LECTURE | Early Middle Kingdom elite officials and royal strategies at Thebes - Antonio J. Morales

In the last four years, the University of Alcalá Expedition and its Middle Kingdom Theban Project have set up a multidisciplinary and international team of experts that have been conducted archaeological excavation, epigraphic work, and conservation in several tombs in the area of Deir el-Bahari, with the major goal of improving our knowledge on the historical circumstances of the later part of the Eleventh Dynasty and the beginning of the so-called “Classical Period”. In the first two years of work (2015-2016), the team started excavating the upper section of the courtyards in the complexes of the great steward Henenu (TT 313 / MMA 510) and the vizier Ipi (TT 315 / MMA 516). In the following two years the expedition has experienced a significant increase in the number of monuments under investigation, with the incorporation of the funerary complexes of the supervisor of the harim Djari (TT 366 / MMA 820) and the vizier Dagi (TT 103 / MMA 807) in the lower platform of Asasif, and the incorporation of the entire eastern sector in the northern hills at Deir el-Bahari, where the tomb of Neferhotep (TT 316 / MMA 518), two “unfinished” tombs (MMA 519-520), and a large complex (MMA 521) left unexcavated by Winlock wait for documentation, study, and publication. In this talk, the lecturer will present the major aims of the project and the strategies to respond to these goals by documenting, studying, and publishing several of these monuments in Deir el-Bahari and Asasif.

Antonio Morales is Assistant Professor in Egyptology in the Seminar of Ancient History at the University of Alcalá. Previously he was Lecturer in Egyptology and Research Associate at Freie Universität Berlin, postdoctoral researcher at Heidelberg Universität, and Assistant Researcher at Mainz Universität. He obtained his PhD in Egyptology from the University of Pennsylvania. Antonio Morales has participated in several expeditions to Egypt and is currently the director of The Middle Kingdom Theban Project. He has also published multiple articles in scientific journals and contributions to books. In addition to this, he has edited a volume on beer in the ancient world (Seville 2001), has co-edited a volume on divine kingship (Philadelphia 2011), has completed a monograph on the Pyramid Texts dealing with the goddess Nut (Hamburg 2017), and has co-edited a volume on Middle Kingdom archaeology to appear in the Harvard Egyptological Studies (Boston 2020).