Dioramas in the Nubia Museum of Aswan - Cairn

SUCH GOODHEARTED PEOPLE: DIORAMAS IN THE NUBIA MUSEUM OFASWAN

Alexandra Parrs

Presses de Sciences Po | « Autrepart »

2017/4 N° 84 | pages 129 à 144 ISSN 1278-3986ISBN 9782724635379DOI 10.3917/autr.084.0129

Article disponible en ligne à l'adresse :--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------https://www.cairn.info/revue-autrepart-2017-4-page-129.htm--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour Presses de Sciences Po.© Presses de Sciences Po. Tous droits réservés pour tous pays. La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que dans leslimites des conditions générales d'utilisation du site ou, le cas échéant, des conditions générales de lalicence souscrite par votre établissement. Toute autre reproduction ou représentation, en tout ou partie,sous quelque forme et de quelque manière que ce soit, est interdite sauf accord préalable et écrit del'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législation en vigueur en France. Il est précisé que son stockagedans une base de données est également interdit.

Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

© P

ress

es d

e S

cien

ces

Po

| Tél

écha

rgé

le 3

1/05

/202

2 su

r w

ww

.cai

rn.in

fo (

IP: 6

5.21

.229

.84)

© P

resses de Sciences P

o | Téléchargé le 31/05/2022 sur w

ww

.cairn.info (IP: 65.21.229.84)

www.cairn.info/publications-de-Alexandra-Parrs--662184.htm?WT.tsrc=pdf

https://www.cairn.info/revue-autrepart-2017-4-page-129.htm

http://www.tcpdf.org

Such Goodhearted People: Dioramas in the Nubia Museumof Aswan

Alexandra Parrs*

Painting, Nubia Museum in Aswan, Alexandra Parrs, 2015.

In the summer of 2015, I visited a small Nubian village nested on an islandon the Nile, near Aswan, a cluster of houses that could only be reached by boat.My host, a young Nubian man named Magdy 1, worked at the Nubia Museum inAswan. He was also an amateur painter. He showed me some of his art – colorful

* American University in Brussels, CeMIS University of Antwerp.1. Names were changed.

Autrepart (84), 2017, p. 129-144

© P

ress

es d

e S

cien

ces

Po

| Tél

écha

rgé

le 3

1/05

/202

2 su

r w

ww

.cai

rn.in

fo (

IP: 6

5.21

.229

.84)

© P



ww

.cairn.info (IP: 65.21.229.84)

representations of Nubian life. One of his paintings seemed particularly strikingand somewhat familiar, it represented two women sitting in front of a traditionalNubian painted house weaving baskets. I asked him about that painting, and hesaid it was based on recollections from his childhood, as well as on his grandmo-ther’s descriptions of traditional Nubian life. He then offered me the beautifulpainting, and, when I politely refused, he said: “We, Nubians, honor our guests.It is our culture to be generous and to offer the visitors what they like.” I acceptedhis gift.

A few days later, as I was visiting once more the Nubia Museum in Aswan,I was struck by one of the life-size dioramas (life-size display representing ascene) displayed in the ethnographic part of the museum: it was the scene of thepainting I had been gifted earlier by Magdy. The scene was identical, aside fromtwo missing plants on the painting, and a door left open in the diorama that hadbeen closed on the painting. The diorama, an imagined assemblage, had morphedinto Magdy’s lost childhood and in his grandmother’s nostalgic memories whichhad inspired his art. Magdy worked at the Nubia Museum and probably saw thediorama daily, perhaps internalizing it as a familiar scene, belonging to his cultureand his traditions.

I decided to examine the ethnographic dioramas in the Nubia Museum and themessages they conveyed: how they had been conceived and how they werereceived. In a discussion I had that week with the Museum director, OssamaMeguid, he described the dioramas as the favorite part of the Museum for theNubian visitors, because the scenes seemed so real. Did they seem so real thatthey could replace or even serve to reinvent a disappeared reality? This paperreflects on the multidimensional stories the Nubian ethnographic dioramas tell:stories of displacement, of reinventions of traditions, stories of representation ofa culture and, perhaps, stories of empowerment of a sacrificed group. I first exa-mine the context in which the Nubia Museum was created, then I focus on thedioramas of the ethnographic section. My initial analysis of the dioramas is thatthey present characteristics of essentialization, racialization, allochronism, ele-ments that have been analyzed in depth by scholars studying other museums[Halloran, 2009; Zittlau 2011; Struge, 2014]. However, what interests me parti-cularly is not only the shortcomings of the use of dioramas as a museologicalstrategy in the Nubia Museum, but also the impact those dioramas may have onthe Nubian community and I ask whether the ethnographic section of the Museumacts as a space of symbolic reterritorialization for the submerged Nubian villages.This paper is based on my 2015 visits to the Nubia Museum, extended discussionswith the Museum director and two Nubian interlocutors from a village neighboringthe Museum, and more casual discussions with other Nubian villages’ members.I also use interviews of the former director of the Museum and journalistic reportsof the impact of the Nubia Museum on Nubian and non-Nubian communities inAswan.

