In the Shadow of Egypt’s Last Pyramid:Uncovering the Ahmose Cemetery and Its Historical Implications

About the Speaker:

Emily Smith-Sangster is a Ph.D. Candidate in Egyptian Art and Archaeology at Princeton University and Associate Director of the Abydos South Project. Her dissertation investigates the construction and expression of post-mortem identity during the early New Kingdom at Abydos, with a particular focus on the Ahmose Cemetery. Her work interacts with themes of landscape, sensorialism, gender, and embodiment.

About the Lecture:

In early 2023, the Abydos South Project (ASP) began its inaugural season working on a plot of land to the local north of the Ahmose Pyramid. The goal of the season was to explore this area of the concession in the hopes of better understanding its use history. This area, previously unexcavated save for shallow test trenching in 1966 by the EAO, and surface collection in 1993 by the Ahmose and Tetisheri Project, had been identified as the possible location of the Ahmose Pyramid Town.

ASP’s excavations, however, discovered that this area was, in fact, a large elite necropolis used for an exceedingly brief period of time. While analysis is still in progress, it is clear that this discovery offers significant data that will help us develop our understanding of expressions of elite agency and identity in the cemeteries of Abydos, while also allowing us to further contextualize elite activity at this site within the wider history of the early New Kingdom.

This lecture discusses these excavations and resulting discoveries, while also highlighting the impact this discovery will have on our understanding of the Ahmose period at Abydos and beyond.