Seminars

The Centre hosts the following lecture in Hilary 2026:

Hana Navratilova (Harris Manchester College/ Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Oxford): Meidum: landscape, pyramid, graffiti, and political memory

Abstract: Graffiti are among most widespread communications of the ancient world. They voiced personal and communal concerns, religious and political ideas—yet remain undervalued, and their legacy records dispersed. The corpus of graffiti at Meidum gives an insight into the contemporary social fabric and political scope, implying that Old Kingdom precincts might be transformed into places of explicit political discourse for later generations of Egyptian elites, going beyond the social to articulating a political legitimation for a new era.

The Centre hosts the following lecture in Michaelmas 2025: Professor Daniel Schwemer (Würzburg): ‘Ancient Kings, a New Language (and sometimes wheelbarrows):  a decade of field epigraphy at the Hittite capital Boğazköy-Ḫattuša’

Abstract: For over a hundred years, archaeologists have been exploring Boğazköy-Ḫattuša, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the former capital of the Hittite Empire.  The more than 30,000 clay tablets and fragments of cuneiform texts found in Boğazköy-Ḫattuša are among the most important sources for the history of Anatolia and the ancient Near East during this period. The lecture will present these cuneiform finds, and discuss significant discoveries from recent excavations.