Meet our lecturers who each bring their passion and love for Egyptology.
Fabulous lecturers with excellent content on a wide range of Egyptology topics.
Professor Peter Brand
Peter Brand is currently Professor at the University of Memphis in the Department of History. His primary scholarly interest is in the art history of the Ramesside Period of Ancient Egypt. He has been the Field co-director of the Karnak Great Hypostyle Hall Project of the University of Memphis since 2001. His most recent book, published in 2023 is ‘Ramesses II, Egypt’s Ultimate Pharaoh, where drawing on the latest research, Peter Brand reveals Ramesses the Great as a gifted politician, canny elder statesman, and tenacious warrior.
Dr Judith Bunbury
Dr Judith Bunbury is a geo-archaeologist investigating landscape and climate change in the archaeological record. Her interest in Nile migration has led to a book on the topic while her investigation of the changing environments in the Sahara have resulted in several Journal articles. Her current work draws lessons from the past that inform our heritage management and in turn our own responses to climate and landscape change.
Dr Patryk Chudzik
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.
Professor Aidan Dodson
Aidan Dodson has taught at Bristol University since 1996, and was appointed honorary Professor of Egyptology in 2018. A graduate of Liverpool & Cambridge Universities, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, Aidan was Simpson Professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo for spring 2013, and was Chair of Trustees of the Egypt Exploration Society from 2011 to 2016. He is the Chairman of the Egypt Society of Bristol and the author of more than 25 books and 400 articles and reviews on both Egyptology and modern naval history. His latest Egyptological book is The Nubian Pharaohs: their Lives and afterlives, due to be published by the American University in Cairo Press in October of this year.
Dr Henning Franzmeier
Henning Franzmeier has been working at Qantir-Piramesse for the past 18 years and directed the excavations since 2015. Over the past ten years, he has taught at UCL Qatar in Doha, the University of Innsbruck, and the University of Bologna.
In 2014, he received his PhD from the Free University of Berlin with a thesis on the New Kingdom cemeteries at the Middle Egyptian site of Sedment – a reassessment of the 1920/21 excavations of William Matthew Flinders Petrie. His MA thesis at the University of Göttingen dealt with a well of Ramesses II at Samana near Qantir-Piramesse.
His interests range from settlement archaeology to the history of Egyptology and the analysis of funerary assemblages.
Associate Professor Elizabeth Frood
Liz Frood is Associate Professor of Egyptology in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford, Fellow of St Cross College, and Honorary Fellow of The Queen’s College. Born in Aotearoa New Zealand, she received her first degrees from the University of Auckland-Waipapa Taumata Rau and her doctorate from the University of Oxford. She writes on many aspects of nonroyal self-presentation and display, particularly for the late New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period. Elizabeth codirects (with Chiara Salvador, Montpellier) the Karnak Graffiti Project in collaboration with the Centre Franco-Égyptien d’Étude des Temples de Karnak. She is the author of Biographical texts from Ramessid Egypt (2007), articles on topics ranging from potters to religion, and co-editor of Ancient Egyptian Biographies: contexts, forms, functions (2020).
Lucia Gahlin
Lucia Gahlin is an Egyptologist based in the UK, she has been leading archaeological tours to Egypt for 30 years. Her most recent academic position was Honorary Research Fellow at University College London’s Institute of Archaeology, where she continues to work closely with one of the world’s most important collections of Egyptian antiquities, the Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology.
She has worked extensively on the material dating to Akhenaten’s reign in the Petrie Museum and at the archaeological site of Tell el-Amarna, the remains of the pharaoh Akhenaten’s capital city in Middle Egypt, where she has been the Small Finds Registrar. She has been Chair of the Friends of the Petrie Museum, a Trustee of the Egypt Exploration Society, and Director of Bloomsbury Summer School. She has taught Egyptology for the Universities of London (Birkbeck College and UCL), Reading, Surrey, Sussex, Exeter, Warwick and Bristol. She has also taught many successful courses for Kemet Klub both in person and online. Her publications include Egypt: gods, myths and religion.
Dr Wolfram Grajetzki
Wolfram Grajetzki is a Honorary Senior Research Fellow at University College London. He studied Egyptology, Prehistory and Classical archaeology in Berlin with his PhD on the highest state officials in the Middle Kingdom (1998). He worked on several projects, including excavations in Egypt and Pakistan and was teaching Egyptology in Berlin, London and Pisa, He published several scholarly and popular articles and books on burial customs and the Middle Kingdom.
