公元前1500年前后，古埃及征服了上努比亚，开启了长达四个世纪的殖民统治。在其后的150年间，法老政权留下了大量的官方皇家文书和纪念碑，详细地记述了关于这一时期的政治、军事和文化统治的各方面信息。阿玛拉·维斯特研究项目于2008年启动，使我们对这一时期的理解产生了重大的转变，特别是在青铜时代晚期和铁器时代早期尼罗河谷中游的动态环境之下，古埃及殖民主义的生活经历、文化的交织、个人及家庭生活等方面。该项目基于苏丹北部良好保存条件下的考古学研究以及样品的分析，同时跨学科合作，联合了包括大英博物馆在内的多家博物馆及高校和研究机构。

该项目主要关注于阿玛拉·维斯特遗址，这是一处在公元前1300年前后建造的法老城镇，并延续了三个世纪。而周边墓地中的一些墓葬还继续延续了两个世纪。作为一处新的上努比亚的行政管理中心，这处遗址包含了保存良好的居址、石庙、国家仓储设施和两个主要的墓地。

以下介绍该项目主要的五个成果，每个成果将会包括有关专家、学科和方法的信息。

1）自20世纪30年代该遗址系统发掘以来，这处城镇被看为一处典型的、经过精心规划的埃及式的“庙宇城镇”，象征了青铜时代晚期埃及对上努比亚的征服与控制。本项目的发掘和相关分析工作显示，最初，该处城镇（除庙宇、官邸和仓储设施）并没有经过规划，并只有本地的居民在这里生活。约在一代人的时间中，该地区发生了巨大的改变。该城镇内的人和家庭开始有序的分布，功能区也相应出现。对这一时期的历史而言，这处城镇反映的是地方机构而不是法老政权，因此需要重新对努比亚地区聚落功能进行评估。

2）通过将大规模的考古发掘、地质考古学、微观形态学、物质分析（岩相学、SEM、NAA、FTIR、GC-MS）和生物考古学（同位素分析）的研究相结合，同时由于该遗址良好的保存状态，我们对该遗址在生活区、墓地和周边等内外空间内的古代行为有了更丰富的理解。如在房屋中水的角色和普遍存在的状况、房屋内外动物蓄养的模式、当地金属生产的技术、谷物的差别（主要是大麦/二粒小麦、小麦）、颜料的来源和准备及其在当地房屋中应用的整个操作链（包括这一时期和地区新出现的蓝色和绿色的身份指示），以及房屋间不同的手工业生产区等。对骨骼遗存进行的人体本身的研究，揭示了人群的健康、疾病（包括癌症、骨关节炎、心血管和呼吸性疾病）和伤痛、治愈（长骨骨折后的愈合）等方面的情况。

3）该项目首次揭示了努比亚文化元素在埃及聚落中的重要性，其重要性甚至超过了纪年墓葬和在诸多遗址中广泛可见的手制烹调罐。尤其在一系列典型的 “埃及” 建筑中发现了一种独特的努比亚设计的椭圆形建筑，我们需要重新评估在这些法老城镇中努比亚文化表达的可见性和存在性。更多关于本地影响的例子包括 “交叉”制陶技术（如通过努比亚技术制作的埃及式的陶器）和从埃及进口的带有户外游戏图像的储藏罐。城镇中关于古物（从沙漠腹地的遗址收集而来）的管理也反映了在更久远的时期埃及与该地区的接触。同时，我们发现了公元前2000年的诗歌文本。这是首次在埃及区域以外发现使用阿蒙涅姆赫特和凯米特等经典读物。

4）以往的发掘者和对该遗址的研究都推测该遗址的“埃及”精英阶层并未埋葬在此，而是返回埃及埋葬。而一处有着金字塔形式教堂的墓地则指向了另一种可能，特别是库什埋葬地点三座大金字塔的鉴定。库什是法老在努比亚地区的最高代表，其中包括一位叫帕赛尔的官员，他生活在拉美西斯三世统治时期（公元前1186至1155年）。另外，锶同位素的研究显示这些埋葬在墓中的个体与其他其他骨骼相比有很大的差异，因此，这些墓主并不是当地的人群，而是来自于其他地区（可能是埃及？），但是在死后，他们选择埋葬在此处。