130 Alexandra Parrs

Autrepart (84), 2017

© P

ress

es d

e S

cien

ces

Po

| Tél

écha

rgé

le 3

1/05

/202

2 su

r w

ww

.cai

rn.in

fo (

IP: 6

5.21

.229

.84)

© P



ww

.cairn.info (IP: 65.21.229.84)

Nubia submerged and the Nubia Museum

After his accession to power in 1952, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasserquickly took the decision to build the High Dam, which would become a symbolof Egypt’s independence vis-a-vis European powers and of its ability to control itsnatural resources. It was not a new idea: the project of a dam to regulate the flowof water in the Nile and to ensure the availability of irrigation water downstreamfrom the dam had been a priority in Egypt since the nineteenth century. Plans forbuilding the Old Aswan Dam had first been proposed in 1898. After its completionin 1902, the structure was raised twice, first in 1912 and later in 1933. Consequently,the Nile River waters raised and Nubians started to gradually lose their date palmtrees, waterwheels and productive parcels of land. The agreement on the partitionof the Nile with Sudan was signed in 1958 and the construction of the High Damstarted in 1960, creating one of the largest lakes in Africa. The lake extends for480 kilometers upstream of the Dam, with about 300 kilometers of the lake situatedin Egypt, under the name Lake Nasser, and 180 kilometers situated in Sudan, asLake Nubia. As for the 44 Nubian villages to be submerged by the lake, in1963-1964, the Egyptian government relocated their inhabitants to the North, in theKom-Ombo region, within an area stretching 60 kilometers north to south. Approxi-mately 40.000 Nubians in Egypt were displaced. Nubian is a generic term encom-passing many sub-groups ; the main groups of Nubians can be differentiated fromeach other mainly by their dialects: Kenuzi (Matokki) and Fadija (Mahas). Otherdifferences are anchored in their geographical, historical milieus, and political bor-ders drawn by the British Condominium in 1899 divided Nubians into “Egyptian”Nubians and “Sudanese” Nubians. These groups are also divided “according to theexperience of relocation in the 1960s as a consequence of the High Dam, sincesome Nubian villages were not affected by the construction” [Elcheikh, 2015, p. 21].

The flooding of Nubia endangered archeological sites and artifacts dating fromthe Pharaonic period. In 1959, the Egyptian government approached Unesco andin 1960, Unesco launched a rescue operation to save the treasures of ancientNubia: The International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia. It ran fortyarchaeological missions from five continents and managed to move twenty-twomonuments in twenty years. The most well-known relocated monuments were theAbu Simbel and Philae temples, transferred to surrounding areas. Other templeswere offered to donor countries who had participated in the Campaign, such asGermany, Italy and the United States. The temple of Dendur was gifted to theUnited States and has been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NewYork since the late 1970s.

After the completion of the International Campaign to Save the Monumentsof Nubia in 1981 and the transfer of large monuments to safer grounds, a committeewas assembled in Paris to discuss the fate of other artifacts that had been collectedduring the Campaign. The outcome was a decision to create two museums: theNubia Museum in Aswan and the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization(NMEC) in Cairo. Unlike the Nubia Museum, the NMEC was not to focus

Les dioramas du musée de la Nubie d’Assouan 131


© P

ress

es d

e S

cien

ces

Po

| Tél

écha

rgé

le 3

1/05

/202

2 su

r w

ww

.cai

rn.in

fo (

IP: 6

5.21

.229

.84)

© P



ww

.cairn.info (IP: 65.21.229.84)

specifically on Nubia, but to showcase Egyptian civilization from prehistoric timesto present day using a multidisciplinary approach that highlights the country’stangible and intangible heritage.

The construction of the Nubia Museum started in 1985 in Aswan, and it wasinaugurated in 1997. The Museum received the Aga Khan Award for Architecturein 2001, an annual award, established to celebrate architectural concepts that havesuccessfully addressed the needs of Muslim communities around the world. TheNubia Museum occupies a 50,000 square meter site on the banks of the Nile,7,000 square meters of which are devoted to the Museum, a building designed toevoke the Nubian village architecture. It faces the Nile in the manner of traditionalNubian houses and is covered in local sandstone and pink granite. The Museumis organized along a chronological path, illustrating the development of the regionfrom prehistory, Pharaonic times, Christian and Islamic periods, up to the present.

The Museum was initially designed as a place to store and exhibit archaeolo-gical and Nubian objects, focusing on the tangible rather than the intangible. Theproject’s description of Unesco states: “It will primarily display archaeologicalcollections, objects as well as documents, up to the Islamic period, and someethnological material” [Unesco, 1981, p. 2]. The ethnological material is largelyshowcased in life-size dioramas representing glimpses of Nubian life: a wedding,women weaving, a classroom as well as dancers and musicians, all set before theconstruction of the Dam, in an idealized past.

Cultural and phenotypical reifications

Dioramas have been cherished since pioneered by Boas, but in the last decades,some museums, particularly in western countries, have removed their dioramas[Chicone, Kissel, 2014], while others have decided to keep or renovate them,preserving them as useful tools that encapsulate earlier representational forms ofpopular anthropology [Zittlau, 2011, p. 177]. Researchers see ethnographic dio-ramas 2 as presenting “static, dehumanized caricatures that fuel classic and colonialstereotypes,” and representations of “the supposedly primitive’ technologies ofnon-industrialized people” [Steiner, 1991, p. 34] ; dioramas “reflect a colonialpower constellation in which a dominant culture exhibits a subordinated cultureby way of constructed oppositions” [Zittlau, 2011, p. 177]. Perhaps, the mostcontroversial aspects of classic dioramas are that they essentialize and racializethe cultures they represent, which is due to their nature: their elaboration requireselecting cultural practices and racial phenotypes. In ethnographic dioramas, themodel of zoological dioramas was often followed, and humans were brought in“similar zoological frameworks – while it contextualized artefacts, the dioramasdecontextualized human being themselves” [Struge, 2014].

2. Dioramas with generally life-size mannequins representing ethnographic scenes, or socialinteractions.

132 Alexandra Parrs


© P

ress

es d

e S

cien

ces

Po

| Tél

écha

rgé

le 3

1/05

/202

2 su

r w

ww

.cai

rn.in

fo (

IP: 6

5.21

.229

.84)

© P



ww

.cairn.info (IP: 65.21.229.84)

Processes of essentialization and racialization are conspicuous in the NubiaMuseum ethnographic section. Before the dioramas themselves, an introductorypanel describes the “Nubian character” in these terms: “The Nubians have a spe-cial reputation amongst outsiders [...] their characteristics are generally consideredto be honesty, trustworthiness, goodheartedness and cooperation... One cannotassociate violence with this land and people.” The description possesses the well-studied essentializing characteristics of descriptions that reduce a group of peopleto a few psychological and physical traits and create a monolithic stereotype era-sing the heterogeneity and cultural diversity within the group.