Dr Anna Garnett
Anna Garnett is the Curator of the Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology, UCL, and has worked at several local, national and university museums in the UK over the past two decades. She earned her PhD from the University of Liverpool and has worked as a ceramicist and finds specialist at sites across Egypt and Sudan for over a decade. Her research interests include New Kingdom ceramics, the distribution and reconciliation of Egyptian and Sudanese object assemblages and archives, and object- and archive-based teaching.
Dr Stephen P. Harvey
Stephen Harvey is Director of the Ahmose and Tetisheri Project at Abydos, Egypt, a position he has held since 1993. His excavations at the monumental complex of King Ahmose (ca. 1550–1525 BCE) have led to major discoveries, including the identification of previously unknown temples, the pyramid of Queen Tetisheri, and thousands of fragments from the site’s elaborate decorative program. He received his Ph.D. in Egyptian Archaeology from the University of Pennsylvania and his B.A. in Archaeological Studies from Yale University.
Dr. Harvey has held academic and curatorial positions at the University of Chicago, University of Memphis, and the Walters Art Museum. In addition to his work at Abydos, he has participated in archaeological fieldwork at Giza and Memphis in Egypt, as well as in Syria, Turkey, and the United States. A frequent lecturer internationally, he has led over 30 study tours to Egypt, Sudan, and Jordan. He has also appeared in numerous television documentaries on ancient Egypt for National Geographic, PBS NOVA, Discovery Channel, and other international networks.
Professor Salima Ikram
Salima Ikram is Distinguished Professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo, Extraordinary Professor at Stellenbosch University, and is a Research Fellow at the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum. She has worked in Egypt since 1986. After double majoring in History as well as Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology at Bryn Mawr College (USA), she received her M. Phil. (in Museology and Egyptian Archaeology) and Ph.D. (in Egyptian archaeology) from Cambridge University. She has directed the Animal Mummy Project, co-directed the Predynastic Gallery project and the North Kharga Oasis Survey, and is Director of the North Kharga Oasis Darb Ain Amur Survey and the Amenmesse Mission of KV10 and KV63 in the Valley of the Kings. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Ikram has written several books (for adults and children) and articles, with subject matters ranging from mummification to the eating habits of the ancient Egyptians.
Dr Peter Lacovara
Peter Lacovara is the Director of The Ancient Egyptian Archaeology and Heritage Fund. He was Senior Curator of Ancient Egyptian, Nubian, and Near Eastern Art at the Michael C. Carlos Museum from 1998 to 2014. Currently, he is also Consulting Curator for the Egyptian Collection at the Albany Institute of History and Art and Visiting Research Scholar at the American University in Cairo. Peter Lacovara has consulted and been engaged in museum installations and exhibitions at numerous museums and he has taught at several Universities including being the W. K. Simpson Distinguished Visiting Professor at the American University in Cairo. He has excavated at the Valley of the Kings, the Palace-City of Amenhotep III at Malqata in Western Thebes, Abydos, Hierakonpolis and at the Giza Plateau, and currently he is directing the survey and restoration of the site of Deir el-Ballas.
Dr William Manley
Bill Manley is the author of several best-selling books about Ancient Egypt, and currently works with the Wadi C2 Project in Luxor. His book with Mark Collier, How To Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs, is the British Museum’s best-selling title ever, and other popular textbooks include Egyptian Hieroglyphs for Complete Beginners (Thames & Hudson), Egyptian Art in the prestigious World of Art Series (Thames & Hudson) and The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Egypt (Swanston), which has been in print for three decades. He also contributed the chapter ‘Literary Texts’ to the encyclopaedic The Oxford Handbook of Egyptology (OUP, 2020). Bill’s last book, The Oldest Book in the World (Thames & Hudson), garnered a five-star review from the Wall Street Journal among others, while his latest, Sahidic Coptic: An Introductory Textbook (UCL Press) will be published later this year. Bill was formerly Senior Curator for Ancient Egypt at National Museums Scotland, and taught Egyptology and Coptic at the Universities of Glasgow, Liverpool and London. He has spoken at several international book festivals, including The Sunday Times Literary Festival, and these days is Co-director of Complutense Egyptology, a contributor to the Coptic Magical Papyri Project, and Honorary President of Egyptology Scotland.
