Egyptian Art Fellows

Paleographic Study of the 6th and 8th Dynasty Coptos Decrees

Daniel González León is currently a PhD candidate in Egyptology at Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. He studies non-royal Old and Middle Kingdom court titles, focusing on the common characteristics of their holders. It was precisely this research that led him to study the nature of the hieroglyphic script, and the ways in which meaning and context might affect the pictographic features of the sign. In recent years, he has been a member of the archaeological project at Kom el-Khamaseen, a late Old Kingdom site.

The paleographic material of the hieroglyphic script may be used to distinguish creative hands and workshops, assess the date of a text, and—when required—infer its geographical provenance, but also to conduct semiotic analyses. The project will enrich this catalogue with the paleography of the Old Kingdom Coptos decrees, a well-defined corpus of texts.

New Kingdom Pottery Labels from Malqata

Sherif AbdelMoniem is a member of the New Kingdom Research Foundation archaeological mission in the western Wadis. Previously, he worked in the field as a ceramologist for the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities with various archaeological missions to Egypt. He also recently joined Ain shams University, faculty of archaeology, as a lecturer. He started his career in the Giza field school.

During his one year fellowship, Sherif will be cataloguing 1,400 jar label fragments from Malqata in The Met's permanent collection. In his study, Sherif will explore the relationships between jar (form and fabric), commodity, handwriting, and other aspects enclosed in the docket. In addition, he will try to assess the significance of the spatial distribution of the jars, when such information is available.

Jun's project examined the “proscription” of Hatshepsut, a female pharaoh whose monuments were systematically erased following her death. While this has often been interpreted as a vengeful act by her successor, more recent findings suggest that the destruction only began decades after her death. As a result, the reason for the attacks remains largely obscure. Jun's research involves the systematic documentation and analysis of the destruction, so that its motive can be better understood. During his fellowship, Jun worked on The Met’s collection of Hatshepsut’s statuary, as well as relevant archival material.

Dr. Hany Eltayeb was a 2022–2023 fellow in the department, advancing his study of the mastaba of Shepsesre at Saqqara, a key 5th Dynasty monument that has never been properly documented. Shepsesre was a high official who held numerous important titles, and seems to have been particularly favored by King Djedkare. His mastaba is noteworthy for its size, architectural complexity, and the beauty of its relief and painted decoration. Of particular interest for The Met is the possible relationship between Shepsesre and Perneb, the owner of the mastaba at the entrance to Egyptian Art’s galleries; the two structures were connected architecturally, suggesting the individuals were related, though to date there is no pictorial or textual evidence proving a connection.

Heba joined the Department of Egyptian Art as a Fulbright scholar as part of her PhD research in Heritage and Museum Studies. Her thesis revolves around collection management and documentation policies and practices in Egyptian museums. During her time at The Met, she investigated how collections management and documentation policies and practices shape the Museum’s collections information and knowledge paradigms. She also explored ways in which this information is integrated into existing collections databases while informing changes in museum policy, supporting the development of permanent and temporary exhibitions, expanding collections accessibility, tracking staff roles, and documenting acquisitions.

An Analysis of Human Representation across Predynastic Egyptian Visual Culture and its Application in Reading Figural Compositions on Decorated Vessels from Naqada I – II

During the Vilcek Curatorial Fellowship year, Sophie had the opportunity to receive curatorial training, contribute to projects in the Department of Egyptian Art, and expand her dissertation research as she studies Predynastic Period (ca. 3700–3300 BCE) objects in The Met’s collection. She also included research she has conducted on objects in other institutions with her analysis of The Met’s pieces to propose an explanation of the scenes on decorated vessels from this early period of ancient Egyptian culture.

Exhibition Research Fellow

Amy joined the Department of Egyptian Art as an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow to assist Diana Craig Patch, Lila Acheson Wallace Curator in Charge, with the organization and development of a forthcoming exhibition. While at The Met, Amy’s work was diverse and included identifying and researching important objects for the exhibition, translating ancient Egyptian texts, and contributing to the exhibition catalogue.

