ARCE-Chicago: Foreign Affairs and Upheaval at the Oryx District by Anna-Latifa Mourad-Cizek

Lecture Information

The “ruler of a foreign land, Ibsha” and one of his people, as portrayed on the north wall of the tomb of Khnumhotep II, Beni Hassan, ca 1877-1870 BCE. Image by Effy Alexakis, courtesy of the Australian Centre for Egyptology.

The Oryx District lies almost in the middle of Egypt. From the late Third to Second Millennium BCE, its officials decided to carve their tombs in the cliff-face of the site of Beni Hassan. These beautifully decorated monuments offer us glimpses into the lives, achievements and desires of a community that persisted through pivotal periods of changing socio-political dynamics from the Old to the Middle Kingdom, and perhaps even into the New Kingdom. A number of these tombs contain scenes of individuals represented with features atypical of Egyptians, signaling the presence of “foreigners”. Freshly recorded by the Beni Hassan Project team, their details reveal the keen observations of local artists as well as the dynamic cultural encounters that occurred at the Oryx District. In this talk, we explore such foreign affairs at the District, and how they may have contributed to a community’s shifting world view and, perhaps, resilience through a politically tumultuous period.

Speaker Bio

Anna-Latifa Mourad-Cizek studies the links between ancient cultural encounters and socio-cultural transformations. Her research has focused on relations between Egypt and Western Asia during the Third and Second Millennia BCE. She is particularly interested in the processes related to the movement of concepts, objects and people across geographic, social and cultural borders, and how these lead to change. Her approach integrates archaeological, textual and artistic data with current theoretical understandings on social identities, cultural encounters, and socio-cultural transformations. Anna has worked on several archaeological field projects, including those at Saqqara and Beni Hassan in Egypt, and is currently a member of the Beni Hassan Project. Anna’s first research monograph, Rise of the Hyksos: Egypt and the Levant from the Middle Kingdom to the Early Second Intermediate Period, investigates Egyptian-Levantine encounters and how they were tied to the rise of the Fifteenth Dynasty. It also reassesses the origins of this dynasty’s rulers, the Hyksos, and Egyptian representations of individuals from Egypt’s northeast. The impact of the Hyksos and Egyptian relations with Western Asia are then explored in her most recent book, The Enigma of the Hyksos, Vol II: Transforming Egypt into the New Kingdom. It ascertains whether and how encounters across the Middle to early Late Bronze Age influenced socio-political, religious and technological developments in Egypt, as it transitioned from the Middle to the early New Kingdom.

Anna’s current research examines how communities resiliently adapted to shifting long-distance connectivities across Egypt and Western Asia from the Third to Second Millennium BCE, and to possible early globalization. It seeks to elucidate the links between connectivity, environmental and climatic change, as well as regional and local transformations. Other research interests include network dynamics, funerary art and architecture, digital epigraphic and archaeological technologies, as well as cultural heritage preservation and promotion.