Dr Maiken Mosleth King
Maiken Mosleth King
Mosleth King is an Egyptologist and heritage professional. She completed her PhD thesis at the University of Bristol on funerary stelae and identity in Roman Egypt. She gained a BA and MA in Egyptology at the University of Liverpool. She has published academic articles in Gottinger Miszellen and the Journal of History and Cultures, as well as contributing to the catalogue of the exhibition ‘Emotions in Antiquity and Ancient Egypt’ at the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo, Norway. Her linguistic skills are broad and include Coptic, Classical Greek, Latin, Biblical Hebrew, Phoenician, classical Arabic and hieroglyphs, which she has taught for a number of years.
Dr Claudia Naeser
Claudia Naeser is Associate Professor in Egyptian Archaeology at University College London. Her research and teaching are broad and interdisciplinary with a particular focus on mortuary culture of New Kingdom Egypt and Nubia. Claudia has published widely on these topics. She currently directs the Shalfak Archaeological Mission (https://www.ees.ac.uk/resource/building-shalfak.html) and the Mograt Island Archaeological Mission (www.mogratarchaeology.com). Claudia is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology (https://www.ees.ac.uk/our-cause/publications/journal-of-egyptian-archaeology.html).
Dr Chris Naunton
Chris Naunton is an Egyptologist, writer and broadcaster and author of Searching for the Lost Tombs of Egypt and Egyptologists’ Notebooks. He has presented numerous television documentaries, including The Man Who Discovered Egypt (BBC4 2012), Secrets of King Tut’s Treasures (Channel 5, 2018) and Egypt’s Lost Pyramid (Channel 4, 2019). He was Director (CEO) of the Egypt Exploration Society from 2012 to 2016 and President of the International Association of Egyptologists from 2015 to 2019. He is Director of The Robert Anderson Trust.
Professor Paul T. Nicholson
Paul T. Nicholson is a Emeritus Professor of archaeology at Cardiff University where he specialises in Egyptian archaeology and early technology. He has excavated in Egypt since 1983, first as a member of the Amarna expedition where he subsequently directed his own work culminating in Brilliant Things for Akhenaten (2007) and at Memphis and Saqqara as well as being involved in work at a variety of other sites in Egypt including the South Assasif, Berenike and Hatnub. The work he directed at Memphis is published as Working in Memphis (2013). He has also edited (with Professor Ian Shaw) and part written Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries (2000). The British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt was also co-written with Professor Shaw (1995/2008). His recent work at Saqqara The Catacombs of Anubis at North Saqqara: an archaeological perspective has just been published (2021) by Peeters/British Museum.
Dr Nicky Nielsen
Nicky Nielsen is a Senior Lecturer in Egyptology at the University of Manchester. He is the director of the Tell Nabasha Survey Project and the author of several books about ancient Egypt as well as the academic monograph Subsistence Strategies and Craft Production at the Ancient Egyptian Ramesside Fort of Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham (Bloomsbury Academic, 2023).
Dr Diana T. Nikolova
Diana T. Nikolova is a Collections and Exhibitions Officer at the Garstang Museum of Archaeology. Her research focuses on Ptolemaic coinage as well as the history of museums, the formation of museum collections and the exhibition of ancient Egyptian artefacts.
Assoc. Professor Maria Nilsson
Maria Nilsson is a research fellow and associate professor at the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History at Lund University. She is the mission director of the Gebel el-Silsila Project since its start in 2012, including the areas of Nag el-Hammam and Shatt el-Rigal. Her primary research topics include the study of quarry marks/symbols and quarryscape epigraphy, as well as prehistoric rock art.
Dr Massimiliano Nuzzolo
Massimiliano Nuzzolo is Associate Professor in Egyptology at the University of Turin, Italy. His PhD thesis on the sun temples of the fifth dynasty and the royal ideology of the Old Kingdom. Later he became Scientific Member of the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology in Cairo (IFAO) where he conducted a research project on the spatial distribution of Old Kingdom tombs in the Memphite area. In 2016 he became Research Associate at the Czech Institute of Egyptology, Charles University Prague, where he was the director of the research project “Rise and development of the solar cult in ancient Egypt”. In 2020 He is director of the “Sun Temples Project”, an interdisciplinary research project on the evolution of the sacred landscape in the Fifth Dynasty site of Abu Ghurab. In this site he is conducting field-works and excavations since 2010. His research interests include all subjects related to Third Millennium BC Egypt, in particular the solar cult and religion and its relationship with the development of royal ideology. Recently he has focused his attention on the study and re-evaluation of the Old Kingdom royal annals, the so-called “Palermo Stone”, the most important written source for the knowledge of ancient Egyptian history.
