ARCE-NY: Food and Drink in Late Antique Egypt (from Coptic Sources)

Lecture Information

Food is very important to human life not only for eating, but also for healing. Food and drink typically reflect the culture of Egyptians in different periods. The staple food of the ancient Egyptians was bread and beer. They also ate many kinds of agriculture crops.

In the post-Pharaonic period, Egyptians were mixed with different cultures, such as the cultures of the Greeks, Romans, and Arabs, which affected their food and drink. Christianity also influenced the diet of Egyptians in late antiquity (the third – eighth centuries AD). The Copts are the Egyptians who lived in this period and most of them were Christians. They left many documents and artifacts that tell us about their daily life, including food and drink.

This lecture will provide short information about types of food and drink, meal recipes, taboos, symbolism of food, industries depending on edible plants, and food in medicine. There is also a short reference to the animals that consumed kinds of food of people. The information of lecture gathered by the speaker from Coptic documents and monuments.

Registration is mandatory, via the button, and the event promo code is: EGYPT

Speaker Bio

Sohair Ahmed is a Coptologist and Egyptologist born and living in Egypt; she obtained her BA from the Department of Archaeology (ASU) in 2002. She is an assistant professor in Coptic Papyrology, with very good knowledge of Coptic art and culture. She has published many Coptic documentary texts, such as letters, contracts, and tax receipts and she created the first series of booklets on ancient Coptic society with several dictionaries.

She also has many international publications and is a candidate for international awards. Part of her doctoral thesis was conducted at Brown University (USA), and she received short term grants to the University of Münster (Germany), as well as at the universities of New York and Brown in the USA. She also received two American Fellowships.