The topographer profession is constantly evolving and is increasingly making use of UAVs and photogrammetry. These two technologies are at the heart of the topographic work carried out by the SAHHP, allowing for quick and efficient acquisition of field data. Funded by the ALIPH Foundation and initiated in 2019, this five-year project aims to protect endangered archaeological sites in Sudan and to record them in a Geographic Information System (GIS) with the support of the National and Corporation for Antiquities and Museums (NCAM) and the help of international archaeological missions. It also aims to pass on topography know-how and to make young people aware of their archaeological heritage. We offer here an overview of our working method, illustrated by some field operations. I. Collecting – Topographic survey with a GNSS solution: presentation of techniques allowing positioning with centimetre accuracy in official coordinate systems; – Aerial photography by drone with automated flight II. Processing – Photogrammetry: creation and georeferencing of orthomosaic, Digital Terrain and Digital Terrain and Surface Model (DEM/DSM); – Development of a Geographic Information System (GIS): Storage, georeferencing, digitisation, manipulation and data analysis III. Developing – Automation of certain processes (vectorisation, atlas and maps creation), extraction of georeferenced stratigraphic sections from photogrammetry; – 3D restitution of monuments IV. Protecting – Presentation of the actions undertaken by the SAHPP in the field to fend off threats to archaeological heritage V. Passing on – Setting up a topographic workshop with NCAM inspectors and archaeologists and Sudanese archaeologists from Sudanese universities: use of a GNSS solution and a total station, use of a geographic information system (GIS), overview of the photogrammetric process with aerial drone capture; – Professional training of an NCAM inspector; – Intervention of volunteers in schools to sensitise the younger generation to the importance of preserving cultural heritage.

A whole century has elapsed since G. Reisner’s survey and excavation of the royal burial ground of the Kushite ruling family (of the 25th Dynasty) and their ancestors at Kurru, 15 km south of Gebel Barkal in northern Sudan. The royal family has played a long, remarkable and significant role in the history of the Nile and beyond. Ever since Reisner (1919), the site was subjected to continual natural and human plunder, bringing it to a state screaming for attention. Thanks to the Qatar-Sudan Archaeological Project (QSAP), what was once a dream has come true, helping to turn site degradation around. Other than a part of the site allocated to another mission, we conducted five seasons of fieldwork (2014–2019) within the concession assigned to us under the conditions of the funding body. The aim was to survey, excavate and re-excavate, clean and clear the site components to protect and preserve the site heritage and turn it into a place for recreation and inspiration. The work undertaken resulted in the identification of new major features, along with the recovery of a significant volume of artefacts from sifting and sampling of the older spoil heaps from the 1918–1919 excavations, revealing over 40,000 potsherds among other artefacts. The work has also identified sandstone quarries, utilized for the construction of features and defending the site through the construction of a mud-wall and cement pillar fence, along with cutting rain water channels. Site management also facilitated building pass-ways, installing solar-system lighting and constructing additional visitors’ facilities. Beyond this, light was shed on some other major issues regarding Napatan dating, ethnicity, cultural inter-relations, among other areas of inquiry.

Decolonizing archaeological practice is exhilarating but also challenging, as it requires recognition of the many ways in which excavation, archaeological analysis, and museum display are structured by and implicitly reinforce inequalities. It is a process that requires honest self-evaluation and also the willingness to recognize the mistakes that we all undoubtedly make along the way. This paper presents the process of developing the Community Heritage Center at El-Kurru from 2016 to its planned opening in winter 2023. Its authors represent three of the constituencies for the center: foreign archaeologists, the National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums, and the local community in El-Kurru village. As El-Kurru is part of a UNESCO World Heritage site, the interests of international heritage professionals are also invoked. We discuss development of the conception for the Center as a space to be used by visitors to the site as well as local residents, describe exhibitions and programs that we developed with support from the Humanities Collaboratory project at the University of Michigan, and present different architectural conceptions of the scale and location of the center. It has been encouraging to see the growing number of community engaged field projects working in Sudan over the past 5–10 years. Presentations of these projects tend to be self-congratulatory rather than self-critical (as is usually true of presentations of more traditional archaeological research). Our self-critique focuses on the challenges of collaboration across inequalities of access to funding, education, local knowledge, and cultural capital

The archaeological site of Gebel Barkal is located on the right bank of the river Nile in the northern state, about 400 km north-east of Khartoum. The site is characterized by its unique shape and location near the city of Karima and the two villages of upper and lower Barkal, which has lead to different concepts about the archaeological value of the site to local communities. Gebel Barkal was and still is sacred to the communities, but, nonetheless it is the most mysterious area of the communities, with many legends and folktales being associated with the environs of the site. Although Gebel Barkal is the main destination for most of the inhabitants of the area, the majority refer to it either as the mountain of El-Karsani or simply, the mountain, without mentioning the antiquities; the concept of antiquities at Gebel Barkal is mostly associated with the ram statues, located at the entrance of B500, which are referred to as horses, the Mut temple as the house of Nesaira (the daughter of the mountain) or Abo-Elkolaan, and the cave. Differences or contradictions of concepts between the local communities, archaeologists, and the criteria for registering the site as world heritage site; the concepts of life and death (river and desert) and the concept of Belonging to ancestral groups of the area will be examined in this presentation.

Identity is fluid, subjective and multi-dimensional. As our sense of belonging centres not only on the ways we may (or may not) prompt and present our cultural identities and affiliations but is also concerned with articulating and figuring out a range of other cultural, social, and political experiences. Identity and its impact within the context of this research (“The influence of local communities’ identities towards community engagement modes at Gebel Elbarkal”) refers to the ways in which markers such as ethnicity, gender, nationality, religion, and shared interpretations of the past are used to construct narratives of inclusion and exclusion that define communities. These narratives produce a set of symbols or lifestyle choices from which individuals make their own selections. The key identity categories that will receive coverage and be in focus within this contribution are ethnicity, gender, class, and age. The research questions to be answered within this study divide into two main questions. Firstly, how does intangible cultural heritage for the local communities around Gebel Elbarkal maintain, manage, and facilitate them in building their sense of identity? Secondly, how does ethnicity, gender, class, and age identity shape the local communities’ engagement mode and affect the nature of their relationship with the site in question? To do so, gender, age, ethnicity, class, and religious identity will be the central dimensions of identity under investigation. This will serve to have a better understanding of how the identity discourses of the local communities and other socially salient categories of identity socially and culturally construct ways of interaction and engagement with Gebel Elbarkal and the Napatan region. Research on communities has a general assumption of linking a communities’ concept with locality and geographically based factors. However, there are communities that define themselves by their social and cultural experience and by their political views and aspirations. Within this study, the community concepts refers to social groups who have a shared set of values, beliefs, and interests. These shared sets of values and shared experiences, as influenced by ethnicity, class, gender, age, religion and political belief, focus around how communities may define themselves. Community engagement, conversely, refers to the ways in which people engage with archaeological sites at specific times, in specific places and historical conditions. Accepting that heritage is about the construction and expression of identity and that there is a strong link between peoples' engagement motivation with heritage and the symbolic conception of their identity, this section aims to explore how identity construction shapes and influences local community engagement modes with Gebel Elbarkal and what are the consequences and the role of identity construction impact on the site/place uses. This research works towards understanding the connection between archaeology and identity, by paying particular attention to social and cultural constructions and boundaries in terms of interpretation of the past, access to the place, the rights and its negotiation process, and cultural uses of Gebel Elbarkal and the Napatan region archaeological sites among local communities.