrabiya, while in streets iron brackets at street corners held lamps (Greenlaw 1976: 20). In the Islamic period a distinctive type form of bi-conical pottery censor made its appearance. They are relatively small, average height 12-15cm and are elaborately decorated either on black and white on red or in black and red on white (Fig. 44).

2.3.3 Woodwork and Stonework in Suakin Houses Wood was used extensively at Suakin’s buildings. The roshans (mashrabiyas), windows, doors, internal cupboard doors, internal wooden archways, grills, and carved wooden lamp pendants. The roshan represents an architectural unit in its own capacity. It consists of three separately made parts. The separate base and a central portion “jalsa” in which one sits and the shade of the top. (Greenlaw 1976: 103). The base is paneled at the bottom in a solid manner while the rest of the roshan is paneled and combined with shish ventilators to admit light

Ceremonial objects include the colourful mat ‘birish’ and censors, which are mostly used in marriage ceremonies. The 75

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Fig. (44) Mud censors, Phase II, Kulubnarti, (Adams, 1998).

The carved stonehoods crowned the doors of Suakin (Fig. 48). It was an independent self-supporting section of sculpted masonry. It was achieved by recessing the wall and then the blocks of stone were carefully cut creating pointed arches and bosses (Greenlaw1976: 95). In most cases these hoods were pierced by openings in the center of the design for ventilation purposes. The doors were sometimes plastered and carved in floral designs. Carved stone and plaster decoration were executed on mosques and other buildings. In mosques we find it in the mihrab and minbar as in the Hanafi mosque. The patterns incised in plaster were either geometric or floral designs. The geometric were square or hexagonal while the floral consisted of bands of undulating lines with alternating leaves or flowers or panels with the tree of life. The walls were usually ended with a denticulate parapet. It was built of carved coral blocks, which were rounded at the top. The denticulations were simple.

and air (Fig. 45). The windows in Suakin houses were related in design to the roshans with which they formed a set. It consisted of three parts as the roshan, the base, the ventilation top portion and the shade. The windows were of three sizes; small, medium and large. Fretted frames for doors and windows were a common practice. They were applied to the insides of windows, roshans and door openings. (Greenlaw 1976: 112). The external doors were mostly made of plain paneling with little decoration except the door of Khorshid Effendi, which had lavishly carved panels (Fig. 46). The method of bolting and barring was found in other parts of the Sudan from Lower Nubia to central Sudan. (Jaritz 1973: 51). In all these areas the wooden doors have wooden locks which were moved by wooden keys. Wooden doors of such a type were in use in the early 60s of the 20th century. Sennar was reputed as having carved doors of high craftsmanship (Crowford 1951: 71). The back often had built-in sliding wooden bolts, which protruded into the stone jambs as well as into the other leaf of the door. The internal and cupboard doors were sometimes carved, painted or decorated with etched patterns. The archways, which divided the large diwans, were made of wood. This is for the upper storeys while those on the ground floor were built of masonry (Greenlaw 1976: 121). These archways were carved and ornamented.

2.3.4. Personal belongings Female possessions include parts of the clothes, veils or cloaks, shoes, bracelets, necklaces, beads and toilet articles. Sandals were made of leather, ropes and palm fibre ropes. Bracelets are mostly metal ones, plain circlets of wire of silver or iron. Imported glass bracelets are made of different colours of glass, arranged in segments, strips or elaborated swirls. Ivory bracelets are common among nomad women. Rings from bronze, copper, iron, stone, faience, bone, leather and palm fibre are common in Kulubnarti (Adams 1998: 66). Beads of glass, ivory, wood and stone. The latter are made from red carnelian or faience. Toilet objects include kohl sticks of iron, thin cylindrical rods, rounded at one end. Hafted awls, thin sharp iron spikes inserted in a cylindrical wooden handle were used until the recent past in braiding women hair in numerous fine braids. Kohl and perfume flasks and

Latticework grills is used in hot climates where shade and circulation of cool air is highly demanded. It also serves as a screen from strangers. The pattern used in Suakin was crisscross notched and slatted. A rare type was the tenoned grill in different sizes. Beside these two types of grills we find the large protective grills which were made of horizontal and vertical wooden bars (Fig. 47). Pendants for lanterns were turned or carved with an adz like table legs and traditional bed legs. They had a hook at the end from which the lantern was suspended. 76

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

Fig. (45) Roshan and Lattice work grills, Suakin, Phase III, (SAD/1/7/26). 77

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Fig. (46) Wooden door, Suakin, Phase III, (Greenlaw, 1976).

oinment are found in the excavated sites of Kulubnarti and Ibrim and were imported from Egypt.

thickness. All of them are decorated with incised or punctuated designs. The variety of clay types, shapes and decoration suggest different origins. Their closest resemblance is the Ottoman Turkish pipes of Qasr Ibrim.

Kulubnarti excavations yielded an extraordinary number and variety of smoking pipes fragments (Fig. 49). They are dated to 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. They consisted of small bowls and short projecting stems which joined the bowls at an acute angle. Generally they vary in length, diameter and wall

Smoking pipes were reported from Qasr Ibrim (Alexander forthcoming), Kulubnarti (Adams 1998), Arbaji (Crowfoot 1930 & Mohammed 1979) (Fig. 50), Sennar (El-Zein 1982), 78

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

Abu Geili (Crawford & Addison 1951), Malakal (Kleppe 1981). They are generally coarse, few were glazed. Ten of the archaeological sites near Malakal bore fragments of clay pipes. Male remains include shoes, boots and belts recovered from Ibrim (Alexander forth coming). The site of Kulubnarti yielded folding razors, with handles of turned Ivory or acacia wood. Leather shoes, tanned and dyed black ones and crudely made ones (Fig. 51). Knives and their sheaths are common finds and hijabs. 2.3.5 Objects connected with nomads camping sites If nomad camping grounds were excavated, the following items might be expected: ‘Angaraib: Light rope bed. Textiles : Male and female clothes and tent fragments. Kabaros : Carved wooden milking vessels. Qirba : Water skin of goat or cow skins. Hajil : Bridal tent. Hawayya: Pack saddle. Hawd : Mud drinking-basin. Nuqqara : Wooden drum. Rahat : Leather bridal skirts. Shakima : Straw mask worn by camel. Tukul : Hut of brush wood used as kitchen. ‘Uqal : Knee hobble. Zambara: Tobacco pipe. All these beside women’s ivory, silver, copper, gold and glass bracelets and stone and glass bead necklaces, and the remains of pots and gourd containers. 2.3.6. Imoprted Objects a) Pottery Imported pottery represents the highest percentage of the imported objects. The Fatimid and lustre ware of the 11th13th centuries and the Chinese porcelain of the 15th-18th centuries CE were among the finds from many sites. The site of Soba, the capital of the Christian kingdom of Alwa, yielded Islamic pottery from 11th-14th century CE Egypt and Syria. A large portion of it is glazed Fayyumi incised monochromes (Fig. 52). Others are matt-green glazed sherds, matt yellow glazed sherds and white ware in immitation of Chinese Tang (Welsby 1991: 336). The sites of Sennar and Arbaji revealed the existence of 17th18th century CE Chinese porcelain from the surface collection (EL-Zein 1982 & Mohammed 1979). From my general survey of 1999, Chinese ware and Islamic glazed wares are found in Khandaq and Wad Nemeiri in the Dongola region. Badi’ on the Red Sea coast; from test pits and surface collection came a large amount of Chinese porcelain, celadon of 10-12th centuries and blue and white, green and yellow

Fig. (47) Window grills, Phase III, Suakin, (SAD/1/7/27). 79

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Fig. (48) A wooden door with carved stone hood, Phase III, Suakin, (SAD/1/7/24).

and the brown glazed ware of the same period (Kawatoko 1993: 208). At ‘Aidhab, from test pits and surface collection, different imported pottery is represented, the most important were the sherds of black on yellow found at all layers except the surface. They are of red clay with thin yellow glaze inside and patterns of black lines over the glaze. According to Chittick (1974: 304) this type of ceramics was found in large quantities on sites of the coastal regions of east Africa and dates back to late 14th century CE and he assumes that they had originated from around Aden.

Islamic wares from Egypt of the Fatimid to the Mamluk are found in Aidhab. Shards of Lungchuan celadon of the 1314th centuries; white porcelain, Thai ceramics of 14-16th centuries CE, are among the finds of ‘Aidhab. b) Metal Objects Bronze objects were largely imported from Egypt (Adams 1987: 342) since the Christain period where we find ornamented bowls as well as pins and pendants. During Phase 80

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

Fig. (49) Smoking pipes, Kulubnarti, Phase III, (Adams, 1998).

Fig. (50) Smoking pipes, Arbaji, Phase III, (B. Paul 1951). 81

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Fig. (51) Shoes, Kulubnarti, Phase III, (Adams, 1998).

Fig. (52) Fayyumi Ware, Abu Mina, Phase I, (Engeman, 1990). 82

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

III the best-known bronze items were the small cannons which were installed at Qasr Ibrim and Sai Island, bowls, inscribed coins, and jewelry.

windowpane, dated to CE 1700 (Arkell 1936: 303). According to him there is similarity between this glass and the windowpanes made at Hebron. Glass beads were reported from ‘AinFarah and Uri (Musa 1986: 200-202).

Actually the nehas objects were imported from Egypt in large quantities during Phase III. Objects such as large and small washing basins, large trays, bowls and pitchers are found kept with the families as heirloom and as symbol of pride and dignity. These have not yet been studied in details but wide selections are held in the Ethnographic Museum in Khartoum.

Glass ware and weights are reported from Badi’ and ‘Aidhab (Kawatoko 1993: 107-8). Glass weights, made of transparent pale green, glass and opaque brown glass with Fatimid Kufic inscriptions were found at Badi’. The glass was mainly pale green of early Islamic period like the 9th century Fustat; emerald lead glass; green with marvered decoration of the 13-14th centuries, such as white opaque glass laid in trasparent blue glass forming a wave pattern.

c) Glass Objects

d) Coins

There is no evidence in the Sudan for the production of glass. Glass was imported from Egypt since Phase I of our Islamisation. The objects range from small phials for perfumes and oils to small tumblers, bowls, bracelets (Fig. 53) and beads. Bracelet fragments have been found in considerable amount at Qasr Ibrim (Adams 1987: 342) and in Kulubnarti (Adams 1998: 65). Kohl and perfume flasks beside large bottles are among the finds at Kulubnarti. Weights of glass, small discs having one flat and undecorated side, while on the other bears a stamped inscription in Arabic. Inscription includes the name of the issuing dignitary (Fig. 54).

Few coins were found at Ibrim (25 from late Mamluks time onwards) and none from Sai, but from documents names of coins in circulation in the CE 17 and 18th centuries were known like ‘Nisf Fada’ or ‘Bandugi’ and ‘Sherifi’, in the Ottoman Sanjak.

In western Sudan, the site of ‘AinFarah yielded broken glass near the diwan of the sultan. Arkell identified it as

At Kulubnarti only Egyptian coins of Sultan Abd al-Mageed CE 1852 and Abd al-Aziz CE 1871 of bronze and silver were found. In the Fung kingdom coins were known in the commercial towns like Berber, Shendi, and Sennar. All of them were foreign currency like the Austrian Maria Theresa dollar that was first found in the village of Gadallah west of Berber. It is a silver coin with the picture of Maria Theresa, the Empress wearing the toga on the obverse and on the reverse a two headed eagle, the emblem of the Holy Roman Empire. These coins were used during the Fung, the second Turkiya and the Mahdiya. It was used in commercial interactions with Ethiopia and Yemen. This coin was known at that time as “Abu Nogta” which means with dot. The Fung knew other coins as al-Muhallag and al-Ashrafiya. In Darfur they knew al Furawiya and Damaj while in Kordofan alKordofaniya, Kabashi and Jaragandi.

Fig. (53) A glass bracelet, Kulubnarti, Phase III, (Adams, 1998).

Fig. (54) A glass weight, Kulubnarti, Phase III, (Adams, 1998).

The site of Arbaji yielded imported decorated glass of many colours (Mohammed 1979:29). The coloured glass was found in incomplete pieces, which would not allow for the reconstruction of the shapes. It was found associated with millifiore beads of Europe as well as West African beads. In the site of Sennar only recent pieces of green glass were found. There is no evidence of decorated designs, as we know from other Islamic countries (El-Zein 1982: 28).

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Conclusions

During the second Turkiya appeared in the Sudan the Mageedi, after sultan ‘Abdel Mageed 1839-1861. In the obverse is written his name and date AH 1255, which was the date he succeeded to the crown CE 1839. On the same side was inscribed the six years of his rule1845, the date the coin was minted on that year. The reverse was decorated with crescent and star, the emblem of the Turks, invocations and date and place of minting, Constantinople. It came to the Sudan through Egypt. The first coin to be minted in the Sudan was that of the Mahdi. He was the first ruler in the Nile valley to mint coins in his name. The Mahdi issued three coins, the first copied the Mageedi but in gold. The second was of silver, worth 20 piasters, while the third one was worth 10 piasters. On the obverse was inscribed ‘in the order of al-Mahdi’ and on the reverse the date in Hijra era 1302. His name was written in Tughra. The caliph of the Mahdi had minted many coins but the ratio of silver to copper was decreasing by the passage of time. They were called Abu Sadr and Magboul, which was written in Tughra.

In the Sudan in the Islamic period there were four building traditions. In the Nile Valley from 1st-6th Cataract the existing tradition of building rectangular houses in mud brick or sometimes in stone was continued. The houses were modified to suit Muslim social needs. Barrel -vaulting was abandoned south of the third cataract after Phase I in favour of flat roofs. On the Red Sea Coast instead of mud brick coral blocks were used to build rectangular houses, the style was best preserved in Suakin. South of the junction of the Niles, more rains made conical roofs necessary and the Savannah tradition of houses being groups of single room huts placed close together inside a fence continued. House walls were of mud and the roofs of straw. The fourth style, really a variation of style 3 was in Darfur where house walls were built of stone. Because of the excellent preservation in the north there is a more wide range of objects that one expects from the archaeological excavation of settlement sites. Objects connected with agriculture like heavy work baskets ‘quffa’, plaited storage baskets, ropes, hoes, blades of adzes, axes and sickles. Saqiya parts, ropes and qadus remains. Sewing, weaving and basket making equipment like awls, needles of wood, iron or bone are found. The spindles being made out of palm centrum stalks while whorls, the great majority made from ground down pot sherds and few of gourd and wood as reported from Kulubnarti (Adams 1998: 49).

The Fur sultan, Ali Dinar minted his own coins where his name was inscribed on the obverse in Tughra while the reverse was occupied with place of minting (EI-Fashir). This was to show his independence. Many of these coins are still coming to light every day as a result of human activities; ploughing, digging for house building and other public instructions. Abu Haraz site has yielded some of the Mahdiyya coins (EL-Hussien1978: 30).

Other objects are kept with families or at khalwas such as the kakar, swords, copper objects, and clothes boxes and nisba documents examples being preserved in the Ethnographic Museum in Khartoum.

From the port of ‘Aidhab came one Chinese copper coin of the Sung Dynasty (960-1259 CE) which is the earliest in the Red Sea region (Kawatoko 1993: 206).

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Chapter V RELIGIOUS MATERIAL CULTURE 1. Architecture

North of the third cataract, Evliya Celebi mentioned the mosque of Qal’at Sai in CE 1672. It has been surveyed in 1958, where it was found to comprise a rectangular 12x12m prayer hall and two or three small rooms, one of which may have been the base of small minaret. The mosque has been examined in 1997 (Alexander 1997). The walls of the prayer hall were built of mudbrick. The only surviving wall is now the eastern one with the mihrab in its centre, which protruded into the street, it has a keel arch. The floor had been covered with mud tiles. There are two niches in the eastern wall one of them had contained an oil lamp. The minaret had probably been adjoining the hall to the north where a remains of smaller room 2x3m was found.