The dioramas of the Nubia Museum are constructed ideal realities. As culturalassemblages, they display some cultural practices or moments that are chosen tobe representative of a whole culture: students at a madrassa (Koranic school), awedding, women weaving, or an evening dance. These practices appear to embodythe whole Nubianness – which is itself controversial – in an undefined past. Dio-ramas are also allochronic: the scenes are decontextualized and may bring togetherelements that do not belong to the same period. When contemplating the madrassadiorama, visitors are not told when the scene took place, if all Nubian schoolswere Koranic schools, and if young males and females were always schooledtogether. The scene, composed of mannequins representing six students and ateacher, is devoid of items that can offer cues that could help give context. Whiletrying to represent the typical, they actually are the representation of an impossiblereality ; “neither mere aesthetic objects nor primary documents in and of them-selves, dioramas are useful interpretive constructs that display general historicalfacts freely adapted to apply to a collective Everydayman and therefore, to no onein particular” [Halloran, 2009, p. 82].

Similar to the cultural traits, some phenotypes are elected to become represen-tative of the whole group. While more and more dioramas are “devoid of skincolors and tones and with facial expression kept as neutral as possible” [Zittlau,2011, p. 175], the dioramas of the Nubia Museum are leaning toward physicalrealism. Mannequins are built from casts of actual people and those bodies, devoidof thoughts, language, actions and interactions are left as an objectified body onshow [Struge, 2014]; they become physical types, almost artifacts, like the pha-raonic statues presented in the archeological part of the Museum. The dioramamannequins were conceptualized based on photographs of local Nubians andmanufactured in England with an aim to creating an authentic Nubianness. Eli-zabeth Smith reported the frustrations some Nubians experienced with the govern-ment officials in charge of the ethnographic exhibits. A committee of Nubians,including members of the Cairo Nubian Heritage Association, had been formedto consult on the design of the museum’s ethnographic exhibit, but as one memberof the Association lamented “government officials did not listen to a thing wesaid’, expressing his frustration and disgust with the state and Unesco” [Smith,2006, p. 411]. During her visit to West Aswan in 1998 one Nubian womancomplained to Smith about “the mannequins in the ethnographic display of an oldwomen making baskets, saying that Nubian women were much more beautiful’



© P

ress

es d

e S

cien

ces

Po

| Tél

écha

rgé

le 3

1/05

/202

2 su

r w

ww

.cai

rn.in

fo (

IP: 6

5.21

.229

.84)

© P



ww

.cairn.info (IP: 65.21.229.84)

than those mannequins” [Smith, 2006, p. 411]. The woman claimed the Museumhad made the models too dark because “they think Nubians are black (aswad).”The appearance of the mannequins is particularly noteworthy because of the under-lying racism associated with Nubian identity in Egypt. The Egyptian nationaldiscourse focuses on cultural and racial homogeneity in Egypt – undoubtedly, themarker of difference within Egyptian population is religion more than racial orethnic identification – but despite a predominant narrative of colorblindness,Nubians are repeatedly portrayed in films and television series as the “black other”,and “these television images sow the seeds of discrimination in popular Egyptianculture, influencing not only the views of the general public but also the socialand psychological condition of Nubians themselves” [Hussein, 2014, p. 35].Nubians are perceived in the collective imagination, as bawab (doormen), house-hold servants, or butlers who wear country garments, such as the turban andgallabiyya, and speak broken Arabic [Hussein, 2014, p. 34]; and the stereotypingof Nubians as a subordinate urban class “exclude Nubians from dominant conceptsof Egyptian identity by associating them with either a past slave origin in sub-Saharan Africa, or a contemporary African origin” [Smith, 2006, p. 401].

Finally, the overpowering presence of Nubian bodies in the dioramas objectifiesthem. In the representation of the Koranic school, for instance, the main actors ofthe diorama are people: students and teacher. The students are sitting on a blanketon the floor and the teacher is sitting on a small wooden bench holding a book inhis hand. In the background stands a painted house, in the typical Nubian fashion,decorated with flags, and geometric figures. The rest of the composition is made ofrocks and sand, and a painting of a felucca (traditional wooden sailing boat) sailingon the Nile. Aesthetically, the diorama is striking: the light is a warm yellow andthe colors of the mannequins’ robes, house and sand are in golden tones. The impres-sion that results from these choices is a symbiosis with nature, since the teaching istaking place on the sandy floor, right next to the Nile, and the yellow carpet seemsto be an extension of the sand itself. The house appears to also be an extension ofthe ground, as it is clearly made from sand, and its color is identical to the ground.The image embodies a natural, romantic past of symbiosis with nature, which invokesbucolic memories. Another diorama represents a scene in which people are dancing,another aesthetically eye-catching assemblage. The house in the background is whiteand lit, decorated with stars and flags. Men dressed in white gallabiyya (traditionalegyptian garment) are playing instruments, and a woman dressed in black is dancing.Two other women dressed in black are in the background, apparently talking. Thescarcity of objects allows the mannequins to earn the main role in that composition.The result is ambiguous, both romanticizing a time of communion with nature in abeautiful environment and reducing it to a bare moment: Nubians possess very littlebut their own bodies and their communion to the surrounding nature. The emptinessof the scenes is both esthetically satisfying for viewers and simplifies a culture to afew items, in contrast with the other objects from older times that are displayed inthe other rooms of the museum. The Nubian culture appears as sparse and natural,in opposition to modernity.

