By Charles Mgbolu
Karisa Ndurya dedicated most of his life to excavating remnants of African civilisation, toiling hours, days, weeks, and months under the harsh sun at ancient archaeological digs in Kenya, little knowing that history itself would be unkind to him.
More than three decades after the native archaeologist died in obscurity — never acknowledged by a world celebrating the history he helped unearth— his granddaughter is on a quest to change that narrative.
In the 1940s, Karisa had been part of an excavation team that worked at Fort Jesus, a 16th-century fortress that local African masons helped Portuguese settlers build on the Kenyan island of Mombasa.
His work at the fort and other ancient archaeological digs in Kenya spanned more than 20 years, unravelling intriguing information on the history and people of Kenya, especially through the excavations at the famous site of Gede Ruins.
Many of the artefacts pulled from the ground where he worked are on display in museums worldwide.
But when Karisa died in 1988, his work, his contributions, everything seemed to vanish. No record of him or what he did is mentioned in any history book or archaeological manuscript.
Karisa's story isn't fiction. This is exactly what happened to hundreds of locals contracted yearly to work at archaeological digs in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. They did all the hard work but never got the credit for it.
A granddaughter's promise
Sherry Davies, a Jamaican-Kenyan singer and songwriter, is determined to ensure that Karisa gets the recognition he richly deserves. Her fight is as much a granddaughter's journey as a larger mission to restore some lost pages of an archaeological success story.
"I have always known that my grandfather worked on early archaeological sites in Kenya, but to realise that he was never credited for his contributions feels very unfair. It hurts," Sherry tells TRT Afrika.
In 2018, Sherry left the glitter of showbiz and music to embark on a dusty adventure to unearth her grandfather's name and many others like him from the rubble of archaeological history.
"When I visited Fort Jesus in Mombasa, I noticed that the name of grandad's boss (James Kirkman) was inscribed all over the fort, but there were no African names on the walls," she narrates.
"I went to museum libraries and saw these diaries and looked at these photographic archives and newspaper cuttings from the 40s and 50s.
They all focused on white archaeologists, and they looked at European works. There were no Africans in the narrative." Anger fueled Sherry's desire to find out more about her grandfather.
"I said to myself, 'Surely this information is out there. Surely someone must know about my grandfather and other indigenous people who contributed immensely to early Kenyan archaeology."
Sherry toured Kenyan museums and archaeological digs, taking along a camera person to document and put together a short film that she later posted on social media.
"It was in that short video posted on YouTube that I called for help.
I sought out anyone with information, answers, directions, or anything else that would further help rightfully identify Kenyans like my grandfather who worked hard at early archaeological sites," she recounts to TRT Afrika.
It was a leap of faith that would soon give Sherry the answers she sought. "People called to donate photographs that had Africans at these archaeological digs and were able to identify them.
We also got contacted by people who said their parents worked at early archaeological sites in Kenya," she says.
Pictures tell stories
The photographs are captivating and the only evidence that Africans had a prominent role in excavating archaeological digs in Kenya.
"These photographs answered many of the questions I had held on to for years. To learn more about my African heritage, move away from the Eurocentric image that I was encouraged to have growing up, and go on a journey of discovering my ancestry was fascinating," says Sherry.
Now, in partnership with museums in Mombasa and London, Sherry has been revealing the names of some of the indigenous Kenyan archaeologists she has unearthed through grand exhibitions.
Sherry has released her research as a body of work titled Ode to the Ancestors, including rare photographs on display at museums in London and Kenya for the rest of 2023.
It is a proud moment for her and her team, who have worked hard and overcome immense challenges.
"We had pushbacks from cultural organisations and libraries that refused to grant us access to their archives. Many ignored our emails.
People with incredible information that would have taken us years to otherwise research refused to help us," she says.
"This is mainly because white people run these organisations, and they think we are critical of the white archaeologists that worked with their black counterparts." Sherry insists that this was never her intention.
"I simply wanted to know why white archaeologists were given credit, and the blacks who worked with them were not even once mentioned in many archaeological archives," she explains.
It's an answer Sherry may never get. She may also need help to identify all the photographs she has found.
"Sadly, there are some photographs of black workers at digs that we would never be able to identify.
There was one photographed prominently from behind and another so far away that we can't see his face clearly," she says.
Sherry, nonetheless, is soldiering on to immortalise the individuals she has identified thus far.
"We plan to create individual profiles for some of these heritage professionals that we discovered to make sure that they exist permanently on Wikipedia and on the websites of the heritage organisations that we are working with," she says.
Now that her mission is bearing fruit, Sherry plans to return to her first love, music.
But true to her genes as Karisa's granddaughter, she will always look for names buried in African archaeological history.
