We are delighted to announce that Dr Sada Mire, a world authority on the archaeology of Northeast Africa will be the Keynote speaker at the 28th biennial conference of the African Studies Association UK conference. Dr Mire will deliver a lecture entitled ‘The Archaeological Heritage of the Somali Horn of Africa’ on Tuesday 8 September 2020.
Dr Mire is an award-winning Swedish-Somali archaeologist with a PhD from UCL’s Institute of Archaeology. She was the founding director of Somaliland’s Department of Archaeology until 2012 and has published extensively on the history, culture and archaeology of Northeast Africa. Commissioned features on her work appear regularly in the international media, including Channel Four in the UK. She is founder and executive director of Horn Heritage Organisation, an archaeology and heritage research institution with offices in the Horn of Africa and The Netherlands.
Dr Mire’s lecture will present the rich archaeological heritage of the Somali Horn of Africa, which only now is being revealed and systematically studied. This recent archaeological work has brought to light the vast indigenous, pre-Christian and pre-Islamic empires that at times formed part of the HimyaIrite and Sabaean cultures of Southern Arabia, Greco-Roman world and Aksumite world and early Islamic kingdoms. This region is an ancient cultural crossroads and its heritage testifies to social complexity and cultural diversity. The lecture will discuss the role of this heritage in the current challenges facing the societies of the Horn of Africa.
Registration to attend the Keynote lecture and reception will open in March and is a separate process to the conference registration. There is no charge to attend but places are limited, and we advise early booking.