134 Alexandra Parrs


© P

ress

es d

e S

cien

ces

Po

| Tél

écha

rgé

le 3

1/05

/202

2 su

r w

ww

.cai

rn.in

fo (

IP: 6

5.21

.229

.84)

© P



ww

.cairn.info (IP: 65.21.229.84)

Shaping identities

While, unsurprisingly, the Museum dioramas display many of the characteris-tics of dioramas that have been thoroughly examined by scholars, such as essen-tialization, racialization, allochronism, visual aestheticism, it is also worthexamining how they are perceived by different groups of people, such as themuseum community and Nubians from surrounding villages.

Undoubtedly, dioramas tell us as much about the people and institutions whobuild them as about those they are supposed to represent. The Nubian dioramasare praised by members of the Museum community, Unesco and the Aga Khanfoundation as enabling the public to taste the real Nubia. Despite being critical,scholarly work also showed that dioramas could be an engaging museologicalstrategy. Reiss and Tunnicliffe highlighted dioramas’ pedagogical function in tel-ling stories that are “part of how we learn” [Reiss, Tunnicliffe, 2011, p. 456];Chicone and Kissel emphasized the strong sensual and emotional component [Chi-cone, Kissel, 2014, p. 75], which gives visitors the impression that they are notonly in a museum but they are touching some reality, counteracting the “museumeffect” [Halloran, 2009, p. 80]. According to a report on the Museum from theAga Khan foundation, “The local people are very proud of their museum. Theybring their visitors to see it and feel it reflects their way of life. Their favoritesection is the diorama, which has provoked interest and strong memories” [Ala-muddin, 2001, p. 10]. It is not clear whether the local people’ are Nubians ornon-Nubian inhabitants of Aswan, or whether that remark was based on empiricalresearch, it is not clear either what way of life is reflected – pre or post relocation?The paragraph, though, seeks to demonstrate the role of enabler of the NubiaMuseum to provoke memories. It is not clear, however, to what extent thosememories are reconstructed by the presentation of a timeless past that is violence-free and trauma-free and seems to be reified in order not to be lost – while muchwas lost in the move out of the villages.

The discourses of the former director of the Nubia Museum, Ragheb Mohamed,and the current director, Ossama Meguid also emphasize the positive role of thedioramas within the institution. For Ragheb Mohamed, in his essay on the NubiaMuseum, “The last section in the interior of the museum – and the most popularamong the old Nubian visitors – are the dioramas showing Nubian daily life as itwas some decades ago, when the Nubians were still living along the Nile in theirvillages of origin” [Mohamed, undated]. During an interview conducted in Sep-tember of 2015, Meguid marveled at the empowering role of the dioramas for theNubian community. He explained how local schoolchildren and Nubian familieswere all drawn specifically to the dioramas that helped them understand theirhistory [Meguid, 2005]. In his essay, Mohamed also noted:

“The dioramas and the rest of the museum are always crowded by Nubians comingwith all their family, young and old. It is very moving to watch the old peopletrying to read all the labels in the interior display, also hoping to find some old



© P

ress

es d

e S

cien

ces

Po

| Tél

écha

rgé

le 3

1/05

/202

2 su

r w

ww

.cai

rn.in

fo (

IP: 6

5.21

.229

.84)

© P



ww

.cairn.info (IP: 65.21.229.84)

artifacts coming from their native area, or explaining to their grandchildren thedetails of daily life that are now so rapidly changing” [Mohamed, undated].

Mohamed depicts emotions that are created inter-generationally; grandparentsteach their grandchildren about their past of which they may have some recollec-tions; his descriptions could fit any culture that has been evolving and, in thatprocess, discarding some old practices. The fact that many aspects of the “oldlife” have been largely lost when the Nubian villages were submerged is erased.The story that is told is one of different generations bonding over lost traditionsin a changing world. A similar discourse can be found in an article published byal Ahram, one of the most influential Egyptian newspaper: “It has taken a longtime to resuscitate Nubia’s heritage but, based on the popularity of the NubiaMuseum, where Nubian family groups roam around the two-level, well laid-outgalleries to show their children a glimpse of their past – the dioramas of Nubianvillage life and folklore help them to do so – it is fair to postulate that [...] [it]will be one of the main attractions in Aswan” [Kamil, al Ahram, 2012, June13-19]. The article also fails to mention the relocation process and focuses on therole of the dioramas facilitators to imagine what village life was in a past thatneeds “resuscitating”, while the cause of its death remains unexplained.

The ethnographic representations in the Nubia Museum ignore the trauma ofNubian exile. There are no direct allusions to the displacement itself, nor to whatthe culture is like now in comparison to before. While the salvaging of archeo-logical monuments from being submerged is well documented, the trauma of thedisplaced Nubians is not explicitly represented in the Museum. Scholars havenoted that when the High Dam was erected, the international community wasmobilized largely to save the monuments of Nubia, and less attention was paid tothe fate of its people and their cultural heritage, which was strongly connectedthrough history to their original homeland and was submerged beneath the risingwater [Elcheikh, 2015, p. 1920]. Evidently, the emphasis on monuments needs tobe contextualized: when many Nubian monuments and artifacts were rescued fromthe waters in the 1960s, cultural and intangible heritage were not necessarilyperceived as a priority, which is likely explaining the Museum’s initial emphasison physical items. Still, the culture represented of the dioramas is a timelessfantasy, that has seemingly been stripped of political meaning, which is itself apolitical statement. As Benedict Anderson reminds us, “museums and the museu-mizing imagination are both profoundly political” [Anderson, 1991, p. 78]. Thediscourse of the Museum community represents the government philosophy ofnational homogeneity, a crucial strategy in many national museums and, as notedby De Simone, “[...] the [Nubia] museum is located in Egypt and the government’sintention was to emphasize the Nubian culture in its own right as well as todemonstrate how it has fitted into the wider context of the Egyptian culture” [2014,p. 90]. The erasure of the trauma of the displacement serves to foster nationalunity and to show how the Nubians are unproblematically integrated into Egyptiansociety. Smith explains that the state views Nubian culture as a vital ingredientof national culture, Nubian political aspirations are potentially threatening to the

