Preserving and Communicating a Sudanese Heritage Site Through a Digital Exhibition
Archeological activities in Sudan have been threatened by political instability and violence, putting its rich heritage sites and their documentation at risk of being damaged or lost. This chapter presents the case of Al-Khandaq town, a major archeological site that documents Sudanese architecture and cultures across several centuries. The town, in the UNESCO 1972 Convention tentative list, had been almost nonexistent in the online domain, having only a short Wikipedia page devoted to it and a few technical mentions or images. Moreover, most of the available documentation has been destroyed by the militia raiding the University of Khartoum. However, based on the data recorded on the laptop of the director of excavations, it has been possible to document this site and to provide a first digital representation of its fascinating architectural history. The presented digital exhibition, published on Google Arts and Culture, is not only important as an instance of digital preservation, it also provides an example of how digital assets can be orchestrated in a co-creative fashion, involving university students in its design.
