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+---
+layout: news
+title: Visit to Nubian communities in Gharb Soheil and New Aniba
+category: news
+date: 2023-02-10
+updated: 2023-01-08
+author: Helen Strudwick
+tags: [community engagement, pop-up, Nubia, Aswan, Gharb Soheil, New Aniba]
+permalink: /news/NubianCommunities
+thumbnail: /images/news/CTscanningJan23.jpg
+images:
+  -
+    image: news/Nubian_displacement.jpg
+    caption: Nubian families carry possessions down to the river bank as they leave their homes (image from https://raseef22.net/article/1074777-nubia-and-the-nubians-the-untold-story, accessed 31 October 2024).
+  -
+    image: news/CTunwrappingJan23.jpg
+    caption: Flavia Ravaioli lifts the final layer of tissue paper off the front of Nespawershefyt's mummy board.
+  -
+    image: news/CTscanningJan23.jpg
+    caption: CT Radiographer Lauren England checks the position of Nespawershefyt's mummy board in the CT scanner.
+  -
+    image: news/CTscanningunderwayJan23.jpg
+    caption: CT Radiographer Lauren England watches the progress of the first scan on a computer screen.
+  -
+    image: news/CTheadendJan23.jpg
+    caption: Julie Dawson positions the head end of another yellow coffin (E.1.2004) for scanning.
+---
+
+In February 2023, as part of our pop-up museum activities, [Helen Strudwick, Sara Abed and Amr Orensa](https://egyptiancoffins.org/team/) visited 
+Nubian communities at Gharb Soheil and New Aniba, in southern Egypt. It was a wonderful opportunity to talk to people whose lives had been completely
+overturned by the construction of the High Dam at Aswan in the 1960s and their [removal to new settlements]
+(https://egyptiancoffins.org/images/news/Nubian_displacement.jpg). While much of the western world was focussed 
+on saving ancient Egyptian monuments (most famously the temples at Abu Simbel), about 50,000 Nubians lost their homes and livelihoods. As well as
+talking to people about our research on Egyptian coffins, our visit also provided an opportunity to talk to these communities about dispersed 
+Egyptian and Nubian heritage and its display in museums around the world (including within Egypt itself).  
+
+At Gharb Soheil, we met senior community members who kindly showed us important objects in their houses that reminded them of their traditional homes
+in the flooded settlements left behind. One of these, Husein Shellaly, showed us a type of bed (called "angareeb"), typical of beds used in Nubia that
+bear a strong constructional resemblence to ancient Egyptian beds but that are now dying out. He also showed us [an old stool]
+(https://egyptiancoffins.org/images/news/Shellaly_stool_broken.jpg), which had been in his family for many generations but was now in a sorry state of
+repair. We invited him to bring it along to our pop-up museum the next day with the promise that 
+[Amr would attempt to repair it](https://egyptiancoffins.org/images/news/Stool_repairs.jpg) using the replicas of ancient Egyptian tools. You can see in the photos [how successful this was](https://egyptiancoffins.org/images/news/Shellaly_stool_fixed.jpg)! Husein is very active on social media and was live posting during our pop-up, which was a novelty for us. The pop-up itself was located next to a spice stall, and the stall holder, who initially was a little dubious about what we were up to, became our biggest advocate, urging his customers and any passers-by to come and take a look, and enthusiastically demonstrating and explaining everything on our tables.
+
+The settlement of Aniba was one of 44 Nubian villages that were abandoned at the time the High Dam was built. The local people were moved to an area named Nasr el-Nuba, where 44 new villages were created to house them. Sadly, the architecture of these villages did not reflect traditional Nubian houses and the local people we met at New Aniba felt that this had contributed to the disappearance of some  social and cultural traditions, including the layout of interiors and furniture. Younger community members feel that modern furniture is more appropriate for the new house designs, they said. We met one of the last angareeb makers, Abdel Ghani, who showed us how the traditional beds were made, including legs that are curved in a particular way to deter scorpions from climbing up - which sounds like a very good idea. Another senior community member, who identified himself only as Ibrahim showed us an ancient wooden lock and key, and how the position of the key would indicate whether the people inside were "at home" to visitors or not, and a wooden vase with a lid used at weddings, as well as traditional stringed instruments. We in turn showed them the replica tools that we had with us, which they instantly recognised and related to. We all felt that we would like to come back and do a pop-up museum activity for the whole community at some time in the future.
+
+This morning, we were able to undertake new CT scanning of part of the [coffin set of Nespawershefyt](https://egyptiancoffins.org/coffins/nespawershefyt). Although we 
+have X-radiographed the mummy board in the past, its construction was not absolutely clear. Colleagues at [Addenbrooke's Hospital](https://www.cuh.nhs.uk/) 
+(part of Cambridge University Hospitals) generously offered to CT scan it out of hours, on a Sunday morning when the scanner would not normally be in use. 
+We were very conscious that the scanner might be needed if there was a call for an emergency CT scan to be carried out, in which case we would have immediately got 
+out of the way to allow that to happen. Happily nothing like that occurred. We were joined by our brilliant CT scanning advisor and friend 
+[Tom Turmezei](https://egyptiancoffins.org/team/tom-turmezei), Consultant Radiologist at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital. 
+
+At Addenbrooke's, we were met by CT radiographer Lauren England who carried out the scanning using a relatively new Siemens scanner. This seemed to be really 
+speedy at scanning, and the results that appeared immediately on the computer screen looked amazingly detailed. 
+In particular, the scans seemed to show some interesting carpentry in the area of the face that had not been visible at all on the earlier
+X-radiographs. We are excited to see what detailed examination of the scans will show up about how this part of the mummy board was put together. 
+Something else we discovered (not about the mummy board)
+was that the sheets we had initially put underneath to support it appeared to be very similar in density to the wood, and this was likely to
+make the analysis of the scans a bit awkward. So we replaced them with pillows, and the problem disappeared -- a useful lesson learned!
+
+At the same time, we took another part of a coffin to be scanned: the [head end from a yellow coffin](https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/98444), which is
+of a similar date. We have not yet explored this object in a lot of detail. Again, the immediate results from the scans were really promising as we could see how 
+the wood had been worked to create the shape of the head end, and the way the holes for dowels had been angled. 
+
+We are hugely grateful to Tom and Lauren for giving up their Sunday mornings for this scanning, and to Rob Mackenzie, CT Scanning 
+Manager at Addenbrooke's for facilitating the visit today. The Fitzwilliam team consisted of [Flavia Ravaioli](https://egyptiancoffins.org/team/flavia-ravaioli/), 
+[Julie Dawson](https://egyptiancoffins.org/team/julie-dawson/) and 
+[Helen Strudwick](https://egyptiancoffins.org/team/helen-strudwick/).