Reminder: ARCE-PA/Korsyn Fund lecture this Thursday: Dr. Ellen Morris

[Elizabeth Pluta]

The Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Research Center in Egypt and the Korsyn Lecture Fund proudly present:

"Insularity, Connectivity, and Island Identity in the Oases of Egypt's Great Sand Sea"

Dr. Ellen Morris

Columbia University & The Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

 

 

Thursday, March 13, 2008

6:00 PM

Rainey Auditorium
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
3260 South Street, Philadelphia, PA

 

$5 general admission, $3 Penn Museum members/students, FREE to ARCE-PA members.

www.arce-pa.org
www.museum.upenn.edu

About the event:
"Island identity" has recently become a focus of archaeological and historical enquiry for scholars who study the ancient Mediterranean and other archipelagos.  Bernard Knapp and others have argued that in many cases island communities may not only have been environmentally insular, but socially as well.  In this talk I suggest that the peculiar dynamics of island existence are applicable to oasis communities.  Prior to the construction of paved roads in the last  half century, Kharga and Dakhleh Oasis were notoriously difficult to reach, indeed far more so than many Mediterranean polities.  At certain times, the oases were utilized by Nile Valley dwellers as a place of banishment; at other times they were actively colonized, though in a manner that was always distinct from similar imperial efforts undertaken elsewhere.  How the denizens of the oases were viewed and how they viewed themselves at various points in the Pharaonic and Graeco-Roman periods provides a fascinating window into one of the farthest fringes of the ancient Near Eastern world.

Our speaker:
Ellen Morris is the Director of Instructional Programs for the Columbia University Excavations at Amheida (in Dakhleh Oasis) and is currently also a Jane and Morgan Whitney Art History Fellow in the Department of Egyptian Art and the Metropolitan Museum.  She has written a book entitled The Architecture of Imperialism. Military Bases and the Evolution of Foreign Policy in Egypt's New Kingdom as well as numerous articles on subjects as diverse as obsequiousness, female genital exposure, status competition in times of strife, and sacrifice at the dawn of the Egyptian state.

We look forward to seeing you on the 13th!  

 

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Pluta
Vice President, Pennsylvania Chapter
American Research Center in Egypt

--
Elizabeth Pluta
Vice President, Pennsylvania Chapter
American Research Center in Egypt
3260 South Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
v...@arce-pa.org
www.arce-pa.org