About
Nubian studies needs a platform in which the old meets the new, in which archaeological, historical, and philological research into Meroitic, Old Nubian, Coptic, Greek, and Arabic sources confront current investigations in modern anthropology and ethnography, Nilo-Saharan linguistics, and critical and theoretical approaches present in postcolonial and African studies.
The journal Dotawo: A Journal of Nubian Studies brings these disparate fields together within the same fold, opening a cross-cultural and diachronic field where divergent approaches meet on common soil. Dotawo gives a common home to the past, present, and future of one of the richest areas of research in African studies. It offers a crossroads where papyrus can meet internet, scribes meet critical thinkers, and the promises of growing nations meet the accomplishments of old kingdoms.
Miscellanea
Miscellanea
Articles
Booker T. Washington’s Challenge for Egyptology: African-Centered Research in the Nile Valley
In 1909, Egyptologist James Henry Breasted sent a letter to Booker T. Washington, along with a copy of an article Breasted had recently published in The Biblical World. To fully understand the short correspondence between the two scholars, this article delves into three related topics: Washington’s philosophy of industrial education and its complementarity with the educational program of his contemporary W. E. B. Du Bois; Washington’s prominent standing in educational, political, and social circles, including his professional relationship with the president of the University of Chicago William Rainey Harper and his advisory role to US president Theodore Roosevelt; and Breasted’s perspective on race and Egyptology. Washington, unlike Breasted, considered connections between ancient Nile Valley cultures and cultures elsewhere in Africa, a point of inquiry that has recently gained momentum in a variety of fields. In the correspondence between Washington and Breasted, we see demonstrations of precarity and privilege as related to scientific research, an imbalance seen also in the infamous syphilis study carried out at Tuskegee. This article points out the continued need to interrogate benefit by asking who constructs research questions and whom does research benefit.
A Short Note on Queen Gaua: A New Last Known Ruler of Dotawo (r. around 1520-6)?
The Nubian Christian kingdom of Dotawo is attested in Old Nubian sources from the eleventh to the late fifteenth centuries. The reign of Dotawo’s last “king” is dated to the period between 1463 and 1483 (at least). This short note wishes to highlight another ruler, a Queen Gaua (or Jawe), who is mentioned by the Portuguese historian João de Barros in his imperial history entitled the Terceira Década da Ásia (“Third Decade of Asia”), published in 1563. Her reign can be dated to encompass the early 1520s and knowledge thereof challenges certain narratives regarding the latter period of Dotawo and this note poses questions for further research to explore regarding Christian Nubia in the sixteenth century.
An Obituary for George Pagoulatos
An obituary for one of the most influential Greeks of Sudan whose contributions to Sudan archaeology and Nubian Studies have been priceless.
'In the Bosoms of Abraham': A Christian Epitaph from Nubia in the Brooklyn Museum
First edition of a Christian epitaph in Greek of a woman, Timothea, brought by Henry J. Anderson to the United States in 1848 and now in the Brooklyn Museum. Analysis of the form and text of the monument allows its epigraphic context to be reconstructed, as part of a dispersed funerary assemblage of northern Nubia, including a distinctive textual formula wishing the deceased repose in the “bosoms of Abraham.”