Ghost Writers of Upper Egypt: A Paradigm Shift in Archaeological Knowledge Production
By Wendy Doyon. Within the global archive of archaeology created by the past two centuries of excavation in the Middle East and North Africa, a significant portion of archival documents, notes, and photos form a shadow archive of Middle Eastern history. It documents the knowledge transfer, techniques, craftsmanship, apprenticeship, material studies, and linguistic community of Arabic-speaking co-producers of archaeological knowledge. Rayyis Sayyid Ahmad Sayyid Dirāz and his family are the “Ghost Writers” par excellence of Upper Egypt. Their first-hand narrative of excavation over thirty years of work in the field is the best documented example we have of the fundamentally multilingual process of archaeological knowledge production in Egypt and Sudan.