travel

RECENT EXCAVATIONS AT DEIR EL-BAHRI!

/ MAES Administrator
Deir el-Bahri by M. Jawornicki

Manchester Ancient Egypt Society Lecture on Zoom

Monday 10th February, doors open 7:30pm (GMT); lecture from 8pm

Free to MAES members; Guests welcome £5 via Eventbrite

This Monday we are pleased to present Patryk Chudzik who will be speaking about The history of Deir el-Bahri in light of recent excavations at the Hathor Cult Complex of Hatshepsut Temple.

The great rock amphitheatre of Deir el-Bahri was one of the most significant sacred areas of the Theban necropolis since at least the Middle Kingdom. Dominated by the three terraced temples built by Mentuhotep II, Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, the site was the cult centre of the goddess Hathor and the destination of the Beautiful Feast of the Valley – the most important annual festival of the Theban region. In the shadow of the monumental royal buildings, a necropolis developed for more than two thousand years, where members of the royal family, priests and priestesses were buried. This lecture will explore the transformation of the sacred space of Deir el-Bahri over the centuries, and present its most significant milestones through the lens of the results of the author’s latest excavations carried out at the Hathor Cult Complex on the south side of Hatshepsut’s temple. This lecture will open with the story of the tomb of an enigmatic prince, son of the founder of the Middle Kingdom, who was also instrumental in the construction of the temple of Hatshepsut, and will conclude with a presentation of a hitherto unknown part of the necropolis of the Roman elite.

Dr Patryk Chudzik is an Assistant Professor at the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology of the University of Warsaw. He studied Prehistory, as well as Oriental and Classical Archaeology at the universities in Poznań and Wrocław. He received his PhD on the topography and architecture of the Theban necropolis in the Middle Kingdom (2017). He is the director of the Polish-Egyptian archaeological and conservation expedition to Deir el-Bahri and the co-director of the Polish Archaeological Expedition to North Asasif.

God is his potter! disability in ancient Egypt

/ MAES Administrator

The next online meeting of the Manchester Ancient Egypt Society is next Monday, 14 October with Kyle Lewis Jordan:

“God is his Potter”: Disability in Ancient Egypt

Today, disability is broadly understood to be a category that applies to people with a wide array of complex health conditions and impairments, which also has many complex layers of social and cultural interaction. Many of these conditions and impairments have been around as long as humanity itself. So how did Ancient Egypt, one of the world’s oldest societies, recognise and react to individuals that we would today call disabled? In this talk, Kyle Lewis Jordan will provide an insight into new and rapidly developing studies in this area, sharing his own reflections as a disabled archaeologist and curator, and the reasons why he believes deeper studies of disability in the ancient past are integral to fully appreciating the richness of the tapestry that is humankind.

Kyle Lewis Jordan is an early career archaeologist and curator who specialises in the study of disability in antiquity, with a particular focus on Ancient Egypt and the Middle East. Upon completing his studies at UCL, Kyle went on to work as a curator for the Ashmolean Museum and Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, where he curated two displays based on his research. He is currently curating a temporary exhibition for the Verulanium Museum in St. Albans on health and disability in the Roman world. Born with Cerebral Palsy, Kyle has been passionate about Egyptology since the age of six, and has had the lifelong ambition of being Director of the British Museum since he was ten.

Free to MAES members (you’ll receive an email link). Guests welcome via Eventbrite

Doors open 7:30pm (GMT+1) and the lecture begins at 8pm. See you there!