136 Alexandra Parrs


© P

ress

es d

e S

cien

ces

Po

| Tél

écha

rgé

le 3

1/05

/202

2 su

r w

ww

.cai

rn.in

fo (

IP: 6

5.21

.229

.84)

© P



ww

.cairn.info (IP: 65.21.229.84)

idea of national unity – which explains the refusal of the government to addresslegitimate Nubian complaints about Kom-Ombo and the “Right to Return” to theirhomeland. The Museum, while focusing on the Nubians, still situates itself withinan Egyptian context of homogeneity. As noted by De Simone, “[...] the museumis located in Egypt and the government’s intention was to emphasize the Nubianculture in its own right as well as to demonstrate how it has fitted into the widercontext of the Egyptian culture” [De Simone, 2014, p. 90]. Interestingly, itsdirector is not a Nubian, whereas the Coptic museum in Cairo has a mandatestipulating that it must be directed by a Copt. The Coptic community was theinitiator of the creation of the Coptic Museum and even after its nationalizationin the 1930s, the Coptic Church retained control over its management and admi-nistration. In 1949–1951, when the government tried to install a Muslim asdirector, the community strongly protested. Since then, there has been an implicitunderstanding that the director will always be a member of the Coptic community.This stands in contrast to events in the Nubian Museum, which was initiated bynon-Nubians and where non-Nubian directors have been in charge from the outset.

The narratives in the panels around the displays also contribute to constructthe Nubian “character.” When reading the panel describing Nubians, I recalledMagdy’s words when he gifted me his painting, alluding to Nubian generosityand hospitality. When I returned to the Nubian village, I had a discussion withone of Magdy’s friends, Sobhi 3, and asked him what he thought about the des-cription of the Nubian character of the Nubia Museum. To refresh his memory, Ienumerated the adjectives on the panel: collaborative, honest, goodhearted. Hisresponse was to find examples that illustrated, and therefore validated, the des-cription. He explained the scarcity of Copts among Nubians – all Nubiansconverted to Islam almost overnight, he explained. When Islam reached Nubia, aNubian Sheikh embraced it, and the whole community followed, as being colla-borative was so crucial to their culture. He offered an example of the goodhear-tedness and lack of violence within the Nubian community, rooted in how theycollectivity solved internal problems before Egyptian authorities had to intervene.What is written on the panel is correct, he wholeheartedly agreed: Nubians arevery cooperative and hate violence. He then reflected on some violent instancesand concluded that every time violence occurred between the Nubians and non-Nubians, Nubians had been attacked by non-Nubian Egyptians.

The descriptions are perhaps representative of certain cultural practices amongthe Nubians, such as a social organization that encourages solving problems withinthe group and a desire for consensus. Collaboration, honesty and goodheartednessare positive characteristics that members of the group are pleased to present tooutsiders. Nubians, in these characterizations, also appear non-threatening to theEgyptian nation, by being intrinsically opposed to violence. The desire to appearnon-threatening was also discernible when I mentioned political action to some

3. Name was changed.



© P

ress

es d

e S

cien

ces

Po

| Tél

écha

rgé

le 3

1/05

/202

2 su

r w

ww

.cai

rn.in

fo (

IP: 6

5.21

.229

.84)

© P



ww

.cairn.info (IP: 65.21.229.84)

of the Nubians I talked with in another village. While they embraced the idea ofcultural identity, they vehemently rejected any thought of political action. Oneman put a finger on his lips: “We are not crazy. We never talk about such things!”

I argue that the focus on cultural practices in the dioramas depoliticizes theNubian identity and its result is a representation of a benevolent Nubian that servesto reassure on both sides of the ethnic boundary. The Museum institutionallydepoliticizes the community and offers an image that is anchored solely in itscultural identity, reified in some scenes such as night dance, madrassa teachingsor women weaving. The Nubia Museum’s artifacts emphasize Nubians’ “unity,citizenship, peace and trade under the umbrella of centralized Egyptian domi-nance” [Smith, 2006]. It is possible, that the suffering and nostalgia of a lost,romanticized past is present and manifest in the sentiments those scenes evokefor Nubians themselves, who know of the traumatic exile and do not need itexplained to them. Interestingly, in his examination of Nubian literature, Husseinnotes that the bulge in creativity of Nubian literature “stems from the sufferingof Nubians caused by the inundation of Old Nubia by the Aswan Dam, the migra-tion of men to the North to make a living, and nostalgia for Old Nubia” [Hussein,2014, p. 37]. The trauma is obviously present in Nubian collective memory andperhaps does not need to be reemphasized in the Museum. Elizabeth Smith showedthat Nubian identity cautiously positioned itself within the realm of Egyptiannational identity, without appearing threatening to national unity. This strategymay also be appropriated by members of the Nubian community themselves tofoster a sentiment of belonging. Being secure as Egyptians makes it easier forNubians to “preserve and teach the Nubian language and write fiction addressingthe history of Nubians in Egypt” [Smith, 2006, p. 145-146].

Role of the dioramas in re-territorialization:

The dioramas may have yet another function which is to act as a place ofsymbolic re-territorialization. Their displacement, referred to as the Nubian Nakbain reference to the Palestinian 1948 displacement, was costly for Nubians. Theloss of their territory irremediably triggered a loss of cultural practices, particularlybecause the Nubian way of life was closely linked to its environment. For instance,before the displacement, Nubian houses were built of stone, clay and sand, theflat roofs were commonly built of palm leaves (jareed) and grain stalks and thearched domes were of clay bricks [Kamel, Abdel Hadi, 2012, p. 79]. The wallsof the houses were decorated with paintings of flags, flowers, birds and otheranimals. The architectural form of the houses was closely related to social rela-tions, as they were clustered in groups called nog or naja, that shared a commonancestor and had a specific division of labor [Bayoumi, 2017, p. 7]. Grauer [1968]also showed that gender roles were impacted by the care of the houses and Nubianfemales specifically painted Nubian homes. The house painting constituted a meanof expression for the women of the group, and their main occupation within thecommunity.

