ARCE- American Research Center in Egypt Vancouver Chapter

02/28/2026

starting in 30 minutes — join us to learn about this very cool work!

Coming up tomorrow (Saturday Feb 28, 12pm PST) — "Reconstructing Presently Submerged Landscapes of Lower Nubia: CORONA-derived Topography and Spatial Analyses of Middle Kingdom Fort Environments", a lecture by Rolland Long.

Lecture is free and open to anyone — register here: https://wwu-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/1QjfS41KQb2KjsXhlz5QYg #/registration

Abstract:
Soon after the declassification of satellite imagery from the CORONA satellite spy-mission in the mid-1990s, archaeologists working around the world quickly recognized their value. The spy mission, which had originally been designed to provide intelligence on Soviet bomber and missile capabilities during the Cold War, also recorded the appearance of archaeological sites and landscapes heavily altered or destroyed by recent urban development. This talk focuses on a burgeoning new application of CORONA imagery: the generation of historical Digital Elevation Models (DEM) from such images, which can yield important quantitative insights about terrain no longer in existence. Generating DEM’s from CORONA imagery has necessitated the development of specialized techniques to address unique distortions from its capture process. This talk focuses on several DEM’s produced over Lower Nubia, which has been subject to flooding and rising water levels since the establishment of the Aswan High Dam about half a century ago. Much of the ancient history of the area has been swept away forever, despite a heroic international effort to salvage as much archaeological information as possible prior to the dam’s construction. These DEM’s will situate the Egyptian forts of several areas, including Semna and Askut, within their larger geographical context. Certain physical features of these fortresses, such as intervisibility between forts and their proximity to overland routes, can now be verified quantitatively.

02/28/2026

Coming up tomorrow (Saturday Feb 28, 12pm PST) — "Reconstructing Presently Submerged Landscapes of Lower Nubia: CORONA-derived Topography and Spatial Analyses of Middle Kingdom Fort Environments", a lecture by Rolland Long.

Lecture is free and open to anyone — register here: https://wwu-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/1QjfS41KQb2KjsXhlz5QYg #/registration

Abstract:
Soon after the declassification of satellite imagery from the CORONA satellite spy-mission in the mid-1990s, archaeologists working around the world quickly recognized their value. The spy mission, which had originally been designed to provide intelligence on Soviet bomber and missile capabilities during the Cold War, also recorded the appearance of archaeological sites and landscapes heavily altered or destroyed by recent urban development. This talk focuses on a burgeoning new application of CORONA imagery: the generation of historical Digital Elevation Models (DEM) from such images, which can yield important quantitative insights about terrain no longer in existence. Generating DEM’s from CORONA imagery has necessitated the development of specialized techniques to address unique distortions from its capture process. This talk focuses on several DEM’s produced over Lower Nubia, which has been subject to flooding and rising water levels since the establishment of the Aswan High Dam about half a century ago. Much of the ancient history of the area has been swept away forever, despite a heroic international effort to salvage as much archaeological information as possible prior to the dam’s construction. These DEM’s will situate the Egyptian forts of several areas, including Semna and Askut, within their larger geographical context. Certain physical features of these fortresses, such as intervisibility between forts and their proximity to overland routes, can now be verified quantitatively.

01/24/2026

Join us this afternoon for our first lecture of the new year! We have an exciting lecture by Dr. Kathleen Sheppard on Women's Work at Abydos!

You can register and join the lecture here: https://wwu-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/41BZ_rnUR3iQtr6e-l23Tg

Title: Women’s Work in Abydos: Margaret Murray, Amice Calverley, and Myrtle Broome

Abstract: In 1902, Margaret Alice Murray got invited to work in the field—finally. Training with Flinders Petrie for the last eight years, she had taught plenty of students in London, but had never been to Egypt to work herself. She spent only one season at Abydos, working in the Osireion, a special temple that no one had yet fully understood. Two years later, Murray’s publication, The Osireion at Abydos upended all previous theories about the site. By 1938, Amice Calverley and Myrtle Broome were leaving Abydos, having spent almost a decade copying the art in the Temple of Seti I. Their own publications, The Temple of Sethos I at Abydos were four volumes of brilliantly painted art from the temple walls, in exacting detail. This talk will detail the ways in which the work women did on site at Abydos in the early 20th century impacted our understanding and reception of one of the most important sites in all of ancient Egypt.

