We have the pleasure of announcing the second Kazimierz Michałowski Memorial Lecture, which will be held in Cairo under the auspices of H.E. Prof. Khaled El-Anany, Minister of Antiquities. Prof. Stuart Tyson Smith will give a talk on the Egyptian–Nubian Entanglement. Egypt’s New Kingdom Empire and the Nubian Dynasty.
Kazimierz Michałowski Memorial Lectures is a series organized by the PCMA Research Centre in Cairo in cooperation with the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities to commemorate the life and achievements of Kazimierz Michałowski, a pioneer of Polish archaeological research in Egypt and the founder of Polish Mediterranean archaeology.
The lecture will be held at 6:00 pm on 5 March 2017 at the Ahmed Pasha Kamal Hall, Ministry of Antiquities, 3 Adel Abu Bakr Street, Zamalek, Cairo.
Lecture abstract: The notion that the use of ancient Egyptian material culture and emulation of Egyptian practices by Nubians represents a natural acculturation toward a more sophisticated and therefore inherently appealing Egyptian culture is heavily embedded within Egyptology. The key to understanding Nubian–Egyptian interactions lies in adopting a bottom-up agent centered approach. Practice theory can provide a better understanding of intercultural interaction with a model of cultural entanglement; an intertwining that impacts the historical trajectories of both societies. Both cultures entangled with and influenced each other through an accumulation of individual interactions both at home and in the communities founded during the Middle and New Kingdom (approx. 2040–1070 BC) and after the Kushite dynasty (approx. 747–656 BC). Stuart will present a picture of how both societies mingled with each other giving birth to new enriched cultural creations along the Nile.
Prof. Stuart Tyson Smith has worked on several archaeological expeditions to Egypt, including the Nile Delta, Middle Egypt and Luxor’s Theban Necropolis. His Dongola Reach Expedition and Tombos Excavations in Sudan investigate Nubian–Egyptian interactions, exploring the rise of Kerman complexity (2000–1500 BC), its conquest by the Egyptian New Kingdom (1500 BC), and the rise of the Napatan Kingdom of Kush. Stuart’s research interests include culture contact between ancient Egypt and Nubia, identity and agency, legitimization and ideology, sealings and administration, funerary practice and the social and economic dynamics of ancient Egypt, and the formation of secondary states like the Nubian kingdom of Kush. His methodological focus is on the study of ancient pottery, including the scientific analysis of absorbed residues and clay sources. His most recent work has focused on the dynamics of identity in colonial communities, particularly the archaeological expression of ethnic identity.