1.1 Mosques The study of mosques is made difficult by later rebuilding but they were in existence in the northern Sudan as early as the 1st century of the Hijra (CE 7th century). According to the treaty between the Arab governor of Egypt and the king of Makurra, the Baqt, a mosque was built in the “fana” square of the capital Dongola. Its position has been a matter of controversy in the last three decades. It seems that this mosque was not the only one neither in Dongola (Udal 1998: 32), nor in the kingdom of Makurra. According to Mus’ad (1960: 99), Muslims had built many mosques in ‘al-Maris’ the northern province of Makurra during the Fatimid and Tulunid rule of Egypt.

b) 3rd-4th cataract region The Dongola reach has today many mosques, the earliest dated one was erected by Sheikh Ghullam Allah al-Rikabi in old Dongola (Hassan 1973: 66), in the 14th century. Sheikh Suwar al-Dahab was known as a great mosques and khalwa builder in the region in the same period. The best known mosque from written evidence is the mosque of ‘Abd Allah Ibn Abi Sarh. However its location is still a matter of controversy. For Hakim (1985) and al-Tayib (1991), this mosque occupied the northeastern side of an ancient ruinous square enclosure which measures 20 m aside to the north east of the palace mosque of Old Dongola. It measured 5x5m of red brick and black sandstone. The mihrab was in the gibla side surmounted by a wooden lintel above which a small window is opened. According to Hakim (1985: 172), its structure reflects the early Muslim architecture of the Arabian Peninsula specially the mosques around Mecca and Jeddah, in which the small window above the Mihrab is called misbah (lamp). Eisa, on the other hand, describes the enclosure as a large courtyard containing a rectangular room 4x3m with a minaret? Or a mihrab at the centre of the eastern wall (Eisa 1992: 275). The result of his excavation in this room showed that the room can not be the assumed mosque of ‘Abd Allah Ibn Abi Sarh because it was built on top of Christian graves that dates back to the classic Christian period (9-11th centuries), i.e.

My regional review of mosques is based on the actual remains of mosques found and on descriptions given by historians, archaeologists and travellers. a) 1st-3rd-cataract region Starting from the most northerly part of the Nile Valley, mosques were recorded by Burckhardt (1818) and Monneret de Villard (1935). Two ruined mosques had cylindrical minarets, one at al- Derr was thought to be Fatimid. It was built of mudbrick, had a two-arched riwaq, a sahn and a minaret at the north east corner. At Qasr Ibrim the stone cathedral was turned into a mosque early in Ottoman period IIa (CE 1580-1700), by cutting a mihrab into the east wall and erecting a minbar alongside it (Alexander 2000) (Fig. 55). Moving south to Batn al-Hajar, the only mosque recognised was at Attiri. An unfired mudbrick structure with a gibla built into its east wall (Adams 1987: 336). At ‘AbriDelgo reach, at Ginetti a mosque similar to the houses plan with a mihrab projecting from the east wall. It was built with large flat unburned bricks, the same technique used at Attiri (Adams 1987: 337). 85

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Fig. (55) The mosque of Ibrim, Phase III, (Alexander 2000).

after the coming of Abi Sarh to Dongola by two centuries. He concluded that this room as other similar rooms, was a burial place for a religious man or his private khalwa, which became his tomb after his death as evident from the Muslim grave found (Fig. 56). But if the section he is showing in that article is correct, then this is a mosque with an obvious minaret (Fig. 57). Holy men could be buried in their private khalwa, but we have not encountered so far a khalwa with a minaret or mihrab; the latter is a general phenomenon in qubbas.

flight of steps. No attempt was made to create a mihrab or gibla niche. While at the mosque of al-Koro, the apse has been transformed inside into a mihrab with mud walling (Crawford 1961: 33) (Fig. 59). So far no appropriate description of mosques has been made except some attempts at a preliminary level were made for Aswan mosques and the mosques of Sai and Old Dongola. In Phase III the sons of Jabir are famous as mosques founder in the Shaqiya area in the second half of the 16th century (Dayf Allah 1992). South of Berber, there is reference to a 15th century CE mosque at Ras al-Wadi in a document (AlTayib 1991: 161). Bruce (1772) referred to the mosque of Al-Damer as large, well built, with roof resting upon arches built of brick and no minaret. My research found foundation slabs which were taken from the old ones and inserted in newly built mosques e.g. the mosque of Arabnarti in Dongola region, which dates back to 700 AH (1300 CE) (Al-Tayib 1991: 80) and the mosque of Qoz Sheikh Soghayroun which dates back to the second half of the 16th century.

In 1317 CE a royal building in Old Dongola was rededicated as a mosque according to inscribed tablet in the first floor (Fig. 58). Evliya Celebi reported that there were seven mosques at Old Dongola in the 1670s as well as several churches converted to mosques in the mekdom of Mahas. No mosque was found at Kulubnarti. c) 4-6-cataract region In this region the churches of Mugrat Island, al-Kab, Artul, and al Koro were changed into mosques (Crawford, 1961 and Eisa, 1996). The mosque-church of Artul is a rectangular building with two doorways, each approached by steps at the south east wall and north west wall. It has four piers supporting the roof. The tower (minaret) is approached by a

d) 6th cataract-Latitude 10 N The preliminary surveys so far conducted in this region have revealed few examples of old mosques. No mosques were 86

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Fig. (56) Plan of the alleged mosque of Abu Sarh, Phase I, (Eisa, 1992).

Fig. (57) Cross section of the mosque of Abu Sarh, Phase I, (Eisa, 1992). 87

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Fig. (58) The dedication stone of the mosque of Old Dongola, Phase II, (Arkell, 1955).

Fig. (59) Mosque of Artul, Phase III, (Crawford, 1961).

reported from Qerri or Arbaji, but recent survey of Kutranj and Mesid has shown the existence there of parts of old mosques (Mohammed 1998). Kutranj lies on the east bank of the Blue Nile about 36 miles south of Khartoum. The old mosque is said to be built in the 10th century AH c. 16th century CE, by Eisa Ibn Bushara. It was a simple rectangle built of mud, wood and mats for the roof. It was rebuilt by his grandson Mustafa ‘Abdel-Daim with mudbricks. It is square building with two doors on the southern and eastern walls. The western one opens on a rectangular khalwa which was used as burial place for Sheikh Mudawi and some of his descendants and followers (Mohammed 1998: 25).

At al-Mesid, opposite Kutranj on the western bank of the Blue Nile, there still standing one quarter of the old mosque including the minaret. It was rebuilt in the first half of the 19th century. The material used was red brick with a roof resting on eight red brick columns and a tiled floor. It measures about 12x12m. It has three doors in the middle of the northern, southern and western walls. Two types of windows were used; the large grilled ones and the high small openings (tagas). The mihrab was in the middle of the eastern wall, and there is a wooden minbar. The minaret consists of three parts; the lower part is square with chamfered corners, the middle part is octagonal and the last 88

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part is domical. The walls end up in denticulate crenellations (pl. 3a).

CE 1050) and (Vantini 1975: 235), which indicates that there were others daily prayers mosques. Excavations are not completed on the site or in the Wadi al ‘Allaqi to decide on their existence and numbers. Al-Tayib (1991:72-3) reported many village mosques from south of Khor Baraka, now at the Eritrean boundaries, and one north-west of Suakin. The latter lies about 60 miles from Sinkat. It was in ruins when visited in 1977(al-Tayib 1991: 72). It measured about 11x4m, built of stone with a mihrab and two entrances at the southern side. A stone engraved with Quranic verses was found there but was undated.

One mosque on Sennar, the capital of the Fung kingdom, is well known and well documented. Its area was quite small as it measures 15x10m and it can not have been the Friday mosque of the capital. Its remains consist of large red bricks and it was situated near the royal palace (Elzein 1982: 16). More information was availed through the writings and drawings of European travellers. However, since they were non-Muslims, they had provided only the description and drawing of the exterior. They agreed on some details like the bronze grilled windows and the five openings above. Cailliaud (1821) showed a mosque with two towers, with the entrance in the eastern wall which had a blind pointed archway, approached by three or four steps (Crawford 1951: facing p. 161). The walls ended in denticulate crenellations as was obvious from Linant de Bellefonds drawing (Crawford 1951: facing p. 80). The drawing of Lord Prudhoe (1847) shows the protruding mihrab, towers and the bronze grill windows. The mihrab from a photograph taken in the first half of the 20th century was a pointed arch. It shows also the remains of one of the pillars supposedly supporting the roof (Crawdford 1951: pl. 24). However, the Sudan Archives at Durham has shown photographs of the mosque early 20th century with elaborate entrance (Fig. 60&61) and redbrick columns supporting the roof (Fig. 62 &63). The early mosque, which must have existed at Soba, has not yet been located.

Suakin, the main port of the region in phase III, presents our only well documented architecture (Greenlaw 1976). The mosques can be compared with some 16th century mosques of Jeddah rather than the rest of the Sudan. Their architecture is a very simple courtyard type based on the Prophet Mohammed’s mosque in Medina. A sahn surrounded by riwags, with minbar and mihrab. There should be three entrances on three sides to facilitate access from all parts of the neighbourhood (Greenlaw 1976: 62). Within the sahn there is a water trough (maida) for ablution. At the gibla riwaq there is a kursi reached by a ladder from which Quran is read aloud. The Mageedi mosque was the oldest in Suakin. Its minaret has a carved stone balcony instead of the wooden rail of the other mosques. Its minbar is also of stone (Fig. 64). It is almost identical in size and plan to the mosque on Al-Rih Island (Fig. 65). Another example is the Hanafi mosque that has a one-room khalwa attached to its northwest side. It is a sahn type with two riwaqs at the gibla side, three entrances and a minaret (Greenlaw 1976: 65). The idea of a khalwa attached to the mosque seems to be dominant in Suakin (Fig. 66). The Shafi’i mosque had also a khalwa

e) Red Sea coast Mosques in the eastern Sudan were numerous and date to all three phases. ‘Aidhab had a Friday mosque (Nasir-i-khisraw:

Fig. (60) Ruins of the mosque of Sennar, Phase III, (SAD./Ag/196). 89

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Fig. (61) Entrance of the mosque of Sennar, (SAD.2/24/58).

Fig. (62) The interior of the mosque of Sennar, Showing th e mihrab, (SAD.Ag/197). 90

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Fig. (63) Columns of the mosque of Sennar, (SAD/Ag/199).

Fig. (64) Plan of the Mageedi mosque-Suakin, Phase III, (Greenlaw, 1976).

attached to its north-western side but not included in the mosque area and had a separate entrance. It consisted of two rooms and a courtyard (Fig. 67). The mosque itself was larger than the Hanafi, of sahn type, with three riwaqs at the gibla

Fig. (65) Plan of El-Rih island mosque, Phase III, (Greenlaw, 1976).

side and one riwaq at the other three sides, three entrances and a kursi. The mosque of al-Shenawi seemed to be a Friday Mosque for its wide area and shops which were built against its walls. It has not been dated but must belong to phase III. 91

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Fig. (66) Plan of the Hanafi mosque, Phase III, (Greenlaw, 1976).

f) Kordofan-Darfur

opening to the south, north and east (Fig. 69). He dates it to the 12th century CE but no detailed dating evidence has been found.

In the western Sudan the religious remains come mainly from Darfur. The mosques at al- Obaid belong only to the 19th century but travellers’ accounts have shed light only on different aspects of life during the 18th and 19th centuries; Browne (1793), Al-Tunisie (1803), Barth (1849) and Nakhtigal (1874)

At Jebel Si (Jebel Marra), a mosque was found in the eastern side of the Bora settlement (Musa 1986: 217). It was 21x21m with the remaining wall height as 2m and 1.9m wide, built of stone slabs. It had single door opening to the south. On the eastern side a pile of stones represents the minbar. Local people attribute the mosque to the late period of the settlement i.e. after the 12th century CE and the huts to its south and west were used to house Quranic school pupils and the Imam of the mosque.

Older evidence comes from north Darfur. Following Arkell’s work (1946,52), in 1979 an archaeological survey was conducted on the site of ‘Ain Farah, on Mount Furnung. In the Furnung range, the domain of the Tunjur kingdom, many mosques were found but only two were surveyed. The first one is 17x17m with four L-shaped columns (Fig. 68). The columns and the inner walls were built of burnt brick, plastered with mud. Stonewalls were built outside as buttress to the whole structure. It had a mihrab and a minbar (Yunis 1979: 40). The other mosque is the so called the mosque of Umm al-Sultan (mother of the Sultan). It was a rectangular building, smaller in size 3.7x3.3m. It has a deeply carved mihrab in the eastern wall that protrudes on the outside wall. The walls were plastered internally with mud. An underground room beside the first mosque was found which is thought to be a place of retreat (Khalwa) (Paul 1954: 42). It might have well been a storeroom for religious books and important documents (Yunis 1979: 42). Balfour Paul (1954) reported the existence of the mosque of Uri. It is a 38.5m square stone structure with 48 columns running around an open sahn of 3x3m. It had three doors

Two mosques represent the Keira sultanate. The Shoba mosque is the largest and finest of the 18th century Keira mosques (Fig. 70) attributed to sultan Tayrab and dated to 1760 (Balfour Paul 1954: II). It lies north-east of the sultan palace about 900m from it. It was a rectangle 38.4x29.4m and had 47 round brick columns (Fig. 71). Two buildings in its south-west corner was identified as book store and Quranic school. Its style links it with the architectural traditions of western Savannah. The Turra mosque, which is attributed to sultan Ahmed Bakr (1682-1722), is thought to be originally built of stone (MacMichael 1967: 211). The mosque was rebuilt by Ali Dinar 1910, in mud brick with foursquare columns cemented with mud and the whole structure buttressed in stone (Musa 1986: 218). 92

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Fig. (67) Plan of the Shafi’i mosque-Suakin, Phase III, (Greenlaw, 1976).

1.2 The Mesid

Sometimes tombs of the sheikhs are constructed within this enclosure and in some cases his own room would be his tomb. The mesid is well known in Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia and Morocco (Al-Tayib 1991: 38).

A mesid is a complex that includes a khalwa, a mosque and students lodging, all enclosed within a wall (Fig. 72). 93

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Fig. (70) Plan of the mosque of Shoba, Phase III, (Reed, 1994).

mesid al-Juair which was established in CE 1651 and is known as mesid Awlad Jabir.

Fig. (68) Plan of the mosque of AinFarah, Phase II, (Musa, 1986).

Mesids scatter also in Kordofan and Darfur. In Kordofan mesids were connected with the migration of ‘Ulama and tribes from northern Sudan like Bedayria and Dawaleeb. In Darfur it is called mesik, but the mesik and khalwa are synonyms in Darfur. Their students are called the immigrants because they left their families and homes. This is how villages were established, it depended on a Feki who taught Quran and a well. ‘Ulama were attracted from west Africa and the Nile Valley and granted lands called ‘Hawakeer’ (AlTayib 1991; 226). None have yet been excavated. The most famous mesid in eastern Sudan is Hamoshkuraib, which lies about 200 km from Kassala near the Sudan Ethiopian boundaries, which is relatively recent as dated to early 20th century. Other famous mesids still in existence today are Umm Tawan Ban , south east of Khartoum which was established in AH 1264 CE 1864 and the mesid of Wad al-Fadni which was established early 18th century. The subsistence of the mesid depends largely on the lands granted to sheikhs by the Fung kings. It is mentioned that Sheikh ‘Ajeeb of Qerri CE 1570-1611was the first to grant lands for mesids (Al-Tayib 1991: 28). Besides cultivating these lands students practice other crafts like pottery making. Some of their productions like ablution pitchers and ink containers are for the khalwa but they produce also coffeepots for commercial purposes as at mesid Wad Al-Fadni. Now a days mesids depends on such lands, endowments by wealthy businessmen, and students skills in producing local items.

Fig. (69) Plan of the mosque of Bora, Phase II, (Musa, 1986).

Early mesids were reported from different parts of the Sudan. Mesid al-Ghuraiba near Korti, which is dated to AH 888 CE 1488, was one of the earliest. The Kolomesid in the Dongola Reach was also an early one. From central Sudan we have 94

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Fig. (71) The interior of the mosque of Shoba, Phase III, (SAD/214/98).

Fig. (72) Sketch map of a mesid, Phase III, (Elzein, 1999).

The role of the mesid is important one. The establishment of a mesid resulted in a village, which might develop to a town like ad-Damer or Wad Medani. Safety of the caravans

depended largely on the presence of mesids. With the development of trade and the establishment of markets, the mesid provided the market with scribes to record commercial 95

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dealings. This led to the establishment of courts to settle disputes. The mesid is the place where social and economic problems can be solved. In northern Sudan the mesid today is a place where the officials representing the government in certain villages can meet and discuss the problems of their villages (Pl. 3b). When students graduate some of them establish mesid on their villages. With the consent of the sheikh the ceremonies start at the original mesid, from there a student carries a firebrand as blessing to light the fire in the new mesid. The Sheikh and students in a big procession singing rallying songs and holding their loahs follow him. On their way villagers welcome them and feasts are prepared for them until they reach the new site and return to their original mesid.

1- They led to the rise of villages and towns. Usually the sheikh chooses an area of uninhabited land where basic needs are available. Here he erects a mosque, a khalwa for guests and students, and a room for learning and his living quarter. Young students live in the khalwa while married one built simple mud houses near the khalwa making it the centre of the area. Then by the passage of time the area will be named after its founder e.g. Wad alFadni, Wad Medani, al-Kabashi and al-sheikh al-Tayib. 2- Its effect can be traced in building patterns especially in villages where we find a room for guests called ‘khalwat al-dayfan’ i.e. khalwa of the guests (Al-Hajj 1999: 72). 3- The gathering of people from different tribes under one sheikh enabled problems of ethnicity to dissolve. 4- The khalwa helps in preservation of traditional crafts practised by students like making ‘angaraibs, digging wells, sewing head caps ‘taqiya’ and pottery.