138 Alexandra Parrs


© P

ress

es d

e S

cien

ces

Po

| Tél

écha

rgé

le 3

1/05

/202

2 su

r w

ww

.cai

rn.in

fo (

IP: 6

5.21

.229

.84)

© P



ww

.cairn.info (IP: 65.21.229.84)

After 1964, the Nubians were relocated into camps that were similar to refugeecamps, organized in rows of housing units that could hardly support the crucialsocial structures pre-relocation. These assemblages erased some social boundariesand created others, instilling new types of allegiances and cultural identifications.Studies of the new Nubian houses and of how external decoration, door painting,floor plans and house orientation were modified post-relocation, found some conti-nuity but mostly deep cultural fractures. For instance, Nubian families relocatedon Kom Ombo modified their houses to provide more privacy by adding frontyards surrounded by fences, and made more space for social hospitality and tohost rituals, they also redecorated and colored the houses facades, in the old style[Kamel, Abdel-Hadi, 2012 ; Fahim, 1981]. However, in the interviews conductedby Kamel and Adbel-Hadi, about half of their interlocutors were still dissatisfiedwith their housing units, even after their modifications [Kamel, Adbel-Hadi, 2012,p. 80-81]. The study shows that many Nubians, particularly among the youngergenerations, had acquired the habits of the local saiidis (Egyptian peasants) andused in their homes “less elaborative features that are reminiscent of the new localarchitecture of the Kom Ombo region” and some of the respondents “have nofuture plans for more renovation in their present houses” [Kamel, Adbel-Hadi,2012, p. 87]. According to the researchers, that acculturation is coupled with asentiment of dissatisfaction with their new residences, as “they are still dreamingof their old houses.” The study shows that Nubians’ hopes to keep alive Nubianculture were hampered by an impossibility to recreate the old way of living, largelyembodied in the ideal situation of the houses next to the Nile, which cannot beadjusted, and the structure and decoration of the houses, which can only partiallybe adjusted.

In contrast, the houses erected in the Museum dioramas are all adorned withthe traditional paintings that existed pre-displacement, and they are all facing apainted Nile. The Nubia Museum itself is facing the Nile and painted in thetraditional way. All the ethnographic dioramas include the facade of a traditionalNubian house. The class is taking place in front of the door of a house whosefacade is decorated with flags and triangles. The women from Magdy’s paintingare weaving in front of the house door which is richly decorated with differentNubian designs, consisting of colorful triangles around the doors, themselvespainted and decorated with geometrical figures. In a third diorama, Nubian dancersand musicians perform in front of a closed door ; the house is not painted buttriangular shapes sculpted in the wall and lit from behind. The houses on thedioramas seem to encapsulate the essence of true traditional Nubian homes withtheir proximity to the River Nile, their facade decoration and their overpoweringpresence in every scene, a presence rendered more palpable by the relative absenceof other artifacts since the dioramas are primarily structured around houses andmannequins. The Museum dioramas recreate the aesthetics of the time periodwhere houses were decorated and built along the Nile river – a time beforerelocation.



© P

ress

es d

e S

cien

ces

Po

| Tél

écha

rgé

le 3

1/05

/202

2 su

r w

ww

.cai

rn.in

fo (

IP: 6

5.21

.229

.84)

© P



ww

.cairn.info (IP: 65.21.229.84)

Museums can act as sites of reterritorialization. Following Deleuze and Guat-tari’s definition of deterritorialization [Deleuze, Guattari, 1974], when an objectis removed from its initial context, or native place, it is stripped of its meaningtherefore deterritorialized, and it can eventually be reterritorialized into its newhome, potentially a museum. Is the Nubia Museum, via its dioramas, acting as aspace of reterritorialization for the submerged Nubian villages? The immediateanswer would be positive, the houses in the dioramic set up are given a centralrole, as they were in the traditional Nubian villages, they are adorned with paintedfacades and decorated doors, and established along the Nile. The dioramas reter-ritorialize Nubian villages, perhaps to the extent that the recreated space is seenas more authentic than the original place which they refer to, partly because theyare the only houses known by most of the Nubian population in Aswan.

Reterritorialization is associated with cultural consumption by tourists, whichwhile also present in the Nubia Museum [Elcheikh, 2015] is not the focus of thispaper. It can also be a place of recreated cultural authenticity, crucial for thecommunity that is related to that culture. The notion of being in touch with a lostpast is present in the discourse of the Museum community and Nubians of theneighboring villages. Former director Ossama Meguid sees the dioramas as a placewhere different generations can engage in discussion about life and the past, aswell as traditions: “The message has reached its target. The museum is there as areminder for all of them, and most importantly, it helps the young generationremember their inherited past, and never to let it die.” [Meguid, 2005]

Nubians I spoke with in the Nubian villages mentioned that the Museum wasa good place to learn about that past and how things were before, and the “housesin the Museum look like our houses really used to be.” In that sense the deterri-torialization has to do with what Kearney calls “hyperreal spaces [...] in whichsimulacra are seen as more real than the real thing” [Kearney, 2004, p. 223]. Intheir hyperreality, the assemblages tell stories that are easy to understand and jumpinto, allowing Nubian visitors to consume some of their lost past and to be intouch with what is constructed as authentic Nubian culture, which can be empo-wering for the members of the community. The dioramic assemblages also createan anchor for Nubians’ lost history, a starting point for discussions about the past,which is the strategy highlighted by the Museum community in their mandate tomake the Museum a community center where schoolchildren can come and learn.In comparison, the houses in the Kom Ombo area do not appear to be a directcultural transposition from the submerged villages, as they have followed a cir-cumvolved path in their evolution, from the plain house in the 1960s, to the housein 1980 after about twenty years of occupancy, with architectural and artisticmodifications. However, unlike the houses in the dioramas, the 1980 houses havebeen modified mostly be adding a front yard and painting the front facades. Theyappear different from the houses pre-relocation. The houses in the dioramas havebeen transported in a fixed state from the past to a recreated environment at theMuseum, which gives a semblance of authenticity to the houses themselves andto the stories they serve to illustrate in the dioramic settings. Ironically, the

