Honoring the legacy of Dr. David B. O’Connor: ARCE-PA’s Symposium on the Archaeology of Abydos

In 1967 O’Connor, then Curator of the University Museum’s Egyptian Section, started the Pennsylvania-Yale Expedition to Abydos. During the 1960s-1990s his research at Abydos focused on North Abydos with its cemeteries and temples linked with the cult of the Egyptian funerary god Osiris. Over the course of his later career, both at Penn and then at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, O’Connor was instrumental in fostering a broadening range of intensive archaeological activity at Abydos. New archaeological research occurred in numerous areas such as the late Old Kingdom to Middle Kingdom mortuary landscape of the Middle Cemetery, the royal funerary complexes of Kings Senwosret III and Ahmose at South Abydos, and the memorial temples of Kings Thutmose III and Ramses II. In 2009 O’Connor published Abydos: Egypt’s First Pharaohs and the Cult of Osiris, a book that examined the rich and ever-changing archaeological picture of ancient Abydos.

With the continued sponsorship of the Penn Museum, Institute of Fine Arts/New York University, University of Michigan, and other institutions, the program of North American and Egyptian archaeologists working at Abydos, and in Egypt, has grown and prospered thanks to the foundation provided by O’Connor’s long dedication to Egyptian archaeology and the site of Abydos. The symposium will include lectures by scholars who started their careers under David O’Connor, examining past discoveries, their most recent archaeological research at Abydos, and the ways in which O’Connor shaped their own careers.

Abydos Symposium Speakers:

• Dr. Matthew D. Adams, Senior Research Scholar, Institute of Fine Arts, NYU
• Dr. Janet Richards, Professor of Egyptology in the Department of Middle East Studies, Univ. of Michigan and Curator of Dynastic Egyptian Collections at the Kelsey Museum
• Dr. Josef Wegner, Professor of Egyptian Archaeology in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and Curator in the Egyptian Section of the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
• Dr. Stephen Harvey, Director of the Ahmose and Tetisheri Project
• Dr. Michelle Marlar, Director of Egyptian Archaeological Missions at the Houston Museum of Natural Science
• Mr. Hazem Salah Abdullah, Senior Inspector, Sohag Antiquities Office, Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, EGYPT
• Mr. Mohamed Naguib Reda,  Senior Inspector, Sohag Antiquities Office, Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, EGYPT
• Mr. Mohamed Abu El-Yazid,  Senior Inspector, Sohag Antiquities Office, Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, EGYPT
• Mr. Ayman Damarany, Inspector, Sohag Antiquities Office, Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, EGYPT
• Dr. Sameh Iskander, Research Associate, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW)
• Dr. Diana Craig Patch, Lila Acheson Wallace Curator in Charge, Dept. of Egyptian Art, Metropolitan Museum