5）通过试掘、GPR调查以及对尼罗河洪积层的风积沙沉积物进行的光释光测年，我们对于遗址周边河流的活动进行了一个高分辨率的复原。这证实了这处阿玛拉·维斯特城镇建立于一个正对尼罗河左岸（北岸）的小岛之上，但在城镇进行建设时，这处河道已经衰落。由于对风沙的屏障被削弱，生活和农业的条件愈发艰难。通过对街道微形态的分析、外部堆积的研究、屋内的缓解措施和墓地中晚期骨骼压力标记的增加等现象，我们可以看到这一影响。这项发现的意义十分重大，不仅解释遗址遭到废弃的原因是由于环境的剧烈改变，更重要的是显示了埃及王朝在政治和军事上的削弱。

这项项目延续了10年，它的结果对尼罗河谷和之外的地区关于早期城市化、古代社会中的个人和家庭、殖民状态下文化的杂糅与交织，以及超越古代城镇规范和功能化模型的重要性等方面产生了重要的影响。特别是，它使我们从感知、古代经历和居民本身等方面对该处遗址进行了解读，超越了以往仅通过对于建筑、文本和古物的解读。

该研究项目在三个方面与当代社会紧密相连。首先，通过对青铜时代晚期和21世纪早期数据的双轨分析，综合考古、历史和民族学方面的数据库，对生存和风险管理策略进行研究。植物与作物传播的信息可能适用于当今多变的气候（受全球气候变化的推动，尤其是由大坝和水库建设引发的区域性的改变）。其次，最古老的转移性癌症（可能源于肺癌）案例，对于我们了解这种疾病的深层历史提供了重要的帮助。最后，项目的结果可能从生活经历的角度，为未来研究及对殖民和帝国的理解提供关键助力。该项目不仅对古埃及帝国本身的研究产生影响，而且还对更晚期的案例，如错综复杂的欧洲国家历史以及非洲东北部和中东等区域产生影响。

除了上述列出的由科学和考古团队研究出的结果，阿玛拉·维斯特项目自2014年起还进行了一项创新性的计划。这个计划包括建立英语和阿拉伯语的游览区，同时在附近的村庄中组建演讲和讲习班。我们训练当地的工作人员为来到这处遗址参观的孩子进行讲解。

三部阿拉伯语的书籍已经完成。

（1）一本面向成年人[2015]，包含主要的研究结果、历史文献和遗址的探索历程。

（2）一本面向正在上学的孩子[2017]，由本项目组成员和当地小学教师共同完成，主要关注当地传统、口述史和考古工作。

（3）一本面向现在和过去的农业儿童，同样是项目组成员和当地人共同完成。最后这本书[将于2018年初面世]反映了当地劳动模式压倒性的农业本质。

由于移动终端技术日益的重要性，本项目还制作了视频广播（英语/阿拉伯语）以提升公众参与感。努比亚语是该地区大多数社区的第一语言，由于这一语言不再通过文字表达，我们已经完成了与当地传统文化的活动家Fekri Hassan Taha合作的广播，并将于2018年初发布。

考虑到国家规定的学校课程只关注重大历史事件，这些社区考古创新性活动为提升人们对于当地文化历史的知识提供了契机。

Pharaonic Egypt conquered Upper Nubia in around 1500BC, ushering in four centuries of colonial rule. Over the last 150 years, this has been largely interpreted through official royal texts and elite monuments left by the pharaonic state, resulting in a narrative of complete political, military and cultural control and domination. The Amara West Research Project, instigated in 2008, has significantly transformed our understanding of this colonialist era. In particular, the lived experience of ancient colonialism as practised by pharaonic Egypt, the phenomena of cultural entanglement and individual/household agency have been foregrounded, set within the dynamic environmental context of the Middle Nile Valley of the late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. The project avails of the potential for high-resolution archaeology using the excellent preservation levels in northern Sudan, the ability to export samples for analysis, allied to a multidisciplinary and international team comprising the British Museum collaborating with other museums, universities and research institutes.

The project is focused upon Amara West, a pharaonic town created around 1300BC, and occupied for around 3 centuries, although burials continued in the cemetery for a further two centuries. Founded as a new administrative centre for the Egyptian control and oversight of the colony of Upper Nubia, the site comprises well preserved domestic architecture, a stone cult temple, state-run storage facilities and two major burial grounds.

