Ethnos Kalos
The purpose of the foundation is to promote ethnological and archaeological research and to acquire objects of cultural value.
Ethnos Kalos
The purpose of the foundation is to promote ethnological and archaeological research and to acquire objects of cultural value.
EXPLORING
Funded Projects
1. Videography Project: WODAABE - HERDSMEN AT SUNSET
- Duration: 2021-2023
- Location: Republic of Chad
- Grant recipient: Rocco Ravà
- Project description:
- The project is the presentation to the general public of the film Wodaabe – Herdsmen at Sunset, from an ethnoarchaeological, cinematographic and musicological point of view.
- The Wodaabe are a sub-ethnicity belonging to the Fulani people and live a nomadic life in central Africa. The Wodaabe move with their livestock from southern Niger to northern Nigeria, from northeast Cameroon to southwest Chad and into the western regions of the Central African Republic. In autumn, they gather for a party called Guérewol, during which the girls choose their boyfriend from all the boys present. One of the first to document the ceremony on video was the German director Werner Herzog, in his 1989 documentary Wodaabe – Hedsmen of the Sun (Die Hirten der Sonne).
- Their lifestyle and traditions are rapidly disappearing due to their incompatibility with modern “civilization”. Filmed more than 30 years later, the film Wodaabe – Herdsmen at Sunset follows one of Chad’s tribes on his journey to Guérewol, documenting a thousand-year-old tradition that risks disappearing in the next decade.
- Music and group dancing are typical of Fula traditions, which have largely disappeared among the vast diaspora of the urban Fula population. This is characterized by group singing, accompanied by hand clapping, foot tapping and bells. The Wodaabe Guérewol festival is one of the most famous examples of this style of repeated, hypnotic and percussive choral traditions, accompanied by swaying line dances, where men interlock their arms and rise and fall on tiptoe.
2. Project: PREHISTORIC EGYPT IN MUSEUM COLLECTIONS (PREMUC)
Duration: 2021-2023
Location: Egypt, Italy
Grant recipient: Dr. Giulio Lucarini (National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Heritage Science – CNR-ISPC, Italy)
Project description:
The PrEMuC project, hosted by the CNR ISPC and directed by Giulio Lucarini and Federica Ugliano, aims to shed new light on the Egyptian prehistoric artefacts which are part of museum collections, through the application of multidisciplinary analysis.
In the early 20th century Ernesto Schiaparelli, Director of the Museo Egizio in Turin and Head of the M.A.I. (Missione Archeologica Italiana), carried out a number of archaeological excavations throughout Egypt (1903-1920). Among the many sites that he explored, Heliopolis was among the most significant, known to the ancient Egyptians as the place of the creation of the world, and location of many temple and settlement structures.
Included within the 1500 new entries recorded in the Museo Egizio at the time of his work at that site (inventory numbers 1903-1906), there are numerous pottery fragments and lithic artefacts (from number S. 3878 to S. 4196) claimed to have been brought to light in Heliopolis, coming from an area generically defined as “Prehistoric Village”.
Although he carried out extensive investigations, Schiaparelli never published the results of his excavations. Thus, the two main aims of this research project, which is already ongoing, are:
· The complete re-examination of all the archival material stored in several Italian institutions.
· The complete techno-typological and functional analysis of the ceramic and lithic artefacts stored at the Museo Egizio
3. Project: HISTORICAL KENTE: SURVEY OF SOURCES AND COLLABORATIONS
Duration: 2022-2024
Location: Ghana, Togo, Cote d’Ivoire
Grant recipient: Dr. Malika Kraamer
Project description:
Kente cloth from Ghana, Togo and Cote d’Ivoire are highly treasured in Ghana and abroad. They play a prominent role in marking Ghanaian, Togolese and Cote d’Ivorian, pan-African and African American identities. The history of kente cloth can be traced back to the end of the 17th century, with the rise of the Asante Empire, and also to cloth production centres in adjacent areas, in particular southern Togo, south-eastern Ghana and central-west Cote d’Ivoire. The production of cloth and trade in textiles in these areas, with possibly the exception of cloth production in the heart of the Asante Empire, dates back many more centuries. To have a full understanding of what is called today kente in Ghana, kete (Ghana and Togo) or kita (Côte d’Ivoire) – textiles woven in the Twi, Baule and Ewe-speaking regions of southern Ghana, western and central Côte d’Ivoire and southern Togo – it is important to understand the production areas in adjacent areas, e.g. northern Togo – in particular the region around Atakpamé and Kara, northern Ghana – in particular Daboya, Tamale and Wa, and central-west Cote d’Ivoire – in particular Boundoukou, Kong and Tiebissou.
Even though kente is one of the most well-known cloth from West Africa, much is still unknown about its social and design histories. Although This research project has the following goals:
- Identifying and surveying the main textile holdings of historical kente and adjacent textile traditions, the historical and contemporary weaving production centres and the stakeholders and gatekeepers of historical textiles in Ghana, Togo and Cote d’Ivoire.