140 Alexandra Parrs


© P

ress

es d

e S

cien

ces

Po

| Tél

écha

rgé

le 3

1/05

/202

2 su

r w

ww

.cai

rn.in

fo (

IP: 6

5.21

.229

.84)

© P



ww

.cairn.info (IP: 65.21.229.84)

theatrical museum dioramas seem to have more authenticity than the houses inha-bited by relocated Nubians. However, despite seeming hyperreal, those assem-blages have been imagined and they serve to reconstruct the past using superficialelements, stripped of their meanings, as it is the case with house decorating. Asnoted by Feifan Xi, “deterritorialization ultimately produces a disconnect betweena past lived, found or discovered, and another as represented by signifiers of animagined landscape” [Feifan Xi, 2015, p. 194].

In an interesting twist, while the dioramas may give the impression that housedecorating is an ancestral tradition in Nubian culture, it would appear that itactually is a relatively recent practice. According to Marian Wenzel’s study ofhouse decoration in Nubia, carried out in the early 1960s, many of the artisticforms had only existed since the 1920s and they had been initiated by one man,Ahmad Batoul [Layton, 1991]. The functions and meanings of house decorationwere also constantly evolving. It could be a type of advertising for the plasterer,a job that itself had varying degrees of prestige across the decades of the twentiethcentury. The process of art decoration allowed for the creation a new type ofprofession, the artists and carpenters who specialized in the trade and sough todevelop it. Wenzel also noted differences among Nubian communities in theirhouse decorating practices: Sudanese Nubians were more reluctant to spend moneyon a professional decorator and decorated homes themselves, when EgyptianNubians used professional artists. She highlighted gender differences, men favo-ring designs celebrating pilgrimage to Mecca and women decorating houseentrances [Layton, 1991, p. 229-230]. House decoration also became a more pre-dominantly feminine occupation in some villages in response to increased malelabor migration.

Wenzel’s analyses demonstrated that a cultural practice such as house deco-ration initially believed to be old, may rather have been recently turned into tra-dition. The meanings and functions associated with that practice also variedgeographically and chronologically. The dioramas seek to present an authenticNubian territory in a process of retraditionalization, morphing a recent and hete-rogenous practice into a marker of cultural authenticity. Further, the various andconstantly evolving meanings associated with house decorating are erased and thedecoration of Nubian houses becomes something fixed.

Conclusion

Initially, the Museum was intended by Unesco to display salvaged objectsduring the Nubia Campaign and the ethnographic rooms seem to have been createdas an afterthought, however, they became one of the most important attraction inthe Museum, attracting members of the Nubian community to have a taste of theirlost past. The study of the dioramas of the Nubia Museum illustrates the ambi-guities associated with the use of dioramas as a museological strategy and, conco-mitantly, the ambiguity associated with Nubian identity.



© P

ress

es d

e S

cien

ces

Po

| Tél

écha

rgé

le 3

1/05

/202

2 su

r w

ww

.cai

rn.in

fo (

IP: 6

5.21

.229

.84)

© P



ww

.cairn.info (IP: 65.21.229.84)

At first, analysis demonstrates that the dioramas of the ethnographic sectionof the Nubia Museum display characteristics of essentialization, racialization, allo-chronism or visual aestheticism. At the same time, they also act as crowd pleasers,allowing visitors to emotionally experience a situation that is deemed authentic.The dioramas render tangible the intangible, by essentializing cultural practices,and by choosing certain aspects of the culture over the others. The culturalizingof the identity reduces Nubianness to a set of actions: a wedding, a madrassa,dusk dance and basket weaving. Not only do those choices simplify and homo-genize the culture, but they also erase any political components of the identity, aswell as the experience of the traumatic exile.

That absence of the political can also be interpreted as a desire from the ins-titution to avoid threatening discussions on Nubians’ potential political aspirations,making them an uncontested part of Egyptian history. It is worth noting that theNational Museum of Egyptian Civilization, which was mandated at the same timeas the Nubia Museum takes a similar approach. It makes different segments ofthe Egyptian society part of an encompassing homogeneous Egyptianness in itsdisplays.

The few discussions I had with Nubians from the neighboring villages,however, show an acceptation of that cultural representation. The traits ascribedto Nubians are indeed positive: cooperativeness, goodheartedness, or honesty.What’s more, feeling as an integral part of the greater Egyptian culture allowsNubians to engage in their own culture without being accused of not belonging.Obviously, these are preliminary reflections and would need further exploration,as the strategy of the Museum is certainly contested as well by segments of theNubian community [Smith, 2006].

The aspect concerns the territory that seems to be embodied in the dioramas,and their role as spaces of reterritorialization. The Nubian territory was lost whenthe High Dam was built and the Nubian population was forced to relocate insurrounding areas. Many cultural practices were lost in the process, such as housedecorating. The dioramas give a crucial role to Nubian houses as most of therecreated scenes take place in front of a decorated Nubian home. The houses areset up next to the Nile and they are decorated in a traditional way. The “old ways”have been transplanted to the Museum and allow Nubians to see the houses and,as noted by interlocutors and particularly the Museum directors, transmit thatknowledge and explain the traditions to younger generations. The dioramas havea function of vector of identity. However, dioramas by essence are reified repre-sentations and only allow to display the visible production of a practice. In thecase of house decorating, the evolution of the practice and its functions is lost ina static construction. What is left is solely the painted houses at a given time.Decorating the house is relatively recent and has an economic and social role inthe villages, such as promoting new professions, or being used differently acrossgender lines.