The Scarab Collection

The ancient Egyptians worshipped the scarab as a symbol of creation and rebirth, and as such, it was a popular shape for amulets and stamp seals in the second and early first millennium BCE. Specialized research has succeeded in identifying details that allow us to determine dates and origins for these artifacts. The Department of Egyptian Art has a heterogeneous collection of approximately 3,000 scarabs, acquired through excavations and from private collections, representing all periods of scarab production. Vanessa is updating the information related to the scarabs in The Met’s TMS database, and completing these records by providing full descriptions and revised dates. This is helping to make one of the largest scarab collections in the world more available to the public and for further research.

The Economy of Human Resilience: Exploring Economic Growth during Political Instability in Ancient Egypt

Vera's dissertation seeks to reconcile the ideas of economic development, political fragmentation, and “artistic decline” in ancient Egypt by investigating the dynamics of the production system of funerary commodities during the 25th and 26th Dynasties (ca. 743–525 BCE). The first millennium BCE was a time of political fragmentation, war, foreign invasion, and drastic changes in funerary rituals. Overall, funerary spaces became smaller and burial assemblages became simpler in design and more limited in the number of artifacts they included. While the elaborate art of earlier periods is traditionally associated with social inequality, Vera suggests that the "artistic decline" in the first half of the first millennium BCE marks a decrease in social inequality and a broader distribution of wealth.

Beyond Provenance: The Modern History of a Collection

Archaeological remains are inextricably related with contemporary issues, such as the specific social attitudes of particular eras and historically contingent notions of provenance. Compiling geographical provenance with stylistic and epigraphic criteria helps to pinpoint an object’s exact origin. Focusing on internal and external documentation, such as excavation reports, dealer’s labels on objects, correspondence, and invoices help us to retrace the provenance of museum objects. For this fellowship, Maxence is working with various types of unpublished documentation from The Met’s collection, allowing him to study the memoryscape of specific artifacts by carrying out counter-diachronic research.

The Mastaba of Shepsesre

Dr. Hany Eltayeb was an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in the department from January to March 2020; his six-month fellowship was cut short by the coronavirus pandemic. Nevertheless, Dr. Hany was able to advance his study of the mastaba of Shepsesre at Saqqara, a key 5th Dynasty monument that has never been properly documented.

Cultural and Ethnic Identity in Ancient Egyptian Art

Tara's research revolved around three related areas. The first was her work on two reconstructed prisoner statues that depict kneeling bound foreigners (47.2, 64.260). She worked with Anna Serotta in Objects Conservation to document their restoration and conducted research in the Department of Egyptian Art and The Brooklyn Museum archives. Her findings will be published in the 2020 volume of Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur. Secondly, she studied and documented all of the objects in the Egyptian collection that include representations of foreigners. This material will form a central data set for her second book project, which will investigate conceptions of ethnicity and identity in ancient Egypt through art and visual culture. The third area of her research focused on the visualization of pain and emotion in ancient Egypt, again using objects in the collection.

Comparative Study of Egyptian-Kushite Iconography: Figures and Expressions of Warlike Power (Warriors - Kings - Gods)

In recent years, the kingdoms of Kush have aroused new interest in the scientific community. Faïza's research project focused on martial imagery in ancient Sudan: the iconography of combat (both motifs on artifacts and scenes on temples and pyramids), the figures and expressions of warlike power in Meroe (prestige weaponry, battle and massacre scenes, warrior gods, triumphal sovereigns, defeated enemies, and war animals), as well as their origins, influences and connections with ancient Egypt and the Mediterranean world. The project also included the identification and the study of Met objects belonging to ancient Nubian cultures and kingdoms (A-Group, C-Group, Pan-Grave, Kerma, Napata, Meroe), especially the artifacts from the Meroitic cemetery of Faras (between the First and the Second Cataract): pottery, metal-glass vessels, jewelry, and a rare archer’s ring.

Late Period (664–332 BCE) Healing Statues from Ancient Egypt

Michael's project on the design of Late Period healing statues wrestled with the interrelationship between healing practices and religion. These statues are completely inscribed with magical healing spells and carved with mythological scenes. Practitioners would pour water over these statues, which, through the principle of contagious magic, charged the water with healing properties. This healing water was then imbibed or applied to the body to cure the injured. Because these objects functioned within the temple space yet targeted an audience of ordinary individuals, this dataset illustrates how magic served as an intermediary in restricted domains. Michael's project investigated how access to magic could exist within religious traditions and how individuals effectively used magical objects to negotiate their relationship to the temple, toward religious beliefs, and in competition with one another.