1.3 The Khalwa The khalwa in the Sudan has three meanings. It means isolation, where one can worship God in isolation, which can be a room, a cave in inside a Tabaldi tree. It also means a Quranic school where children are taught reciting, reading and writing Quran. The third meaning is a room for guests. The word is well known in Arabic speaking countries with different meanings. In Yemen it is a room upstairs for guests, in Tunisia it means a Quranic school while in Saudi Arabia it has two meanings; one is a place under the mosque used as masjid in winter, while in the Holy Mosque of Mecca there are about 309 rooms under the mosque used as living rooms for those in the service of the mosque (Al-Tayib 1991: 4042).

5- The distinguished students copy the Quran and other religious books. 6- As the life in the khalwa depends on subsistence economy which is based in self-sufficiency, all students work as one group in cultivation and harvest seasons. 7- The students after leaving the khalwa keep themselves in contact with their sheikhs through gifts send to the khalwa. The gifts are usually agricultural or animal products. Thus the khalwa in the Sudan is not only a Quranic school where Quran and other religious studies are taught. It is also a forum where men meet for religious debates, a guesthouse, a court, and a place for vocational training.

Generally in the Sudan the khalwa is a Quranic school which had continued since the days of the Awlad Jabir, (mid 16th century CE) until the Mahdiya, as the only educational institute, despite the fact that seven primary schools were established in Khartoum, Berber, Dongola, Suakin and Kassala between 1863-1870 (Al-Hajj 1999: 68).

1.4 The Tekiya The tekky is a term used during the Ottoman Empire to replace the khanqah of Anatolia. It is a place where Sufi sheikhs live and perform their religious duties. In Egypt it developed to lodge idles of Ottomans (Mahir 1971: 28). In the Maghreb it means the kitchen area in a khalwa or a zawya. In the Sudan it means the place where the food is prepared in a khalwa or a mesid (pl. 9a).

A khalwa is constructed from jalus, mud brick or fired bricks. It is a rectangular room with a small bed (‘angaraib) for the sheikh and a place for keeping loahs. Outside the room and in the hosh, there is a place for washing loahs (Pl. 7), and the fire place ‘tughaba’ and for reciting the Quran at night. Beside the room of the sheikh, the student lodging are arranged in a form of two or three room, built in on line to any of the four walls of the mesid (pl. 8). The khalwas of Suakin are attached to mosques. They consisted of a single room, a storeroom and a latrine but within precinct (Greenlaw 1976: 67).

1.5 The Zawya A zawya is a private local prayer place used during the week but not for Friday prayers. Thus it has a simple mihrab and it is often attached to a house or a group of buildings. It is built by pious man for prayers and for other social duties like those performed at marriages and deaths in central Sudan.

The system of education is systematic in all khalwas. The days of the week are divided between studying and preparing of necessary items needed for writing like ink and helping with food preparation. Students learn first how to read and write the Quran, then other Islamic sciences. If specialised teaching is not available in a certain khalwa the student then moves to another khalwa (Al-Tayib 1991: 51).

In the most northerly part of the Sudan the zawya is a mosque belonging to a certain religious order. Thus minarets seldom distinguish them. They are simple enclosures of mud and straw with or without a roof. In them prayers are performed as well as dhikirs. It is called by some authorities zawyamosque (Adams 1984: 576). This is the same function as the zawyas of Egypt, which started as a single room attached to

The role of the khalwa was very important in the Fung kingdom: 96

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a building then developed into an independent building (Abu Saif 1983: 5). The zawya in Egypt was always connected to a particular sheikh of a certain order. The sheikh used it as residence for himself and his family. Sometimes he would be buried in his zawya. The zawyas of Egypt are domed with plain exterior. In Suakin, the zawyas are among the most interesting buildings. Some are attached to buildings, others are separate and built in the same traditional manner as earlier mosques (Greenlaw 1976: 62). The simple form was an enclosed area, open to sky, square or circular with protruding mihrab. Another form was the roofed single room some times with shaded extension outside, or a low walled area for praying out of doors. The elaborate ones with domed roof as Musai zawya or with three pointed arches on the gibla side (Greenlaw 1976: 62) as Magdhoubi zawya (fig. 73).

II. Other Religious Settlements Most villages and towns in the Nile Valley and south of Khartoum in the savannahs’ have developed because of agriculture and commerce, but there are some that developed because of their religious importance. The following review is meant to give samples of such villages and towns since they have not yet been fully studied. II.1 Villages a) Debbat al-Fugara took its name from the presence of many holy men who settled in it. It lies about five and half miles to the east of modern Debba (map 10). It was referred to by Cailliaud, Hoskins and Linant as debbat aal-Doleeb (Crawford 1951: 38). The name Doleeb is after Sheikh Doleeb Nasi and his descendants who are attested as having domed tombs at ad-Debba (Dayf Allah 1992: 213). According to Waddington (1822: 339) it was a ruin in CE 1823 with ‘three bulbous domes superimposed, built of mud, very thick and cased inside with mud brick’. The domes were still there with other building remains in the vicinity awaiting excavation when I carried out research there in 1999 (Pl. 9b). b) Qoz al Mutraq lies about 18 km. south of Shendi (map 10) is a vivid example of how a religious centre starts. The area had been chosen by Sheikh Soghayroun to be his residence in the mid of the 16th century CE. He built his mesid and soon students followed by families started living around the mesid. Sheikh Soghayroun flourished through the second half of the 16th century CE. The site as recorded in my survey of 1996 includes beside the living quarters, the mesid and the cemetery (Fig. 74). The mesid includes the mosque, which has a foundation slab dating it back to the second half of the 16th century; the khalwas are to the north and south of the mosque. The cemetery is a unique one since it has been used for the last 400 years. It lies about 3 km south of the village. It includes the burial places of Fatima bint Jabir and her son

Fig. (73) The zawyas of Suakin, Phase III, (Greenlaw, 1976). 97

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Fig. (74) Sketch map of Qoz al-Mautraq, Phase III, (Elzein, 1999).

Sheikh Soghayroun and grand son Sheikh El-Zein and most of their descendants. A trace of an incomplete qubba over the grave of Sheikh Soghayroun is evident.

still inhabited there is rapid deterioration and/or rebuilding. Thus the need for proper surveys and excavations is a necessity.

c) ‘Ailafun was the village of the famous Sheikh Idris Wad al-Arbab, contemporary with Sheikh Soghayroun. It lies about 9 km. north of Soba (map 10). Sheikh Idris was famous for erecting four sanctuaries for those seeking refuge from the king of Sennar (Crawford 1951: 73). As mud was the chief building material, very few buildings have survived. Among them are the qubbas of Sheikh Idris and his sons, which were built with fired brick of Soba ruins. Some rooms of the old houses are still standing with their massif walls and wooden doors, but they are decaying fast. They are known locally as ‘danga’ and have not yet been studied in detail.

II.2 Towns There are certain religious centres that developed into towns and government centres privileged from their being on the main trade routes. a) Ad-Damer was one of the two mekdoms south of Berber. It lies between river Nile and its tributary ‘Atbara. Its known as having four trade routes; one going east to Suakin, west of the Nile to Kordofan and Darfur, south to Shendi, Khartoum and Sennar and the fourth one across the Butana to Gadaref.

Such village sites are numerous and scatter over a wide area of modern Sudan, e.g. Kutranj 36 miles south of Khartoum, and al-Mesid 30 km south of Khartoum. As these sites are

According to local tradition, it was founded towards the end of the 15th century CE (Crawford 1951: 57) and (Al-Tayib 98

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1991: 137). The original site was at Darru to the south of adDamer, now known al- Sha’dinab (Lorimer 1936: 335-41). Bruce passed the town in 1772 and left a description of the main buildings and its economy. According to him the house of the Sheikh consisted of a room and a chapel, the room was about 12-ft square. Bruce and then Burckhardt described ad-Damer as a place where were many schools for teaching the Quran and many students from Kordofan, Darfur and Sennar. The mosque had no minaret and was large and well built with a roof resting upon arches of brick.

slightly shorter route from Shendi to Abu Deleig and Jebel Geili (Map 10). It was also a ferry town (Crawford 1951: 73). Abu Haraz started with the mesid of Sheikh Dafa’ Allah, which was built in his lifetime (d. CE 1683) (Hussein 1978: 34). The mesid includes a mosque and the khalwas. In the middle of the area a new mosque was built in the 20th century with the foundation slab of the Sheikh Dafa’ Allah mosque inserted. Along its western side lies the khalwa. It consists of four rooms, built of stone and rectangular in shape. All were oriented north-east. They were roofed in the traditional manner of wooden logs, mats and mud. A new terminology arrived with the Mahdiya for a khalwa was ‘rahba’ which it did not live long. The Mahdiya rahba was a square room with a veranda. The veranda had a roof resting on five rectangular red brick pillars. (Fig. 75)

The income of the mekdom was derived mainly from agriculture and trade chiefly with Dongola and Shendi. The trade was very safe because of the existence of the mesid in that area. People believed that the presence of holy men protected their trade and their weekly-held market. According to Burckhardt ad-Damer was a town of about 500 houses. It was a clean and neat town with regular streets and no ruins.

The cemetery lies to the north of the village. It consists of ordinary graves and 9 qubbas. It goes back to the 17th-19th centuries. The site offered a variety of qubba types in one single place. There was the pyramidal shape of Sheikh ‘Abel Allah al-’Araki, the oldest tomb in the site. There were the conical shape and superimposed cones, and the Mahdiya type of square substructure surmounted by a dome. Now all the domes were dismantled and new ones erected. Fortunately the older ones are preserved in maps, ground plans and plates in Elzein (1987: 28). Such state is likely to happen to all such monuments, which necessitates an urgent action towards the preservation or at least recording.

The history of ad-Damer as a holy place can be divided into four stages: Stage I: - The Darru Settlement, which is said to be founded by Hajj ‘Eisa Ibn Gandeel Ibn ‘Arman (ca 1450-1500 CE) (AL-Tayib 1991: 137), who started the mesid and was followed by his son and grandson. Stage II: - This stage corresponds with the heyday of adDamer in its present location. It was founded by Hamad Ibn ‘Abdel Allah who erected the mesid (ca 1600 CE). Soon different tribes were attracted and settled, trade flourished and the market was established under the protection of the mesid (Al-Tayib 1991: 138). This stage was during the Fung rule.

The site is full of other archaeological features like the storage pits of about two metres deep, which were used during the Mahdiya; coins and documents. Each year on the second day of the ‘Eid the people of the village celebrate the installation of new Sheikhs.

Stage III: - This stage corresponds with the second Turkiya CE 1822). The mesid was destroyed and people migrated from ad-Damer and established new mesids in Gadaref and Kassala. There was stagnation in both religious and commercial fields.

2. Burials: Superstructures and Tombstones

Stage IV: - In this period ad-Damer revived its religious activities during the Mahdiya (CE 1885) and until present day and is still playing the same role with students from different parts of the Sudan. The books for the different subjects taught are brought form Cairo and Hijaz. The system of education is based on two major stages; the first one is called the ‘fire of Quran” in which students recite and memorise Quran for three years. Then the students move to stage two ‘ the fire of science’ in which they study, religious sciences like figh and hadith, poetry and Arabic language. The student then given a certificate called “Ijaza”.

There are five types of Islamic burial superstructure in the Sudan. They range from ordinary low oval mounds superstructure to tomb towers. These types are surface identification of the graves, but the grave pit is always the same. It has a precise orientation north south, facing east and a distinctive shape. The deepest part of the pit is strictly narrower to receive the corpse lying on its side with face facing Mecca. There is no segregation of sexes in the graveyard. The only difference is on the shroud that consists of three pieces for women and two pieces for men. a) Superstructures

Now the town sprawls in all directions with the mesid in the centre presenting a model for the study of spatial growth of a town.

1. Ordinary oval mounds:- This is the most common type of grave used for commoners on all three phases. In certain cases some of the celebrated sheikhs would order his relatives to be buried in an ordinary grave i.e. not to build a gubba over his grave. This type of grave is sometimes delimited with pebbles or large fired bricks. Today almost all graves have inscribed tombstones (shahid), and in later periods iron plates were used as shahid.

b) Abu Haraz on the eastern bank of the Blue Nile, 8-km northeast of Wad Medani is an example of a religious centre that developed into a village, then a town and then back to the status of a village. It was once a place of considerable importance commercially, as the southern terminus of an 99

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Fig. (75) Sketch map of the Khalwa at Abu Haraz, Phase III, (El-Hussein, 1978.).

2. Mastaba type: - This type is still used for chiefs of tribes and celebrated figures of any community like the ‘Omda and Nazir. It is built over the grave, rectangular in shape of fired bricks and cement. It can be as high as one metre and since 1800 CE a new form of a low mastaba surrounded by an iron bar fence made its appearance.

3.1 Beehive or conical: - Here the dome is set directly on the ground. It is the type that widespread along the Nile Valley, from northern to central Sudan. It is reported from Kenuzi region, the Mahas region, Dongola region, and south to Debbat al Fuqara and the rest of central Nile valley (pls. 10a &b). Sometimes the cone is built in a form of three stepped parts i.e. superimposed steps. It is evident in northern Sudan as well as central Sudan. Generally, the height of these qubbas ranges between 4-10 meters and the internal diameter 3-8 metres (pl. 11a).

3. Domed tombs (qubbas): - Qubbas of three types are found from north of latitude 10 in the south to the 1st cataract region in the north. Most of these gubbas are the monuments to the men who brought the knowledge of Islamic faith or its spread in the Sudan (Adams 1984: 569). The qubba is regarded as the most significant symbol of Islam in the Middle Nile Valley more than the mosques (Trimingham 1965: 105). The position of these qubbas relative to Islamic archaeology is highly significant, since a great number of them are still standing, and inspite of architectural variations they show, they are recognisable archaeologically. They are graves of holymen as distinct from political or social leaders. Under this category we have three sub-types: -

3.2 A square substructure with a dome above it. The total height ranges between 8-21 meters and the internal base measures 3-8 metre aside. Sometimes the substructure would have chamfered corners. In some cases the externally squared structures are round internally (fig. 76). Another invention in one of ‘Ailafun qubbas where we find the domical part terraced (pl. 10b). Generally most of these types of gubbas, the sub-structures are very low compared to 100

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Fig. (76) Plan of Qubbat Sheikh M. Yunish, Phase III, (Elzein, 1987).

the domical part that shows that the emphasis is on the dome and its height.

‘Aisha’s room. The roofless structure consists of four walls to a height of 2 metres with an opening in the western side, and a keel arched mihrab on its eastern wall. It usually receives many burials; four to five graves (pl. 11b).

3.3 A substructure consists of four brick pilasters set close together and surmounted by a tapered dome (Adams 1987: 339). This type is represented at Jebel ‘Adda, Qasr Ibrim and Wad Nemeiri with variations (pl. 11a). It measures between 3-4 meter aside and the height between 6-8 metres. This type is not found in the central Sudan and seems to have Wad Nemeiri and possibly el-Khandaq as its southern extremity.

Generally these qubbas were built with fired or unfired brick, and covered with thick layers of Jaloos which keeps the building warm in winter and cool in summer. The tombs have very low entrances, which is also observed in some khalwas. A mihrab inside the qubba is a general phenomenon demonstrating the Islamic character of the qubba, as did the finial on the apex and the orientation of the burials. The mihrabs are generally two types; the keel arched niche and the pointed arched. In any case they are simply made and sometimes crudely finished. Another feature of the interior is the niche for an oil lamp, which is in most cases triangular.

4. Ordinary square structures, with flat roofs or without a roof. The roofed ones were mostly the khalwa of a sheikh, and when he died his room would be his tomb. This is a wide spread phenomenon from Dongola to central Sudan. It seems to be that people are following the idea of the tomb of the Prophet Mohammed which was originally 101

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The interior is mainly occupied by the cenotaph, which is sometimes contains many burials beside the sheikh; some of his successors or members of the family. The grave of the sheikh is either an ordinary oval mound or covered by wooden coffin or iron- bar enclosure. The whole is then covered by a piece of cloth, usually green.

and Kalabsha in Lower Nubia (Hassan 1973: 38). Crowfoot has found several tombstones in Badi’; they were of grey felsite and four of them were preserved in the Sudan National Museum. Combe (1930: 288) has examined these four tombstones. They were written in Kufic character, with the dates AH 387,405, 427 (CE 997,1014,1035). (Pl. 2a).

