The Last Layer III: Have you heard about Shutb? |
Description: The village of Shutb, five kilometres south of Asyut in Middle Egypt, is both a farming town and a multi-layered archaeological site. Recent fieldwork conducted by the British Museum has revealed that people have lived there for more than 4000 years. The village perches atop the remains of ancient Shashotep, a regional centre and capital of the 11th Upper Egyptian province from 2000BC onwards. The British Museum Asyut Region project studies the broad spectrum of the village’s history – from 2500BC up until the present day, and considers the local community the latest historical layer and an important stake holder in rediscovering this ancient past. The project uses film and storytelling as a strategic tool to explore various ways of (re)connecting the local community with its heritage. In the first of a series of short films (https://bit.ly/2PiDu4L), community members and the British Museum project team shared their intentions, aspirations and cares. The second follow-up film documents the process of building a local sense of ownership and awareness of tangible and intangible history through values-based public engagement. Two groups of eight girls and eight boys spent three days in a workshop designed to build perceived value in oral history and stimulate inter-generational dialogue. They discussed local legends and folk tales before going out into the wider community, where they interviewed older people, collecting and discussing different variations of the stories. These tales were then transformed into a performance piece that was staged for the community and attended by parents, local government officials, antiquities employees, young people and the archaeological team. The participants were also given the opportunity to observe the work of the archaeological team, meet local antiquities inspectors and discuss the architectural heritage of the village with a member of Takween ICD. The activities were comprehensively documented with the intention of producing the second film, highlighting the motivation, pride and passion felt by the young participants as they researched, recorded and shared the oral heritage of their community. Different versions of local legends and folk tales were joined into a narrative that was used to create a third promotion film for the village; “Have you heard about Shutb?”. The films were produced under the auspices of The British Museum by Studium (http://www.studium.media%C3%9F) with the financial support of an Institutional Links grant, ID 274662441, under the Newton-Mosharafa Fund partnership. The grant is funded by the UK Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and delivered by the British Council. For further information, please visit www.newtonfund.ac.uk. More information on the project and reports can be found on our online research page: https://bit.ly/2vbf6cb 
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