Old Dongola was the capital city of the Medieval Christian kingdom of
Makuria (modern Sudan) from the early 6th to the 14th century. Although
the royal court abandoned the city in 1364, it remained an important
urban center with extensive residential quarters functioning on and
around the citadel hill until the end of the 19th century. An
archaeological expedition from the Polish Centre of Mediterranean
Archaeology, University of Warsaw, has been working at Old Dongola since
1964. A new project, “UMMA. Urban Metamorphosis of the community of a
Medieval African capital city”, funded by the European Research Council,
was launched in 2018.
UMMA (Arab. for 'community') is a
multidisciplinary project conceived of as the first study of the liminal
phases of the Christian African community inhabiting Old Dongola and the
emergence of a Muslim city-state organized along different social and
religious paradigms. The project investigates the impact that the
weakening of the central authority and migrations of Arab tribes had on
the kingdom’s capital city and its community and seeks to trace patterns
of continuity and change on a household level. It is one of the few
excavation projects in Sudan systematically conducted on a
deep-stratified urban site spanning the Funj period (16th-18th
centuries).
This volume is a report from the first, four-month
season of fieldwork, which unearthed over 20 residential compounds
located within and outside the city walls. The research provides new
data on building techniques and organization of space in the city.