In type 3-2, the zone of transition is either flat pendentive or ordinary squinch. In some tombs a wooden slab at the corners of the square substructure would do the job. The same technique was carried in some Aswan mausolea (Creswell 1968: 136,138).

Khor Nubt, which lies to the west of Suakin, about 70 miles, is another locality where tombstones were found. They were engraved on rock from the Red Sea Hills. Some of them have been studied (Mustafa 1993). They are dated to AH, 264,277, 315, 329 (CE 877, 890, 927 and 945). They were written in Kufic script as well as the Derheib tombstones that were engraved in black granite. Derheib lies in Kassala province. One of its tombstones was dated to AH 425(1023) (pls. 1a, 2b).

Decoration is rarely attempted, but a few examples are available: the textured decoration on the dado of the gubba of sheikh Hamad, and the zigzag motif affected by means of bricks (pl. 12a), or the ribs over the dome of sheikh Ahmed Yunis of Abu Haraz (pl. 12b).

In the northern Sudan, the Meinarti group was engraved in Nubian sandstone that can easily be engraved unlike the granite, basalt and other igneous rocks. But at the same time can easily crumble, thus they do not allow reading the dates, but two of the Meinarti group were dated to AH 453, 455, CE 1061, 1063 (pl. 1b).

5. Tomb towers: - Tomb towers are stone -built structures, built of local irregular stone blocks and lime mortar, white plastered externally. The height ranges between 3-5 meters. The sub-structure is square, hexagon or octagon, which was covered by a dome. This type is confined to the region between the Red Sea hills on the west and the Red Sea coast on the east (Hakim 1992: 11). They look like the tomb towers of Afghanistan and Turkistan of the 13th and 14th centuries or the East Africa Coast tombs of 10-15th centuries CE. They were first thought as signal posts because of their appearance in-groups of several in one place and not far away from the sea. But they are usually found near Muslim graves but without evidence of graves (Fig. 77).

Whether these tombstones were found in situ or scattered, was not reported. Marking graves is abhorred by some Sufis, prohibited by the Maliki sect and accepted by the Hanafi sect. The Maliki law was widespread in the Sudan in Phase III. It was spread in the Fung Kingdom by Sheikh Mahmoud al-’Araki and then by Ibrahim el-Bulad. But these tombstones were earlier-Phase I, hence one would expect more tombstones to be uncovered in contrast to the view that tombstones were not so numerous because of this prohibition. These tombstones were good indicators for the presence of Muslims in the Sudan long before the rise of the first Islamic Kingdom.

To conclude, the first four types are widely spread in the Nile Valley and there were about 150 of them from the vicinity of the village of Dehmit before its destruction by the Aswan Dam (Adams 1987: 329). No qubbas have yet been found from Kordofan or Darfur or south of Latitude 10 N, except for those of the 20th century like the gubba of Sultan Ali Dinar and the qubba of sheikh al-Mekki in al-Obeid, Kordofan. The tomb towers of eastern Sudan are still awaiting major archaeological work to decide on the dates and whether they are really tombs and whether they were built because of the graveyard or the vice versa.

3. Artefacts One aspect of change that seems clearly related to the transition from Christianity to Islam is the use of Arabic as the only written language. Thus the Quranic manuscripts, hejabs and ostraka are one defined religious artefact of the period. Nevertheless, there is a far wider range of religious artefacts that can be defined as Islamic. There are objects connected with personal rituals like prayer mats, rosaries and ablution pitchers; as well as objects connected with communal rituals as Sufi ceremonies and khalwa logistics.

b) Tombstones Tombstones are the earliest Muslim remains so far recognised in the Sudan. Generally the tombstones were dated to the period between the 3rd and 5th centuries of the Hijra i.e. 9th11th centuries of the Christian era. They measure 3-6cm in thickness, 20-60cm in length and 20-35cm in width. The blocks were roughly carved and no attempts were made to have a quadrangular shape. The stone usually includes the name of the deceased. The opening verse of the Quran (In the Name of Allah, The Compassionate, The Merciful), and other verses, invocations asking forgiveness to the deceased and dates.

1. Objects connected with personal rituals a) Ablution pitcher (rakwa) Prayer and purification are often associated with specialised ablution vessels. They were made either of leather or baked clay, the leather ones are usually used by nomads and to a lesser extent by settled groups. Some of them are decorated with lines others with dots. (fig. 78) The leather was

Tombstones were found at Badi’, Khor Nubt and Derheib in eastern Sudan, and were reported from Meinarti island, Tafa 102

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Fig. (77) Tomb towers a) Khor Garrar, b) Halaib, c) M. Gol, Phase III, (Crowfoot, 1922). 103

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c) Rosaries (sibah) Rosaries are used extensively by Sufi sheikhs and their followers. Each religious order has its own system of organising the beads in the rosary. The rosaries are generally made of wood; sandalwood, ebony, tree fruits (laloub), olive kernels. They can also be of ivory, precious and semiprecious stones, spun glass and silver. The sheikhs use a rosary that count up to one thousand beads, it is called “Alfiya” i.e. thousand. No complete ones have been found in excavation, but beads at Qasr Ibrim and Kulubnarti may belong to them but most have 25 beads, and the regular one must have 33 beads. d) Amulets (hijabs) Hijabs are protective texts written on paper or leather, then wrapped and tightly folded within a small leather pouch. The written material is either verses from or invocations. The use of different verses is according the purpose of the hijab;

Fig. (78) A burned clay rakwa, Sennar, Phase III, (Elzein, 1982).

extensively tanned to allow the object to stand up right and to be without pores. The baked clay ones are more wide spread, production of them is one of the specialities of the Khalwa students. Generally they are, in the ethnographical context, smoothly burnished, rectangular in shape, with flat bottom and a hand on the upper part. b) Prayer mats (birish) In the Sudan there are two types of prayer mats; sheepskin (farwa) and palm leaves (birish). The whole sheepskin is used after scraping the inner part and tanned. It is used for prayer as well as a bed sheet, as used by sheikhs. They sit on it when receiving people at their khalwas. The birish type is either circular of elongated rectangular. The circular ones are made of white leaves taken from the inner neck of the palm tree and always have a binding of goat hair yarn round the edges. This type is widespread today in central Sudan The rectangular ones are famous in northern Sudan and are made from the same material as the circular ones with the same goat yarn along the edge. Sometimes coloured leaves were used, finely woven in twilled pattern creating colourful designs in the upper part of the mat. None have been found in archaeological contexts.

Fig. (79) Hijabs, Phase III, (Elzein 1999). 104

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whether as protection from the evil eye or as a cure from a certain psychological problems like anxiety. The hijabs are strung on a braided leather cord and could be worn on the upper arm, as usually men do today or suspended on a neck cord as woman and children do. Hijabs are found the archaeological excavations of Qasr Ibrim, Sai and Kulubnarti but have not yet been studied in detail (fig. 79). e) Wooden Sticks (‘Asaya) Sheikhs carry wooden sticks of different shapes and from different tree species. The Sufi sheikhs used sticks when writing letters for the students in the bare floor. When a Sheikh goes to retreat in a distant area, his luggage consists of a stick, a rakwa for ablution and a basket of dates. The stick is also connected with miracles attributed to certain Sheikhs like the stick of Sheikh Hassan Wad Hassuna (Dayf Allah 1992:131). 2. Objects connected with communal rituals: These objects can be studied under the following sub-titles: 2.1 Objects connected with Sufi ceremonies.

Fig. (80) The nehas of the Fung, Phase III, (Elzein,1999).

2.2 Objects connected with the khalwas. 2.3 Objects connected with burial customs. the time. It is a simple rough piece of cloth. The preferred material is “damour” which is woven locally from cotton. The jiba is a shirt like garment with widely flowing sleeves. It has a round hole being cut out for the head and neck. The jiba is worn with “sirwal” which are wide trousers made of damour. The damour can be replaced with green garment, as do the followers of the Qadiyria order. Whether it is damour or other material, the followers usually tie a piece of cloth round their waists during the dhikir or when serving the guests of the khalwa. The Mahdi ordered his followers to wear “el-muraga”, a tattered and patched jiba. The Mahdiya garments are well preserved in the Ethnographic Museum in Khartoum and in the photographs of the 19th and 20th centuries.

2.1 Objects connected with Sufi ceremonies a) The stool /throne (kakar) The kakar is a seat with six or four legs made out of a single piece of wood. The Fung kings used it as a royal seat (Pl. 14b). The Sufi Sheikhs used the kakar in the process of creating new Sheikhs. b) The coronation cloth (kofia) It is a square piece of cloth made out of cotton or silk used when appointing new religious Sheikhs. It is still in use at Abu Haraz. The Sheikh of the mesid, puts the kofia on the head of the newly–made Sheikh in a way that part of it lies on his back.

2.2 Objects connected with the khalwa and tekiya a) wooden tablet (loah) it is a well burnished wooden tablet used in teaching. They are consistent in measurements, 41cmx10cm with handle at one end. The handle is grooved to allow for writing the Quran and Arabic alphabets (pl. 6a). The loah is believed to be a successor of ostraka. In the site of Kulubnarti five Arabic ostraka were found, four inscribed on potsherds and one on a very small stone (Adams 1998: 90) (Fig. 81). It contained Quranic verses and signed by Feki Mohamet with spelling and grammatical mistakes, which shows that he himself had no mastery of the Arabic language. In Old Dongola, and on the alleged site of the mosque of Abi Sarh, more ostraka were found which led Eisa (1992: 277) to conclude that the site is not of a mosque but of a khalwa. Two were also found in Qal’at Sai and four at Qasr Ibrim.

c) The kettledrum (noba) The noba is a kettledrum, made out of clay or copper and then covered with skin of ox or cow. It is used by some Sufi orders in the weekly dhikir and the annual ceremonies of the Sufi orders. The noba is widely used in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is believed that the noba is one of motivators that attracted the people of the Sudan to Sufi orders and hence their acceptance of Islam. (Fig. 80). d )Textiles The Sufi sheikhs have two kinds of clothes. The widespread garment is that of asceticism in which the “jiba” is worn all 105

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b) Ink container (dawaya or mahbara) The ink container is a small bowl made out of clay. It is one of the local crafts still being done by the students of the khalwa. Several were found at Qasr Ibrim, the students using soot, water and gum to prepare the ink. They use pens made out of wood, many were excavated at Qasr Ibrim. c) The Quran Fire (tughaba) The tughaba is the fire lit at night for studying and reciting Quran. Students sit around it to be taught by their sheikh. It is usually a circular area with a big log of wood in its middle, surrounded by small sticks and bushes collected by the students (pl. 6b). When one of the best graduates decides to start a khalwa in his village, he carries a brand from this fire and keeps it alive until he reaches his village. d) Religious texts Many ‘Ulama (scholars) were reported in the Tabaqat as having compiled, copied, explained, summarised, commented and written books. Dayf Allah Ibn Ali and Mukhtar Ibn Jawdat Allah were famous for explaining Mukhtassar Khalil (Day Allah 1992: 135,228). In Islamic theology, some of the scholars had explained and commented on the introduction of al-Sanusi, like Mudawi Ibn Mohammed and Ali Ibn Hamuda al-Kahili. Sufi books were not numerous in the 16th century, at the beginning of the Fung kingdom. Few books were reported like the books of Isma’il Sahib al-Rababa and Mohammed Mudawi (Hassan 1973: 43). The late Fung period witnessed a revival of Sufi books by famous sheikhs. Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayib of Umm Marrahi, the founder of the Samaniya order in the Sudan (1743-1824), and sheikh Mohammed el-Majdhoub of the Majdhoubiya order (17901832) and Mohammed Uthman el-Khatim of the Khatmiya order (1792-1853). e) Quran copying and binding The copying of Quran was a practice since the establishment of the Khalwa in the 16th century. Usually the students copy the Quran either as their obligation towards the khalwa or as a gift they present to the sheikh after their graduation. Many copies have been collected from the khalwas and families of religious sheikhs, nevertheless, more are still in the hands of the sheikhs or families kept as heirlooms. The earliest Quran was found in Arabnarti in Ghaba district, south of Dongola. It is dated to AH 871/AD 1311 and attributed to a certain sheikh Bilal. His descendants are famous as Quran copiers. Few attempts were made towards decorating the copied Quran. It was limited to the heading of the verses. Bookbinding was practised for copied religious books as well as Quran. The examples so far available show attempts at decorative levels (fig. 82). This field of copying and binding is one of the new fields in the study of Islamic artefactual remains in the Sudan, shown here are Quran from the village of Wad ‘Uthman south of Qerri and the village of Norki, Kokka area in the third cataract region.

Fig. (81) Ostrakas, Kulubnarti, Phase III, (Adams, 1998). 106

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a very smooth grey wood. It is brought from Darfur by traders. 2.3 Objects connected with burials a) The bed (‘Angaraib) This is a wooden frame bed with traditionally interlaced leather thongs. Now palm branches fibre or plastic ropes are used. The ‘angaraibs are used domestically as beds, but there is always one specified for carrying the deceased to the graveyard. It is meant to be as light as possible and with reasonable height. Now in the Islamic Sudan its usage is confined to carrying of the deceased to the graveyard and after the prayer and the interment of the corpse, the ‘angaraib will be brought back to the house of the deceased. b) The mat (birish) The ‘angaraib is always furnished with a white elongated rectangular mat. It is made out of white leaves of palm tree. It is meant to be white to differentiate it from the colourful one used in marriage ceremonies. It is not buried with the deceased, it has to come back with the ‘angaraib. c) The oil lamp (massraja) Oil lamps are simple shallow clay dishes, in which oil and string were placed. Many were found at Kulubnarti (Adams 1998: 57), but the majority was simply the base portions of broken off footed bowls put to a secondary use. They were used during the Medieval Christian period as censors as well. In the Islamic period, oil lamps were important items in the saints’ qubbas. A special niche consisted of two upright bricks is always found at the tombs with clear evidence of burning (fig. 83).

Fig. (82) Bookbinding, Gezira, Phase III, (Elzein, 1999).

f) The wooden bowls (gadah and dabkar) The gadah is a dish made out of acacia wood and used to feed the students of the khalwa. It is about 87 cm in length in which special sorghum porridge is served. The dabkar is a special gadah for the sheikh and his guests made out of

Fig. (83) Oil lamp, Sennar, Phase III, (Elzein, 1998). 107

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d) Censor (mubkhar)

churches have survived. In Phase III the Ottoman influence was complete.

Censors or incense burners are still important objects in religious life. In the qubbas, censors are put beside the grave of the sheikh. Sometimes one finds as many as ten, some were broken but left in their place. At the site of Kulubnarti, a distinctive form of bi-conical pottery censor is found. They are typical censors of the Islamic period in that they are relatively small with the average height 12-15cm and are elaborately decorated either on black and white on red or in black and red on white (Adams1998: 57). The same colours are still used in decorating censors with the addition of yellow (Fig. 84).

In the east, direct contact with Arabia was maintained at ‘Aidhab where there were mosques from the 9th century CE. After the destruction of ‘Aidhab and the founding of Suakin in the 15th century there were close links with Jeddah and the mosques copied the Arabian models. Through the Red Sea coast Sufi ‘Ulama entered the Middle Nile Valley in Phase III resulting in the Fung religious architecture differed from the northern styles both in mosques and qubbas. West of the Nile in Kordofan and Darfur there was some influence from further west in Wadai especially after the development of a Hajj route from west Africa to Suakin and Masawa’.

Conclusions Since Islam entered the Middle Nile Valley from the north and east two different traditions in mosque architecture are visible.

It is very evident from the above review that Islamic religious remains in the Sudan are numerous and vary greatly. There is a wide range of architectural evidence. It is clear that we can recognise and establish the chronology of Islam in the Sudan from archaeological evidence e.g. different types of qubbas, mosques and khalwas. Thus even in the absence of documentary evidence, which is rare, we can understand Islam in different parts of the Sudan from its material remains.

In the north, certainly from 1st-3rd cataract there, was a spread of Muslims, mainly merchants and Banu Kanz chiefs, and mosques were erected in the Egyptian style. Dated tombstones were used in cemeteries and the Sunni tradition was not followed. No mosques of Phase I and II except reused

Fig. (84) Plan of Qasr Ibrim, Phase III, (Alexander, 2000). 108

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The early and gradual spread of Islam from the north can be deduced from the tombstones, Fatimid manuscripts, early mosques and its relationship with Makurra.

Islamic architectural tradition in the Niger valley. And so perhaps evidence of another religious obligation, the Hajj; the route through the savannah to Sennar and Suakin may well like the route via Darb al-Arba’in to Egypt been in use by the 14th century.

