Of Revelation and Revolution, Volume 2

Re-examining the Egyptian colonial encounter in Nubia through a compositional, mineralogical, and textural comparison of ceramics

“…Alternatively, it is possible that the Egyptian colonists in Nubia remained largely separated from the local populations. As a result, while Nubian culture may have been relegated to more private matters and have lost its viability as a status marker, the Nubians were able, on the whole, to maintain their cultural continuity until it could gain ascendancy again in the Napatan period (see e.g., Brumfiel, 1996;Comaroff and Comaroff, 1997;Dobres and Robb, 2000). Finally, a third hypothesis is that Egyptian influence was pervasive only among the elite Nubians, who had much to gain from ingratiating themselves with their overlords.…”

“…Rather than unidirectional domination, most archaeologists now admit that culture contact is more appropriately conceptualized as a frontier of identity arbitration, in which ethnicity, class, and power are negotiated (Alcock, 1993(Alcock, , 2002(Alcock, , 2005Comaroff and Comaroff, 1997;Jones, 1997;Moreland, 2001;Van Dommelen, 2005). Ceramic analysis in particular has proven useful for exploring this situation, as ceramics were both reflections of, and instruments for, changing identities (Janusek, 2002;MacEachern, 1998;Nichols et al, 2002).…”

“…Colonialism was seen as a one sided act of domination and was subsequently investigated almost exclusively by analyzing the motives and strategies of the colonizers (Comaroff and Comaroff, 1997). This bias was often exacerbated in areas such as Egypt, in which textual sources were prioritized; the lack of written records from the indigenous people of the colonies meant that their role was largely ignored (Adams, 1977;Arkell, 1961).…”

‘Wardrobe Modernity’: Western Attire as a Tool of Modernization in Turkey

“…Their account of the long-continued battle between the colonialists and the indigenous people embodied in a particular form of indigenous clothing dikobo 0 (blanket) in early nineteenth-century Tswana is quite telling, in that it shows the 'aesthetic ethnocentrism' of the European missionaries as well as the resulting cultural war over dikobo 0 . 4 A similar instance of one particular piece of clothing being the embodiment of an overarching civilizing mission and the resulting cultural war has been observed in the Turkish experience of modernization. The objection against the Ottoman headdress, the fez, has become a symbol of the costume campaign during the early phase of the Republic.…”

“…6 In a similar vein, the Turkish Republican elites were overly concerned with Turkish 'backwardness' in dress, and endeavoured to make citizens of the newly founded nation receptive to European aesthetic forms albeit in different ways. Interestingly, while the colonial missionaries were attuned to covering African nakedness, the modernist Republicans were attached to uncovering veiled bodies.…”