ARCHAEOLOGY AND HERITAGE IN AN EGYPTIAN PROVINCE | EL-MINIA PAST AND PRESENT

The history of Egypt spans many millennia from prehistory up to the present day. The excellent state of preservation of many buildings, objects, and manuscripts makes it possible to study the continuities and ruptures in society and culture through time. A large amount of archaeological work is concentrated on the pharaonic monuments of kings and courtiers, specifically the tombs and temples of Luxor and the pyramid fields of Saqqara and Giza. However, the Egyptian provinces too offer a rich archaeological record that sheds light on the lives of people outside the centers. This lecture presents results of recent excavations at Zawyet Sultan in the governorate of el-Minia. Many tombs, some temple blocks, pieces of fine relief and inscriptions, settlement remains and even a small pyramid have been found at this site that functioned as a provincial capital in antiquity. The lecture discusses how the local community was related to the political center in Memphis during the early phases of the ancient Egyptian state. The relationship between central administration and local affairs is also relevant today. The lecture therefore looks at the current context of the archaeological site and develops perspectives on the heritage of the wider region in el-Minya.

Prof. Dr Richard Bussmann University of Cologne, Germany

Richard Bussmann studied Egyptology, Near Eastern Studies and Theology at the universities of Heidelberg, Berlin and Göttingen. He received his PHD in Egyptology in 2007 from the Free University of Berlin. He was a post-doc research fellow at the University of Cambridge and appointed in 2010 lecturer in Egyptology and Egyptian Archaeology at University College London. Since 2016 he is a full professor of Egyptology at the University of Cologne. He studies ancient Egypt from a combined archaeological, philological and anthropological perspective, focussing on cross-cultural debates of early complex societies, local contexts of society and religion and urbanism in Northeast Africa. He is co-director of the project Archaeology and Heritage in Middle Egypt and directs excavations at Zawyet Sultan. In 2023, he published the book “Archaeology of pharaonic Egypt: society and culture 2700 to 1700 BC” with Cambridge University Press. See also: https://aegyptologie.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/…/prof-dr…