While the earliest evidence of Islam in the east is also from tombstones and manuscripts evidence and its links with ‘Alwa demonstrated, the later spread of Sufi ‘Ulama through Suakin from Arabia. The material evidence from the Fung kingdom shows a different pattern from the northern Sudan, which was for so long firmly in Sunni Ottoman control.

The regions in which archaeological evidence is most difficult to recognise is the eastern and western deserts where camelpastoralists, whilst early converts to Islam, leave little material evidence of their presence. Their burials, the most durable evidence of their religion, can not, of course be disturbed, and only the evidence of mining operations in the Wadi al’Allaqi and Jebel Adar show something of events in the eastern desert.

The spread of Muslim pastoralists through ‘Alwa to Kordofan and beyond and the conversion of the Fur to Islam can only be demonstrated archaeologically in Darfur. Here the mosque plans suggest that there were connections through Wadai with

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Chapter VI MILITARY MATERIAL CULTURE 1. Architecture

The fort is a fortified building, under this definition come the Middle Nile forts, while fortress is a purely military post with a permanent profession garrison and hence Qasr Ibrim and Sai could be grouped as fortresses. This is different from the walls around settlements as in western Sudan at Uri and ‘AinFarah and in Qerri and Kuweib where the jebels were fortified in the gaps between them.

1.1 Introduction Islamic military architecture in the Sudan is another field that needs urgent work since remains of most of these structures are still visible. Crawford (1961), Plumley (1971), Mallinson (1986), Adams (1996) and Alexander (2000) have conducted preliminary surveys. Only Qasr Ibrim and Sai have received archaeological excavation, the former due to the rising waters of Lake Nasir. Although Qasr Ibrim is now in Egyptian Nubia it will be considered here as a main fort of the Sanjak of Ibrim, which included the Sai fortress after CE 1583 on the frontier with the Fung kingdom.

Another important point is the fact that the taking over of castles, forts or fortresses by new comers or new governments is a world-wide phenomenon. There are some forts of the Middle Nile Valley which are thought to date back to the Meroitic times and then used by Christians like Jebel Nakharu and Umm Marrahi (Crawford 1961: 17,39). Thus it is quite possible that most of castles between the 4th and the 5th Cataracts which are defined as Christian (Phase I) had been used in Phase II and III. Especially those adjoining churches that were changed into mosques like al-Koro.

In the Islamic period in the Sudan specifically military buildings were built only in some parts of the country; over many regions there were none. They were built in the Nile Valley 1st-6th Cataract; Darfur, and in the 19th century south of the 6th Cataract. The fortresses were built to meet different situations in each period. In Phase I all fortified sites, except perhaps ‘Alaqi, are Christian and not discussed here. In Phase II all fortified sites are Muslim and will be considered here. In Phase III with an international frontier at the 3rd Cataract there was a great difference between the defences of Egypt in the Ottoman Sanjak of Ibrim where there were only two fortresses and Kachifs castle houses and the Fung kingdom where meks and manjils had many fortified sites concentrated between the 3rd and 6th Cataract. Under the Mahdiya a new type of fortified walls was invented (tabya).

Even the identification of those castles as Christian is questionable as Crawford admitted that he is not sufficiently experienced to distinguish the common Meroitic type of pottery from those of the Christian (Crawford 1961: 18), while Islamic pottery was still unstudied. Even finding Christian sherds on the sand surface is not convincing evidence of only Christian use.

1.2 The Ottoman Province a) Qasr Ibrim

Generally we are faced with the problem of terminology; castle, fort and fortress. The castle is a large fortified building often as a ruler’s residence. In this sense some of the fortified houses of Jebel Adda, Faras, Serra, Meinarti, Abkanarti, Kasanarti, Gemai, Murshid, Askut, Duweishat, Tanjur, Akasha, Kulubnarti, Dal and Firka, could be categorised as castles as they were known as residence of local Kachifs (Adams 1987: 334 and 1994: 33).

The new frontier Sanjak of Ibrim was established by CE 1563. At that time the fortress comprised a walled triangular area of 36 hectares with four projecting towers and a narrow rockcut stairway entrance (Alexander 1996:17). The interior showed a number of Christian stone buildings and the newly built mud brick watchtower. In the period CE 1586-1650 there was extensive building within the fortress. Houses were 110

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of reused stones from earlier houses. The final result was the appearance of a fortified village of 50-57 families, but study of the manuscripts from Ibrim shows that it was not a village but a series of garrison family houses (Alexander 1996: 18) (Fig. 85).

The Islamic fortifications were made by restoring the walls, they used palm log bonding timbers at regular intervals (Fig. 86). The Ottoman repairs were through the ramparts. The podium postern gate in the western wall which had remained in use throughout the Christian period. It was blocked altogether in the Ottoman times when the adjoining sections of the girdle wall were rebuilt for the last time. The most important Ottoman additions were a new east main gate and a defended waterpoint. In the interior the fortress housed barracks, a few public buildings, and an armoury. No artisan shops or caravanserai were reported.

The fortress had a long history. The fortifications were originally built in Ptolemic times and were enlarged and heightened twice during the interval of Roman and Meroitic occupation. Then they were neglected and seemed to be rebuilt immediately after the raid of Shams ad-Dawla, the Ayyubid in 1172-3 (Adams 1996: 84). Most of the recently visible walls were repaired and heightened in Ottoman times and remained intact until their final destruction in the 197090s.

A citadel was reported at Faras, called the Arab fort. It was a walled enclosure built directly on top of the cathedral (Adams 1984: 518). There was a similar fort at Jebel ‘Adda but it is not yet published.

The Islamic fortifications consisted of the wall and two gates. The wall is regarded as the most conspicuous archaeological feature of Qasr Ibrim. It was of about 3m thick at the base, with dressed stone faces and core of rubble. The fortifications were not laid on the level top of the mountain but on the slopes, in order to enclose a larger area (Adams 1996: 25)

b) Qal’at Sai Sai island is one of the biggest islands in the Nile, where the river allows a good deal of agriculture and commands both

Fig. (85) Palm-logs bonding, Qasr Ibrim, (Adams, 1994). 111

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Fig. (86) Plan of Fortress of Sai, Phase III, (Alexander, 1997).

four shallow stone stairs from inside. The barbican, mud brick enclosure 9x8m, entered through a right angle turn, the same as the case of Ibrim. The walls were looped at ground level for muskets (Alexander & Schlee: forthcoming).

river passage and the approach to the Third Cataract. It had been taken as a new frontier in CE 1583 (Alexander 2000: 18). Excavations of 1955-57 proved that the island was used since second millennium BC (Vercoutter 1958: 144-69). When the Ottoman arrived, there stood a large Christian mud brick fortress with its northern wall in ruins. Its other walls and a bastion stood, built partly of stone but mainly of mud brick to near the height of 12m that they had in 1821.

The water postern was a small door high up in the east wall and reached by a covered staircase on the outside. It was to allow water to be brought in from the river. A similar arrangement existed at Qasr Ibrim. It was close to, and under the protection of the guns of the south-eastern bastion.

Excavations of 1997 showed four periods of habitation. Compared with Qasr Ibrim, Qal’at Sai was much inferior in strength and construction (Alexander & Schlee: forthcoming). It has the same general plan of Ibrim with solid firing platforms for artillery, a well protected double gate way, a defended water postern and a high curtain girdle wall (Fig. 87).

The interior as at Ibrim probably housed in barracks, a mosque, a headquarters building and an armoury. The Friday mosque was north of the main gate near the centre of the interior. An air photograph of 1951 shows the street plan east of the mosque. It is traced for 20 metres and runs northsouth and from it four narrower streets led down towards the ramparts on the cliff edge. It showed 65 dwelling houses.

The curtain walls were based on the south side on part of an earlier wall, 1 metre wide, of mud brick. On the remaining parts, they were probably built on the line of earlier walls. There were four bastions one at each corner and all of different designs. Three of these bastions housed room probably of military function; the north-western bastion, the north-eastern bastion, and the south-eastern bastion. The south-western bastion had rooms for a battery of guns.

1.3 The Fung Kingdom In Phase III castles are characteristic features of the Fung kingdom. Most of them are situated in southern Dongola and Shaiqiya region (Crawford 1951: 42). However, castles are also reported from the Mahas region. Evliya Celebi in CE 1671 reported the castle of Tinareh, as the chief place of the Mahas, which he claimed, had a garrison of 800 men, under

The gate in the south wall is the only gate unless there was one in the ruined north wall. It was approached by a flight of 112

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Fig. (87) The castle of Tinari, Phase III, (Bellefonds, 1820).

Fig. (88) The castle of the Kings of Shenndi, Phase III, (Hoskins, 1833).

a) The 3rd-4th Cataract Region

the command of one Salih whose territory encompassed a population of 40-50,000 Kerrarish nomads and the fortress at Hafir Kabir (Celebi 1938: 848-9) (Fig. 88). The castles of Dongola region and south of it were the residences of Dongolawi and Shaiqiya meks. These castles during the Fung period achieved their maximum development and importance. It seems certain that some of them go back to Christian times, which excavations proved to be true at Sai, and in at least two cases there are churches nearby. There is always close associations between these castles and churches or mosques and the attached graveyard, e.g. castle and mosque of alKoro, and castle and church of al-’Ushair. Some of these castles have been destroyed like the castle of the mek of Qerri and the castle of the mek of Shendi. The latter can be described from the drawings of Bellefonds (1822) (Fig. 89).

The plans of the castles differ between the two regions, the Danagla and the Shaiqiya. Generally all of them include bastions enclosures and towers. An example of the Dongola region castles is that of Khandaq, which its general plan is similar to Qasr Wad Nemeiri (pl. 5a). Al-Khandaq castle is a rectangle divided into two unequal parts. The upper part consists of a rectangular stone wall with inbuilt rectangular towers (pl. 5b). The other part consists of tower like structures that Crawford identified as dwelling houses joined by a curtain wall. It is probable that the Shaiqiya castles were developed in Dongola region as we noticed there the same idea of fortified houses (Crawford 1951: 37). In 113

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Fig. (89) Plan of the castle of al-Kab, Phase III, (Crawford, 1961).

Khandaq there is evidence of outside casing of the walls with mud brick and the same idea in the upper part of a semi circular tower. Another semi circular tower in the west wall has its upper courses in mud brick. It seems from the evidence of mud brick that the castle was rebuilt in the Christian period and repaired in the Fung period, although the use of stone is justifiable in such an area, and the three domed tombs in the ancient cemetery were built of stone with mud mortar.

A mosque was reported inside the castle (Waddington 1822: 220). It was said to be supported by pillars. In my 1999 survey the people referred to the sloping area facing the river as the place of the mosque. Generally towns of the Fung period in Dongola grew up round castles as in the case of Khandaq, Wad Nemeiri and Argo, as the most important residence of petty chiefs. The castles were 114

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built of rough stone and brick both red and mud brick. Some of the brick was large and flat as the ones noted further north. The surprising thing is the absence of jalus construction, the characteristic of other Islamic buildings in the Fung area.

Al-Kab bears ruins of two castles, one of them was identified from the beginning as Islamic. They are situated on a bluff overlooking the Nile, about a mile east of the village al-Kab. The Islamic one built on a low cliff and was different from the other one. It had an irregular oval shape (Fig. 90), walls of mud or dry stone and are seldom more than 65cm thick. This is one of the main differences between this one and the Christian one next to it, which had a 3m thick rampart. Another difference in the shape of the interior rooms where in the Islamic one was rectangular while in the other were rounded. The only entrance is the one at the north-eastern end and is defended in rather awkward way (Crawford 1961: 13). On the eastern side are small mud enclosures, one of them is thought to be an oven. On the same side a narrow path or a channel that has been cut to give access to the river for getting water.

b) The 4th-5th Cataract Region The Shaiqiya castles are distinctive in the method of construction and by their towers that were situated on the periphery of the wall (Crawford 1951: 44). The towers that are always rectangular often project slightly in front of the wall. They have more than one storey and their size is large in proportion to the length. Most of the forts and castles that had been surveyed by Crawford (1961) lie between the 4th and the 5th Cataract. Mallinson (1986) made a report on some of these sites as an addendum to Crawford’s work. These castles were not mentioned by the travellers of the 17th century and in the absence of more evidence, these castles may have been built in the 18th century. Judging from the pottery sherds, which were identified by Crawford as Christian and from the existence of churches nearby some of these castles were dated to the Christian period. However, some of these churches had been turned into mosques, which could have only happened by the Muslim dwellers of the castles. It is believed that the area with its many castles and churches was the last stronghold of the Christian kingdom of al-Abwab. (AlMu’tasim 1986: 23).

The interior of the castle is divided into four courtyards and at the south end the base of stout tower. On the western slope is an outer wall whose function may have been to act as a support for defenders. The same solution is noticed at al’Usheir. Artefactual remains include Fung and Christian pottery. The castle is dated to the 18th century but may be older. Jebel Nakharu is a ridge of sandstone with flat top. The fort was built on this flat top with annexe and a large village of stone huts on the plateau north of it. The fort is square, measures c. 80 m a side, of dry stone walls. Fallen heaps of

Fig. (90) Plan of the castle of al-Koro, Phase III, (Crawford, 1961). 115

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stone represent the bastions at the north-west, south-west, and south-east sides. The entrance is at the west end of the northern wall. Inside the fort and in its north-western corner are the remains of a large rectangular stone building. Remains of other buildings are scattered over the place.

four columns in the adjacent mosque, which are of the same size and shape (Crawford 1961: 33). The same columns were noticed in the mosque of ‘Ajeeb on Eslanj island (north of Omdurman) (Fig. 91). The mosque lies about 46m south-east of the castle. South of it is a second mosque, also still in use, beside other ruinous buildings. The mosque has been discussed in chapter V. The graveyard lies to the north-west of the castle. It contains qubbas and ordinary graves. Tile fragments with Greek inscription are in abundance at the graveyard. Jackson found an inscribed tile with the date CE 917 but its provenance is not known.

The annexe encloses a larger area within stone walls of similar kind. It adjoins the fort on the west and is rectangular. From its north-western corner a stone wall runs to the head of the Khor. On the gently sloping ground south of the fort and annexe there are what seems to be remains of houses and fair amount of pottery. The fort was made to dominate and control traffic along the west bank. To facilitate this control, stone cross-walls have been built from the top of the plateau to the alluvium. One of these starts near the south-eastern corner of the fort.

Generally it seems that the castle was late in date and probably an Islamic one. The evidence of the graveyard and other settlements indicates the existence of earlier settlement there before the castle.

According to Crawford, this fort is similar to Umm Marrahi north of Khartoum. A Fung incense burner was found on the eastern slope which resembles the Abu Geili and Dar-Mek ones (Crawford 1961: 18).

c) South of the 6th Cataract Here there are very few fortified Fung sites and the main towns, Sennar and Arbaji have no walls. At Qerri, the capital of the ‘Abdellab Manjils, there are a series of fortified walls. They are made extending from the western side of the Jebel to the bank of the Nile, some were made in the gaps between the different part of the Jebel, some on the land others on the land. There are remains of rooms on the top of the Jebel associated with potsherds, fire places, animal bones and grinders (Sanjak 1978:50).

The castle of al-Koro is an example of castle with church nearby, which was changed into mosque. The remains consist of the stone castle, the mosque and a graveyard about a quarter a mile to the north-west. Further to the north is a large Muslim graveyard with many qubbas but still in use in the late 1950s. The castle stands on flat ground, about 40 yard from the Nile bank. It resembles al-’Usheir in having an inner enclosure accessible from the outer one only, but it differs from it in having no bastions but a tower. It is rectangular in plan. The north-west and south-west towers have collapsed entirely. There are two ways into the outer enclosure, one a simple gap in the western part of the southern walls and the other a gap flanking wall in the eastern wall. The latter had stone gatepost, which was found in situ. The western wall at the survey time was well preserved to a height of 2.8m in one part. At the southern end there has been a fall of stones on the inside revealing that the core consists of flat stones and red brick rubble. There is also a large quantity of red brick at the eastern wall, which has fallen in a pile on both sides of the wall.

A stone fort was reported from Qerri. It lies about 35m east of the bank of the Nile and about 40m north-east of the Mahdiya Tabya. It is rectangular in shape and measured 27x26m.The walls are very thick about 2m. It is thought to be a Fung fort for defence and control of the caravans by the Nile (Sanjak 1978: 54). Mud built fortifications are also found from Karaba-Shereik, north of the 5 th Cataract. They are simple rectangular structures mainly of mud brick, sometimes with strong casing. Similar structures were found on sites like Sabnas “A” &”B”, Gandeisi and Tarfya north and Kagrat (Fig. 92). Potsherds found are of Fung wares. The walls are pierced with gun slits. The firearm is thought to be used effectively in this area in the Kejebi battle between the Shaiqiya and the Fung army during the reign of Badi Abu Dign CE 1645-1680. Thus the mud forts probably belong to the Fung period at the time of unrest in the area in 17th to late 18th and early 19th century (Eisa 1996: 55).

