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TEDx Talks
Published: 2014-02-18
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4UQYem6Dvc
women archaeologists %HESITATION largely come from Somalia in the civil war in nineteen ninety one my family fled and we ended up in Sweden of all places and their %HESITATION something happens that most of the time a seemed insignificant and %HESITATION I was in secondary school study in %HESITATION menace topics %HESITATION on heaven actually %HESITATION done my primary school in Mogadishu and often at college which absolutely
had no comparison with the resources we have in Sweden's the other end of the scale %HESITATION there was this thing where we had a big huge history book and I wanted to know about African history and this was a walled history book but there was only one page on Africa and there was actually just a one paragraph and this paragraph mentions the trans Atlantic slave trade
and that's important but surely there was most African history than the trans Atlantic slave trade so I went to my local library and I found the book by passing Davidson Africa the story of a continent and in this I learned about the Ashanti the new sculptures they need it both cool Janet you know team back to a Axum great Zimbabwe engines Egypt I've gone on and
on %HESITATION but there was one sentence in that book that came to change my life it's set in order to write African history we need to do archaeological research at the time having just come from Somalia of I didn't know about unity was but I made a mental notes of the what and six years later I am rolls for an Archduke archaeological course on a whim
and I'm probably one of the few people who didn't know who Indiana Jones sauce what what I enrolled for this course and %HESITATION I would just focus on Africa so I came to London a school of oriental and African Studies %HESITATION and do you sell and another seemingly insignificant thing happened %HESITATION my article me up and said I had inherited objects and it was this one
I use this see this object with my grandmother all her life on the my mother said to me it's your snow and I said what is it a I knew what the name of it skilled worker I said with suits and she said to protect his sister keeper from evil spirits but I don't look good up %HESITATION and then she said well um it's actually made
from a secret treaty and it's used for fertility rituals %HESITATION not that I didn't know anything about my culture was Islamic and that's it I didn't know anything about or traditional culture %HESITATION where we had secret treaties and fertility what tools so I started %HESITATION thinking about earth duelist an essay on this island to meet people and I found out that they were actually sites in
Somalia and Somaliland associates it with fertility %HESITATION so I started thinking about going back a to Somalia that's me do not kill is in Scandinavia %HESITATION %HESITATION sex you want also excited about oculus does the person was talking to schools about the Vikings on this prolonged the blood to looking at me Africa telling us about Viking aids %HESITATION so %HESITATION this is no longer a lot
you'll concede it's no %HESITATION and the the idea came up dots I wanted to investigate more about this on their websites associated with facility so I went to a site decided to go back but this decision was a hard decision because so I left a semi DP in a refugee and these landscapes where places I've associated with it on lessons experiences so it wasn't an easy
decision but I decided to go back and when I went back I skillet that actually this region was a cultural crossroads in prehistory it's a strategically located on the right to see an Indian Ocean and a lot of civilizations has passed through undertone did they pass through but they interacted with the locals and there was trade coming in a from Persia engine to Egypt India China
and many of the civilization on him so on Africa on the archaeological materials that you discover it basically is evidence of this I we saw earlier %HESITATION a video showing at script sentient scripts on one of the findings we've made or at a grave stones %HESITATION showing some band writing on human rights writing and the aphrodisiac six family %HESITATION language family at house seats birth place
here and we see there is so much history that a was completely totally unknown to me and to many people but I wanted to focus on and I'm followed the lug that I've inherited from my grandmother and the first two two rituals that I heard so much about it led me to a site pulled over hello this is %HESITATION in the oral history and a site
where we have it it's been a pilgrimage site for a very long time and so when you go there seemingly it's just the shrine you'd think authors but I found that this is actually a room in town which city walls %HESITATION probably not directly from the image but the massive city walls still under a paltry from Greek and Roman China and it's it's a center but
the significance of this place is before Islam it was a major pre Islamic site where rituals took place and being educated in the west and my purse the perspective then being focused on monuments and objects I was exposed to a different respective on heritage and that our goal locally which was more about the landscape and the fact that trees could be an archaeological sites because they
were sacred trees though important freeze month since and a whole existence was woven around the landscape the chiefs would be coronated using the sacred mountain they've been washed on the sacred spring and the trees at the the leaks from sacred trees would be they would be showered with those sleeves they would be giving fertility to to that people so a it's a way of and a
second Kate and that the people and also use in ancestral shrines to fall gray making %HESITATION human and animal crop fertility I notice a whole new thing for me I I really didn't know anything about this and within Islam it's not something that people have F. talked about school work it's just things that have been you know very seemingly insignificant way that we have inherited the
lager exists and women usually keep this tradition anthropologists usually who've come to our country focus they're usually male white and they've all and focus it into nomadism and poetry and male culture but this link in the dealings with the human the birth and death order the swat tools that are perineal continue was something that seemed insist it is air unreachable to them somehow to a because
