IDNO

P.50990.RDG

Description

Posed Bisharin family portrait of two men, one elderly, and a young boy and girl. The young boy wears a tunic and has short hair, shaved at the sides. The elderly man wears white cloth in a toga style and strands of twisted cord on which hangs a possibly leather pouch or amulet around his neck. The young girl also wears three of these neck ornaments as well as arm ornaments. She wears a skirt possibly made of leather fringing and has finely braided hair which hangs lose. The other man has braided hair at the side and lose on the top, with what appears to be a stick or nail in it. He wears a beaded neck ornament and pouch pendant and white cloth wrapped around his lower body. In the background there is a small stone wall and a large building with archways.

Place

NE Africa; Sudan; ?Nubia

Cultural Affliation

Bisharin [historically Bishareen]

Named Person

Photographer

C. & G. Zangaki Brothers

Collector / Expedition

Ridgeway, William

Date

circa 1880 - 1900

Collection Name

Ridgeway Collection

Source

Format

Print Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

The print was found in an envelope now marked C239/ which was inside the wooden drawer I.

Biographical Information: “ Though many early travellers encountered the Bishareen in Nubia, none wrote a detailed account of them. The Bishareen appear once to have had a fair idea of their own history, and there are reports that before the time of the Mahdi in the 1880s, they possessed some written accounts of their traditions. They lived in an area stretching from Aswan southward to Berber on the Nile River and Kassala on the Atbara River. Perhaps descendants of the earlier nomadic Bedja and Blemmyes, their legendary birthplace was Gebel Elba, near Aidhab; their name is traced to an eponymous ancestor "Bishar." Armed with broad swords, large round hide shields, at times caparisoned in chain mail passed down from the Middle Ages, their camel-mounted warriors were visions of the Prophet's own men. During the Mahdist wars in the Sudan, they were of somewhat divided loyalties: some followed the Mahdist chief Osman Digna, others annihilated Mahdist raiding parties, and some served as native irregulars with the British. Following the defeat of the Khalifa by the British at Omdurman, the Bishareen declined. The print was found in an envelope now marked C239/ which was inside the wooden drawer I.

Biographical Information: “ Though many early travellers encountered the Bishareen in Nubia, none wrote a detailed account of them. The Bishareen appear once to have had a fair idea of their own history, and there are reports that before the time of the Mahdi in the 1880s, they possessed some written accounts of their traditions. They lived in an area stretching from Aswan southward to Berber on the Nile River and Kassala on the Atbara River. Perhaps descendants of the earlier nomadic Bedja and Blemmyes, their legendary birthplace was Gebel Elba, near Aidhab; their name is traced to an eponymous ancestor "Bishar." Armed with broad swords, large round hide shields, at times caparisoned in chain mail passed down from the Middle Ages, their camel-mounted warriors were visions of the Prophet's own men. During the Mahdist wars in the Sudan, they were of somewhat divided loyalties: some followed the Mahdist chief Osman Digna, others annihilated Mahdist raiding parties, and some served as native irregulars with the British. Following the defeat of the Khalifa by the British at Omdurman, the Bishareen declined.”
http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/DEPT/PUB/CATALOG/LE2.5.html

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program Two. [JD 2/7/2007]