The towers are of stone tapering upwards to a thickness of 2 feet at the top upon which lies a course of mud. This description of towers resembles the deffi towers in the idea of tapering. The mud wall, which is on the top, might be an addition by Muslim dwellers in the castle.

During the second Turkiya and the Mahdiya a new type of forts (Tabya) were built. In fact the idea originated during the reign of Caliph ‘Abd Allah (1885-1898). They were designed by an Egyptian architect and were built in the strategic places in the Nile banks from the 6th Cataract southward (Shuqair 1967: 1174). They erected 17 tabya in Omdurman, Tuti Island, at the junction of the two Niles, at the Palace, south of Halfaya, and Shambat (Khartoum North). Seven were left now. They were built of mud brick with loopholes for muskets. A tabya consists of a low wall about

The walls of the inner enclosure are of varying thickness but not as thick as those of the outer walls. A doorway 7 feet wide leads through the north wall into the inner enclosure. Inside on the west is small mud room identified as guardroom. There are remains of mud buildings in each of the four corners and in the middle of each is a rectangular column of mud supposedly supported the roof. A similar column is reported from a house in the outer enclosure. Crawford thinks that the columns were originally plastered with mud like the 116

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Fig. (91) Plans of the karaba-Shereik Forts, Phase III, (Eisa, 1996).

1.5m in height, which stretch along the area to be fortified with a big protrusion like an arch in the middle. An example of it is the one of the 6th Cataract, located between Jebel Qerri and the Nile, and about 10m east of the bank of the Nile. It was built in strategic point; naturally fortified by the Nile and Jebel Qerri and about 130m north of it lie the 6th cataract.

their territory either for independent mekdoms or the king of Sennar though his viceroy at Qerri. 1.4 The Eastern desert And the Red Sea Coast On the eastern desert, two stone forts were built perhaps during the late Roman time at Derheib-Wadi ‘Allaqi, despite the fact that no evidence of Roman occupation this far up Wadi ‘Allaqi. The city Derheib was certainly the Phase I city of ‘Allaqi, the capital of Rabi’a Arabs. The Rabi’a independently of the Caliphate in Baghdad controlled the gold mines of the desert from the 9th century to the CE 14th

Generally these castles and forts were built on islands or on prominent areas overlooking the Nile. This would provide a strategic position to keep watch on the passage of commercial traffic along the river and its banks. The lords of these castles could have extracted tributes from commerce passing through 117

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Fig. (92) Plan of the Fortifications of Shoba Palace, Phase III, (Reed, 1994).

century. It was also the pilgrims rest on their way from the Nile Valley to the Red Sea port of ‘Aidhab and hence to Mecca. Some of the early tombstones came from Derheib beside the existence of some of the famous tomb-towers of the Red Sea near the site. The work on the site is still on its beginning and future results might shed light on the city and its fortresses during the Rabi’a time (Castiglioni 1994: 20).

fortifications and state formation had taken place. Thus fortified settlements were a widespread phenomenon in the western Sudan built on mountain ridges and plateaux. Lack of excavation means that no firm dating can be given to many of them. Uri is one of the fortified settlements surrounded by a stone wall. The palace of the ruler had an inner defensive wall, 23m thick. Even the summit of the hill is fortified (Udal 1998: 169). The outer walls are continuous except where natural features such as precipices render it unnecessary (Arkell 1952: 246). The same technique is followed at ‘AinFarah. Uri seems to have grown out of a smaller walled town at the southern corner and which had been included at a later stage with the main walls of the big Uri. Thus it became like a citadel. The defensive wall is of dry masonry and varies in thickness between 2-3m.

The Red Sea ports of Bad’, ‘Aidhab and Suakin show no evidence of fortifications, according to the archaeological surveys carried so far. Suakin, however, received very late sort of fortified gates and walls of Gordon and Kitchener, which are beyond the scope of this study. 1.5 The Tunjur and Keira Sultanates in Darfur The period immediately before the coming of Islam here in the 10th-11th centuries CE is little known but Musa (1986: 153), has shown that some sort of elite was able to organise

‘AinFarah is a palace citadel, which is said to have been built by sultan Shau Dorshid, the last Tunjur sultans of the late 118

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Fig. (93) Plan of Shoba Fort, (Reed, 1994).

15th century CE. ‘AinFarah’s exterior defensive wall was doubled by another about 50m to its north. The wall was in the southern part of the site as the rest was naturally fortified blocking the gaps and linking the precipitous ridges (Yunis 1978: 38-39). MacMichael described the site as a fort, and its plan is a “rabbit warren: galleries run in and out and chamber leads to chamber in bewildering manner” (MacMichael 1922: 124) It has not yet been properly planned. Its gate was wide, about 31/2m and flanked by stone wall not less than 12 feet high.

south. Remains of six circular huts are found one west of the palace and five in the outer enclosure. The largest measures 12m in diameter while the smallest is 10m. Another raised foundation is reported on the most southerly wall facing the Wadi (Reed 1994: 14). The small fort and the building round it lies to the south and is certainly of Phase III. It has a sequence of defensive walls and gateway. According to Reed (1994: 14), it is less like a fort and more like a blockhouse, measuring about 20m square and built on top of small steep mound. Internally it is divided by walls running parallel to the external walls on the north, west and east sides, creating a sequence of rooms. The external walls were pierced by musket or arrow slits measuring 0.15m. wide and 0.1m high. To the south and east of the fort, the ground is divided up by a sequence of stone walls pierced by four gateways. The walls are in ruins and the highest parts stand to about 1m high. Square bastions flanked the four gateways. The bastions had red brick externally while the filling consisted of sand and stone.

At Shoba, 12-km south east of Kabkebiya, there is a fortified palace and a fort perhaps of different periods. The palace occupies a raised area at the south-east of the site (Fig. 93). It occupies the summit of the mount surrounded by three circuits of concentric defensive walls (Reed 1994: 13). The palace was built of red brick while the defensive walls are of dry stone construction. It consists of large angular blocks being set into the ground at about 1m interval and the gaps are filled with smaller blocks. From the best-preserved parts, the height is 1.5m, the nearest wall to the palace has a thickness of 1.5m, the remaining two being approximately 1m thick. Additional walls are built between the outer and the middle defensive walls. They are running down to the slope at right angles to the outer and middle walls. The inner wall has three concealed entrances, one to the north opening out to the middle wall and two to the south facing the main gateway (Fig 94).

2. Military Artefacts All weapons and equipment that are considered here archaeological or ethnographical came from Phase III. Except for some cannons and armour all were of iron. Before the 16th century CE older techniques similar to Roman times were still in use and although no weapon finds can yet be dated to

A raised platform of approximately 25m square, on the western side, projecting out from the middle wall and facing 119

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infantry (Janissaries) and artillery. In the 17th century flintlock muskets began to be used and parts of handguns, gun flints and lead bullets have been found at Qasr Ibrim and Sai. At Qasr Ibrim a small culverine was found under a building attributed to the 17th century CE and a stone cannon ball. Through Phase III they were in use in the Sanjak of Ibrim and Habesh. Bronze cannon at Sai, with inscription of Selim, presumably Selim II, were still there in 1822 (Bellefonds 1824) and was melted down during the 2nd Turkiya. Celebi (1670s) reported muskets in use in the Mahas mekdom, which were being obtained from Cairo. Firearms seem to have reached Sennar early in the 18th century CE. It is reported that de Maillet (the French Consul in Cairo) had received several visits from an emissary of king Badi in early 1703, to discuss the purchase of arms (Udal 1998: 78). According to the same source that the king of Sennar made substantial purchase of cannons, powder, lead and other war material through his emissaries to Cairo. Europeans recruited included Portuguese cannon-founders and explosive experts, a Greek apostate who was good artilleryman and instructor; and another Greek to teach gunnery to the king’s household troops (Udal 1998: 79). Firearms was used by Mohammed Kurr in his expedition on Kordofan in CE 1793 and Burckhardt reported that Mek Nimir of Shendi has a body guard who possessed twenty flint locks (Burckhardt 1822: 272-83). Spears Spears were reported as being used by the Fung, the Fur and Sufi sheikhs. In Darfur the court the spear bearer had a distinctive status. The spears were usually carried wrapped in a red cloth as part of the king’s procession in Darfur (Abu Salim 1992: 77). At the site of ‘AinFarah an iron spear was found in one of the circular huts. It measures 30cms in length of which the socket was 3cms. (Yunis 1979:59). Spears were also connected with the Sufi sheikhs. It seems that they received spears as gifts along with kakar from the Fung kings of Sennar. The Ya’qubab near Sennar are famous as have two type of narrow blade spears; with circular edge and angular edge (Abu Salim1992: 77). Sheikh ‘Abd Allah al-’Araki of Abu Haraz has a famous spear called Umm karsha “belly”. This name is after its blade shape, which is broad and short. It is still used as part of the sheikhs’ coronation ceremonies.

Fig. (94) The Sword of Vizier, Abu Likailik, phase III, (Sadiq, 1999).

Phase I fighting methods are known. The invading Arab army of the 7th century CE employed camel and horse cavalry using spears and swords. They also had siege catapults and used them in the siege of Old Dongola. The Nubians main weapon seemed to have been the bow for which they were very famous since early history and with which they smite the eyes of the Arab invaders. In Phase II there seems to have been little change in techniques, spears probably being the commonest weapon.

Spear points from Kulubnarti have broad blades fairly thick along the centreline, tapering to sharp edges (Adams 1998: 53). Spears were also reported as part of the armoury of the Shaiqiya and ‘Ababda of the eastern desert (Burckhardt 1822: 64,272-83). The ‘Ababda fight upon camels armed with a shield, lance and sword. The Shaiqiya fight of horseback in coats of mail which are sold by them from the merchants of Suakin and Sennar. Their weapons are a lance, shield and a sabre. They always carry four or five lances in the left hand and they all mounted on Dongola stallions and are as famous for their horsemanship as the Mamluks in Egypt (Burckhardt 1822: 65-66). Spears with broad heads were also used by the

Firearms In Phase III, the Ottoman Empire was one of the leading innovators in firearms and had units both of arquebuse using 120

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Nilotic tribes south of latitude 10 N.

Solingen in Germany (Balfour-Paul 1955: 24).

Swords

Stirrups

Two types of sword are found. In the Sanjak of Ibrim, the curved sabre was in use in the Ottoman army, a fine 18th century example was excavated at Qasr Ibrim. This was a cavalry weapon. There seems no evidence that this was widely used in the Fung territory except by the Shaiqiya. The long straight sword with a leather and wooden scabbard made wide at the base for gripping with the leg when drawing it, was the common type in the Fung and the Fur and eastern desert and savannah. It was much more suitable for fighting from camel back than the sabre. A sabre sword was reported from Darfur. According to Abu Salim, the Fur king had a sabre enamelled in gold beside the straight one. One of the famous straight swords now in Khartoum National Museum, no. 711/329, is that of vizier Nasir Abu Likailik. It is engraved with designs. Its handle is wrapped by silver wire and has geometric and floral designs. The blade if engraved with a sundisc and a lion, a cartouche containing Arabic poetry and the name of the Vizier. The straight sword of sultan Ali Dinar now in Sudan Museum collection of University of Durham, is also engraved with geometrical and floral patterns beside the Arabic poetry praising the Prophet Mohammed.

The only reference to stirrups is from “AinFarah. A farmer found buried a pair of stirrup, which he brought to Arkell (1936: 307). This type was still manufactured in Darfur and it indicates that the inhabitants of the region were horse riders (Yunis 1979: 60). Slings Slings were found from Kulubnarti (Adams 1998: 53). They are made of stout palm fibre rope with a finger loop at one end. Shields Shields were reported from the Fung, Fur and the eastern desert. The Shaiqiya armour includes the shield as reported by Burckhardt (1822). Shields are made out of elephants, hippo and crocodile hides. The common shape was the oval, circular ones were also found. The Nilotic tribes use an elongated oval ones.

Conclusion

Chainmail This was not used in the Ottoman army after CE 1550 but remained popular among the nomads of the desert, the Fung and the Fur as it did throughout the savannah. The fully equipped cavalry in Darfur and Wadai wore brass helmets, coat of mail, brass leg guards, elephant hide shield and a sword (Balfour-Paul 1955: 24). The sword has its pommel filled with pebbles. The same was reported from Sennar, and both in Sennar and Darfur, the stature of the king was largely judged by the number of horsemen he could muster (Abu Salim 1992: 82). It is obvious from Burckhardt description of the Shaiqiya, that coats of mail east of the Nile were brought from Suakin via Sennar, while Darfur and Wadai imported theirs over the caravan routes from north African ports like their swords some of which were brought from

So far very few early objects were reported. This is due mainly to two factors; the first one is that the Islamic sites are still awaiting excavations, and the second factor is that most of these objects are kept with families. A vivid example are the saddle, shield and sword of Mohammed Abd al-Salam from ‘Ailafun. He used these objects in the siege of Khartoum during the Mahdiya. They are kept in his descendant’s house, but are not taken care off. The surviving evidence is all from Phase III, a period in which there was no major wars before the Mahdiya. The introduction and efficient use of firearms gave the Ottoman Sanjak such superiority that it was never challenged by the Fung Kingdom, which only concluded small-scale wars in Kordofan and Ethiopia. The Fung armies and the desert nomads fought in the pre-firearms way into the 19th century.

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Chapter VII CONCLUSIONS This study identifies three Phases in the spread of Islam through the territories of the Sudan, the area selected for research. In order to understand how this spread took place and how archaeology, the study of material culture could add to our knowledge of it, a preliminary study of the development of the Dar al-Islam in Northern Africa had to be undertaken.

the camel keeping pastoralists from Arabia from whom both Beja and Berber in time accepted Islam, further developing the desert trade routes. In the Middle Nile Valley, the Arabs found the civilised long -urban states of Makurra and Alwa and with Makurra concluded a formal non-aggression treaty, which was renewed through the next seven hundred years.

1. The development of the Dar al-Islam in North Africa

South of the desert, in the Sahel and Savannah, sedentary urban civilisation had existed from the 2nd millennium BC and in the 7th century CE the states, which had inherited their ways of life, were Old Ghana in the west and Makurra and Alwa in the east. Both were sophisticated urban entities controlling sources of gold, slaves and ivory, which they traded to the north. The former was having an indigenous animist and the latter the Christian religion. This resulted in the first divergence of between the spread of Islam south of the Mediterranean coast in the east and the west and defines Phase I in the Middle Nile valley (CE 640-1300). In the east the Christian states remained within the Dar al Islam or as Dar al-Sulh for 700 years, Islam spreading peacefully and slowly through merchants. In the Red Sea hills Islam spread quickly among the Beja confederation and there was also a mosque at the port of ‘Aidhab and a Muslim quarter at Soba. Increased gold mining in the desert in the Wadi al ‘Allaqi also led to Muslim migration southwards but Alwa seems to have been little affected until the 10th- 11th centuries CE when Muslim Beja and Arab nomads moved westwards through the Savannah. In the Makurra capital Old Dongola, there was a Muslim quarter and a mosque by the 10th century CE.

In a single millennium, CE 700-1700, the inhabitants of North Africa, coastal plains, desert, Sahel and Savannah which stretch from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean, accepted Islam and became part of Dar al-Islam. There were differences in patterns of conversion in the east and the west due to local conditions and to varying relationships between immigrant Arabs and indigenous which had its different affects on the material culture. In Phase I Islam came to Africa in the 7th century CE with the Arab armies which conquered the long civilised, urban, Christian communities of Egypt and the north-east coastal plains. In the next few centuries those of the west accepted Islam while those in Egypt remained Christian under Muslim rule, in both regions, urban civilisation continued. South of the coastal plains, except in the Nile Valley, the Arabs found nomadic or transhumants pastoralists whose way of life, in the Sahel and desert was broadly similar to that in Arabia and who had adopted little from the Christians of the coast. There was however a marked difference east of the Nile, in the Red Sea hills and desert. The Beja-speaking tribes had not exploited the introduction of the camel from Arabia with the enthusiasm shown by the Berber-speaking tribes further west (Brett & Fernes 1996: 18), where camel transport enabled trade routes through the Sahara to be greatly developed to and from the Niger Basin. The situation in the Nile Basin was changed however by the migration of

In the west increased trade in slaves and gold with the Ghanaian Empire had different result. In CE 1076 its capital is said to have been sacked by northern Muslims and led to increased acceptance of Islam in the Savannah, where indigenous states retaining urban civilised traditions expanded with the introduction of the horse into powerful Islamic empires; these came into existence as far east as 122

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Kanem and Wadai by the CE 14th century. A second major difference in the west was the succession of reformist Islamic movements which developed in the desert and turned northwards conquering the coastal plains and under the Fatimid dynasty in the 10th-11th centuries CE conquered Egypt and establishing peaceful relations with Makurra.