11/29/2025

Starting in 15 minutes!

Join us for our next ARCE Vancouver lecture, this Saturday, November 29th, at 12 pm PST! Dr. Sabrina Higgins will join us for a lecture titled "To the Virgin we Pray: The Development and Profusion of Marian Iconography in Late Antique Egypt."

You can register here: https://wwu-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/CNvcm8kwR-OEwmyaVVTebg

Talk Abstract
The Virgin Mary is an enigmatic Biblical figure, one who rises from relative unimportance in the canonical gospels to become one of the most prominent figures in Christianity. Although we see a gradual theological discourse that culminates with the declaration of Mary as Theotokos at the Council of Ephesus in 431, the same cannot be said regarding the proliferation of her image in early Christian art. In the period following this Council, however, there is a widespread effort to incorporate Mary into the iconographical programmes of churches and monasteries. Thus, the fifth to ninth centuries represent a formative period in Christian art, during which time, Mary not only becomes an important subject in Christological themes, but also a significant figure within Late Antique art in her own right. More importantly, however, are the themes that arose from this increased interest in Mary, which relied on canonical, extra-canonical and diverse subjects from the Greek and Roman world to create a distinct iconography that has expanded well beyond our limited knowledge of the Biblical Mary. Her profusion in the surviving art of this period and the diversity of the images in which she appears are nowhere more varied and abundant than Egypt. It is within this context, therefore, that we examine the development and profusion of Marian wall paintings in Late Antique Egypt. This talk will also highlight the diverse texts and images that are brought together to create a series of distinct Marian wall paintings that would resonate with a Coptic audience, while also tracing the chronological and spatial implications of their use across Egypt.

11/25/2025

Join us for our next ARCE Vancouver lecture, this Saturday, November 29th, at 12 pm PST! Dr. Sabrina Higgins will join us for a lecture titled "To the Virgin we Pray: The Development and Profusion of Marian Iconography in Late Antique Egypt."

You can register here: https://wwu-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/CNvcm8kwR-OEwmyaVVTebg

Talk Abstract
The Virgin Mary is an enigmatic Biblical figure, one who rises from relative unimportance in the canonical gospels to become one of the most prominent figures in Christianity. Although we see a gradual theological discourse that culminates with the declaration of Mary as Theotokos at the Council of Ephesus in 431, the same cannot be said regarding the proliferation of her image in early Christian art. In the period following this Council, however, there is a widespread effort to incorporate Mary into the iconographical programmes of churches and monasteries. Thus, the fifth to ninth centuries represent a formative period in Christian art, during which time, Mary not only becomes an important subject in Christological themes, but also a significant figure within Late Antique art in her own right. More importantly, however, are the themes that arose from this increased interest in Mary, which relied on canonical, extra-canonical and diverse subjects from the Greek and Roman world to create a distinct iconography that has expanded well beyond our limited knowledge of the Biblical Mary. Her profusion in the surviving art of this period and the diversity of the images in which she appears are nowhere more varied and abundant than Egypt. It is within this context, therefore, that we examine the development and profusion of Marian wall paintings in Late Antique Egypt. This talk will also highlight the diverse texts and images that are brought together to create a series of distinct Marian wall paintings that would resonate with a Coptic audience, while also tracing the chronological and spatial implications of their use across Egypt.

10/18/2025

Happening today — ARCE Vancouver talk by Jennifer Westerfeld on "Monks, Mummies, and Men of Letters: Exploring Egypt in the Age of Enlightenment"

Sat, Oct 18th, 12pm PT

You can join here: https://sfu.zoom.us/j/87117538474?pwd=Yx2w7xYiVfEx7OuMJLelIdvuCccRR9.1

