An Interlude

Sometimes when you’re ploughing through research material, you come across a nugget that somehow strikes a very personal note. This is one such occasion. While going through archives at the fantastic Wellcome Library I came across a letter by Julian Uribe to Ada Misner.

Uribe, a Colombian, was Henry Wellcome’s long-serving and faithful camp commandant. Till now, history has been rather silent about this remarkable man. Ada was Wellcome’s secretary. She also served him for many years. Uribe and Misner developed a friendship that lasted well into old age.

In January 1938, Uribe was at Jebel Moya for the last time. The world had changed. Wellcome had died in 1936, relations between Egypt and the British Empire were at a low point and the world was on the brink of war. Italy was already busy invading Ethiopia. In short, the world was once again on the brink.

You can just picture Uribe, a Colombian who had spent decades in the Sudan, living and breathing everything Jebel Moya, sadly packing up and wondering what was to become of everyone. He says to Ada:

For the last time I am out amongst my Sudanese friends whom God may help as in ages past for as far as we are concerned they are to be forsaken.

Tears were flowing (including my own as I read this letter). Uribe ends his letter thus:

The House of Boulders shall be abandoned to a sad fate: sibilant snakes and the most vicious of ants will glory in the perfect floors; ghastly, monstrous lizards will dart upon the capricious walls in search of prey; bats and owls will make of the halls the parade ground, crowding the upper regions with their silent, uncanny wings and filling the atmosphere with offensive screeches. The cellars will be populated by dreadful ghosts and afrits. People will not dare, and with reason, to enter its portals.

Well, Major Uribe, we have dared enter and Jebel Moya lives. The villagers are our friends and brothers and sisters in spirit, archaeology in the Sudan is thriving. The world has changed beyond recognition since your passing, but we are still here and so is Jebel Moya. I like to think that you are watching over us and smiling.