Dr Luigi Prada
Luigi Prada is Associate Professor of Egyptology at Uppsala University (Sweden). Prior to this appointment, he held academic positions in the UK (Oxford), Germany (Heidelberg), and Denmark (Copenhagen). His main research interests are in textual, social, and religious topics. His publications include editions of texts from ancient Egypt in hieroglyphs, hieratic, demotic, and Greek. He has worked in the field as an epigraphist in both Egypt and Sudan, and is assitant director of the joint Oxford-Uppsala fieldwork project in Elkab (southern Egypt).
Dr Campbell Price
Dr Campbell Price is Curator of Egypt and Sudan at Manchester Museum, one of the UK’s largest Egyptology collections. He undertook his BA, MA and PhD in Egyptology at the University of Liverpool, and was Chair of Trustees at the Egypt Exploration Society between 2021 and 2025. He has published widely, most recently Brief Histories: Ancient Egypt (Orion, 2024) and (with Stephanie Boonstra) Ancient Egypt in 50 Discoveries (EES, 2025). Campbell has lectured extensively throughout the UK and internationally, and regularly accompanies tours to Egypt.
Dr Sergio Alarcón Robledo
Sergio Alarcón Robledo is a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer in Egyptology at the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations of Yale University. He studied architecture at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, before moving to the University of Cambridge in 2015 for his masters in Egyptology. He also completed an MA in archaeology at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology of UCLA in 2019, and received his PhD from Harvard University in 2025.
Sergio’s main area of research is ancient architecture, he is a member of the research group ‘Sound, Space, and the Aesthetics of the Sublime’ of Stanford University. In the field, he has worked with material ranging from the Early Dynastic Period to Ptolemaic times, at sites such as Saqqara, Deir el-Bahari, Zawyet Sultan, and Qubbet el-Hawa.
Professor Steven Snape
Steven Snape is Honorary Professor of Egyptian Archaeology at the University of Liverpool, he has taught undergraduate and postgraduate students since 1994, and he was Director of the Garstang Museum of Archaeology. He is a specialist in the history and culture of the New Kingdom. He has extensive fieldwork experience in Egypt and has directed several archaeological excavations at sites including the Eastern Delta, Abydos, and the ongoing work at the Ramesside fortress of Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham. At Abydos Steven directed fieldwork for the University of Pennsylvania at the Seti I Cenotaph Temple Complex. Steven’s Ph.D was on the excavations of John Garstang at Abydos from 1906-1909. His current research focus is on the sacred landscape of ancient Egypt.
Dr Huw Twiston Davies
Huw Twiston Davies is a lecturer in Egyptology at the University of Manchester. He completed his PhD on ancient Egyptian literature at the University of Liverpool in 2018. He has also worked at Leiden University on the research project ‘The Walking Dead at Saqqara: The Making of a Cultural Geography’ (2018-2021), and at the Garstang Museum of Archaeology (2015-2017, 2022). His research focuses on manuscript traditions in ancient Egypt, focusing in partiuclar on literary texts, as well as covering the use of the Book of the Dead in tombs. His book The Transmission of the Book of the Dead in New Kingdom Tombs at Saqqara, will be published by Bloomsbury later this year.
Professor Joyce Tyldesley OBE
Joyce Tyldesley teaches Egyptology online for Manchester University. Author of a wide variety of academic and popular books for adults & children, including books to accompany the television series Private Lives of the Pharaohs, Egypt’s Golden Empire and Egypt. In January 2008 her book Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt, was the Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4. Her play for children, The Lost Scroll, premiered at Kendal Museum in 2011. Her book Tutankhamen’s Curse ( Tutankhamen in the USA) was awarded the 2014 Felicia A. Holton Book Award by the Archaeological Institute of America. Her most recent book, Tutankhamun: Pharaoh, Icon, Enigma, was published in 2022.”