they were not associated with a major object home but the major monuments and a this site became after Islamic %HESITATION it became a major center full full Islamic religion and it was in appropriated by the earliest Islamic their kingdoms in the region and here we found %HESITATION Chinese poetry from Ming dynasty she's fifteen centric and even earlier thefts in century pan a poultry and it shows
the wealth of this region however %HESITATION people do not link archaeology to their heritage because I met people is that all the sites they belong to the people who are big boned and they they are not and even some money is it's a poor me harder which means %HESITATION innocent people that don't look like us that's on with us and hence the most people were looting
the archaeological sites because that I'm south from did distilling with the heritage also the colonial times and the narrative did not help because lots of the sites that were discovered where attribute it to other people at both who don't leave town through insights into ruin towns all over the country people just at all it's Arabs who have outpost in the Coast and people I felt that
documents she wasn't really something that was linked to their policy live a it was something that was introduced or L. other people have come with and people started looting after the war warlords use that to fund their wool date and commissioned illicit digging and I was interested in understanding this phenomenon unopened reported it %HESITATION well if somebody had which means due to its high with Somali
woman and it took with me a catalog of object button with images of objects on set up this happened before lost so many artifacts what do you think and that's when I realized actually people don't our indifference archaeology because we have an indigenous way of managing cultural heritage in our society regardless of measurements on yeah artifacts and this is %HESITATION what I called the knowledge approach
people where able to look at the same documents and tell me how to make the objects with their mate from and who makes them so it's not that they're they have no knowledge of the history they do but it's just that we preserve it in an intangible way it's an oral culture people value the knowledge rather than the procession over an object so I thought why
are women in the diaspora and value in this %HESITATION it sort of Vera keeping this knowledge of life when surely household products though that and you don't need to use in Europe you just go to articles you by yourself IMAX or rug but they were keeping this heritage and it's because we come from the nomad landscapes here what's important is not how how many objects you
keep but in fact %HESITATION what you come make from scratch when you need it Nick Carter very little with us everything you own is on that Kamel and those everything's organic so that parents can ban in one power and you're in that landscape so what do you do you need to know exactly which way to go to to get the roots foil hat you need to
know exactly which way to go to in order to hit a a wound medicine and knowledge so our heritage word a something that's kept in our head and basically passed on to our children and the women in the diaspora that I interviewed with talking about didn't those memories and those experiences and that's what they treasure it not the lost museum objects that they can hadn't seen
or known about that would be used to it for that and they did not lose anything as long as they have this knowledge in the contest that passes all one that was their heritage so it was a very interesting context where you have also these desperate people who had moved into archaeology but then that's at the same time they have this complex locally appropriate theoretical framework
the cultural heritage management a so as an opportunity I Ozer fascinated by this and %HESITATION a joy to none in its but those who want to be to be part of the year %HESITATION mainstream archaeology so that these ideas are brought into that to enrich archaeology a an impala accused it the same way that I could empower the community by bringing in my knowledge so %HESITATION
we did many training courses %HESITATION on's recently I settled disorganization home heritage and we have we were doing various projects to what could the comedian said irix me %HESITATION commute time very very proud of the sites initially didn't know what they were but I used to use sites from Scandinavia from I use to have a one outgoing to explain to them how similar sites on managed
I swear I even had the a loud boom Stonehenge %HESITATION explaining how you know what what people benefit from heritage so people are increasingly could see even the financial potential of it on reaction able to manage sites like class go so it's in you there are communities who are living off it %HESITATION and what I wanted to introduce was for them to be able to use
technology and %HESITATION at the moment a Somali down we have did you don't generation who are very used to I. T. so reincorporated them into the organization unrealized with and a very good organization whose slot and all over the world the slicing what heritage sites %HESITATION it was a challenge that first define funded but the Swiss government funded this project sue able to and take people
took her to the sites and train them here source of people from the ministry of tourism getting training three digits in isolation and this is the second time at this technology is being used for sites in Africa and we are very happy that sexually Somaliland's away usually wouldn't associate as such developments with I'm going to show you %HESITATION some of the results and it's a money
line you have very speedy internet we realize this because we could irv do the digitized ancient actually I I got injured on my way to these projects I was on that but I was in Kenya and we were able to send the material off too sy ops headquarters in Oakland California and then within the next day do able to receive them processed material so at this
is last scale of five thousand year old site its role come out and this is I call it the Sistine Chapel of Somaliland %HESITATION here is why we've got of fly through image I started a the stork by another note saying something about my secondary school and the fact that I like lacked %HESITATION Easter causes in Africa and my %HESITATION one of my goals have been
to use everything I've said so far and everything the to discover it feed dot into the %HESITATION into the curriculum and this is exactly what you're doing now yeah yeah helped many workshops with the ministry of education and various and schools in the heads of the second response in Somalia not and I'm hoping this this next time generation of Somalis will not face the problem I
