Worshiping the Ancestors in Egypt’s Tell Edfu – Harvard Museums of Science & Culture

Free Public Lecture – Online & In Person

Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA

Nadine Moeller, Professor of Egyptology, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Yale University

Tell Edfu, in southern Egypt, is an ancient Egyptian city that was occupied for nearly 3,000 years. This lecture explores recent discoveries at Tell Edfu, focusing on an elite residential complex from around 1550 BCE. Among the highlights is a large villa containing a rare and well-preserved example of a domestic shrine dedicated to family ancestors. Nadine Moeller will discuss the objects found in the shrine and their significance in private religious practices of the time. She will also provide an overview of other buildings from the same period—including a food production facility, further enriching our understanding of daily life in early New Kingdom Tell Edfu.

Advance registration recommended for in-person and online attendance. Free event parking at 52 Oxford Street Garage.

Nadine Moeller is Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Yale University. Her research focuses on settlement archaeology and urbanism in ancient Egypt, household archaeology and climate change in antiquity. She is author of The Archaeology of Urbanism in Ancient Egypt:The Settlements from the Predynastic Period to the End of the Middle Kingdom and coeditor of The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East as well as The Hyksos Ruler Khyan and the Early Second Intermediate Period in Egypt: Problems and Priorities of Current Research. She has been directing the ongoing excavations at Tell Edfu in southern Egypt together with Gregory Marouard since 2010, and she also participated in numerous excavations and fieldwork projects at other sites in Egypt such as Abu Rawash, Memphis, Dendara, Theban West Bank, Valley of the Kings, and Elephantine. Her previous appointment was at the Oriental Institute and Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. She holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge and held the Lady Wallis Budge Junior Research Fellowship at University College, Oxford. In 2018 she was the recipient of the Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.