Events Search and Views Navigation
December 2019
Headless Men and Shattered Bodies: The Destruction of Prisoner Statues during the Late Old Kingdom
Six pharaohs of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties erected nearly life-size statues of kneeling bound foreigners in their pyramid complexes. These unique statues, which are known as prisoner statues, have only ever been discovered in fragments. This has led scholars to question whether the statues had been intentionally broken for ritualistic reasons. However, only the prisoner statues from two pyramid complexes actually show evidence of intentional damage in antiquity; those from the complex of Pepi I were methodically decapitated while…
Read More about Headless Men and Shattered Bodies: The Destruction of Prisoner Statues during the Late Old KingdomSeptember 2019
Applying for Jobs and Life After the Dissertation
Join NELC faculty Dr. Cate Bonesho, Dr. Kara Cooney, and Dr. Bill Schniedewind for a workshop and discussion of applying for jobs and life after the dissertation. Event Flyer RSVP Below:
Read More about Applying for Jobs and Life After the DissertationApril 2019
Nabta Playa: An Abandoned Site Dating Back to the Earliest Days of Ancient Egypt
Nabta Playa is an abandoned place located in the southwestern desert of Egypt. Although it may not appear to be a promising area for the study of the prehistoric archaeology as it is considered among the driest areas in the world, there is evidence that there were several humid periods in the past that resulted in a parallel civilization to that one in Delta. Dr. Abeer Amin is a professor of ancient Egyptian archaeology and Heritage studies, Faculty of Tourism…
Read More about Nabta Playa: An Abandoned Site Dating Back to the Earliest Days of Ancient EgyptFeeding the Gods in Ancient Israel
Bread and other grain-based foods were not only staples in the ancient Israelite diet; they were also staples in the ritual acts that accompanied the worship of several deities in ancient Israel. In addition to the state god YHWH, who required regular offerings of lechem hapanim (“bread of the presence”) in the Tabernacle and the Jerusalem Temple (Exodus 25:30, 39:36, 40:23; Leviticus 24: 5-9; Numbers 4:7; 1 Kings 7:48), the Queen of Heaven (Jeremiah 7:18, 44:17-25) was worshipped by families…
Read More about Feeding the Gods in Ancient IsraelNovember 2018
Israel and the Samaria Highlands: A Nomad Settlement Wave or Urban Expansion during the Early Iron Age?
The Iron I period witnessed a wave of settlements in the highlands of Israel, mostly in Samaria but also to some extent in the Upper Galilee and Judah. This wave is usually associated with the genesis of Ancient Israel and is interpreted in light of the collapse of Canaanite urban centers at the end of the 12th century BCE. This lecture reconsiders the reasons behind this wave of settlement throughout the Samaria Highlands during the Iron I (1200-1000 BCE) in light of new…
Read More about Israel and the Samaria Highlands: A Nomad Settlement Wave or Urban Expansion during the Early Iron Age?Between Egypt and the Near East: Current Research on the Amarna Letters
Various aspects of the interaction between Egypt and other political and cultural centres of the Ancient Near East have always sparked the attention of scholars, trying to understand this multi-layered and complex issue — ranging from the interpretation of finds of Egyptian or Egyptianized objects at the ANE sites to a misapprehension in communication resulting from considerably different concepts of royal power and authority. The Amarna tablets are a collection of almost 400 cuneiform documents discovered in the later 1880’s…
Read More about Between Egypt and the Near East: Current Research on the Amarna LettersGraduate Student Research Presentations and Q&A
12:00 – 1:00pm Overspecializing the Specialist: Reevaluating the Role of Producers in the Study of Technological Interconnectivity Nadia Ben-Marzouk (Archaeology) Accounting for Kingship: The Samaria Ostraca as Royal Performance Jason Price (Hebrew Bible) An Image on the Stele or a Ghost in the Shell? A Cognitive Scientific Approach to the Material "Soul" in the Levant Timothy Hogue (Hebrew Bible) 1:00 – 2:00pm QWS, Edom, and Identities: Exploring the Use of Theophoric Elements in Onomastica as Markers of Identity Andrew Danielson…
Read More about Graduate Student Research Presentations and Q&AOctober 2018
The Relationship of Egyptian and Semitic
It has long been known that the ancient Egyptian language is related to the Semitic language family, but the details of this relationship are still not fully understood. In this lecture, we will look at the major similarities (and differences) of the two language groups, including topics in phonology, morphology, and the lexicon, with an eye towards identifying inherited Afroasiatic features. We will also look at how Egyptian and some dialects of Northwest Semitic influenced one another as a…
Read More about The Relationship of Egyptian and SemiticAugust 2018
Reuse of New Kingdom Monuments and Visitors’ Graffiti in Late and Graeco-Roman Period Elkab
Since 2016, the Oxford Expedition to Elkab has extended its work of epigraphic recording and publication to the Late and Graeco-Roman Period monuments and inscriptions in the necropolis and the adjacent Wadi Hillal. Recording of the inscribed material, which mainly consists of unpublished graffiti and secondary inscriptions, is proceeding hand-in-hand with the re-documentation of the entirety of the monuments and architectural structures that host them (New Kingdom and later tomb chapels, the Ramesside/Ptolemaic hemispeos, and the temple of Amenhotep III),…
Read More about Reuse of New Kingdom Monuments and Visitors’ Graffiti in Late and Graeco-Roman Period ElkabMay 2018
A Romano-Egyptian Obelisk Beyond the Nile
Using a Romano-Egyptian obelisk from the collection of the Museo del Sannio in Benevento, Italy as a case study, this talk will overview the major themes of the current Getty exhibition “Beyond the Nile: Egypt and the Classical World.” This exhibition explores cross-cultural interactions between Egypt, Greece, and Rome from about 2000 BC until about AD 300. Part of a new Getty initiative called The Classical World in Context, the exhibition kicks off a series that will highlight the Classical…
Read More about A Romano-Egyptian Obelisk Beyond the Nile