Abstract:
Discussions of Egyptology's roots in the Renaissance and early modern periods often highlight the work of linguists, who sought to decipher the mysteries of Egyptian hieroglyphs, and that of the archaeologists, geographers, and other scholars who famously traveled with Napoleon during his invasion of Egypt in 1798. Less well-known is the work of the earlier seventeenth and eighteenth-century travelers and explorers whose efforts to map the historical topography of Egypt laid much of the groundwork for the scholars of the Napoleonic expedition and for the subsequent nineteenth-century flourishing of Egyptian archaeology. A key figure in this early modern exploratory activity was the French Jesuit missionary and cartographer Claude Sicard, who is significant for being the first European explorer to correctly identify numerous important sites, including the ancient cities of Thebes and Abydos. This talk situates Sicard and his colleagues within the larger history of Egyptian exploration during the Age of Enlightenment, paying particular attention to the financing of research expeditions and the role of Egyptian interlocutors in the process of Egyptological knowledge-production.
Dr. Jennifer Westerfeld is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Louisville and president of the Kentucky chapter of the Archaeological Institute of America. An Egyptologist by training, her research focuses on the cultural and religious history of Roman-period Egypt.

09/24/2025

The 2025 / 2026 academic year is here, and so is our first virtual ARCE Vancouver lecture of this series! Join us this Saturday, September 27th, 2025 at 12:00 pm PDT for an exciting talk by Dr. Elizabeth Minor on fantastical animal art from Kerma!

You can join using this link: https://sfu.zoom.us/j/87374893107?pwd=i4OsitPF9Gu2vchzouJrdpe67kKus4.1

Talk Title: Winged Hippopotami and Flying Giraffes: Fantastical Animals and the Negotiation of Elite Identity in the Classic Kerma Period

Abstract: The ancient Nubian Kerma Kingdom flourished during the Classic Kerma Period (1750-1500 BCE), especially in terms of highly personalized funerary arts. Elite community members sought out individualized and innovative expressions of multi-faceted identities, both with objects that represented their status and roles in life, and with imagery that symbolized their place within the cosmos and worldview. This personalized funerary equipment provides a material and visual arena of discussion of elite status and identity during a period of changing social complexity. In particular, tracing patterns in use of local, foreign, and fantastical animals amongst Classic Kerma religious iconography leads to a more nuanced understanding of how community members negotiated their relationships with each other during this time of flux

06/02/2025

Hard to believe it is already time for our last talk of the 2024 / 2025 academic year! Join us this Saturday (June 7, 12pm PDT) for an exciting talk on teaching ancient Egyptian history, art, and literature using Digital Humanities methods!

You can register for the talk here: https://wwu-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/ct0NHSxBR8egFaNOL9gwgQ #/registration

In this lecture, the role of applying DH methods in courses on the ancient Egyptian funerary art and religion will be outlined and discussed—also in the light of the most recent use of AI in the classroom. We will cover three main case-studies: The Book of the Dead in 3D, a student-based project for the 3D visualization of ancient Egyptian coffins; the VR app Return to the Tomb on the digital repatriation of ancient Egyptian sarcophagus to its tomb, developed by an international team of digital scholars and Egyptologists (UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz. The University of Bonn, Virginia Tech); and MELC 110: Digital Humanities and Egyptology, an undergraduate course at the University of California, Berkeley.

Rita Lucarelli studied at the University of Naples “L’Orientale,” Italy, where she received her MA degree in Egyptology. She holds her Ph.D. from Leiden University, the Netherlands, with a thesis published as The Book of the Dead of Gatseshen: Ancient Egyptian Funerary Religion in the 10th Century BC. She worked as a Research Scholar and a Lecturer at the Department of Egyptology of Bonn University, where she was part of the team of the “Book of the Dead Project”. She is currently an Associate Professor of Egyptology at UC Berkeley and Faculty Curator of Egyptology at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology of the University of California, Berkeley and Fellow of the Digital Humanities in Berkeley. Her specialty is the study of the ancient Egyptian magic and religion.

She is presently working at a project aiming at realizing 3D models of ancient Egyptian coffins, the “Book of the Dead in 3D” and a VR App, “Return to the Tomb”, which recreate the tomb space where an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus is brought back, from the museum to the tomb. She is also completing a new monograph on demonology in ancient Egypt entitled “Agents of punishment and protection: ancient Egyptian Demonology in the First Millennium BCE”. Dr. Lucarelli is also involved in teaching Higher Education in the San Quentin State Prison, in California.

