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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.