Come and join us live online for a celebration of new Egyptological research. We will hear presentations from five early career Egyptologists whose work has been supported by a Kemet Klub Grant. Their research gives new insights into various aspects of ancient Egypt.
This is an online live event. It is free to attend and all attendees will be put in the draw for a chance to win a free Kemet Klub course.
6.30pm – 9.00pm (UK Times)
Download the full program HERE
Here Comes the Sun: A diachronic study on the role of Music during the Amarna Period
Music has and continues to play a prominent role in the lives of individuals and in society, hardwired into the human experience and integral to our understanding of the world in both its tangible and intangible manifestations. This was no different in ancient Egypt, where abundant iconographic and physical evidence from the Old Kingdom on shows music being performed in every context and at every level of society. Music appears not only to gain prominence during the Amarna Period but also to develop innovations, including new instrument designs and musical ensembles, all of which are well documented in the rich visual culture of the Amarna Period. This paper explores music in this era, with an emphasis on the royal court, demonstrating its increased role as compared with the first part of the 18th Dynasty with evidence garnered from representations in tombs, temples and texts, as well as physical instruments, amulets, figurines and other material objects associated with music. Through both an Egyptological and musicological approach, this study not only elucidates the function and possibly accelerated evolution of musical innovation in the Amarna Period, but also the implications of the social and gender roles observed in musical practice within the framework of the Aten ideology, perhaps even inspired directly by it.
–Waleed Hawatky. The American University Cairo
Édouard Naville’s 1896 Fieldwork Season: The Case of Mentuhotep “Buau”
In 1896, excavations at Deir el-Bahari uncovered thirteen Eleventh Dynasty tombs, including that of the official Mentuhotep “Buau,” whose burial retained much of its original equipment. Although the tomb’s exact location was later lost, an unpublished excavation journal by Édouard Naville has now allowed it to be identified within the royal complex of Mentuhotep II, alongside four previously forgotten tombs. This rediscovery demonstrates the importance of archival research and shows that elite burials within the royal precinct were deliberate expressions of political and administrative ties to the king during the early Eleventh Dynasty.
–Maarten Praet. John Hopkins University
Hatshepsut Erasure
Erasure and forms of reuse, such as restoration, recarving and substitution, are complex materially and stratigraphically constrained processes. However, when multiple epigraphic interventions are present on a monument, the sequence of various carvings and the monument’s architectural context are critical for understanding the means and intention behind them. This is undoubtedly true of Hatshepsut’s damnatio memoriae. This paper shares some preliminary conclusions on this matter, adopting the case study of the Amun precinct at Karnak, deriving from recent fieldwork in the Karnak temple complex in December ’25 to January ’26, which was supported by the Kemet Klub. –Trent Hugler. Hertford College and Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford.
Deir el-Medina’s Private Statuary Practice: Insights into Preliminary results
This project investigates private statuary practices at Deir el-Medina, the New Kingdom artists’ village on the Theban West Bank, by analysing statues within their exceptional archaeological context. It assembles a dispersed and largely unpublished corpus, mostly fragmentary pieces still on site. Moving beyond art historical approaches by combining archaeological, visual, textual, and socio-historical analyses, the research examines how individuals used statues for self-presentation.
Preliminary archaeological results and a case study will offer insights from the newly consolidated dataset and demonstrate how contextualised study of Deir el-Medina material may reshape interpretations of New Kingdom and ancient Egyptian non-royal statuary more broadly.
– David Brugger. The University of Oxford
The inscriptions of the funerary procession of Neferhotep (TT49): challenges and new perspectives at the dawn of the post-Amarna Period.
Located on the vestibule of TT49, the inscriptions of the funerary procession of Neferhotep are considered some of the most challenging texts in the entire tomb. Through their iconography and structure, they not only evoke the journey of the deceased, equating its destiny with the one of the Sun, but also codify the rituals needed for accessing the hereafter. The present talk will outline the work carried out by Ernesto Graf at the Conservation and Research Project of the Tomb of Neferhotep with the hope of offering new insights of the decorative program of TT49 and, in doing so, partake in Neferhotep’s procession to the West. -Ernesto Graf. University of Granada, Spain
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