Its frontier with the Dar-al Harb now lay in the equatorial forests. 2. The nature of Islam in the Sudan It has been made clear in this dissertation, from both literary and archaeological evidence that Islam as a religion is known in this country since the 1st century of the Muslim era. As a non-organised, peaceful process in the Nile Valley and by the assimilation of Arab and Beja nomads in the deserts and Sahel it took time to be absorbed and to spread. Thus in Phase I, the evidence of the existence of Muslim community is restricted compared to Phase III but is better than the situation in Phase II as that period has never been studied and has been regarded as a dark period. In Phase II started the reformation process which increased and encouraged by the rise of the powerful states of Fung and the Fur.

Phase II (the 14th century CE) also resulted in major changes in the Nile valley, which defines Phase II of this dissertation. In CE 1317 a Muslim member of the Makurran royal family became the king but by the 15th century CE the kingdom had disintegrated into small mekdoms. Beja and Arab nomads were now widespread through the eastern Sahel and Savannah, destroying ‘Alwa in the 15th century CE. Some tribes moved on westwards through Kordofan and Darfur where the first recorded Muslim state developed in the 16th century CE. This was in contact with the Muslims of Wadai and Kanem so that the whole Sahel and grass-Savannahs were now within Dar al- Islam

The Sudan with its vast region can not be viewed in isolation from its northern, eastern and western neighbours. The introduction of Islam and the coming of nomadic camel tribes opened a new phase of long distance nomadism in the Sahara. The introduction of camel would have made habitable again the poor Sahel area and played an important role in the development of trade as the horse played an important partly in military tactics.

Phase III (the 16th century CE) resulted in still greater differences between the east and the west. In the east, which has been distinguished in this research as Phase III, two new urban civilised states came to dominate for the next three hundred years. The Ottoman Turkish sultanate conquered Egypt in CE 1517 and by 1583 had established its frontier at the 3rd Cataract and at Suakin. As the Sanjaks of Ibrim and Habesh became parts of the Eyalats of Egypt and Ethiopia they were administered in the same way as other parts of the Ottoman Empire. At the same time the Fung Kingdom, in effect a reconstituted Alwa, established its capital at Sennar and with varying success, and a quite different organisation from the Ottomans controlled from the Red Sea to Darfur until 19th century CE. In Darfur a separate sultanate was set up in the 16th century CE and existed into the 20th century CE. A major influence in both were the religious settlements (khalwas ) founded by Sufi holymen, but unlike the west there was no attempt before late 19th century by the reformist movements to conquer Egypt.

Except in the Sanjaks of Ibrim and Habesh where the Sunni Ottoman ruled, the Sufi form of Islam that became accepted. It reflected the duality that prevailed throughout the Dar alIslam but the Sufi or mystical orders were most influential. Islam in the Middle Nile Valley reflected the two faces, the orthodox and the ecstatic Sufism and they are today synonyms for the Sudanese and as a historical process. The mystical strain, which is so apparent in Muslim Sudanese Islam, predominated from the beginning of the Fung kingdom. Consequently popular Islam can be seen as harmonious blending of old cultures and many non-Islamic traits were occluded in the context of the new religion, which itself had an innate flexibility sufficient to accommodate local beliefs. Much of the population of the Fung state accepted Islam without totally uprooting their old Nubian or non-Islamic beliefs, but they gave them Islamic meaning. In the 18th-19th centuries Sufi orders also became popular in the old Sanjak of Ibrim and many of the village shrines are of local holy men. It is unfortunate that most were destroyed by the rising waters of the Aswan and Nasser lakes without their details being recorded. Burckhardt thought that several dated to the Fatimid times.

In the west, in the 16th century, the Moroccan Sultanate by defeating the Songhay Empire conquered much of the Middle Niger region linking the Savannah states more closely with the north facilitating the establishment of religious settlements, here called Ribats, by holymen (Marabuts). Indigenous Muslim urban civilised states now formed a continuous band through the Savannah. In the CE 18th-19th centuries ‘jihad’ carried Islam southwards into the West African forests. In the eastern Savannah penetration towards the forests did not take place until the middle of the CE 19th century when the Upper Nile basin south of the ‘sudd’ was penetrated by slave-traders from the effectively independent Egypt of Mohammed Ali Pasha which had conquered the Fung kingdom in CE 1821.

3. General Comments Politically, by Phase III, the present territory of the Republic of the Sudan north of latitude 10 N was divided among three powers; the Ottoman Empire to the north, the Fung kingdom in the Middle Nile Valley and the Fur sultanate in the west. South of the Sobat, Bahr al-Ghazal and Nuba Mountains were still outside the Dar al-Islam and were occupied by animists cattle herders and sedentary agriculturists. Within the Fung,

The divergent patterns of development in the eastern and western zones of North Africa through the millennium and the differences which resulted from the characteristics inherited from local civilisations naturally produced considerably different material cultures beneath the common structure of the Dar al-Islam found throughout North Africa. 123

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the Shaiqiya revolted in CE 1669 and became independent ruling four mekdoms between the 4th-5th Cataracts and threatening the mekdoms of Dongola and Argo Island. The Fung were not the absolute rulers of the area, the ‘Abdellab were there as a power who ruled the northern part for the Fung until the Shaiqiya revolt. Thus the balance of power changed from Ottomans, ‘Abdellab and Fung in the Nile valley to Ottomans, Shaiqiya, ‘Abdellab, Fung. The coming of the Mamluks in CE 1813 to Dongola weakened the already existing powers.

far as Spain and Iraq such as Taj ad-Den al-Buhari and Hassan wad Hassuna al-Andalusi. At about the same time the first indigenous holy men appear in the historical records of Sennar e.g. Mahmoud al-’Araki, Idris Wad al-Arbab and Ibrahim al-Bulad. Though few in numbers, it is significant that some of these holy men though of Sudanese families, had been trained in Egypt and Arabia. The regions in which their khalwas were founded from the 3rd Cataract southwards are known and survey and excavations may locate them. It is interesting to compare their wide spread peaceful influence with the Ribats of North Africa, which were the centres of the powerful reformists’ movements northwards which I have already mentioned. Burial monuments (Qubbas) and ceramic evidence especially smoking pipes can as have been shown, be used to define Fung culture.

To the west, Tegali in the Nuba Mountains flourished between CE 1570-1821. References to archaeological remains were restricted to ruined villages at Jebel Haraza and other few scattered sites, but no general archaeological survey has been carried in the area. The Musba’at continued in state of unrest between the Fur and the Fung. It is best to discuss the conclusions reached by considering the various regions of the Sudan.

Sennar, the capital had the most elaborate buildings in the kingdom, especially in the palace, which has already been discussed. This was a most impressive building with its great five storey tower, carved wooden doors and tiled floors. In the middle of the 17th century a new stage was achieved in the advance of Islam, beginning with the generation of holy men who succeeded Wad al-Arbab and Ibrahim al-Bulad, who were Sudanese and had received their training within the Fung kingdom.

a) The Middle Nile valley In Phase I only the region between 1st-4th Cataract was within, through the Baqt treaty, the Dar al-Islam as Dar al-Sulh. The archaeological evidence is extensive. Excavations at Qasr Ibrim in Christian levels has produced many manuscripts in Arabic showing the trade connections and much ceramic evidence of wheel-made pottery imported from Aswan and Fustat kilns. Ceramic evidence has also come from the excavations at Qasr Ibrim, Debeira west, Old Dongola and Kulubnarti. Alwa was certainly included in the trade network as excavations at Soba have shown, and preliminary surveys in the Wadi al-’Allaqi suggest that there will be much evidence from there for this period. In Phase II, after the collapse of Makurra, the archaeological evidence is less because there has been as yet no excavation of the Muslim town of Old Dongola. The only large-scale excavation has been in Kulubnarti where there was no change in the house plans or in the artefactual evidence in this Phase. Christian enclaves still existed at Qasr Ibrim and Jebel ‘Adda where excavations found manuscripts showing there was still a bishop present in the 15th century CE. In Alwa the extensive excavations at Soba although reporting Aswan and Fustat pottery have so far failed to find the Muslim quarter, perhaps as at Kumbi Sahel in Mali it lay some kilometres away from the capital. In the only other large-scale excavations, at Jebel Moya there was little evidence of Muslim imports. It may also prove when excavations are carried out that many of fortified sites (Deffis and Qasrs like Wad Nemeiri) belong more to the wars between the small mekdoms than to earlier periods.

The Fung kings constantly consulted these religious leaders. Special grants of lands and exemption from taxation were made in their favour and they were in many senses the innovators who created the structure of the state. b) The Sanjak of Ibrim In Phase III from CE 1583 onwards the Nile valley from 1st3rd Cataract was administered under the Ottoman system. Here the 2nd Sanjak of Ibrim part of the Eyalat of Egypt was administered by a Sanjak Bey at al- Dirr. The Sanjak was divided into a number of districts controlled and having the heavy taxes collected by Kachifs; in the 18th century there were at least forty. There were Shari’ Law courts with gadis appointed from Cairo. The names of fifteen successive qadis at Qasr Ibrim are known and many documents from their court have been excavated there (Hinds & Sakkut: 1986). There were also two garrisoned fortresses of Qasr Ibrim and Qal’at Sai where the dwellings and mosques show in their plans of Egyptian/ Syrian influence. The ceramic evidence has also been studied in detail showing, except from imported glazed wares, the developments of non-wheel made traditions (Adams 1998: 86). Textiles were also uncovered in large quantities at Qasr Ibrim and show increased cotton and woollen fabrics in use. Many of the Mahasi ‘Ulama and holy men migrated southwards to the Fung domain at Tuti island, Khartoum north, Burri and ‘Ailafun, where they established religious centres.

With the advent of the 17th century, the Sudan was in close touch with the rest of the Dar al-Islam. It was only in this century we can speak of the spread of a strong and wellinformed faith of Islam. This is substantiated by the examination of the careers of Sufi holy men in the Sudan as recorded in the Tabaqat and the Fung chronicles. The latter makes clear that the reign of ‘Adlan the 1st in the 17th century CE saw a marked increase in number and significance of Muslim reformers resident in the Sudan. Some came from as

c) Red-Sea Coast The second area of Ottoman control was from the port of Suakin, which after the destruction of ‘Aidhab was the focus of an important trade-network and pilgrimage routes through the 17th-19th centuries. Excavations have not yet taken place 124

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but buildings from the 17th century survived into the 1960s and have been recorded in detail. Built in the Red Sea style it rivalled Zanzibar Stone Town as the best example of a Muslim coastal town in Sub-Saharan Africa but was left to deteriorate in the CE 1960s-1970s. It has already been shown here to have links with the Sanjak of Jeddah from which it was garrisoned and its officials appointed in the 19th century. Its influence shows at Sennar and Qal’at Sai and perhaps in the ‘tower houses’ of the Nile valley. It seems to have little influence on the Beja and Hadendowa nomads.

always remained Muslims, as in Arabia, without changing their lifestyle. Since settlements are always seasonal and their material culture simple and often of perishable wood and leather archaeological evidence is rare and they are known at present only from ethnographical studies. Any accounts of Islam in the Sudan would however be incomplete without including them. There has been so far no attempt to locate and excavate their camps of different periods but large number of their burials are known in the desert east of the Nile. In the Red Sea Hills their rectangular burial structures are known, but unstudied,

d) Western Sudan e) South of latitude 10 N Kordofan was Islamised in the 16th and 17th centuries. The oral traditions of Jebel Taqali describe a similar process to that described by al-Aswani in the 10th century in Nubia. Mohammed al-Ja’ali from the Nile Valley for example married the daughter of an animist ruler of Jebel Taqali and their son established a Muslim dynasty. The Muslim meks of Jebel Taqali encouraged Muslim immigrants and no doubt a similar process occurred in Darfur, where Muslim Arabised immigrants, the long-distant caravan trade and the spread of Islam were closely linked.

Until the 1940s there is no evidence of Islam reaching regions south of the Sobat rive, the marshes of the Sudd and the Bahr al-Ghazal. These lay in the Dar al-Harb and the study of their archaeology lies outside this dissertation. 4. Cultural changes brought by the acceptance of Islam The most decisive cultural change that took place in the Sudan with the acceptance of Islam was the use of Arabic as the official language, and as the spoken and written language of the religion and traders. The documents excavated at Qasr Ibrim show that this had taken place there by the 10th century and that Christian officials in Makurra were using it as well as Nubian in their correspondence; no evidence of the old Nubian script is found after the 15th century CE. It was however spoken side-by-side with local languages, Nubia, Beja, Fur etc but since they were not written except the old Nubian, they left no archaeological evidence unlike the Berber scripts further west.

The process of Islamisation within Darfur is difficult to document as we do not possess any record comparable to the Tabaqat and there have been very little excavation. Darfur and Wadai were part of the eastern Nilotic cycle of Islamic penetration (Trimingham 1959: 46). This is distinguished by profound Arabisation and widespread influence of the Sufi orders. Darfur was also influenced by Muslims from west and north -west Africa but the main flow came from the Nile valley, especially the Danagla and Ja’aliyin immigrants. The Imams of Turra, the most important religious dignitaries in the sultanate were Ja’aliyin in origin (MacMichael 1926: 757), where large royal tombs and the archives of the later sultanate. Another Ja’ali immigrant was Hassan al-Ahmer of Kordofan who went to Hufrat al-Nehas in southern Darfur in the 18th century and established a khalwa. At neither sites have there been any archaeological investigations so that there is no evidence of their influence on local material culture.

A second change, of great importance archaeologically was in house plans that changed to conform to the new religion. Thus emphasised the separation of the ‘harem’ or family part from the males’ diwan part. The idea of the diwan is continued with the same name into the second half of the 20th century. The new house plan is best seen at Suakin and the excavations of Qal’at Sai and Qasr Ibrim, and in the palaces and deffis of the Nile mekdoms.

Yet holy men from the west also played an important role in the Islamisation of Darfur. They were mainly Fulani living within the sultanate. A good example is the vizier of sultan Mohammed al-Fadl, Malik al-Futuowi a member of an important Feki family (Al-Tunisie 1965: 117).

Only at the fully excavated Nubian site of Kulubnarti in the Sanjak of Ibrim, we can trace the changes between Christian and Islamic periods. Kulubnarti will be taken an example of a site, which continued to be used up the 19th century CE.

By the end of the 18th century, through the establishment of khalwas by religious leader (all of Sufi orders), from the Nile Valley and from the west Savannah and through the strong activities of strong sultans like Ahmed Bakr CE 1730 and Mahmoud Kurra CE 1786, Islamic institutions especially mosques and Shari’a courts established in the sultanate. No archaeological excavations have been undertaken here.

A third major change was in the pottery used. The disappearance of wheel made pottery, except for imported glazed and porcelain ware after the 16th century CE (Phase III), brought in a series of local coil built wares both in the Fung and the Ottoman zones. Only in the domain of pottery at Kulubnarti the clearest differentiation between the Christian and Islamic period appears. All of the decorated wheel made tradition came to an end, the Nubian-speaking villages continued to produce the utilitarian vessels in use among them today. Nevertheless, a distinctive form of bi-conical pottery censor made its appearance, which is referred to in chapter

e) Nomads in the Eastern and Western Deserts It must not be forgotten that much of the Dar al-Islam in North Africa is desert and its inhabitants nomads. As has been mentioned these accepted Islam in Phase I and have 125

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(IV) part (2). In the domain of the Fung a new type of pottery appeared with its characteristic decorative motifs.

world the definition of it has been the archaeology of magnificent buildings and lavishly executed artefacts. The mud buildings of the Nile Valley or the timber or straw buildings elsewhere in the Sudan did not attract the attention of any Muslim missions and European and American ones have concentrated on much earlier periods. Historical archaeology has been a recent development in Europe as well. The artefactual remains are also neglected but I was fortunate that some of them are still kept within families or at khalwas or in the Ethnographical Museum in Khartoum.

Among other objects, non-ceramic containers, e.g. glass objects, wooden and leather objects and basketry, no obvious distinction can be made between the two periods except for the introduction of new types, especially firearms from the 17th century, tobacco pipes, coloured glass bangles from the 18 th century CE. Among agriculture tools, sewing and weaving tools also do not show basis for distinguishing between the cultural inventories of the two periods. In the field of textile, some of the woollen and cotton fabrics disappeared after the end of the Christian period.

