NEW BOOKING: 

SATURDAY 16th October 2:30pm (UK Time)

RAMASES LECTURE: Dr. Kathryn E Piquette - Exploring Ancient Egyptian Texts and Reader Experience

So often we direct our attention to the meaning content of ancient Egyptian written culture. In this lecture, we will consider questions of how Egyptian texts meant what they meant by exploring the material features of selected text-bearing objects. From early hieroglyphs carved in low relief on the Narmer Palette to writing incised into, or painted or inked onto wood, bone, ivory, and papyrus surfaces, we will consider the physical evidence for text life histories. High-resolution photographs and computer processing deliver detailed images revealing not only traces of tool marks and methods of production, but also evidence for the ways in which portable and fixed text-objects were used, manipulated, and displayed. Whilst it may be intuitive to prioritise the sense of sight in thinking about text use, social theories of the body prompt a more holistic view of embodiment and sensory perception. Just as you are reading this text right now in a particular material environment and using your body in specific ways — possibly sitting at a desk looking at a computer screen whilst interacting with a keyboard and mouse, or lounging on the sofa balancing a device on your lap (perhaps for which your cat is also competing!) — it is the potential impact of physical expression, material environments, and the embodied Egyptian ‘reader’ on past textual meanings that we will explore and discuss together.

About Kathryn:
I am a Sessional Lecturer and Senior Researcher in Cultural Heritage Imaging with the UCL Centre for Digital Humanities' Advanced Imaging Consultants (UCLAiC). Before coming to UCL I held positions at the Cologne Center for eHumanities (CCeH) and the Institut für Altertumskunde, Universität zu Köln. Prior to this I held a Marie-Curie COFUND Fellowship at Freie Universität Berlin, and other post-doctoral positions at the University of Oxford, UCL, and Trinity College Dublin.In addition to my training as an Egyptologist (PhD 2007, MA 2002, both UCL Institute of Archaeology), I specialise in computational imaging techniques including Reflectance Transformation Imaging and Multispectral Imaging. I provide consulting services through UCL Advanced Imaging Consultants (UCLAiC) on a freelance basis, including familiarisation and training courses.

My academic research focusses on Egyptian and Near Eastern writing and art, and the development and application of advanced imaging techniques for the elucidation of 'visual' culture from wider ancient world and beyond. Recent projects include Deep Imaging Mummy Cases, Non-Destructive Analysis of Multi-Layered Papyrus, an Excellence Cluster TOPOI project for which I am documenting Coptic and Arabic pilgrim graffiti and wall paintings in Aswan, Egypt, as well as the Magica Levantina and Herculaneum Papyri projects with the Universität zu Köln.
My publications include the forthcoming eBook "An Archaeology of Art and Writing: Early Egyptian labels in context" with supporting database (2018, Modern Academic Publishing) the co-edited Open Access volume "Writing as Material Practice: Substance, surface and medium" (2013, Ubiquity Press). Further publications are available to download via Academia.edu.