When: 31st of  August to 1st of  September 2022 (open to the public)

Where: University of  Vienna, Campus AKH Alte Kapelle (Court 2.8)

Up until recently, archaeological research of the Late Dynastic-Ptolemaic periods in Middle Egypt has been much neglected. At the intersection of the political, religious- and economic centres in Upper- and Lower Egypt, this region is crucial for a better understanding of the social structure, the religious practices and the political and economic networks within the Egyptian state system. Only in the last few years, a number of new interdisciplinary research projects have put the focus on this archaeologically scarcely known region and its part in the rich archaeological heritage of Egypt. Since 2014, the Institute for Egyptology of the University of Vienna has been conducting archaeological research at the site of el-Sheikh Fadl - Umm Raqaba, which represents the main necropolis of the regional administrative centres of the 17th and 18th Upper Egyptian nomes. It therefore provides excellent insights into Late Dynastic to Ptolemaic-Roman material culture and society. Furthermore, this site was part of a religious centre of an Anubis cult with supra-regional importance as is evidenced by canine mass-burials and demotic papyri found in the tombs at el-Sheikh Fadl. At the workshop, the project team, which is supported by a FWF grant (P31809), will present the first results of the various fields of archaeological research at el-Sheikh Fadl. Together with internationally renowned experts in the archaeology of Late Dynastic and Ptolemaic-Roman Egypt, the findings will be contextualized within a broader scope of research in the Egyptian Nile Valley.

Special guests include: Dr. David Aston (Vienna), Dr. Vadislav Bareš (Prague), Dr. Melanie Flossmann-Schütze (Munich), Dr. Chiori Kitagawa (Berlin), Dr. Esther Pons Mellado (Madrid) and Katharina Stövesand, M.A. (Cairo).

Contact: esfu.egyptology@univie.ac.at