ARCE-ISAC Joint Lecture: Treasure Fit for a Queen: Royal Burials from el-Kurru, Sudan

About this event

ARCE-ISAC November Lecture, 5-6pm in person and on Zoom, Dr. Denise Doxey, Norma Jean Calderwood Curator of Ancient Egyptian, Nubian, and Near Eastern Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Some of the most spectacular, though enigmatic, objects in the Nubian collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, come from the tombs of royal women of the eighth century BCE. These women lived during the reign of King Piankhy (Piye), the ruler who subdued Egypt, unifying the Nile Valley from the confluence of the Blue and White Niles to the Mediterranean Sea. Members of the royal family were buried at el-Kurru in northern Sudan, accompanied by exceptional jewels and vessels of bronze, stone, and precious metal. Many of the items demonstrate the exchange of funerary beliefs and artistic styles between the kingdom of Kush and its neighbors to the north, while others are distinctively Nubian. Dr. Denise Doxey is Curator of Ancient Egyptian, Nubian, and Near Eastern Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Previously she was Keeper of Collections for the Egyptian Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (now the Penn Museum). Denise received her M.Phil. in Classical Archaeology from Oxford University and her Ph.D. in Ancient History from the University of Pennsylvania. Her teaching experience includes Egyptology courses at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University. She has participated in excavations in Egypt at the sites of Abydos and Saqqara. In addition to numerous articles, she is the author or co-author of five books, most recently Arts of Ancient Nubia. She has served on the Board of the International Council of Museum's International Committee for Egyptology and is currently the President of the Board of Governors of the American Research Center in Egypt. In her time at the MFA, Denise has overseen the renovation of galleries for Predynastic and Early Dynastic art, Old Kingdom art, and Middle Kingdom funerary art. This lecture is organized by ARCE Chicago , a chapter of the American Research Center in Egypt.