The archaeology of pleasure: Evidence for the use of tobacco at Old Dongola in Northern Sudan (16th–19th centuries AD)

Abstract

This paper presents the first evidence of tobacco seeds (Nicotiana tabacum L.) from northeastern Africa. The evidence comes from Old Dongola, the northern city-state of the Funj Kingdom in Sudan (16th–19th centuries AD). Old Dongola served as a hub for communication and a point of departure for caravans. Since 2018, we carried out large-scale systematic archaeobotanical sampling at the citadel of Old Dongola. We floated sediment samples of 1–20 L to recover botanical remains, which we later processed and identified in the archaeobotany laboratory of the University of Tübingen, Germany, based on anatomical and morphological comparisons with modern seeds from the reference collection. The team recovered a wide variety of economically important plants from this regional capital. Here we present the earliest archaeobotanical evidence for tobacco in Sudan dating to the middle of the 17th century. This research supports the hypothesis that tobacco cultivation in Sudanese Nubia began by the early part of the Funj/Ottoman period. While these results highlight the use of tobacco at Old Dongola, the pathways for the introduction of tobacco into Sudan are poorly documented, and the exact timing of the introduction and cultivation in Sudan remains a subject of lively debate.