Tutankhamun and the Amarna Period on Egypt’s East Frontier

Lecture Information: 

A new window has opened into the Amarna period and its principal royal figures, thanks to recent excavations in northwest Sinai, Egypt’s eastern military frontier zone. Investigations at Tell el-Borg between 1999 and 2008, which Professor Hoffmeier directed and produced intriguing new evidence of a robust military presence at 18th dynasty fort at this site throughout the Amarna period and into the Ramesside dynasties. Included in the discoveries were two amphora jar handles with Tutankhamun’s cartouche on them. They speak to ongoing military activity during Tutankhamun’s decade-long reign. This lecture will review the new evidence and discuss the implications of these finds for our knowledge of the intriguing Amarna period. 

Speaker Bio: 

James K. Hoffmeier is Emeritus Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology Trinity International University’s Divinity school. Born and raised in Egypt, Hoffmeier’s passion for archaeology began in his youth, which led him to major in Near Eastern Archaeology at Wheaton College (IL). Graduate school took him to the University of Toronto where he earned his MA and PhD in Egyptology and worked on the Akhenaten Temple Project’s excavations at East Karnak. From 1980-1999 he was on the faculty of Wheaton College. From 1999-2019 Hoffmeier taught at Trinity. He directed the North Sinai Archaeological Project from 1994-2008 which included excavations at Tell el-Borg and paleo-environmental research of northwestern Sinai. Two volumes of final reports of the work at Tell el-Borg were published in 2014 and 2019. Hoffmeier is also the author of Akhenaten and the Origins of Monotheism (Oxford University Press, 2015). He has authored and edited 20 books and written more than 100 articles in journals, books, dictionaries, and encyclopedias. Hoffmeier now lives in Paradise, PA close to his five grandchildren with whom he enjoys regular visits. 

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The Road to Tutankhamun: Records of Exploration and Excavation in 19th and early 20th Century Personal Archives

Lecture Information: 

In 1912, American lawyer-turned-archaeologist Theodore M. Davis famously said “I fear that the Valley of the Tombs is now exhausted”, but the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922 was to prove him quite wrong. Davis had an impressive record of excavation, working with several Egyptologists and archaeologists, including Howard Carter, in the years before Carter’s partnership with Lord Carnarvon. This talk will discuss excavation in the Valley of the Kings in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, using personal archives such as diaries and letters to build a picture of archaeological life in Egypt. The archivists include Emma B. Andrews, Theodore Davis, Helen Winlock, Joseph Lindon Smith, and Howard Carter himself. 

Speaker Bio: 

Dr. Ketchley is an Egyptologist with a specialty in art history in the first millennium BCE. Based at the University of Washington in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization, she teaches introductory and graduate-level classes in digital humanities and directs a long running undergraduate internship program. Inspired by intrepid women travelers of the 19th century, Sarah works with students to digitize and publish a range of primary source material from the period, including the Nile travel diaries of Mrs. Emma B. Andrews. Working computationally to analyze the content of Emma’s writings, Sarah and her students have created an extensive digital biographical database, interactive maps, and an archive of encoded primary source material from the “Golden Age” of Egyptian archaeology.

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