45th Anniversary of the CPE

Serwis Nauka w Polsce

The achievements of the largest and oldest existing prehistoric archaeological expedition, that's backbone is made up of Polish and American archaeologists, was the main theme of a conference in Warsaw. The meeting was arranged by the Pre and protohistory committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN). The Combined Prehistoric Expedition was formed, in 1964, as a form of rescuing Nubian heritage that was endangered by the construction of the Aswan Dam. During its 45 years of existence it has continuously been running excavation works in north-east African countries such as Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia.

CPE gets its name from its international character. The committees aims, besides the main Polish-American body are to engage specialists from a over a dozen countries from three continents. Besides archaeologists, the Expeditions works were supported by experts in scientific fields such as anthropology, geology, biology and even astronomy. The results of the works have been published in many books, and scientific studies.

From the very beginning the Combined Prehistoric Expedition has been tightly connected with PAN's Archaeology and Ethnology Institute. The institute operates as an archaeological mission in Egypt.

The first presentation at the conference was by Dr Jacek Kabaciński. He spoke about the Expeditions history, the way it operates. He proved in his speech, that Nubia despite what previous archaeologists said, was a place of vast development of ancient cultures, and thanks to them ancient Egypt and Sudan evolved. It also turned out that north - eastern Africa was one of the oldest production centers of ceramic pottery, and one of the first places to breed cattle.

Prof. Romuald Schild, a long term director of the Expedition, spoke about the Neolithic cult center made of megaliths in Nabta Playa. This big Ceremonial Center was built 7000 years ago in the southern zone of the Western Dessert in Egypt, near to the Gebel Nabta mountain. The results of the Expeditions surveys proved that in the past, the desserts climate used to be more humid than it is today. The very dry and harsh dessert used to be a savannah that was inhabited by shepherd tribes from the late stone age. They were the people who built the Ceremonial Center, that was a main center of cult.