Five major outcomes of the project are highlighted here, each the result of a combination of specialists, disciplines and methods.

1)The town has been interpreted, since the first systematic excavations in the 1930s, as a classic planned Egyptian ‘temple-town’, emblematic of the Late Bronze Age conquest and control of Upper Nubia. This project’s excavations, and associated analyses, have revealed how, even at the outset, parts of the town (beyond temple, official residence and storage facilities) were unplanned, and left to the initiative of its inhabitants. Within a generation, further significant change would occur, as the individuals and households within the town began to shape the layout of the town and thus its function and appearance. For the majority of its history, the town reflected and mirrored local agency, not that of the pharaonic state, and thus demands a re-assessment of the dominant functionalist readings of pharaonic settlements in Nubia.

2) Through combining modern macro-archaeological excavation with geoarchaeology, micromorphology, materials analyses (petrography, SEM, NAA, FTIR, GC-MS) and bioarchaeological research (isotope analyses), upon a site with excellent preservation of architecture and occupation deposits, we have been able to produce a rich understanding of ancient activities within internal and external spaces across the living areas, cemetery and the surrounding. Examples include the role and ubiquity of water within the houses, the patterns of animal husbandry within and beyond houses, local metal production technologies, the differential access to cereals (principally barley/emmer wheat), the chaîne operatoire surrounding pigment sourcing, preparation and application within a vernacular setting (including identification of new blue and green pigments for this period/region) and the distinct clustering of craft production between houses. The study of the population themselves, via skeletal remains, has revealed insights into health, disease (including cancer, osteoarthritis, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases), and thus pain and healing (most long-bone fractures had healed)

3) The project is the first to reveal the importance of Nubian cultural markers within an ostensibly Egyptian settlement, above and beyond the reliance on funerary data and the handmade cooking pots that are common across many sites. In particular, the discovery of an oval building of distinctive Nubian design, amongst a series of more typically ‘Egyptian’ buildings demands that we re-assess the visibility and presence of Nubian cultural expression in these pharaonic towns. Further examples of indigenous influence include ‘cross-over’ ceramic technology (e.g. Egyptian ceramic forms produced with Nubian technology) and the inscribing of images of wild game on storage jars imported from Egypt. The curation of more ancient artefacts – collected from sites in the desert hinterland – within the town also reflects engagement with the deeper past of the region. Meanwhile, the discovery of excerpts of the early 2^nd millennium BC poetical texts The Teaching of Amenemhat and Kemyt provide the first proof that these classics were being consumed outside Egypt itself.

4)Previous excavators and studies of this site had posited that the ‘Egyptian’ elite of the site had not been buried here, but returned to Egypt. The discovery of a necropolis of graves with pyramid chapels proved otherwise, in particular the identification of three large pyramids as the burial place of the Deputy of Kush, the foremost representative of the pharaonic state in Nubia, including one named Paser, who lived in the reign of Ramses III (1186-1155 BC). Furthermore, strontium isotope studies suggest distinctive values for the individuals buried in these tombs compared to remainder of the skeletal assemblages, making it likely such individuals were not members of locally based families, but posted from elsewhere (Egypt?), yet choosing to be buried locally.

5)A high resolution reconstruction of riverine activity around the site has been created through sondages, GPR investigation and Optically Stimulated Luminescence dating of aeolian sand deposits between Nile flood layers. This has confirmed that the ancient town of Amara West was founded on a small island against the left (north) bank of the Nile, but that channel failure occurred within a generation of the town’s creation. The impact of this – a reduced barrier to aeolian sand ingress, increasingly difficult living and agricultural conditions – can be traced across micromorphological analysis of street and outside space deposits, the architectural mitigation measures taken within houses and the rise in stress markers amongst the late-phase skeletons within the cemeteries. The implications of this discovery are significant, not least our interpretation that the site was abandoned due to an increasingly challenging climatic situation, rather than the political or military retreat of the Egyptian state.