- Researching historical cloths in these centres and their (global) interconnections in historical perspective, in particular cloth from the Kpalimé area (Togo) and Boundoukou region (Côte d’Ivoire).
- Disseminating the research on the identification of the oldest extant kente, currently in the Wisbech and Fenland Museum, and the outcomes of this research to stakeholders in Ghana, Côte d’Ivoir and Togo.
Outcomes:
- Malika KRAAMER (2023) ‘Unravelling Regional and Global Connections. Historical kente and related textile traditions in Ghana, Togo and Côte d’Ivoire’. African Arts, 56 (3), 8-19.
4. Project: ENNEDI ROCK ART PROJECT PROSPECTING MISSION
Duration: 2022-2024
Location: Republic of Chad
Grant recipient: Pier Paolo Rossi
Project description:
In the fascinating panorama of the cultures of hunter-gatherers and shepherds who lived the ancient “Green Sahara” in the Holocene, the north of Chad, thanks to its geographical position and climatic conditions, represents a fundamental point for the development of these cultures and the distribution of Rock Art in the Ennedi region is one of the largest, perhaps the largest, in the whole Sahara. However, compared to other Saharan countries, modern scientific research has never been carried out in Chad, to understand the exact chronology and quality of life of these ancient populations, leaving a large gap in the precious and complex mosaic of Holocene cultures of the Sahara.
For this reason, from the collaboration of professionals with decades of experience in the Saharan environment, the Ennedi Rock Art Project (ERAP) was born, with a three-year study and research program, that aims to fill this knowledge gap.
As part of this research project, we want to organize an important special PROSPECTING mission for the end of November / beginning of December 2022, with the following specific purposes:
- Direct prospecting to Ennedi to allow Professor Di Lernia of La Sapienza University of Rome and the representative (s) of Chadian institutions to view a selection of important Rock Art sites with supposed chronological contents dating back to the different artistic periods of the Holocene (archaic, pastoral, equestrian and camel).
- Prospecting and visit a selection of prehistoric sites containing sufficient basal sediment to enable to plan any excavation campaigns.
- To make known the real conservation of the various paintings and their environmental context, in order to foresee the adequate technical means necessary for research.
- Meeting with the traditional Authorities in the Ennedi region to illustrate the intentions of the future research project.
Organizing a meeting between the institutional representatives of La Sapienza University of Rome and the deputy Institutions of the Tchad government (ONPTA, Ministry of Culture) for the final development of an agreement MoU.
5. Project: DECOLONISING THE LIVING MEMORY OF COLOUR AND DYE SKILLS AMONG REMOTE AMAZIGH COMMUNITIES IN THE NORTH AFRICAN MOUNTAINS VIA EXPERIMENTAL ARCHAEOLOGY (ReWeaR)
Duration: 2023-2025
Location: Tunisia
Grant recipient: Prof. Anita Radini (University College Dublin, Ireland)
Project description:
North Africa is home to an extraordinary cultural and archaeological heritage, resulting from complex and long-term environmental changes and population dynamics. Today, ethnic minorities (such as the Amazigh and Tuaregs) survive, often in remote and unforgiving areas of North Africa, from Morocco to Egypt, perpetuating traditions that are millennia old. Threatened by environmental change (e.g. desertification and flush floods) and sociopolitical unrest, both the archaeological remains as well as the cultural heritage that has survived for centuries, is now disappearing fast. While such traditions have been an essential part of the history of this region, their history is almost exclusively oral or visible in archaeological record, while written texts referring to them have always been written by their conquerors. Therefore, protecting oral history, living crafting skills and their archaeology are key aspects of saving these traditions.
In order to successfully preserve the archaeological and crafting heritage of the ethnic minorities we need synergistic approaches and collaborations between researchers and the local communities that are effectively the perpetrators and protectors of a non-renewable cultural heritage that can be considered by all means an economic resource for the future. The potential of some traditional craftsmanship to become a valuable commodity and luxury items has been shown by a number of craft projects, including traditional tile making (Condello, 2020). Such crafts are increasingly important in local economies in Morocco and include the skills of Amazigh women in weaving carpets (Becker et al., 2017; Roggero, 2017). In Morocco and some areas of Tunisia, efforts are currently being made to empower women through crafts and fight the stereotype of them being ‘ignorant and reclusive’ (Laghssais and Comins-Mingol, 2023). However, in the remote areas of North African Massifs, such as areas of Southern Tunisia and in the Nefoussa Mountain of Libya, the situation remains dramatic for many of them.
