Sada Mire Lecture

The Ridley Lecture on 2 March for senior pupils was by Dr Sada Mire, a Swedish-Somali archaeologist, art historian and presenter. She spoke on the topic of ‘Archeology, Africa and Deep Human History’. She also spoke about her time in an orphanage in Mogadishu and her flight from civil war to Sweden as an unaccompanied child refugee.

DG/Year 12 pupil Franke wrote: ‘At school in Sweden, Sada Mire noticed the lack of information about African history. Whilst there were chapters on chapters about Europe and Asia in her history course book, there was only one singular page on the entirety of Africa. Deeply disturbed by this, she went to her teachers to seek out answers and when they too had no knowledge on this, she vowed to learn more. And that she did, eventually achieving a PhD in Archaeology at University College London.

Before the talk, Sada attended dinner with a few of the pupils and staff interested in her work; she spoke about many things including her views on the importance of the Somali language, which was an oral language until the 1970s, only becoming a written language after that.

Overall the visit was very informative and we were lucky to not only have the chance to hear her story but to also sit down and discuss it with her.’