Organised by Lucinda Menaul, Bozhou Mu and Mark Weeden. All lectures start at 6.15pm, Location: UCL Roberts Building G8, David Davies Lecture Theatre, Torrington Place London WC1E 7JE.
Online participation: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/london-centre-for-the-ancient-near-east-spring-seminar-series-2023-tickets-507452653547
16 January: Tanja Pommerening (Marburg) Ancient Egyptian Medicine: Perceptions from Different Points of View
In the past, ancient Egyptian medicine has been the focus of research by scientists from a variety of disciplines, especially Egyptologists, historians of science, physicians, biologists, and pharmacists. The first part of the lecture will indicate reasons for insufficiencies in research by looking at the history of science. The second part will provide a methodological discussion and basic insights which have enabled the speaker to broaden our knowledge of ancient Egyptian medicine and beyond.
Tanja Pommerening is professor of the History of Pharmacy and Medicine at university of Marburg and former professor of Egyptology at university of Mainz.
Drugs in the pharmacy of Harraz in Cairo; © Tanja Pommerening
30 January: Eleanor Dobson (Birmingham) “Jolly Good Trick[s]”: Magic and Ancient Egypt in Victorian Culture
This talk explores ancient Egyptian imagery in Victorian performance magic, and ancient Egyptian magic in nineteenth-century literature, to unearth a culture that saw cutting-edge imaging techniques repeatedly aligned with antiquity. It also charts ancient Egyptian presences in magic lantern slides, photographs, and early moving pictures – and in occult contexts, including the media of the Spiritualist movement – illuminating a particular visual strand in a longstanding cultural tradition in which ancient Egypt is read as byword for magic.
20 February: Ben Dewar (UCL) Curses and Intergenerational Justice in the Northwest Palace at Nimrud.
13 March: Georgia Andreou (UCL) The anatomy of the first cities in Cyprus. Recent excavations at the Late Bronze Age Maroni Complex.
20 March: Geoffrey Khan (Cambridge) The language and culture of the Modern Assyrians