Travellers and Pilgrims

Mødedato: Torsdag d. 3/5 2018, kl. 17.30

Mødetid er kl. 17.20, døren låses!

Antikmuseet på Aarhus Universitet,
Victor Albecksvej, Århus C, bygning 414
Travellers and Pilgrims at the Time of the Ptolemies: Recent Investigations by the Oxford Expedition to Elkab, ved Luigi Prada, Visiting Associate Professor in Egyptology, University of Copenhagen & University of Oxford

The site of Elkab, in Upper Egypt, is renowned for the decorated tombs of its governors, dating to the New Kingdom, and for the colossal walls surrounding its ancient town, particularly the temple complex of the vulture-goddess Nekhbet.

Under field-director Vivian Davies, Oxford University’s expedition has recently extended its investigation of the site to the study of the reuse of its pharaonic monuments in the Late and Graeco-Roman Periods, at a time when pilgrims and travellers on the caravan routes of the Eastern Desert stopped-like today’s tourists-to visit the necropolis’ tombs and the temples of the nearby Wadi Hilal, leaving testimony of their visit in graffiti and inscriptions.

This lecture will offer an overview of the results of the work of the Oxford Expedition to Elkab, showing how a city that had seen the acme of its power in the New Kingdom was thriving with a second life a millennium later, at the time of the Ptolemies.