You can view select past events on ARCE-MO’s YouTube Channel.
Spring 2023 Programming Schedule
Wednesday, 26 April 2023, 7pm US Central Time
Dr. Aidan Dodson presents “The Tomb of Tutankhamun in Context” (virtual lecture)
The spectacle of an all-but-intact royal tomb raises the important question of how representative it was of other kings’ tombs of the period. In this lecture we will explore the ways in which the tomb and its contents represented a continuation of what had gone before the fracture represented by the Amarna Period, in what ways it innovated, how it may have been shaped by circumstance, how it hinted at a way forward – and where it is seemingly unique.
Aidan Dodson is honorary full Professor of Egyptology at the University of Bristol, UK, where he has taught since 1996. A graduate of Liverpool (BA) and Cambridge (MPhil, PhD), he was Simpson Professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo for the spring of 2013, and Chair of Trustees of the Egypt Exploration Society, the UK equivalent of ARCE, from 2011 to 2016. He has been a member of ARCE for some 30 years and is currently part of the Missouri Chapter. Professor Dodson is the author of more than 25 books and 400 articles and reviews, the most recent book being Tutankhamun, King of Egypt: his life and afterlife, published by AUC Press in December 2022.
PAST EVENTS
25 Feb 2023: Book Chat with Dr. William Carruthers
Description: ARCE-MO’s first Book Chat, a moderated discussion with the author about their work, features Dr. William Carruthers (Honorary Lecturer, Department of Art History and World Art Studies, University of East Anglia) and his recent publication, Flooded Pasts: UNESCO, Nubia, and the Recolonization of Archaeology (Cornell University Press, 2022).
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the building and heightening of the Aswan Dam under the oversight of British engineers radically altered the relationship of the region of Nubia to Egypt. Imperial engineering, national development, and archaeological survey created a region in which the contemporary population became disaggregated from its ancient past and a touristic gaze shaped all in its image. UNESCO’s ‘International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia’ was promoted as a universal good. It not only rested on earlier colonial intervention, however, but also made possible the elision of Nubians from the cross-border region forever.
You can purchase a copy of “Flooded Pasts” from Cornell University Press. Use coupon code “09BCARD” for 30% off on the publisher’s website.
You can read a New Lines Magazine article by Dr. William Carruthers about his work here.
25 Jan 2022: “Strategies for Creating an Index for a Monograph or Edited Volume”
Dr. Bryan Brinkman offered his thoughts on how to use time efficiently in this process as well as what makes a good index. Having created three indices for different types of books, he shared his experiences and the methods he has learned for indexing. Dr. Brinkman is Assistant Professor in World Languages and Cultures at Missouri State University. He received his PhD in Ancient History from Brown University (2016). He recently co-edited Beyond Egypt: Relations and Imaginations of the Ancient Past (2022), a special volume from the proceedings of the Second Annual Missouri Egyptological Symposium.
3 Dec 2022: On the Outskirts?: The Past(s) and Future(s) of Brazilian and Portuguese Egyptology (virtual)
Abstract:
Recently, discussions in Egyptology have started to focus more on the development of the discipline, and particularly on how it should move forward in the years to come. An important part of such development needs to be the inclusion of scholarship produced outside so-called Egyptological “centers,” primarily in Europe and the United States, not only for the sake of inclusion but also for their potential to modify the discipline from within by adding voices dissimilar from those featured in mainstream scholarship. Though not very well known in a global context, Egyptology by Portuguese-speaking scholars continues to grow and to produce scholarship of interest and relevance to the field as a whole. This talk aims to give an overview of the investigation of Egypt and Nubia and its main scholars in both countries, from its inception to the present, as well as introduce an editorial project pioneered by the four speakers. This project, which is currently underway, seeks precisely to emphasize the future(s) of not only Portuguese-speaking Egyptology, but through it (and other “peripheral” scholarly traditions) also of Egyptology as a whole. We aim to bring to the fore the potential of the scholarly creativity characteristic of non-mainstream contexts of investigation to the center, thus moving towards a more equitable field through collaboration rather than simply critique.
