The Christiansborg Archaeological Heritage Project (CAHP), with support from the Osu community, is breaking barriers in the areas of archaeology and education and also serving as a source of employment for the youth.
The CAHP project is a community-based archaeological project aimed at unearthing the history of the Danish Transatlantic Slave Trade, British Colonialism, and post-independence Ghana at Osu Castle.
The project, which is currently serving as a source of employment for over 30 community members, has also established a library to help children in the community improve on reading and, on weekends, take them through archaeology lessons.
A student of Islamic University and a worker of CAHP, Mr. Pascal Osoman-Tei acknowledged the importance of the project adding that apart from the financial benefit, it has also widened his perspective of archaeology.
“Before I joined this project, I didn’t have any knowledge about archaeology and also didn’t know that without any archaeological background, I can help discover and rewrite the rich history of Osu Castle,” he stated.
Mr. Osoman-Tei called on cooperating organizations in Ghana to lend their support to ensure the project covers many youths in the Community.
“If not this project now that we are on vacation, I would be by playing football or loitering around the community aimlessly,” he stated.
One of the beneficiaries of the CAHP initiative and direct descendant of Wulff Joseph Wulff, one of the Danish men at the Castle, Mr. Robert Wulff Cochrane said his great grandfather was born in 1803 in Denmark, came to Ghana in 1836, completed his house in 1840 and died two years after.
A critical heritage scholar, practitioner and the Director of CAHP, Professor Rachel Ama Asaa Engmann said these ancient and historical artefacts dug from the castle depict the social life of the people during that era.
Prof. Engmann who is also a direct descendant of the former Governor of Christiansborg, Carl Engmann said so far, the project has discovered 180,000 artefacts being dug at the castle for the past nine years.
She added that even though the Osu Castle is not as big as the Cape Coast Castle, its rich history is untapped.
She revealed that the CAHP project is being financed by the Mellon Foundation in the United States and rallied support from coperate Ghana to help expand the project and cover more grounds.
She added that to make the project more visible and participatory, local artists were tasked to mural some of the artefacts dug at the Osu Castle on the walls to depict the culture, life and historical accounts of the Castle and its inhabitants.
The project which started in 2014 officially focuses on three areas, auto archaeology, Community archaeology and public archaeology.
Explaining one of the mirror paintings of the first Ghanaian Historian, Rev Christian Carl Reindorf, the direct descendant of Carl Reindorf, Hackie Reindorf said the painting of the first historian and his family played an important role during the colonial era and was instrumental in documenting Ghanaian history.
Another painting of Victor Nanka Bruce, a journalist, politician and 3rd African Outdoor Physician was also displayed on the wall of one of the houses he came to live in shortly.
A tour of the project site at the Osu Castle saw some of the artefacts discovered as part of nine years of excavation like smoking pipes, broken ports, bottles and many others.
