The Loss of Innocence: Political and Ethical Dimensions of the Merowe Dam Archaeological Salvage Project at the Fourth Nile Cataract (Sudan)

Abstract

During the construction of the Merowe Dam, one of the largest development projects recently completed on the African continent, more than a dozen national and international archaeological salvage missions were active at the Fourth Nile Cataract in northern Sudan. In this context, many of the archaeological missions on the ground found themselves at an impasse between the political and economic interests of different stakeholders. On the one side these included the developer, the investors, and contractors, who had largely ignored international policies regarding development projects, including guidelines on involuntary resettlement and the management of cultural resources. On the other side were the affected communities as well as human rights organizations, concerned with the humanitarian shortcomings of the dam project. The often conflicting agendas of these various stakeholders eventually led to the premature, forced termination of archaeological salvage work in large tracts of the planned reservoir area. Soon thereafter, in 2008, this was flooded not only without adequate archaeological coverage, but also before many of its inhabitants had left the region. This study documents a hitherto unique attempt by local communities, namely the Manasir ethnic group, to use the banning of archaeologists from their land as a political strategy against the developer, in order to improve the terms of compensation and resettlement. It investigates political and ethical dimensions of rescue archaeology in a context where the motivation and legitimacy of professional archaeology is questioned by the very people whose heritage it claims to preserve.