IFAO

The 4^th session of the seminar series 'Exploring Egypt: Histories and Historiographies', a joint initiative of the Ifao & the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo (DAIK) organized by Fatma Keshk & Malak Labib, features Carole Jarsaillon, PhD candidate at L’Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris. The session will be held at Ifao, Sunday February 25^th at 4 p.m. It is open to the public in person and remotely on  the YouTube channel of the Ifao.

Abstract

While the great discoveries and major figures of Egyptology have received a fair amount of attention throughout the discipline’s two centuries of existence, it has often been at the expense of a broader vision: their historical and political setting. Complementing the scientific documentation, the administrative archives of the institutions and actors who managed archaeology in Egypt at the turn of the 20^th century provide a new perspective on the History of Egyptology. In that respect, the Service des Antiquités de l’Egypte, the central administration which supervised all the excavations in Egypt, is particularly significant. It exemplifies the complex diplomatic palimpsest in which Egyptology was intertwined: this official administration was presided by a French Egyptologist, working at the service and in the name of the Egyptian Government, which then fell under the authority of the British protectorate (1882-1952). This conference will show how the study of these institutions can help assessing the impact of the political context on the evolution of the legislation of antiquities, the attribution of the concessions or the division of the finds, and therefore provide a more contextualized history of Egyptian archaeology and collections.

Exploring Egypt Seminar: Histories and Historiographies

A joint collaboration between the Institut français d’archéologie orientale (ifao) & the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo (DAIK), this seminar series aims, broadly speaking, to discuss different aspects related to the production of historical knowledge on Egypt. Speakers are invited to reflect on the different ways of writing, narrating and thinking about Egypt’s history at different periods, as well as on the actors, contexts, and power relations involved in the production of historical narratives. By adopting an interdisciplinary perspective, the seminar series seeks to bring into conversation fields which have traditionally been examined separately, such as the history of Egyptology, the study of modern Egyptian historiography, and the history of heritage and preservation.

In addition, while the seminar series seeks to shed a critical light on the formation of specific disciplinary fields and traditions, it also moves beyond an exclusive focus on professional history writing, in order to explore the various institutions, genres, and channels, through which historical narratives have been produced and disseminated.  Among the themes that will be discussed, for instance, are the different “histories” of Egyptology, archaeology or Arabic and Islamic studies, academic versus “popular” representations of history, and heritage preservation as a site of production of historical narratives.

Exploring Egypt: Histories and Historiographies Seminar is organised by Fatma Keshk, Postdoctoral fellow at DAIK & Ifao and Malak Labib, scientific member of the Ifao.