Dr Penny Wilson
Penny Wilson is an Emeritus Professor in Egyptian Archaeology in the Dept. Archaeology at Durham University, where she has worked for the last 20 years and before then, she was Assistant Keeper in the Dept. Antiquities, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. She studied at Liverpool University, where she completed her PhD, now published as ‘A Ptolemaic Lexikon’. She is currently the Director of the Delta Survey Project for the Egypt Exploration Society and field director of the Royal City of Sais Project. Her interests include religious life in Ancient Egypt, settlement archaeology and the Late period to Late Antique Nile Delta. Her publications include field reports on the Sais excavations and Delta survey work as well as ‘Sacred Signs’ an introduction to the role of hieroglyphs in ancient Egypt.
Dr Bernadette Brady
Bernadette Brady has a PhD in Anthropology (2012) an MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology (2005), and a MA in Egyptology from Manchester University (2022). Since 2008 she has been a tutor in the Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, UK. Her research interests are in varying forms of cultural astronomy, primarily Egyptian religious astronomy, sky mythology and the cultural implications of star phases. In 2019 she was the course director of the BBS Summer School in Luxor on Ancient Egyptian Astronomy. Her publications include the cultural astronomy contained in examples of Egyptian astronomy (Oxbow 2012), the orientation of the Solstical Churches of North Wales (JSA, 2017) and the solar discourse in Cistercian Welsh abbeys (Citeaux, 2016, 2022). She has also authored Cosmos, Chaosmos and Astrology (London: Sophia Centre Press, 2014) and co-edited Space, Place and Religious Landscapes, Living Mountains London, NY, Oxford Bloomsbury. She lectures widely on Egyptian religious astronomy and she currently lives in Devon UK.
In memory of Professor Barry Kemp
Barry Kemp lectured at the University of Cambridge between 1963 and 2007, finally as Professor of Egyptology. He has regularly undertaken fieldwork in Egypt, concentrating on Tell el-Amarna since 1977, first under the auspices of the Egypt Exploration Society and subsequently for the Amarna Project. His interest is primarily in the city itself and what it tells us about life and ideas in Egypt three and a half thousand years ago. Since 2012 he has concentrated on the Great Aten Temple and how it guides us towards a deeper understanding of Akhenaten’s mind. (Photo:A.Mesli)
On the 15th May 2024, a day after his 84th birthday Professor Barry Kemp died. Many Kemet friends have enjoyed his lectures for us, most recently online, but also when he came to Bristol to lecture for us in person. He was a very kind, gentle and friendly man who was always generous with his time and eager to support and encourage others. He leaves behind a lifetime of work that has significantly advanced our knowledge of ancient Egypt, and in particular, Amarna.
1000 bread, 1000 beer and all things good and pure on which an excellent and much missed Egyptologist lives.
In memory of John Ward
John Ward will be fondly remembered as a charismatic friendly man with a great sense of humour and a real passion for ancient Egypt, especially Gebel el Silsila, a special site where he, his wife Dr Maria Nilsson and the Silsila team excavated for over a decade.
An archaeologist who took a great interest in exploring every clue to try and get closer to the stories of ancient people. He welcomed visitors on site and championed archaeology to the wider world through lectures and documentaries. He was keen to develop links with the local community, encouraging people to participate in excavations and learn about Silsila.
Many Kemet Klubbers will fondly remember the fabulous course that he and Maria gave for us back in 2022, where they joined us live from the dig boat itself, moored alongside the speos and sandstone quarry of ancient Kheny. We felt very privileged to be part of the Silsila team and it was a real adventure that included scorpions, sandstorms and water logged tombs. All with a little bit of friendly banter thrown in for good measure with Maria promoting the glories of rock art, whilst John was all about the quarry marks that helped you get closer to those ancient workers.
John Ward. May his name live forever. August 2025
In memory of Dr Robert Morkot
Robert Morkot was an Egyptologist who dared to venture beyond the borders of Egypt and much of his research explored Egypt and its complex and shifting relationships with its neighbours. As a postgraduate student he spent time at the Humboldt University in Berlin (GDR as it was then) which was the leading centre for Meroitic studies, and his love for Nubia grew from there. His best-known books are The Black Pharaohs, Egypt’s Nubian Rulers and (along with colleagues) the controversial Centuries of Darkness.
We were very fortunate to have had Robert lecture for us many times in recent years. His lectures were always the product of painstaking research, delivered with his trademark dry wit. He had a rare talent for making the most complex topics not just accessible, but genuinely enjoyable. His passion for his subject was evident in the meticulous preparation behind every lecture. He will be sadly missed.
Robert Morkot. True of voice. October 2025
