Assessing Mobility Among the Medieval Makurian Individuals Interred in Crypts 1–3 on Kom H at Old Dongola, Sudan

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

As the capital of the medieval Kingdom of Makuria, in what is today Sudan, Old Dongola was a central location of administration and culture; Old Dongola was also the seat of a bishopric. Such factors would have made Old Dongola a key location for mobility, with various pull factors from economic, social, and religious, including monastic. Numerous questions remain about the population of medieval Old Dongola and mobility to the site. During excavations of the monastery on Kom H at Old Dongola, three burial crypts (Crypts 1–3) were uncovered. The identification of the epitaph of an archbishop Georgios in proximity to these crypts suggests that Georgios may have been interred in one of the crypts along with other, likely, social elites of Dongolan society. The use of Crypts 1–3 on Kom H bring forth questions about burial space use and mobility among different social segments in Makurian society. This study presents the results of strontium (87Sr/86Sr) isotope analyses of dental enamel from nineteen individuals buried within these three crypts to assess potential mobility to the area of Old Dongola.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38710.0