Exactly 200 years ago, the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs by Jean-François Champollion heralded the dawn of academic Egyptology, while exactly 100 years ago, the discipline captured the popular imagination like never before with Howard Carter's discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb. This talk provides an overview of both breakthroughs, summarising the key events of each and providing an assessment of their broader significance both inside academia and in society at large. The talk will also address questions surrounding the future development of Egyptology, as the discipline seeks to re-assess its colonial past and reach new audiences, while also staying true to its fundamental mission of shedding light on one of the world's oldest and richest historical traditions.

Cover image: Abo Rashad, Tutankhamun and his wife (CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

WHEN: Friday 20 May 2022, 19:00-20:30

WHERE: Zoom

LANGUAGE: English

FEE: Voluntary donation*

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About the speaker

Dr. Alex Loktionov is an Egyptologist and a Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, and the Royal Society of Arts. For the past seven years he has taught Egyptian language at the University of Cambridge, where he also obtained his BA (Selwyn College), MPhil (St. John's College) and PhD (Robinson College) degrees. Alex is currently the Principal Investigator on a major project looking at the development of early constitutional thought in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. He has also held posts at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, and the HSE University Institute of Oriental and Classical Studies (IOCS) in Moscow, and firmly believes in the importance of academia as a force for good in an unstable world. Alex is the author of over twenty publications on a wide range of topics, including Ancient Egyptian law, contacts between Egypt and the wider Ancient Near East, and the history of Egyptology with particular reference to Russia and the UK.

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