The Nubian Villages of Bigge

The construction of the High Dam meant the total destruction of Nubia and hence the disappearance of the major part of its domestic architecture. The former living space of Egyptian Nubians was almost completely erased, the inhabitants resettled.
On the Island Bigge, located on the Nile close to the Island Philae, two villages remained preserved by fortunate coincidence. Both of them show nearly unchanged, authentic historical fabric dating back to 1900. Both villages were abandoned more than 25 years ago. The inhabitants left behind their dwellings that have been built in a traditional way, still containing some furniture and other equipment of daily life.
A team of architects and ethnologists from the German Archaeological Institute and the Berlin University of Technology use the unique chance to document and to study the ways of construction and design of the houses in order to keep a record of the previous way of life of Egyptian Nubians.
The aim is to record and to analyze the two abandoned villages in an interdisciplinary approach. The project will provide a contribution to the research and visualization of the traditional culture of Nubians in Egypt. The architectural and archaeological documentation is being executed in close cooperation with ethnological investigations. The lecture provides insights into the working methods and first results of the ongoing project.
The project is fully funded by the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) and carried out by the Chair of History of Architecture and Urbanism at the Berlin University of Technology and the German Archaeological Institute Cairo.
Project Directors: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Johannes Cramer, Prof. Stephan Seidlmayer.
Staff members: Dr.-Ing. Bernadeta Schäfer, Dr. Armgard Goo-Grauer, Marek Baranski, Christian Hartl-Reiter, Matjaz Kacicnik, Fatma Keshk, Wojciech Rozewicz, Doris Schäffler, Juliane Schröder, Oliver Wolter, Olga Zenker.

Lecturers:
Dr. Bernadeta Schäfer: She is field director to the project “Nubian Villages on Bigge“ and researcher at the Chair for History of Architecture and Urbanism at the Berlin Universtiy of Technology.
She studied architecture and town planning in Berlin and Cracow, as well as heritage preservation in Berlin. Her PhD-thesis concerned the “Rural Settlements and Timber Dwellingss in Poland in the 19th and 20th Century”. Her scientific focus lies particularly in the history of residential architecture, and rural environment. As conservation architect and expert for protection and preservation of timber she worked on a wide range of projects across the Islamic world and Eastern Europe.

Fatma Keshk: She is an Egyptologist and Field Archaeologist working on several archaeological sites in Egypt since 2008 in Aswan, South Sinai and Western Delta. She is the former head for the Archaeology and Architecture Department at CULTNAT (2014-2016). In 2011, she obtained her Master Degree in Archaeology from Leiden University in the Netherlands and currently working on her PhD research in Egyptian Archaeology at the Free University of Berlin. She joined the work of the Bigge project since it started in 2015 studying the open spaces of the village of Bigge as part of her PhD.

*Lecture will be in English.
*Location: Megawra al-Khalifa (Khalifa community center)
A Google map showing the directions to Megawra al-Khalifa: http://goo.gl/lvAu0C