Guest: Dr. Sian Tiley-Nel, Head of the University of Pretoria Museums

NEW BOOK ON MAPUNGUBWE ARCHIVE "PAST IMPERFECT: The Contested Early History of the Mapungubwe Archive, South Africa" by Sian Tiley-Nel. Guest: DR. SIAN TILEY-NEL - Head of University of Pretoria Museums Mapungubwe is a world heritage site and national park located on the border be-tween South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana. From about 1000 AD the settlement there developed into a major African state before being abandoned by the 1300s. Mapungubwe has been the subject of diverse scientific enquiry and archaeological research since the early 1930s. As a heritage site, however, it challenges colonial, nationalist and apartheid views of prehistory. The vast global trade that’s evi-denced by masses of trade glass beads and local artisanship of metals at Mapun-gubwe shows that Africa was not a ‘dark continent’, devoid of technology and inno-vation. Mapungubwe’s prehistory was excluded during apartheid to support more Eurocentric views of South Africa’s past. Now a new book, Past Imperfect, offers a study of this archive of research and reveals gaps, silences and missing voices, some deliberately erased. The author, a curatorial specialist, historian and archae-ologist, Sian Tiley-Nel, discusses her findings. What is the Mapungubwe Archive? For more than two decades the Mapungubwe Collection has been on public dis-play at the University of Pretoria. The world-class collection, including a famous gold rhino and other significant materials, is a critical research collection for the precolonial era. It has been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people since be-ing made more accessible after 1999 at the University of Pretoria. The same cannot be said for the associated Mapungubwe Archive, which for dec-ades lay in departmental storerooms at the university in boxes, as old papers and ageing photographs. As an academic, historian and conservator, I was responsible for the archive, which was often unfunded and unvalued as a research asset. It was only in 2018, when I submitted a grant application to the US Ambassadors Fund for Cultural What was neglected and what would the missing voices tell us? The gaps, silences and missing voices in the Mapungubwe Archive usually indi-cate highly selected material that was deliberately not kept and is most probably in private possession or was simply destroyed. There were missing letters, photo-graphs and other content. There were gaps in the archive chronology, no field re-ports and the like. Some of the Mapungubwe Archive material is related to when the site was used as a military terrain on the farm Greefswald. Many military rec-ords are tied up in the Department of Defence and some still have an embargo. Other forms of missing narratives outlined in the book refer to the neglect of oral history and indigenous knowledge of Mapungubwe Hill as a sacred site by local communities. Fortunately the recognition of community voices has increased over the decades.

Is this the case in many archives in South Africa? Sadly, the destruction, reckless handling and poor conservation efforts of historical records is notable and widespread even today, globally. The book acknowledges upfront the loss of countless important South African archives over years, not just by research institutions, but by government, private and public institutions as well. Yet the fact remains that the Mapungubwe Archive does exist. Even if with gaps and omissions, it remains one South Africa’s greatest heritage archives for the continent