Event: WEDS TALK: In the Shadow of the God Amun: Remote Sensing and Urbanism in Northern Sudan

ABSTRACT: This presentation investigates urbanism and settlement patterns through multiple lines of remote sensing data in Northern Sudan. The site of Jebel Barkal, located 400 km from Khartoum, near the Nile, is known for its elite palaces, temples, and pyramids. The site served as the royal capital of Kush from the 8th century BCE and remained a major urban and religious center throughout the Meroitic Period. Recently a Meroitic settlement was identified, known as the “East Mound.” Since 2018 the Jebel Barkal Archaeological Project, in collaboration with the National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums of Sudan, has been excavating and surveying areas of the East Mound. This talk will present preliminary results of a new project aimed at analyzing LiDAR and thermal imagery data. The LiDAR and the thermal imagery extend beyond the East Mound into the modern dense and lush agricultural fields adjacent to the Nile. The data will allow us to more accurately map the settlement’s spatial extent and situate it within its broader landscape context. Objectives also include identifying any previously undocumented features such as architecture, activity areas, and paleochannels. This work contributes to our understanding of how major Kushite cities grow, evolve, and respond to environmental factors throughout their life histories. Lastly, this project ruminates on the impact of archaeological inquiry in Sudan, which is currently experiencing a civil war after years of political unrest, while centering Sudanese voices and local archaeologists.

BIO: Kate Rose is an anthropological archaeologist, specializing in landscape analysis and ancient urbanism in the Near East and North Africa. Her PhD dissertation at Harvard University is a comparative spatial analysis of Kushite royal cemeteries in Northern Sudan. As a researcher with the ERC DiverseNile Project at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, Germany from 2022 to 2024, she investigated landscape changes during the Bronze Age borderspace of the Attab to Ferka region. She has also held numerous lectureships and teaching positions at Harvard University and Boston University, and is interested in the intersection of pedagogy and fieldwork. She has served in various leadership positions on projects in Sudan, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, and Spain. She is currently the Director of Programs at the Institute for Field Research, and a Fellow with the Center for Ancient Middle Eastern Landscapes at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, University of Chicago.