Kingdom of Kush exhibition - Portsmouth Museum and Art Gallery - video Dailymotion

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00:00Hi, nice to meet you. My name is Loretta DiGiulio. I am the curator for Sudan and Libya at the British Museum.

00:06Brilliant. Tell me where we are and what is happening here.

00:09So we're in Portsmouth Museum and Art Gallery at the moment where we are just opening a fabulous exhibition on ancient Kush-enduring heritage,

00:17which is looking at the rich and fascinating culture and heritage of Sudan, both ancient, the kingdom of Kush,

00:24which is a little-known civilization that actually was one of the greatest in the inter-world,

00:29and tying that in with modern Sudanese heritage, which is absolutely fascinating.

00:35We've got some wonderful pieces curated by a local Sudanese community that tie into that.

00:41Tell me just about a few of the pieces that are on offer here.

00:46So if we're looking at the ancient pieces, we have seven ancient objects from our collection

00:52and two modern pieces tying in ancient and modern heritage.

00:55This piece, for example, is an offering table for pouring libations outside a tomb chapel at the site of Faras,

01:05a famous cemetery in northern Kush.

01:10This is now flooded under Lake Nubia, so this sort of collection is really important for interpreting how important the site was.

01:19This would have been used by a deceased person's descendants to offer them sustenance in the afterlife.

01:27You can imagine them coming to the tomb chapel to think about their ancestors, to pray, to perhaps have a ceremonial picnic.

01:35You can see there is a beautiful inscription around the outside.

01:40This is written in Arabic. This is the indigenous Muslim language of ancient Kush.

01:45This tells us that this belongs to a person called Kena Balile.

01:49Brilliant. So tell me when this is open from and here to?

01:53The exhibition opens tomorrow and is here until the 11th of May, and it's free entry.

01:59Cathy Higgs, Head of Museums, Portsmouth City Council.

02:02Maaza Matar, a student at Portsmouth that wasn't part of the local community.

02:09We're delighted to be here today. We're about to launch the Ancient Sudan and European Heritage Exhibition.

02:15What is so particularly special about this exhibition is that it's a really collaborative effort.

02:20We've had wonderful objects come here from the British Museum, the artefacts from ancient Sudan.

02:27However, what's been really special has been to work with the community.

02:30The Sudanese community in Portsmouth have brought in these wonderful objects and displayed them here.

02:36I'll let Maaza talk to you more about that.

02:38As a community, we came together and we decided to volunteer and donate some of our pieces shown behind me.

02:47Do you want to talk me through them?

02:49Yeah, talk me through some of them.

02:51My favourite part here is we have a sephirot. It's almost like a wooden boomerang.

02:57It's used for hunting and self-defence.

03:00Over here, we've also got traditional clothing. This is the men's traditional clothing we have.

03:05This here is a himma, which is almost like a turban.

03:08We've got the matching scarf, which we call a shaal.

03:11We've also got our shoes from Mother Corp.

03:13This one here is leather, but sometimes you can get funky print ones with animal prints and things like that.

03:19That's brilliant. Tell me how you feel about being involved in this exhibition.

03:25I feel like being involved here, I'm actually really excited.

03:27Growing up, I would always tell people that I'm from Sudan, I'm Sudanese.

03:31A lot of people didn't actually know where Sudan is.

03:34They're always like, what's Sudan? Where's Sudan?

03:37Now knowing that we're part of an exhibition this big, it's just like, oh my god.

03:42We're starting to get out there, especially at this time as well.

Kingdom of Kush exhibition - Portsmouth Museum and Art Gallery

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