This event took place at the October 2024 meeting of the Essex Egyptology Group.
During the 2022 excavation season of the Mograt Island Archaeological Mission (MIAMi), a ‘magic’ deposit was found placed within the structure of a medieval church. Consisting of an inverted bowl and two iron crosses placed in a mastaba, it highlights a wider practice in medieval Nubia of incorporating objects into both church and domestic structures for protective purposes, and raises questions about who was placing these deposits and how they relate to medieval church doctrine.
The objects in this particular deposit are unique as expensive, high-status objects – suggesting that the Mograt church was of special significance. In contrast, similar deposits are essentially unknown in Egypt for the same period, raising the question of whether this is a true absence representing different traditions between medieval Egypt and Nubia, or rather represents variable preservation and archaeological practice between the Lower and Middle Nile Valley.
Paige’s research engages with these questions and builds a picture of the nature of medieval Nubian structural deposits.
The use of inverted bowls as protective devices has a likely connection to Mesopotamian “demon traps,” pointing to the possibility of more direct connections between medieval Nubia and the Near East than have previously been acknowledged. Beyond discussing the practice of ‘magic’ deposits, this talk will aim to give listeners an overview of the medieval Nubian landscape and the state of medieval archaeology in Egypt/Nubia.