The third Post-Doctoral Fellowship, offered by the PCMA Research Centre in Cairo and Institut français d’archéologie orientale, has been awarded to Dr. Elena Panaite. As was the case with the previous editions, the Post-Doc Fellow will be tasked with organizing a scientific conference in Cairo.
The title of next year’s conference is Meeting the “Other”: Transfers and cultural interactions around the Nile Valley. – I am interested in the relations between Egypt and its neighbors since the beginning of my studies in Egyptology. During my doctoral thesis, I’ve been working on the representations of the Libyan people in ancient Egyptian sources – says the new Ifao-PCMA Post-Doc Fellow. – The main aim was to go beyond the topos of the enemy and to better understand the daily interactions between the Ancient Egyptians and their western neighbors adds Dr. Panaite.
Further exploration of this theme is also the aim of the planned conference. It intends to investigate, through a multidisciplinary approach, the cultural interactions and transformations resulting from contacts between the distinct group of people in North-eastern Africa and the Levant, from the creation of the Egyptian state up to the Christian era. The wide chronological framework aims at a better understanding of the mechanisms that govern cultural interactions in a long-term perspective, in order to facilitate the emergence of patterns of differentiation and assimilation throughout the Egyptian culture. The conference will bring together scholars from several fields of research and create an open dialogue about mutual influences in ancient societies.
Dr. Panaite’s other research interest involves the temple of Amun-Re in Karnak. – Since 2017, I co-lead a research project in the temple of Amun-Re, in Karnak, the first aim of which is to record and inventory the loose blocks, still unpublished, that made up the decoration of the western face of the 2nd pylon. The final outcome should be a digital reassembling of the 2nd Pylon’s western face – she says.