Presenter Bios:
Inês Torres received her PhD in Egyptology from Harvard University and is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow and Researcher at the Centre for the Humanities (CHAM) of NOVA University Lisbon. Her main research interests focus on the investigation of funerary spaces in the Old Kingdom as places of social interaction and the construction of memory.
Guilherme Borges Pires is a PhD Candidate in Egyptology at NOVA University Lisbon. His dissertation focuses on the conceptions surrounding the Creator and Creation in the New Kingdom’s religious hymns, some of which he is currently translating to Portuguese.
Luiza Osorio G. Silva is a PhD Candidate in Egyptian Archaeology at the University of Chicago, where she is working on a dissertation that focuses on an examination of Middle Kingdom kingship from a non-royal perspective.
14-15 Oct 2022: Fourth Annual Missouri Egyptological Symposium, Washington University, St. Louis (hybrid format)
Keynote Speaker= Dr. Rita Lucarelli of the University of California Berkeley presented on Sun Ra, the birth of Afrofuturism, and the reception of ancient Egypt
28 Sept 2022: Thebes from Amenhotep III to Tutankhamun: Altered, Abandoned, Mutilated, and Rejuvenated, Dr. Betsy Bryan, Union Station, Kansas City (in person).
10 Sept 2022: Members Only Predynastic Palette Workshop with Matt Szafran of Archaeoresearch (virtual)
*Select past events can be viewed on our YouTube Channel.
ARCE 2022 Annual Meeting presentations by ARCE-MO members can be viewed on Vimeo.
Quantifying Representation and Disadvantage in Egyptology: Results of the Egyptology State of the Field Project by Dr. Anne Austin= https://vimeo.com/713529732
Imhotep: from Man to Myth by Dr. Julia Troche= https://vimeo.com/705537612
Teaching Ancient Egypt in Museums: Creating a Space for Inspiration and Collaboration by Dr. Lisa S. Haney= https://vimeo.com/705875393
Access to the Field at the Turn of the 20th Century: Egyptology’s Republic of Letters by Dr. Kathleen Sheppard= https://vimeo.com/716061288
Spring 2022 Natural History Series
The Spring 2022 Natural History Series events are free and open to the public. Each talk is virtual via Zoom. Advanced registration is required. Check this page for registration details for each event as they become available.
Rediscovering Egypt’s Lost Dinosaurs
Sanaa El-Sayed and Matt Lamanna
Description: Egypt’s vast archaeological record and engaging material culture have long excited people around the world, but did you know that this region’s history stretches back well into the Mesozoic Era, or Age of Dinosaurs? In the early 20th century, a series of German expeditions recovered fossils of several new and extraordinary ~95-million-year-old dinosaur species from the Bahariya Oasis in Egypt’s Western Desert, most famously the enormous sail-backed semi-aquatic predator Spinosaurus aegyptiacus. Tragically, however, all these fossils were destroyed during a British Royal Air Force bombing of Munich in late April 1944. In 2000, a collaborative Egyptian-American research team co-led by Matt Lamanna became the first scientists to discover dinosaur fossils in the Bahariya Oasis in nearly a century; among these were a partial skeleton of a new and gigantic sauropod (long-necked plant-eating dinosaur) that was later named Paralititan stromeri. More recently, researchers from the Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Center in Mansoura, Egypt—including its co-founder, Sanaa El-Sayed—have collected additional, important dinosaur fossils from Bahariya, and moreover have expanded their paleontological efforts to include geologically younger (~75-million-year-old) sites in the Kharga and Dakhla oases. Foremost among their finds from the latter is another new sauropod, Mansourasaurus shahinae, which constitutes one of the best-preserved late Mesozoic-aged land-living backboned animals known from the entire African continent. Collectively, these discoveries have cast unprecedented light on Egypt’s remarkable dinosaurs, helping to restore a scientific legacy that was lost during the Second World War.
