Material culture worked as an essential supporting pillar of the ancient Egyptian colonization of Nubia. During the New Kingdom colonial period (1550–1070 BCE), the material culture of various colonial sites in Nubia consisted of a majority of Egyptian-style objects (including both imported and locally produced objects). Egyptian-style objects materialized foreign presence in local contexts and allowed communities to negotiate identities and positions in a colonial situation. However, far from homogenizing local realities, foreign objects performed different roles in local contexts. This sheds light on the social dimensions of culture contacts in colonial situations and allows us to identify how the local adoption and uses of foreign objects in local contexts produces marginality in the colony.

Paints and plasters from two pharaonic settlement sites in Nubia (northern Sudan) were analysed to investigate the presence and origin of organic binding materials. The town of Sai was founded around the time of the pharaonic conquest of Kush (Upper Nubia) around 1500 BC, with Amara West created as a new centre for the pharaonic administration of the region around 1300 BC. Recent fieldwork at both sites yielded examples of paint palettes, including several from houses. These provide a different economic and social context to funerary contexts upon which most previous research has been conducted, making this study the first to report on binding media for vernacular architecture in the Nile Valley. It is also the first study of binding media from Nubia. Gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis of methanolysed and silylated paint and plaster samples revealed a range of monosaccharides present in eight of the seventeen samples from Amara West, and in six of the seven samples from Sai. Interpretation of the data was supported by field collection and study of locally available botanical gums. The results indicate that mixtures of gums were in use as a pigment binder at both sites during the mid- to late-second millennium BC. The possibility that some of these plant gums could have been imported from the Mediterranean is also posited.

Traditional models of interaction in northern Sudan have innate Egyptological, elite, and urban biases which have relegated certain areas to mere peripheries of more ‘established’ and ‘central’ sites. In order to reach a higher resolution understanding of cultural dynamics and diversity of ancient Nilotic groups, the DiverseNile project has established the bespoke concept of Contact Space Biography which we present in the following article. We challenge existing approaches to cultural contact in the region by adopting a bottom-up approach which moves away from well-established categorisation of sites in our study area. In particular by reconstructing landscape biographies of the Bronze Age in the Middle Nile beyond established cultural categories in order to provide new insights into the ancient dynamics of social spaces, which include landscape features and non-human activities. In the following we instead consider such areas as complex social spaces intertwined with, an often changing, landscape by presenting our findings from the study of cemetery and settlement sites. Overall, the concept of Contact Space Biography effectively combines models of contact spaces, the idiosyncrasies of a changing landscape and the technological and industrial prerogatives of those living in and accessing this region.

As archaeologists, we are often asked what it was like to live in the past. By blending a fictional narrative with factual archaeological evidence, we offer an interpretation of what a typical day may have been like living at Sai, a town on an island in the River Nile during the second millennium before the common era (BCE), in what is now Sudan. We focus on the question at different levels, thinking about the day-to-day life of the residents of an ancient town, activities that took place, and its broader historical, geographical, and cultural contexts. We also explain how archaeologists work and interpret some of the evidence we discuss, focusing on a range of methods. These include recent advances in virtual 3-D reconstruction, which offer a unique perspective on our interpretation of the past. Many themes covered in this article are highly relevant today and can be linked to several UN Sustainable Development Goals (in particular, 9, 11, and 12). We encourage readers to think about some of the things we discuss in relation to their own lives and experiences and have provided a number of call-out questions in speech bubbles throughout the article to get some of these discussions started.

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