142 Alexandra Parrs


© P

ress

es d

e S

cien

ces

Po

| Tél

écha

rgé

le 3

1/05

/202

2 su

r w

ww

.cai

rn.in

fo (

IP: 6

5.21

.229

.84)

© P



ww

.cairn.info (IP: 65.21.229.84)

While the evolution of multilayered practices can obviously not be translatedin reified objects, new meanings nonetheless emerge and dioramas may have thepotential to become an anchor for the Nubian identity, for those who had neverseen Nubian homes before the relocation. In this respect, Magdy’s painting ismuch more than the mere internalization of the dioramas of the Museum, as ascene of a time that was erased.

References

ALAMUDDIN H. [2001], Technical Summary Review, Nubian Museum, Aswan, Egypt://www.akdn.org/sites/akdn/files/media/documents/AKAA%20press%20kits/2001%20AKAA/Nubian%20Museum%20-%20Egypt.pdf (accessed on June 3, 2017).

ANDERSON B. [1991], Imagined Communities, London, Verso.

BAYOUMI O. A. M. [2017], “Nubian Vernacular Architecture & Contemporary Aswan Buil-dings’ Enhancement”, Alexandria Engineering Journal, vol. 57, no 2, p. 875-883.

CHICONE S., KISSEL R. [2014], Dinosaurs and Dioramas: Creating Natural History Exhibitions,Walnut Creek (Calif.), Left Coast Press.

DELEUZE G., GUATTARI F. [1974], L’Anti-Œdipe, Paris, Minuit.

ELCHEIKH Z. [2015], “Interpretation in Cultural Tourism: Nubian Culture in Southern Egypt”,Furnace, no 1, p. 1926.

FAHIM H. [1981], Dams People and Development, New York (N. Y.), Pergamon Press.

FEIFAN XI P. [2015], Industrial Heritage Tourism, Bristol, Channel View Publication.

GRAUER A. [1968], Die Architektur und Wandmalerei der Nubier behandelt nach dem ethno-graphischen Befund von der Aussiedlung 1963/64, Wurttemberg, Gedruckt mit Unterstüt-zung des Landes Baden.

HALLORAN V. N. [2009], Exhibiting Slavery: The Caribbean Postmodern Novel as Museum,Charlotteville (Va), University of Virginia Press.

HUSSEIN N. M. [2014], “Identity Politics of Color, Nation and Land in the Literature of NubianEgyptians, with Special Reference to Muhammad Khalil Qasim’s Al-Shamandoura”, inSELIM Y. F., MOHAMED E., Who Defines Me: Negotiating Identity in Language and Litera-ture, Newcastle, Cambridge Scholar Publishing, p. 33-48.

KAMEL D, ABDEL-HADI A. [2012], “Space, Color and Quality of Life in a Nubian Environment”,International Journal of Architectural Research, vol. 6, no 1, p. 77-89.

KAMIL J. [2012], “New Kalabsha at Aswan”, Al Ahram Newspaper, June 13-19:http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/Archive/2002/590/hr1.htm (accessed on May 2, 2017).

KEARNEY M. [2004], Changing Fields of Anthropology: from Local to Global, Lanham (Md.),Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

LAYTON R. [1991], The Anthropology of Art, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

MEGUID O. A. [2005], “The Nubia Museum’s Role in the Community”, Museum International.vol. 57, no 12, p. 67-78.

MOHAMED R. [undated], “Nubian Museum”: www.academia.edu/5637126/Nubian_Museum(accessed on May 2, 2017).



© P

ress

es d

e S

cien

ces

Po

| Tél

écha

rgé

le 3

1/05

/202

2 su

r w

ww

.cai

rn.in

fo (

IP: 6

5.21

.229

.84)

© P



ww

.cairn.info (IP: 65.21.229.84)

REISS M. J., TUNNICLIFFE S. D. [2011], “Dioramas as Depictions of Reality and Opportunity forLearning in Biology”, Curator, vol. 54, no 4, p 447-459.

SIMONE (DE) M. C. [2014], Nubia and Nubians: The “Museumization” of a Culture, Thesis,University of Leiden.

SMITH E. [2006], “Place, Class, and Race in the Barbara Cafe: Nubians in Egyptian Media”, inSINGERMAN D., AMAR P., Cairo Cosmopolitan: Politics, Culture, and Urban Space in theNew Globalized Middle East, Cairo, American University in Cairo Press, p. 399-414.

STEINER C. [1991] “Review of Worlds in Miniature, Worlds Apart: Dioramas, Models, andMannequins in Peabody Museum Exhibitions, Peabody Museum, Harvard University”,Museum Anthropology, vol. 15, no 2, p. 34.

STRUGE K. [2014], Representing Others: Translation, Ethnography and Museum, London,Routledge.

UNESCO [1981], International Campaign for the Establishment of the Nubia Museum on Aswanand the National Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo, Unesco:http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0004/000483/048309Eb.pdf (accessed on May 4, 2017).

ZITTLAU A. [2011], “Dreamlands of Culture: Ethnographic Dioramas and their Prospects”, inJOBS S, MACKENTHUN G., Embodiments of Cultural Encounters, New York (N. Y.),Waxmann, p. 161-180.

144 Alexandra Parrs


© P

ress

es d

e S

cien

ces

Po

| Tél

écha

rgé

le 3

1/05

/202

2 su

r w

ww

.cai

rn.in

fo (

IP: 6

5.21

.229

.84)

© P



ww

.cairn.info (IP: 65.21.229.84)

Dioramas in the Nubia Museum of Aswan - Cairn

Documents

Transcript of Dioramas in the Nubia Museum of Aswan - Cairn