In the field of artefact study few typologies of any kind exist. The already existing pottery classifications proved very weak on Islamic period. Adams model for late Christian pottery is helpful for the Aswani and Fustat imports in Phase I and Welsby’s Soba report for Phase I & II. Adams’ variables depend upon elaborated chemical analysis for his lower Nubia collection. His classification is tentative as the attributes he used are not mutually exclusive and can not stand on their own. Thus there is no existing typology for the region from south of the 3rd Cataract and southwards although there have been several attempts to recognise the Fung ware. The local wares have so far been studied in detail only at Qasr Ibrim and Kulubnarti.

Thus on typological grounds, no clear distinction can be made between the garments, the footgear, or the ornaments of late Christian period and early Islamic period. The one aspect of change that seems clearly related to the transition from Christianity to Islam is the use of written Arabic language (Adams 1998: 100) and the house plans. 5. Problems found during research a) Problems of terminologies

The lack of information about population, commercial activities and settlements surprised me from surveys and excavations, as a result it has been extremely difficult to attempt to reconstruct the social, economic and demographic patterns of the different areas especially Phases I & II, and the incomplete information collected by travellers. More information came from the excavations in the dry zones where manuscripts were excavated at Qasr Ibrim and other places and from the collection of the privately owned manuscripts by Spaulding and O’Fahey. The documents include property management , commercial texts, personal correspondences, religious and hijabs which contribute to our understanding of the local daily life.

The term “post Christian”, already abandoned by many scholars should disappear as it has in this dissertation and the term Islamic Period be used in the Sudan for CE 640 onwards. A series of definitions needed to differentiate between castle and a palace; Qal’a and Qasr. These two words are used interchangeably by local people and specialised scholars. The terms deffi, kourfa, fortified house, castle-house should be used separately with evidence that differentiate each from the others. b) Problems of fieldwork A main problem in carrying out this research has been the destruction of so many sites either by natural causes or by men. The National List of Scheduled Monuments which includes only 10 Islamic sites, gives legal protection to some of the most important but I found many important monuments becoming ruins or even as Arbaji completely destroyed. Suakin is the worst example.

The best way of surveying ruinous sites is by air photography, including satellite images. Travellers literature, oral tradition, and most important written documents and plant food remains will add greatly to the excavated evidence. 6. The present state of Islamic archaeological research in the Sudan

The rebuilding of old structures, specially mosques and qubbas has often taken place without the older parts being preserved or recorded. In several cases I found only an older dedication stone incorporated into the new building.

a) Very few attempts have been made towards an archaeological understanding of Islamic material culture. In the archaeological surveys of Lower Nubia (19071959), Islamic remains were unfortunately excluded. Only Monneret de Villard while looking for Christian remains included some mosques and tombs. Further south only Hinkel (Archaeological Atlas 1994-98) included Islamic archaeological sites, which were known, but no new research was done. General research papers on Islamic evidence, other than Arkell’s, have been presented by Osman (1982), Adams (1987) but apart from contributions mainly ethnographic to SNR, the only recent direct archaeological surveys have been carried out by al-Sanjak

Other human activities are serious danger that faces these sites; new cultivation, earthmoving for building purposes, development including new roads, plantations …etc, animal and human-tracks across the sites are among the destruction noticed. c) Problems of Research and Analysis Islamic archaeology in the Sudan has rarely been seriously been undertaken, partly because elsewhere in the Islamic 126

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on Qerri (1978) Yunis on ‘AinFarah (1979), al-Hussein on Abu Haraz (1079), Mohammed on Arbaji (1979), Elzein on Sennar (1982), Musa on Darfur (1986), Elzein on Qubbas (1987), Adams on Kulubnarti (1994/98), Castiglioni and Sadr on Wadi al-’Allaqi (1994/98).

standing sites. This at present is not possible and only a number of less ambitious suggestions will be made. Perhaps the most comprehensive and ambitions suggestion would be to involve the University Department of Archaeology in a long-term plan of surveying the country. With the students the department has the largest concentration of archaeological expertise in the Sudan. A twenty years long project in which, each year, a team of students under a staff member, with co-operation from the National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums would visit and assess the archaeological evidence in one new state and produce a report on it would completely change the situation. Funding this inside a state, if transportation cost were met might not be very expensive.

b) Special studies of the Ottoman fortresses of Qasr Ibrim and Sai have been carried out by Alexander (forthcoming 2000). The study of Suakin by Greenlaw in 1976, was art historical rather than archaeological. c) It is obvious that the state of research in this field is at its very beginning. The international view of Islamic archaeology as a concentration on fine objects and magnificent buildings of the Islamic caliphate has had disastrous effects on the development of this science. Thus no attempts were made towards understanding the social context of any site, the ordinary life of people; and no consideration is given to Islamic countries of sub-Saharan Africa which were never ruled by the Islamic Caliphate. Towards this better understanding now we have the pioneer works of T. Insoll in Mali (1998) and his general study of the Archaeology of Islam (1999).

b) A series of selected projects might be compiled to offer potential M.A and Ph.D. students’ topics at major historically attested sites like the mosque of Abu Sarh at the city of Old Dongola. Literally hundreds of smaller projects studying church -mosques or fortified sites in Dongola and the Middle Nile region could be listed and held in the Department of Archaeology library in Khartoum.

It is to be hoped that this overview of the situation in the Sudan will encourage a new kind of Islamic archaeology to develop.

c) A separate series of more substantial projects could concentrate on the excavation of deserted archaeological sites like Arbaji, Sennar, Qerri, Khandaq, Dongola, Uri, Shoba, AinFarah, Badi’ and ‘Aidhab and the newly reported sites of the White Nile (Eisa 1998) like Qoz Farah, Qoz Awlad al-Tayib and Hillat Sa’id. The latter is probably the site of al-Ais, the bridge to the west that links SennarArbaji with the west.

7. Recommendations for further research a) There is no doubt that all parts of the Republic of the Sudan except south of latitude 10N are rich in evidence of the Islamic period. An ideal situation would be comprehensive archaeological survey all over the Sudan by specialised teams and a multidisciplinary approach, to register sites and prepare plans of conservation and preservation of still

d) Combined projects with ethnographers, linguists and historians should be arranged since the discovery and registry of privately owned manuscripts and the recording of oldest house and village plans would be very helpful.

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Tretiak. R.H., 1970, “Qasr al - Hayr al – Sharqi: A Medieval Town in Syria”, Archaeology, vol. 23, no.3 pp 26-28.

Penn, A.E.D., 1934, “Traditional Stories of the Abedallab”, SNR vol.xvii, part 1, pp 59-82, Khartoum.

Trimingham, J.S., 1949, Islam in the Sudan, Oxford. Udal, J.O .N., 1998, The Nile in Darkness: conquest and exploration 1504-1862, Norwich.

Petheric, J., 1861, Egypt, the Sudan and central Africa, Edinburgh & London.

Vail. J., 1974, “Outline of the Geology and mineral deposits of the Republic of the Sudan and adjacent areas”, Overseas Geol. & Miner. Resour. No. 49 pp1-10, London.

Philipson, D., 1979:, “Discovering the South” in Sudannow magazine, February 1973, pp 59-61, Khartoum. 132

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan Vantini, G., 1975, Oriental Sources concerning Nubia, Heildelberg &Warsaw.

Welch, S.C., 1978, Royal Persian Manuscripts. London. Welsby, D.A & Daniel, C.M., 1991, Soba I : Archaeological Research at a Medieval capital on the Blue Nile, BIEA, Nairobi.

Vercoutter, J., 1958, “Excavations at Sai”, Kush vol.6, pp 144-169, Khartoum.

Welsby, D.A & Daniel, C.M., 1996, Soba II. BIEA, Nairobi.

Villard, M.De., 1935, La Nubia Medievale, Cairo

Wenrick, J.W., 1947, “The Kingdom of Tegali”, SNR vol.xxviii, part II, pp 143-150.

Waddington,G. & Hanbury, B., 1822, Journal of a visit to some parts of Ethiopia, London.

Yunis, K., 1979, The site of AinFarah and it’s cultural significance B.A Honours unpublished dissertation, Dept of Archaeology, University of Khartoum.

Walker, J., 1936, “The Coinage of Ali Dinar”, SNR, vol xix, part I, pp 147-149, Khartoum. Walkey, C.E.J., 1935, “The Story of Khartoum”, SNR, vol.xviii, part II, pp 221-242, Khartoum.

133

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

134

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

135

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

136

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

Plates

137

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

138

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan Pl. (1) a) Tombstone, Khor Nubt, Phase I, (Mustafa 1995).

Pl. (1) b) tombstone, Derheib, Phase I, (Mustafa 1995). 139

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein Pl. (2) a) Tombstone, Badi’, Phase I, (Mustafa 1995).

Pl. (2) b) Tombstone, Meinarti, Phase I, (Mustafa 1995). 140

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

Pl. (3) a) A mosque at al-Mesid village, Phase III, (Sadiq 1998).

Pl. (3) b) A mesid, Kokka, Phase III, (Elzein 1999).

141

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

Pl. (4) a) A qubba and the burial enclosure of King Diab’s daughter, Kokka, Phase III, (Elzein 1999).

Pl. (4) b) Al-Khandaq, Phase III, (Elzein 1999).

142

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

Pl. (5) a) The castle of Wad Nemeiri, Phase III, (Elzein 1999).

Pl. (5) b) The castle of Khandaq, Phase III, (Elzein 1999).

143

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

Pl. (6) a) A loah, Umm Dawan Ban, Phase III, (Gadal 2000).

Pl. (6) b) The tughaba, Umm Dawan Ban, Phase III, (Gadal 2000). 144

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

Pl. (7) A basin for washing loahs, Umm Dawan Ban, Phase III, (Gadal 2000).

Pl. (8) A khalwa in the mesid of Sheikh Soghayroun, Goz al-Mautraq, Phase III, (Mohammed 1998).

145

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

Pl. (9) a) The tekiya, mesid Umm Dawan Ban, Phase III (Gadal 2000).

Pl. (9) b) The conical qubbas of Debbat al-Fugara, Phase III, (Elzein 1999).

146

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

Pl. (10) a) A conical qubba, Khartoum, Phase III, (Elzein 1987).

Pl. (10) b) A conical qubba, 3rd cataract region, Phase III, (Elzein,1999).

147

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

Pl. (11) a) Qubbas at Wad Nemeiri, Phase III, (Elzein 1999).

Pl. (11) b) roofless burial, Wad Nemeiri, Phase III, (Elzein 1999).

148

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

Pl. (12) a) The qubba of Sheikh Abdullah al-Tiraifi, Abu Haraz, Phase III, (Elzein 1987).

Pl. (12) b) The qubba of Sheikh Ahmed Yunis, Abu Haraz, Phase III, (Elzein 1987).

149

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

Pl. (13) a) A Nehas of the Fung, Phase III (SNM).

Pl. (13) b) A Fung bowl, Phase III, (SNM).

150

Islamic Archaeology in the Sudan

Pl. (14) a) Wooden Sceptre, sword and robe of Sultan Ali Dinar, Phase III, (SMOD).

Pl. (14) b) The kakar of the Fung, Phase III, (Elzein 2000).

151

Intisar Soghayroun Elzein

Pl. (15) a) A deffi, Kokka, Phase III, (Elzein 1999).

Pl. (15) b) Foundation slab, the mosque of Kokka, Phase III, (Elzein 1999). 152

CAMBRIDGE MONOGRAPHS IN AFRICAN ARCHAEOLOGY No 1 No 2 No 3 No 4 No 5 No 6 No 7 No 8 No 9 No 10 No 11 No 12 No 13 No 14 No 15 No 16 No 17 No 18 No 19 No 20 No 21 No 22 No 23 No 24 No 25 No 26 No 27 No 28 No 29 No 30

BAR S75, 1980 The Niger Delta Aspects of its Prehistoric Economy and Culture by Nwanna Nzewunwa. ISBN 0 86054 083 9 BAR S89, 1980 Prehistoric Investigations in the Region of Jenne, Mali A Study in the Development of Urbanism in the Sahel by Susan Keech McIntosh and Roderick J. McIntosh ISBN 0 86054 103 7 BAR S97, 1981 Off-Site Archaeology and Human Adaptation in Eastern Africa An Analysis of Regional Artefact Density in the Amboseli, Southern Kenya by Robert Foley. ISBN 0 86054 114 2 BAR S114, 1981 Later Pleistocene Cultural Adaptations in Sudanese Nubia by Yousif Mukhtar el Amin. ISBN 0 86054 134 7 BAR S119, 1981 Settlement Patterns in the Iron Age of Zululand An Ecological Interpretation by Martin Hall. ISBN 0 86054 143 6 BAR S139, 1982 The Neolithic Period in the Sudan, c. 6000-2500 B.C. by Abbas S. Mohammed-Ali. ISBN 0 86054 170 3 BAR S195, 1984 History and Ethnoarchaeology in Eastern Nigeria A Study of Igbo-Igala relations with special reference to the Anambra Valley by Philip Adigwe Oguagha and Alex Ikechukwu Okpoko. ISBN 0 86054 249 1 BAR S197, 1984 Meroitic Settlement in the Central Sudan An Analysis of Sites in the Nile Valley and the Western Butana by Khidir Abdelkarim Ahmed. ISBN 0 86054 252 1 BAR S201, 1984 Economy and Technology in the Late Stone Age of Southern Natal by Charles Cable. ISBN 0 86054 258 0 BAR S207, 1984 Frontiers Southern African Archaeology Today edited by M. Hall, G. Avery, D.M. Avery, M.L. Wilson and A.J.B. Humphreys. ISBN 0 86054 268 8. £23.00. BAR S215, 1984 Archaeology and History in Southern Nigeria The ancient linear earthworks of Benin and Ishan by P.J. Darling. ISBN 0 86054 275 0 BAR S213, 1984 The Later Stone Age of Southernmost Africa by Janette Deacon. ISBN 0 86054 276 9 BAR S254, 1985 Fisher-Hunters and Neolithic Pastoralists in East Turkana, Kenya by John Webster Barthelme. ISBN 0 86054 325 0 BAR S285, 1986 The Archaeology of Central Darfur (Sudan) in the 1st Millennium A.D. by Ibrahim Musa Mohammed. ISBN 0 86054 367 6. BAR S293, 1986 Stable Carbon Isotopes and Prehistoric Diets in the South-Western Cape Province, South Africa by Judith Sealy. ISBN 0 86054 376 5. BAR S318, 1986 L'art rupestre préhistorique des massifs centraux sahariens by Alfred Muzzolini.. ISBN 0 86054 406 0 BAR S321, 1987 Spheriods and Battered Stones in the African Early and Middle Stone Age by Pamela R. Willoughby. ISBN 0 86054 410 9 BAR S338, 1987 The Royal Crowns of Kush A study in Middle Nile Valley regalia and iconography in the 1st millennia B.C. and A.D. by Lázló Török.. ISBN 0 86054 432 X BAR S339, 1987 The Later Stone Age of the Drakensberg Range and its Foothills by H. Opperman. ISBN 0 86054 437 0 BAR S350, 1987 Socio-Economic Differentiation in the Neolithic Sudan by Randi Haaland. ISBN 0 86054 453 2 BAR S351, 1987 Later Stone Age Settlement Patterns in the Sandveld of the South-Western Cape Province, South Africa by Anthony Manhire. ISBN 0 86054 454 0 BAR S365, 1987 L'art rupestre du Fezzan septentrional (Libye) Widyan Zreda et Tarut (Wadi eshShati) by Jean-Loïc Le Quellec. ISBN 0 86054 473 7 BAR S368, 1987 Archaeology and Environment in the Libyan Sahara The excavations in the Tadrart Acacus, 1978-1983 edited by Barbara E. Barich. ISBN 0 86054 474 5 BAR S378, 1987 The Early Farmers of Transkei, Southern Africa Before A.D. 1870 by J.M. Feely. ISBN 0 86054 486 9 BAR S380, 1987 Later Stone Age Hunters and Gatherers of the Southern Transvaal Social and ecological interpretation by Lyn Wadley. ISBN 0 86054 492 3 BAR S405, 1988 Prehistoric Cultures and Environments in the Late Quaternary of Africa edited by John Bower and David Lubell. ISBN 0 86054 520 2 BAR S418, 1988 Zooarchaeology in the Middle Nile Valley A Study of four Neolithic Sites near Khartoum by Ali Tigani El Mahi. ISBN 0 86054 539 3 BAR S422, 1988 L'Ancienne Métallurgie du Fer à Madagascar by Chantal Radimilahy. ISBN 0 86054 544 X BAR S424, 1988 El Geili The History of a Middle Nile Environment, 7000 B.C.-A.D. 1500 edited by I. Caneva. ISBN 0 86054 548 2 BAR S445, 1988 The Ethnoarchaeology of the Zaghawa of Darfur (Sudan) Settlement and Transcience by Natalie Tobert. ISBN 0 86054 574 1

No 31

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