The Institut français d’archéologie orientale and the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, University of Warsaw are jointly organizing an international conference entitled: Meeting the Other: Transfers and cultural interactions around the Nile Valley. The conference will take place in Cairo, in a hybrid format from Saturday, 27th to Wednesday, 31th March 2021. The event has been conceived and coordinated by Dr. Elena Panaite, as part of her PCMA-Ifao Post-Doc Fellowship.
The conference discusses the transfers and cultural interactions that took place around the Nile Valley in the Antiquity. Climate changes, trade and commercial issues, conflictual events, led to population movements that put different cultures face to face in various ways. The event intends, from a diachronic perspective, to single out the dynamic and multidirectional nature of interactions between distinct groups of people in North-eastern Africa. It will gather studies from the formation of the Egyptian state until the arrival of the Greek and Roman peoples into the Nile Valley, giving the participants an opportunity to discuss together different approaches on a wide array of topics.
One aim is a better understanding of the subject’s key vocabulary, comprising the terms borrowed from related disciplines. This shall be ensured through a range of general and specific case studies, related to material culture, social behaviors, textual and iconographical sources. An open dialogue and collaboration between the various sub-disciplines involved in these fields of research are also expected. The conference aspires to be a new step in the comprehension of the Nile Valley as an interactive environment.
See the Conference Program (PDF).
The conference sessions will be streamed live on the Ifao YT channel:
- Session 1: (28.03 – 10.15 am) Meeting the Other
- Session 2: (28.03 – 11.50 am) Cultural interactions & factors of exchange
- Session 3: (28.03 – 2.00 pm) Border interactions. A diachronic perspective from the Eastern Delta
- Session 4: (28.03 – 4.00 pm) Trade paths. Transfers of goods and knowledge
- Session 5: (29.03 – 9.30 am) Border interactions. The Sinai nomads and the Eastern Desert
- Session 6: (29.03 – 11.30 am) Cultural interactions in the military field
- Session 7: (29.03 – 2.00 pm) Cultural interactions among the elite
- Session 8: (30.03 – 9.30 am) Entangled artefacts. From the Nile Valley to the North
- Session 9: (30.03 – 11.30 am) Identity issues in context. Looking to the South
- Session 10: (30.03 – 2.00 pm) Entangled artefacts around the Nile Valley
- Session 11: (31.03 – 9.30 am) Cultural interactions in the 1st millennium
- Session 12: (31.03 – 12.00 am) Cultural interactions in the Greco-Roman worlds
See the Conference Abstracts (PDF).
Two public online keynote lectures will be given in the framework of the conference. They will be streamed on the Ifao YouTube channel.
- Prof. Stuart T. Smith (University of California):
– Entangled Lives: Egyptians in Nubia, Nubians in Egypt
Saturday, 27 March 2021, 6 pm (UTC/GMT +2 hours)
- Prof. Julia Budka (Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich):
– Cultural diversity in New Kingdom Nubia (link to YT)
Monday 29 March 2021, 6 pm (UTC/GMT +2 hours)
The on-site part of the conference will take place on the premises of the IFAO for a limited number of participants. The rest of the participants and subscribed attendees can take part in the conference on Zoom. The Zoom link will be sent privately to participants and to subscribed attendees. Fill the online application in Google form to subscribe.
The attendance, upon acceptance, is free of charge. In order to guarantee the workshop nature of this scientific meeting, only a limited number of attendees will be allowed. Unfortunately, the organizers may have to decline some applications and they will consider the needs and research fields of the applicants. The selection should not be seen as an academic evaluation.