Bios:
A Walk through Egyptian Food History
Dr. Mennat-Allah El Dorry, Ministry of Antiquities
Description: Is there such a thing as Egyptian cuisine? Certainly, with thousands of years of culinary innovations, technological developments, and new crops and flavors certainly make a cuisine, Egyptian cuisine is rich and diverse. This talk will walk us through ancient Egypt, medieval Egypt, all the way to the 21st century, and present what is known about Egyptian cuisine of the time. The talk will question the notions of “authenticity” and how it is possible, if at all, to pinpoint a defining moment of Egyptian cuisine. It will also survey the different sources that scholars have available in order to study the history of Egyptian cuisine.
Bio: Mennat-Allah El Dorry has a PhD in Egyptology with a focus on archaeobotanical analysis (2015). Her research revolves around food and trying to reconstruct how people in the past cooked, ate, and how food played a role in their social and religious lives.
She has worked extensively on the field as an archaeologist, surveyor, illustrator and archivist. She is affiliated with the Ministry of Antiquities, where she has served as head of the Minister’s Scientific Office (2016-17). El Dorry also served as a postdoctoral research fellow at the French and Polish Archaeological Institutes in Cairo, where she organized an international conference on food and drink in Egypt and Sudan, in addition to undertaking her own research on food history (2017-18). She was the guest editor of Rawi Magazine’s Food History edition (2019). She is currently a post-doctoral fellow at the ERC Desert Networks Project (HiSOMA, Lyon 2/CNRS).
This event was not recorded, but Dr. El Dorry has provided a recipe from the 14th century Egyptian recipe book, A Treasure Trove of Benefits and Variety, to try at home!
![In the fourteenth century Egyptian recipe book, A Treasure Trove of Benefits and Variety at the table, a whole chapter is dedicated to dried-apricot compote. This is one of several recipes which could have been prepared for Ramadan. In Today’s Egypt, dried-fruit compote is staple of Ramadan tables.
The recipe given below includes a complex blend of spices. Use what is available and don’t worry about accuracy. Whatever you come up with will still be a new experience to enjoy!
Recipe for naqu’ al-mishmish
Take [dried] apricots and wash them with rosewater until all the sand and the impurities are removed. Spread them in the sun to dry.
Take a suitable amount of vinegar, and add sugar to it if you want it to be sweet. Also add ½ dirham (¼ teaspoon) saffron, as well as atraf tib* (spice blend), musk, and rosewater; add what is needed of these. Stir this liquid seasoning me) by hand, and then set it aside from early in the morning until noon, all the while keeping the apricots in the sun [to dry].
Now, take a wide-mouthed jar, either porcelain or ceramic; wash it, dry it, and perfume it with smoke of aloeswood and ambergris. Close the opening of the jar [while doing this], so that it is infused with enough smoke.
Take the apricots, put them in a jar and pour the prepared liquid mix. Top the surface with musk and roseate, and set it aside for an hour. [The apricots are eaten, and the remaining liquid in] served in small bowls as a drink – it is sweet, strained, and clear.
During Ramadan, make it early in the morning and serve it when night sets [for the iftar meal]. During non-fasting days, make it at night and serve it the following morning.
* Atraf tib: spikenard, betel-leaf, bay leaves, nutmeg, mac, green cardamom, clove, rosebuds, fruit of Syrian ash, long pepper, ginger, black pepper. Equal amounts of each are blended separately, and then mixed together.](https://arcemo.files.wordpress.com/2022/04/mennarecipe.png?w=683)
Making Scribal Palette Replicas
James Terry, Studio pth
Description: With the exception of one very old article, ancient Egyptian scribal palettes remain unstudied as an artifact class. Typically, most attention has focused on the texts that sometimes appear on palettes. Non-philological questions (How were these made? What woods were used? Where did the wood come from??) have not been at the forefront of Egyptological curiosity. As a former carpenter, the questions I ask of wood objects always begin with “How was this made?” though that question does imply issues of tools, materials, and sourcing. In this talk I will discuss my own attempts to understand these issues from the point of view of the craftsmen who made these palettes for scribes and other bureaucrats. I will discuss the common palette forms, how such forms were constructed, as well as how the inks that palettes were designed to carry were produced.
