International exploratory workshop Ancient Egyptian Biographies. Forms, context, functions

Research Project
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01.04.2014
- 30.06.2014

Biographical inscriptions are one of the most characteristic textual genres attested from ancient Egypt, continuously documented from the mid-third millennium BC to Roman times. Inscribed in hieroglyphs, the formal, display-oriented form of the Egyptian script, these texts present aspects of individual lives and experience, sometimes as narratives of key events, sometimes as characterisations of personal qualities. Interpretation, however, has proven difficult. The range of Egyptian texts that we conventionally term 'biographies' or 'autobiographies' frustrate expectations associated with Western definitions of the 'genre'. Egyptian biographical texts also underwent significant changes in format, materiality, contexts, configurations of language, and functions over the three thousand years of their history. Despite such variety, biographies are intuitively recognized as a specific type of Egyptian written discourse, differentiated from other types (e.g. literary or funerary) by particular constraints of decorum and specific functions. Examining these issues in further detail remains a major desideratum. This exploratory workshop will offer a context in which to confront and debate current approaches to Egyptian biographies and self-presentation, which have, until now, been developed mostly independently by specialists working on different periods or in different frameworks.The whole will be structured into thematic parts to encourage 'conversations' and debates between contributions.

Collaborations & Cooperations

2014 - Participation or Organization of Collaborations within own University

Frood, Elizabeth, Oxford University, Research cooperation

Members (1)

Julie Stauder

Principal Investigator

Research Groups

Egyptology (Bickel)