The results of this 10-year project have had significant impact in terms of our understanding, for the Nile Valley and beyond, of early urbanism, individual/household agency in ancient societies, hybridity and cultural entanglement within colonial contexts, and the importance of moving beyond normative, functionalist models for ancient towns. In particular, it allows pharaonic settlements to be read and understood through sensorial aspects, ancient experience and the inhabitants themselves, moving beyond the dominant visual/textual readings of architecture, phase and finished artefact.

Three particular strands of research from this project bear direct relevance to the contemporary world. Firstly, the study of subsistence and risk management strategies has been approached through a twin-track analyses of late Bronze Age and early 21^st century AD data, using archaeological, historical and ethnographic datasets. This has resulted in the dissemination of information on plants and crops that might be more suitable in the current volatile climatic context (prompted by global climate change but particularly local transformation brought about by dam construction and resulting reservoirs). Secondly, the identification of the oldest attested case of metastatic carcinoma (possibly derived from lung cancer) is an important contribution to our understanding of the deep history of this disease. Finally, the project’s outputs are likely to form a key component of future studies and understanding of colonialism and empire from a lived experience perspective. This has implications not only as regards the pharaonic Empire, but also more recent cases including the intertwined histories of European states and those in northeast Africa and the Middle East.

In addition to the research outputs listed above which inform the scientific and archaeological communities, the Amara West Research Project has instigated an innovative programme of community engagement since 2014. This includes the construction of a visitor orientation area with English- and Arabic-language information panels, alongside presentations and workshops in nearby villages. Visits to site for local schoolchildren are facilitated by our local workmen, who have been trained for the purpose.

Three Arabic-language books have been created. (1) A book aimed at adult populations [2015] and covering not only the major research results, but also the historical context and the history of exploration of the site . (2) A book for schoolchildren [2017], co-authored by members of the project and local primary school-teachers, foregrounding notions of local heritage and oral histories alongside the archaeological work. (3) A book for children on agriculture past and present, again co-authored by project and community. This last book [to be distributed early 2018] reflects the overwhelmingly agricultural nature of local labour patterns.。

Recognising the growing importance of mobile phone technology, the project has created video podcasts (Arabic/English) to enhance engagement. Nubian is the first language of most communities in the area; as this language is no longer expressed through script, we have completed a podcast in collaboration with a local heritage activist Fekri Hassan Taha, to be distributed in early 2018.

These community archaeology initiatives offer an opportunity to enhance knowledge of local histories and heritage, given that national school curricula only focus on major historical events.

Biographic Sketch

Neal Spencer is Keeper of the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan at the British Museum, responsible for the curation, research and display of the prehistoric, ancient and medieval cultures of the Nile Valley. The Department leads a wide-ranging programme of fieldwork in Egypt and Sudan, alongside training and community outreach programmes in both countries. This includes the International Training Programme which has hosted 253 museum professionals from 39 countries since 2006. Neal plays a lead role within the Museum on the digital representation of research and provides strategic oversight of the Research Space project, an innovative semantic web research platform. Since 2015, Neal has overseen a project to collect the material culture of 20^th and 21^st century Egypt for the British Museum.

Holding a BA and PhD in Egyptology (University of Cambridge), Neal’s own research has focused on temple construction and urban experience in the Nile Valley, and the relationship between Egypt and Nubia. He has directed projects at Samanud (1998-1999) and Kom Firin (2002-2011) in the Egyptian Nile Delta, and in 2008 instigated the Amara West Project in Sudan, an interdisciplinary archaeological project foregrounding lived experience, cultural entanglement and local agency. In addition, Neal has published research on the 19^th century reception of ancient Egyptian art by the British sculptor Onslow Ford, on non-royal temple construction initiatives, and copper alloy masterpieces from the first millennium BC.

He has acted as lead on research and programme grants from the Leverhulme Trust, British Academy, Arcadia Trust, Fondation Michela Schiff-Giorgini, the Institute for Bioarchaeology, the Egypt Exploration Society, the Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Charitable Trust, the Cultural Protection Fund and the Qatar-Sudan Archaeological Project. Neal is a Trustee of the Egypt Exploration Society and the Sudan Archaeological Research Society, a Committee member of the Scientific Board of the Museo Egizio (Turin) and the Griffith Institute (University of Oxford), and was formerly a Trustee of the Freud Museum London.