Bio: James Terry has a BA in art history from the University of Kansas, where he focused on photography, modernism, and Latin America, and an MA from Yale University, where he studied the arts of the ancient Maya and the arts of Africa. Before attending graduate school he worked as a trim carpenter, where he honed basic woodworking skills. Having taken classes in Mayan hieroglyphic writing, he wanted to be able to compare the Maya system to the Egyptian system, and took the first course on the topic that he could. That led to curiosity about Egyptian woodworking, beginning with questions about scribal palettes (materials, tools, facture, the usual suspects).
Upper Egypt is home to numerous tree species that have been culturally significant since Pharaonic times. Some of these species still are found abundantly in the region of Luxor, such as the date palm, nabq, acacia, and tamarisk. However, three species that feature prominently in ancient Egyptian tomb decoration, the sycomore fig (“jumayz”), the persea (“ishda”), and the dom palm, have nearly disappeared from the landscape. Qurna native Mahmoud Farouk and American Egyptologist Victoria Jensen are collaborating to revive these species on the West Bank of Luxor. In this lecture, Vicky will look at the ancient significance of these trees while Mahmoud will share his knowledge of their modern uses as a source of medicine, nourishment, building material, and more. Hopefully, the propagation of these ancient species will be successful and these new saplings will make the landscape zay fee zamaan, “as it was in the past.”
Victoria Jensen received her PhD in 2019 from the University of California, Berkeley. Her dissertation was on the non-elite cemeteries of Deir el-Ballas and their relationship to the royal palace, for which she researched the previously unpublished archival information from the 1900-1901 Hearst Expedition. She has lived on the West Bank of Luxor for four years, where she enjoys learning about the local culture and its connections with the ancient past.
Mahmoud Farouk Salim Abd el-Rasoul hails from el-Qurna. He loves farming and history, and is particularly interested in preserving local traditions. He worked with his father, gaining experience doing restoration in Medinet Habu for 11 years, then worked in Cairo but is happy to be back in his homeland on the West Bank.
3rd Annual Missouri Egyptological Symposium
Ancient Egyptian Scribal Workshop
Presenters: ARCE-MO President Stacy Davidson, ARCE-Ohio President Dr. Sarah Schellinger, and ARCE-MO Co-Directors Clara Wright and Dr. Anne Austin
Date: September 18th, 2021
Time: 1:00 PM Central Time
Format: Zoom Webinar
This event is a members only event for ARCE Missouri and Ohio members.
From the Nile to the Mississippi: Ancient Nubia at the Saint Louis Art Museum
Presenter: Dr. Denise Doxey is Curator of Ancient Egyptian, Nubian and Near Eastern Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Date: June 26th, 2021
Time: 2:00 PM Central Time
Format: Zoom Webinar
This event is free and open to ARCE members and the general public, but advance registration is required.
Nubia: Treasures of Ancient Africa, now on view at the Saint Louis Art Museum, explores the powerful but enigmatic kingdoms of ancient Nubia through their artistic achievements, including magnificent jewelry, pottery, sculpture, metalwork, and more. Drawn entirely from the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, it focuses on the sites of Kerma, Napata, and Meroe, spanning some 2,000 years, from about 1700 BCE into the fourth century CE. Through Nubian art, the exhibition also examines concepts of power, representation, and cultural bias in the ancient world, in the early 20th century, and today. Join guest curator Denise Doxey for a virtual tour of the exhibition and a discussion of the behind-the-scenes process of developing it.
Dr. Denise Doxey is Curator of Ancient Egyptian, Nubian and Near Eastern Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Before joining the staff of the MFA, she was Keeper of the Egyptian Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum. She completed her B.A. at the State University of New York at Albany, her M.Phil at Oxford University and her Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author or co-author of five books and numerous articles on Egyptian and Nubian art, archaeology and civilization. She has excavated in Greece and Egypt and has taught Egyptology courses at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University. She is currently Vice President of the Board of Governors of the American Research Center in Egypt. She was the lead curator for the recent MFA exhibition Ancient Nubia Now and is the guest curator for Nubia: Treasures of Ancient Africa.
