Last year I spent the turn of the year in Sudan. This year our field work is a little later, but there are other very happy events on the occasion of the new year. It is my great pleasure to welcome our new PostDoc of the DiverseNile project in Munich today.

Jose Manuel Alba Gomez is an archaeologists and Egyptologists with a wide range of interests and much fieldwork expterise in funerary archaeology. From 2009 onwards, he was a team member of the Proyecto Qubbet el-Hawa of the University of Jaén, Spain; for several years he acted as the co-director of this important archaeological mission in Aswan, Egypt.

Jose shares my interest in pottery and I am delighted that he is now strengthening our DiverseNile team. His prime focus will be Work Package 2, the variability of funerary monuments in the Attab to Ferka region.

Our objective to illustrate on the level of funerary practices the cultural diversity in the MUAFS concession in northern Sudan by disentangling burial grounds from previous cultural categorisations, will be addressed later in January with new excavations at Ginis. The Kerma cemetery GiE 003 (Vila’s site 2-T-39) comprises approximately 150 tombs – our excavations in 2022 yielded already 28 burial pits, but more data from this key site in our concession are needed. GiE 003 clearly promises an exciting start for Jose – welcome again to Munich and to our team!