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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Debbie Dingell (MI-06) announced today that the University of Michigan will receive $149,782 in federal grant funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to support archaeological and ethnographic field research.

“Researchers from the University of Michigan are leading several important archaeological sites that span across five continents,” said Dingell. “In particular, this strong funding from NEH will help support the university’s archaeological research at the ancient site of Jebel Barkal in northern Sudan to better understand the dynamics of ancient society. This important research will help us better understand how early cities paved the way to the society we know today.”

"The University of Michigan team, working closely with our Sudanese and international professional colleagues, has a unique opportunity to study how an early African city functioned. We discovered this large area of settlement in 2016, and funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities will support our investigation into the political, economic, and social texture of the city at Jebel Barkal in northern Sudan," said Geoff Emberling, Associate Research Scientist, Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan.

Specifically, this project will investigate the ancient urban settlement of Jebel Barkal, located along the Nile River in northern Sudan. Jebel Barkal was one of the capital cities of Kush and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Over two field seasons, researchers will excavate six different areas to assess the diversity of activities and identities across the ancient city. The project will contribute to archaeology in the Nile Valley, where urban centers have rarely been investigated by techniques of comparative archaeology and will engage Sudanese colleagues as team members in discussions about and training in research methods.

Awards made through NEH’s Archaeological and Ethnographic Field Research grant program supports institutionally based empirical research that uses archaeological or ethnographic methods to answer significant questions in the humanities.