Infinite Canvases: Beyond the Sequential
Presenter: Jennifer Miyuki Babcock- Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY; Pratt Institute
Date:May 22, 2021
Time: 4:00 PM Central Time
Format: Zoom Webinar
This event is free and open to ARCE members and the general public, but advance registration is required.
Is Egyptian art like comics? Cartoonist and comics art scholar, Scott McCloud,
famously described ancient Egyptian art as an early form of comic art, citing its
sequential nature and fusion of text and image as support for his argument.
However Egyptian narrative is more than sequential, and as McCloud himself notes
a few years later, so is comic art. This talk will also ask why comics may first come to mind when we think of
Egyptian art, despite the long tradition of narrative art in human history. In
considering this question, we will also examine what comics may tell us about
ancient Egyptian artwork and vice versa, and what modern day cartoonists and
graphic novelists can learn from the ancient Egyptians.
Jennifer Miyuki Babcock earned her PhD at the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU and is
now a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of History of Art and Design at
Pratt Institute while also teaching at New York University, The New School, and The
Fashion Institute of Technology. Prior to teaching, Dr. Babcock was a Postdoctoral
Curatorial Associate at The Institute for the Study of the Ancient World and held
research and fellowship positions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum
of Fine Arts Boston, and the Brooklyn Museum. From 2007-2008, she was a curator
at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in New York City, where she organized and
developed the first exhibition in the world about the art of digital and online comics.
Currently, Dr. Babcock is finishing her first book, Tree Climbing Hippos and Ennobled
Mice: Animal Fables in Ancient Egypt, which examines ancient Egyptian visual
narrative construction and conceptions of aesthetics. Her publication also
investigates how images of anthropomorphized animals are linked to oral folklore
and religious practices. Faculty development grants and awards from The New
School and The Fashion Institute of Technology have supported her publications
and research interests.
From Storage to Showcase: Conserving Ancient Egyptian Animal Mummies
Presenters: Dr. Sarah Schellinger, Ohio State University, and Ms. Mimi Leveque, ArchaeaTechnica Conservation Services
Date: Saturday, 27 Mar 2021
Time: 4pm Central (US)
Format: Zoom webinar
This event is free and open to ARCE members and the general public, but advance registration is required.
Dr. Sarah Schellinger is a Visiting Fellow and Lecturer at Ohio State University in the Near Eastern Languages and Cultures as well as History of Art Departments. She specializes in the art and archaeology of ancient Egypt and Nubia with an emphasis on domestic architectural analysis. Before coming to Ohio State, Dr. Schellinger served as the inaugural Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow at the San Antonio Museum of Art (2016-2018) where she curated an exhibition Egyptian Animal Mummies: Science Explores an Ancient Religion on the museum’s collection of animal mummies. Dr. Schellinger is currently the co-director of the Es-Selim R4 (ESR4) archaeological project in the Northern Dongola Reach of North Sudan. This project examines the lived experiences of Kerma Period peoples at a provincial settlement site prior to the Egyptian New Kingdom colonization of Nubia.
Ms. Mimi Leveque, Director of ArchaeaTechnica Conservation Services, is a conservator of objects and textiles with a special interest in archaeological materials, in particular ancient Egyptian artifacts. She has worked for over 40 years on the examination and conservation of Egyptian mummies and coffins. She has also conducted experiments to replicate ancient Egyptian faience and cartonnage. Ms. Leveque has worked as a conservator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence and the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem. She has served as a consultant to Egyptian collections and installations for many museums across the US, including the mummy collection at the Michael C. Carlos Museum, Atlanta, GA and the animal mummies at the San Antonio Museum of Art. She was also a consultant with the Getty Institute to temporarily safely house the mummy of Tutankhamun during tomb renovations.
The American Research Center in Egypt Missouri Chapter 