After a short break for Easter in Greece, we returned to our base in Bergen and brought with us lots of thoughts about our corners of the world and beyond.
Here we wish to share two images of a waterwheel we saw in Attica. It was probably made for decorative purposes by a gardener who wanted thus to instigate to his potential clients the idea of a paradisiac form of a garden with abundance of waters and ecologically friendly regulation of its flow. Today it has been set back to its position against the entrance wall to the shop in our neighborhood, but when photographed some time ago standing against nothing in the middle of a field, it made us think on the one hand of the wrecked Greek economy – especially in the productive sector – and on the other of the unjust loss of the significance of the waterwheel in our cherished Middle Nile Valley…
However, there were times when these structures were both important and imposing, as an image shot in 1983 by professor Randi Haaland (Emeritus since last month !) in the Berber region shows…
…and it is actually a tangible proof of the existence of saqias over wells to draw the water for the irrigation of the lands around even far away from the river.
The project of the archiving of the Haaland photo archive from Sudan and Africa is now approaching a conclusion for its first stage concerning the Darfur photos. Such samples (for another one see HERE) show the value of the rest of the archive, and their use in the Medieval Sai Project demonstrates our wish to see Sudan Studies in Bergen alive…and kicking !
[...] post by ergamenis Category: Uncategorized You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. [...]