Information about next year's courses available November 2010
Archive (courses July 2010)
Photos by James Kellie
Summer School 2010 - who's who
The Director
Mr Christopher Coleman was for over twenty years a Lecturer in History at University College London, where he remains as an Honorary Research Fellow of the department. He founded Bloomsbury Summer School in 1990 and has directed it ever since. In this time BSS has become the most successful organisation of its kind in the United Kingdom. In association with its sister organisation, Bloomsbury Academy, it has also made significant financial, and other, contributions to a wide range of research projects in Egyptian archaeology and related subjects. These include expeditions to Hierakonpolis, Zawiyet Sultan, Saqqara, Mo’alla, Abydos, the Abu Tartur plateau, Mendes and royal tombs KV5 and KV39 in the Valley of the Kings; the Centre for Alexandrian Studies; the Amarna Royal Tombs Project; the Amarna project; the Theban Mapping Project; the Manchester Egyptian Mummy Project; the Western Sahara Geo-Archaeological Survey; the Griffith Institute in the University of Oxford; the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology; the Rock Art Topographical Survey; and the Palestine Exploration Fund.
The Deputy Director
Lucia Gahlin has directed a number of highly successful courses for BSS, and has played a role in the running of BSS since 1994. She is an Honorary Research Associate in UCL’s Institute of Archaeology. She teaches extra-mural Egyptology for the Universities of Exeter and Bristol, and lectures widely in this country, and in Egypt on archaeological tours. She has a long-standing association with the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, having worked for many years with the Amarna material. She is also Chair of the Friends of the Petrie Museum, and has worked as Small Finds Registrar for Professor Barry Kemp at Amarna. She is author of Egypt: Gods, Myths and Religion (Anness, 2001) and of chapters in Wilkinson, T. (ed.) The Egyptian World (Routledge, 2007).
Summer School 2010 Course Directors
Karen Exell has a degree in Egyptology from Oxford University and a PhD on Ramesside Period votive stelae from the University of Durham. She is Curator of Egypt and the Sudan at the Manchester Museum, University of Manchester. She has been Deputy Curator of the University Museums, Durham, and Deputy Director of the Egypt Exploration Society. She teaches Egyptian history and language at university and adult continuing education levels, and leads tours to Egypt. Her most recent book is Soldiers, Sailors and Sandalmakers. A Social Reading of Ramesside Period Votive Stelae.
George Hart graduated with degrees in Classics and Egyptology from University College London and spent over thirty years on the staff of the British Museum, lecturing and running courses on Ancient Egypt. He is a Trustee of the Egypt Exploration Society and is a member of the editorial board of its bulletin Egyptian Archaeology. He has written books on Egyptian religion, mythology and the monuments of the Pyramid Age, and has led tours to Egypt for the British Museum and Swan Hellenic.
Janet Johnstone has an MA in Archaeology from UCL’s Institute of Archaeology. She has continued her research into ancient Egyptian clothing, textiles and jewellery developing new theories and examining their technical aspects. With a previous career in the fashion and theatre industries, Janet now creates reconstructions of pharaonic clothing and jewellery using the finest materials to achieve the closest possible parallels with the ancient originals. Janet is currently completing research on clothing represented on stelae from the Salakhana Trove, Asyut.
Thomas Kiely is the curator of Cypriot antiquities in the Department of Greece and Rome at the British Museum and the editor of the Ancient Cyprus in the British Museum Online Research Catalogue. His doctoral research at Oxford University concerned the spatial organisation of Late Bronze Age Cypriot settlement, particularly intramural burial, and he is also interested in the cultural and commercial relationship of the island in the Bronze and earlier Iron Ages.
Chris Naunton is Deputy Director of the Egypt Exploration Society. He studied Egyptology at the universities of Birmingham and Swansea and was awarded a PhD for his thesis on 25th Dynasty Theban non-royal titles. He is in charge of the extensive EES archives, which provide a rich source of information for his research on the history and development of Egyptology and archaeology in Egypt. Chris is also director of the EES Oral History Project and has worked in the field at Abydos and in El Asasif, Western Thebes.
José-Ramón Pérez-Accino is an Egyptologist who specialises in Egyptian literature and texts. He undertakes fieldwork in Egypt at Ehnasya el-Medina and the tomb of Ankhtyfy at Mo’alla. He has taught Egyptology at the University of London (Birkbeck and University College), and is currently Profesor Asociado at the University of Madrid and the author of specialised books and papers. He has taught many highly acclaimed courses for BSS.
Jan Picton is a Teaching Fellow and Honorary Research Assistant at UCL’s Institute of Archaeology, and lectures widely in Egyptology. She is a member of the University of Liverpool’s Gurob Harem Palace Project. She has contributed to Living Images: Egyptian Funerary Portraits in the Petrie Museum and Unseen Images: Archive Photographs in the Petrie Museum. As Secretary of the Friends of the Petrie Museum she is deeply involved in all the Museum’s activities and last year directed the excellent BSS course Exploring the Petrie Museum II.
Kasia Szpakowska is a Senior Lecturer in Egyptology at Swansea University, Wales. She earned her PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at University of California, Los Angeles. She has published on Ancient Egyptian dreams, nightmares and demons, gender, and daily life, including Daily Life in Ancient Egypt: Recreating Lahun. Her current research focuses on clay cobra figurines and other artefacts that reflect religious interactions between Egypt and the Ancient Near East in Late Bronze Age Egypt.
BSS in Egypt 2010 Course Director