05/02/2025

Very excited for our next lecture happening tomorrow (Saturday May 3)! Join us at 12pm PDT for a lecture by Ahmad Mohammed on potting communities in Egypt 🏺

The lecture is free and open to anyone to join. You can register here: https://wwu-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/fvG_L1LpQE-wSm5Ue0ub3Q

*Trace the Untraceable: Unravelling the Craft Landscape in Ancient Egypt*
This talk explores the elusive yet richly textured craft landscapes of ancient Egypt, revealing how pottery workshops served as both industrial hubs and dynamic social spaces. By adopting a multidisciplinary approach that integrates spatial analysis, ethnoarchaeological insights, and traditional archaeological investigation, the talk examines how environmental, economic, and social forces shaped the organization of craft production. Contemporary practices observed in El-Nazlah, through participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and GIS mapping of workshop layouts and kilns, are juxtaposed with archaeological findings from ancient workshops at El-Kab. This comparative analysis uncovers both enduring continuities and transformative shifts in how Egyptian potters structured their work environments and communities. Ultimately, the talk aims to trace the untraceable threads of labour, space, and social interaction, offering fresh perspectives on the complexities of ancient Egyptian craft landscapes.

02/20/2025

🌟 Our next lecture is an exciting one for anyone interested in cultural heritage and the antiquities trade! 🌟

Join us on Saturday Feb 22 at 10am PST (*note the early start*) for a lecture by Dr. Roberta Mazza on her newly published book, Stolen Fragments: Black Markets, Bad Faith, and the Illicit Trade in Ancient Artefacts!

You can register for the lecture here (free for members and non-members): https://wwu-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/22-02eB4RU-UMEt5MDK6WA

01/24/2025

We're very excited for this lecture tomorrow!

Join us Sat Jan 25 at 12pm PT, for a lecture by Dr. Tom Landvatter on "Ritual and Imagined Landscapes at Ptolemaic Abydos"
Register here: https://wwu-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/oIj6HpwhQTmjQc2mVKXBuQ

Abstract: Abydos is one of the most important cemetery sites in Egypt, as the burial site of the first pharaohs, the site of multiple cemeteries in near constant use for 3500 years, and a major cult center to Osiris. During the Ptolemaic period, Abydos was also the site of overlapping mortuary, ritual, and imagined landscapes. On the one hand, the site continued to be a major center of the Osiris cult, with a ritual landscape focused on the yearly processions out to Umm el-Qa’ab, the location of the god’s cenotaph. Abydos’ funerary landscape was organized around the ritual one, with prominent tombs oriented around and lining the main processional routes. At the same time, the New Kingdom temple complex of Seti I at Abydos also grew in importance as a healing and oracular center frequented by Greek-speakers. The temple was identified as a Memnonion by Greek authors, making it a part of a wider, Greek-imagined landscape of Egyptian monuments linked with the mythical hero Memnon of the Trojan war. Over the course of the Ptolemaic period, Abydos’ overlapping landscapes were largely maintained, but by the end of the Ptolemaic period it is likely that the Seti I complex, in part due to Greek interest in that temple, had become the ritual center of Abydos, with consequent major shifts in the ritual and mortuary landscape.

12/06/2024

*Upcoming Lecture Alert — tomorrow, Sat Dec 7 at 12pm PT*

Join us for a lecture by Dr. Mohamed Kenawi of the EAMENA Project: "Insights on Remote Sensing and Rapid Documentation for Heritage Places"

Register here: https://wwu-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJclduuqqTIpHdIusez8CueA7Jl_TmFM9Ak_

Abstract: The necessity for rapid documentation of archaeological and cultural heritage sites in the Middle East and North Africa was raised due to the growth of urban development, conflicts, and reclamation projects for agriculture. The aim of the project is to record and evaluate the statuses of heritage places and provide researchers with a wide set of data for further elaboration. This lecture will present an overview of the EAMENA project, the process of the rapid documentation through remote sensing, the EAMENA database, and associated activities such as the training programs in the region. In addition, examples of the Egyptian Cultural heritage sites will be presented.