CAHP Excavation Stands to Boost Ghana’s Tourism-Prof Engmann
The Director of Christiansborg Archaeological Heritage Project (CAHP), Professor Rachel Ama Asaa Engmann has said, the excavation of the Archeological artifacts at the Osu Castle would go a long way to boost Ghana’s tourism sector.
According to her, the ongoing excavation at the Osu Castle, would not only help to re-write a country’s history through the discovery of artifacts of the remains of early occupants but would in a way open the country to tourists to know the historical journey of Ghana with the Danish, the Europeans and the British during the pre and the post-slavery periods.
Speaking to Journalists at an archaeological excavation site at Christiansborg Castle, Prof Engmann said she hopes to have the artifacts discovered displayed at the museum as part of the government initiative to avert the castle into a museum to display and preserve the rich heritage of Ghana.
The Christiansborg archaeological heritage project, she said started in 2014 of which 180,000 artifacts discovered so far.
Some of the discoveries include smoking pipes, ceramics, bottles, hoes and some of which majority are imported objects.
The CAHP, Prof Engmann said falls in line with her archeological education and research in the sphere of heritages and tourism, stressing that art painting and photography in preserving and protecting the cultural heritage of every nation remains relevant.
“This year we decided to expand the project so with a grant from the Mellon Foundation in New York we included heritage, history and art projects, hence the art paintings on the walls to tell the stories of some of the historical family houses and notable characters in the community,” she stated.
She added that preserving Ghana’s cultural heritage would boost national unity, and invigorate the national spirit for socio-economic development through tourism.
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The art paintings on walls of houses at Osu in Accra, Prof Engmann said, depict their historical stories and to promote tourism for the progress of the community.
So far over 10 ancestral houses painted by their trained descendants under the project.
The paintings portrayed images of warriors, scholars, physicians, steel workers, fishermen and fishmongers, food vendors, and tailors, among others to tell their stories.
Some of the houses resonate with names like Randolph, the famous historian and an indigene of Osu, and Victor Nanka-Bruce, also a renowned physician, politician, and journalist from the area.
The project has also established CAHP Community Library to provide the children with skills in drawing as well as general learning.
Prof Engmann, of Critical Heritage, Stanford University, who is also a descendant of former Danish Governor Cal Engmann said the exercise had become necessary because the country relied mostly on oral tradition which could be distorted.
The CAHP, she noted aims at providing rich information about artifacts found at the archaeological site in the castle, also known as the Osu Castle, which would be available to tourists who visit the Christiansborg Castle which is being transformed into a tourist site.
She underscored the need for the government to invest in archaeological work to help provide documented insights into the country’s past.
She further explained that the project was unique because all the team members had a personal connection to the site as their relatives either worked at the castle or lived in its environs.
The professor, who traces her ancestry to Governor Carl Gustav Engmann, who lived in the Osu Castle in 1757, told EXPRESSNEWSGHANA that she had learned about the Governor, who spent five years overseeing the sale of captive Africans.
The Governor’s name and when he lived in the castle have been written on a water cistern in the edifice.
Project
The project is in its fifth stage of archaeological excavation and many artifacts have been found and profiled for further study while more are being unearthed.
It focused mainly on three thematic areas including Auto-Archeology, Community Archeology, and Public Archeology.
Other artifacts also discovered included the foundation of what appeared to be a human settlement within the castle with different compartments such as a kitchen.
The rest are smoking pipes, water bottles, beads, cowries, broken pots, presidential ceramic cups, and grinding tools.
These artifacts in the view of Prof. Engmann, indicated that there were forms of human activities in an established setting at the excavated area.
Some of the indigenes of Osu, Robert Wulff Cochrane and Malik Ludric Lutterodt, from the Joseph Wulff and Lutterodt family in Osu, said through the project, they had acquired knowledge of their ancestral history and knowledge of archaeological work.
Speaking to some of the trained artists they said the project had impacted their lives and other members of the community, especially children and adolescent girls by minimizing harmful social vices such as teenage pregnancies and drug abuse.
Ultimately, a descendant of the Wulff Joseph Wulff, Robert Wolff Cochrane said the project help most of the youth to be gainfully employed and thereby reduced unemployment among the youth in the Osu community.
Madam Olga Pappoe, the Manager of the CAHP Library said the provision of the facility has brought some transformation in the learning and drawing skills of children in the area and appealed to public-spirited individuals and organizations for support.
Source: expressnewsghana.com
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