The American Research Center in Egypt, Northern California chapter, and the UC Berkeley Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures invite you to attend a lecture by Dr. Peter Der Manuelian, Harvard:

How Egyptologist George Reisner Went Walking Among Pharaohs

May 5, 2024 (2 pm Pacific Time, live at the Legion of Honor, San Francisco)

Cosponsored by the Ancient Art Council of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Lecture is free and open to the public. It is also a hybrid program.

IN PERSON: Gunn Theater, 100 – 34th Avenue, Lincoln Park, San Francisco, CA 94121. Seating is limited and unassigned. Doors open at 1:30 pm.

LIVE STREAM: Please register here to receive a webinar link: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_2WLpssqfRcGtmfdl02bLEQ

About the Lecture:

Based on his new biography of George Reisner (1867–1942), Walking Among Pharaohs, the speaker’s lecture examines the life and work of America’s greatest Egyptian archaeologist, and Reisner’s legacy of 43 years of successful excavations at 23 archaeological sites in Egypt and the Sudan (ancient Nubia). Leading the Harvard University-Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition, Reisner put American Egyptology on the world stage, despite British control of Egyptian politics, French control of Egyptian antiquities, and an Egypt yearning for independence. The lecture considers Reisner’s life and impact within the context of Western colonialism, racism, and the soft power of early twentieth-century archaeology. It also explores new visualization technologies, particularly at the Giza Pyramids, that Reisner’s work makes possible today.

About the Speaker:

Peter Der Manuelian is the Barbara Bell Professor of Egyptology and holds a joint appointment in the Anthropology Department and the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard. He is also director of the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East (HMANE). He came to Harvard in 2010, after serving on the curatorial staff of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), since 1987, and teaching for a decade at Tufts University. At the MFA he was Giza Archives Project Director from 2000 to 2011, and now directs the Giza Project at Harvard. In addition to Giza, his Egyptian archaeological and epigraphic site work includes New Kingdom temples at Luxor (Epigraphic Survey, University of Chicago), and the Predynastic site of Naqada.

His primary research interests include ancient Egyptian history and historiography, archaeology, epigraphy, the development of mortuary architecture, and the (icono)graphic nature of Egyptian language and culture. He has published on diverse topics and periods in Egyptian history, but currently focuses on the third millennium BCE, and specifically on the famous Giza Necropolis, just west of modern Cairo.

Interested in both ancient and modern graphic design—publishing in the broadest sense of the word—he believes in bringing new technologies into his research and into the classroom. Recent efforts have focused on photogrammetry, AR and VR visualizations, and other immersive technologies as an aid to archaeological research. He is directing the Arabic Diaries Project, focusing on 73 Arabic Expedition diary books from the Harvard University–Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition (1905–1947) that give voice to the historically voiceless Egyptians working on the dig.

(Text from Harvard University website: https://anthropology.fas.harvard.edu/people/peter-der-manuelian)

About ARCE-NC:

For more information, please visit https://www.youtube.com/@NorthernCaliforniaARCE, https://facebook.com/NorthernCaliforniaARCE/, http://www.arce-nc.org, https://twitter.com/ARCENCPostings, and https://khentiamentiu.org. To join the chapter or renew your membership, please go to https://arce.org/join-arce/ and select “Berkeley, CA” as your chapter when you sign up.