Digital Dakka

The con­s­truc­tion of the Aswan High Dam (Sadd el-Ali) in the 1960s and the ensuing for­ma­ti­on of Lake Nas­ser sub­mer­ged the Nubi­an Nile val­ley, des­troy­ing lar­ge parts of Nubia’s cul­tu­ral heri­ta­ge and land­scape. A gigan­tic UNESCO mis­si­on res­cued some of the anci­ent remains, most­ly temp­les, from floo­ding. Espe­ci­al­ly the temp­les of Ram­es­ses II at Abu Sim­bel (13th cen­tu­ry BCE) attrac­ted world-wide atten­ti­on, sin­ce they were moved to an arti­fi­ci­al moun­tain on hig­her ground. In reco­gni­ti­on of the con­tri­bu­ti­on of the inter­na­tio­nal com­mu­ni­ty Egypt dona­ted some Nubi­an temp­les to muse­ums in the USA and Euro­pe. Others were relo­ca­ted to the desert near Lake Nas­ser, while seve­ral are now in the Sudan Natio­nal Muse­um in Khar­to­um. The­se temp­les have in com­mon that they were not only divorced from their ori­gi­nal con­text, the land­scape of the Nile val­ley, but also from the anci­ent sett­le­ment and ceme­tery remains as well as the near­by modern Nubi­an vil­la­ges. The Nubi­an popu­la­ti­on was forced to resett­le in Aswan and the regi­on dub­bed “New Nubia” north of Aswan. The know­ledge of the Nubi­an natu­ral and cul­tu­ral land­scape is shat­te­red and spread out over the reports of for­eign visi­tors and rese­ar­chers as well as the memo­ries of peo­p­le who lived the­re. The­se accounts, from oral tra­di­ti­on to pho­to­graphs and scho­lar­ly publi­ca­ti­ons, have in com­mon that they can be pla­ced in the landscape.
Initi­al­ly, the cross-disci­pli­na­ry pro­ject “Digi­tal Nubia” will focus on Dak­ka, ca. 110 km south of Aswan. “Digi­tal Dak­ka” is set out to crea­te a three-dimen­sio­nal model of the Dak­ka regi­on, focu­sing on a mas­si­ve temp­le that was moved to New Sebua on the west bank of Lake Nas­ser. This temp­le, con­s­truc­ted and deco­ra­ted from the third cen­tu­ry BCE to the second cen­tu­ry CE, for­med the core of an anci­ent sett­le­ment, later also of a Roman gar­ri­son, fol­lo­wed by an adja­cent modern Nubi­an vil­la­ge. The pro­ject intends to inte­gra­te dif­fe­rent rese­arch paths in a digi­tal land­scape recon­s­truc­tion and to ser­ve as the basis for an expan­si­on of three-dimen­sio­nal pre­sen­ta­ti­on of diver­se forms of know­ledge. This includes the rese­arch histo­ry of the regi­on and its cul­tu­ral land­scape (lead: R. Tam­bor­ri­no), the digi­tal recon­s­truc­tion of archi­tec­tu­re and land­scape (lead: A. el-Anta­b­ly), the epi­gra­phic and his­to­ri­cal stu­dy of Dak­ka Temp­le (lead: M. Minas-Ner­pel), and a com­mu­ni­ty work group (lead: M. Han­na), which will include the inte­gra­ti­on of the Nubi­an popu­la­ti­on in the pre­ser­va­ti­on of tan­gi­ble and intan­gi­ble cul­tu­ral heri­ta­ge. The mate­ri­al will be inte­gra­ted in a three-dimen­sio­nal digi­tal resour­ce (lead: W. Wendrich).

Lite­ra­tur­hin­weis
Tam­bor­ri­no, R. and W. Wend­rich, ‘Cul­tu­ral heri­ta­ge in con­text: the temp­les of Nubia, digi­tal tech­no­lo­gies and the future of con­ser­va­ti­on’, Jour­nal of the Insti­tu­te of Con­ser­va­ti­on 40/2 (2017), 168 – 182, DOI: 10.1080/19455224.2017.1321562