This project, in 3 interconnected working packages, aims to secure a future to traditional knowledge related to colours by:
- putting the old and the new generations in selected villages back in contact with one another, so that the new generations can relearn their traditional skills
- document this passage of knowledge so that it remains there as digital archive for the future
- assess the sustainability of the use of natural resources in colour/dye traditions in relations to climate change
6. Project: EGYPT, GIFT OF THE DESERT: THE FARAFRA OASIS PREHISTORIC PROJECT (FOPP)
Duration: 2023-2025
Location: Egypt
Grant recipient: Dr. Giulio Lucarini (National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Heritage Science – CNR-ISPC/International Association for Mediterranean and Oriental Studies – ISMEO, Italy)
Project description:
The main objective of the Farafra Oasis Prehistoric Project (FOPP), currently directed by Giulio Lucarini (National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Heritage Science, CNR-ISPC, and ISMEO), and Barbara Barich (Sapienza Foundation and ISMEO) is the reconstruction of the population dynamics of the Egyptian Western Desert during late prehistory, several millennia before the famous pyramids of Giza were built. From about 10,000 to 5,500 years ago, the Eastern Sahara was not the arid region we know today; human groups settled on the shores of small seasonal lakes where plant and animal resources were abundant. In fact, even during the most arid climatic phases, such as the current one, the oases of the Egyptian Sahara have continued to benefit of a certain amount of groundwater. It is thanks to this availability of water that the Egyptian oases experienced the progressive development of urban centers in the Pharaonic era and then during the Roman occupation, which have now become densely populated cities.
In order to better understand this phase in which socio-cultural traits were transferred from the Eastern Sahara to the Nile, this program will be based on both the analysis of direct data from Farafra and the Egyptian Western Desert, and those collected as part of other active projects along the Nile Valley and neighboring regions, connected in terms of research issues.
The reconstruction of a chrono-cultural framework for the Neolithic groups of the Farafra Oasis will be based on the integration, in a multidisciplinary perspective, of the stratigraphic and palaeoenvironmental data. These analyses will provide the first reliable data on the technical and economic behaviour of the Neolithic groups living at the site.
7. Project: HOUSING AMBITION: A PILOT STUDY OF A VISIONARY PROGRAM IN ARCHITECTURAL RESEARCH AND INNOVATION IN KENYA, 1965-1982
Duration: 2023-2025
Location: Kenya
Grant recipient: Prof. Brendan O’Neill (University College Dublin, Ireland)
Project description:
Housing Ambition is a cross-disciplinary collaboration between the University of Nairobi, Kenya, and University College Dublin, Ireland. This project aims to halt the loss of the unparalleled Housing Research Development Unit’s (HRDU) archive from academic and social discourses.
The HRDU was a visionary program in housing and community development established at the University of Nairobi in 1965, just two years after Kenya’s independence. It was part of a global wave of ambitious and progressive architecture programs that challenged institutional norms and dominant Western ways of thinking about building and teaching architecture in the post- war period. HRDU was unique, however, in its engagement with vernacular building and settlement practices. Its resulting archive contains approximately 15,000 items, including unpublished studies of traditional Kenyan houses and settlement patterns, policy documents, slides, photographs, government reports and press cuttings.
Today, this important mixed media, but undigitised, archive can be considered forgotten, underused and, as a result, under threat. It is currently stored only as a single, uncatalogued assemblage within the ‘Documentation Centre’; a small, locked room in the Department of Architecture and Building Science in the University of Nairobi. The timelines on the continued storage of this archive are unknown and there are no guarantees of its survival into the medium or long term. Access is severely limited as presently there are only two ‘key holders’ to this room. Additionally, very little is known by most researchers about the extent of this archive, what exactly is in it, where it is or even its existence.
EXPLORING
Photography Collection
Leni Riefenstahl
Olga Michi
Jan Schlegel
EXPLORING
Memories
EXPLORING
Who We Are
Ancient boat (+/- 6000 BP). Borkou region, Ennedi, Chad.
Photo: courtesy of Pier Paolo Rossi (Dstrech enhanced by author)
Ethnos Kalós, Doloresa and Jurijus Gleba Stiftung, based in Munich, is a legal foundation officially recognized by the government of Upper Bavaria under German law on May 9, 2019.
The purpose of the foundation is to promote ethnological and archaeological research and to acquire objects of cultural value.
The foundation’s primary geographical focus is the continent of Africa.
Dr. Doloresa Gleba is the co-founder of Ethnos Kalos and a member of the Foundation Board.
Prof. Dr. Jurijus Gleba is the co-founder and the Chairman of the Foundation Board.
Christine Lange is the Director of the Foundation.
Dr. Christian Ostermaier is a member of the Foundation Board.
Dr. Margarita Gleba is the Foundation Consultant.
EXPLORING
Contact
Email address: info@ethnos-kalos.org
Address: Ethnos Kalós, Doloresa und Jurijus Gleba Stiftung
C/O SNP Schlawien Partnerschaft mbB Türkenstrasse 16, 80333 München / Munich (Deutschland / Germany)