September 24th, 2016

9:00 am First session – “Breaking temporal boundaries”: Introduction – Laurel Bestock (Brown University)

9:10 am Josef Wegner (University of Pennsylvania) – The Archaeology of Messy Politics: Recent Evidence on Egypt’s Second Intermediate Period

Many scholars have observed the inadequacies of the long-engrained division of Egyptian history into the Kingdoms and Intermediate Periods. Compartmentalizing long eras of cultural and social change under these single overarching terms fundamentally detracts from the understanding the dynamic political and social changes that span these large historical phases. Egypt’s Second Intermediate Period (ca. 1700-1550 BCE) is a phase where historical and archaeological evidence continues to challenge us. Standard interpretations of the era revolve around an essentially bipolar model: a territorial division of Egypt into a northern Hyksos Kingdom (15th Dynasty), and a southern Theban Kingdom (16th-17th Dynasties) which grew from the southward retraction of the final stage of the Middle Kingdom (the 13th Dynasty). The recent discovery of a royal cemetery at South Abydos consisting of the burials of eight Second Intermediate Period kings, and including the previously unknown ruler Seneb-Kay, provides new evidence for this period. Rather than a bipolar model we see indications a more complex mosaic of territorial and political division. The Second Intermediate Period emerges as an ever more complex era, determined by political forces of the Hyksos in the Nile Delta, the impact of the Kerma kingdom in Nubia, and competing factions within the Egyptian Nile Valley. New research by archaeologists working from the Delta to Nubia will help to further refine our understandings of this crucial phase in Egypt’s development.

9:30 am Elizabeth Bolman (Temple University) – The Red Monastery Church: Breaking Boundaries

The early Byzantine triconch sanctuary in the Red Monastery church, near Sohag in Upper Egypt, has been the subject of a fifteen-year project of conservation, documentation, analysis and publication funded by USAID and administered by ARCE. This dynamic monument breaks numerous boundaries: temporal, geographical and methodological. It contains an astonishing array of figural and ornamental paintings that cover the surfaces of an equally remarkable multi-tiered architectural ensemble. The sanctuary and its decoration date to the late fifth and sixth centuries, thus well beyond the standard temporal scope for Egyptology. The church, which was almost completely unknown before conservation, undermines the longstanding view that Upper Egypt was geographically and culturally isolated in this period. Instead, it demonstrates unequivocally that this region was thoroughly integrated into the early Byzantine world. This fact has gone unnoticed by art historians, and thus the conservation and publication of the building is radically altering our picture of visual production in the empire. Newer digital methods of documentation undertaken during the project, including an online, interactive 360 panorama of the triconch and the laser scanning of the entire church make the church available to a global audience and preserve a high-quality record of its state at the end of the project.

9:50 am Response: Ian Straughn (Brown University)
10:10 am Discussion