Individual Meetings:
Members (those who have paid the £20 subscription): FREE
Non members and Visitors: As shown
Study Day and AGM:
Members (those who have paid the £20 subscription): FREE
Non members and Visitors: £10
2026 Meetings:
Saturday 7th February 2026 ~ 2:00 – 4:30pm
(UK Time) doors to open at 1:30pm
Face to Face at:-
Elvet Hill House, Oriental Museum, Durham, DH1 3TH
Plus Teams hybrid ~ Teams to open at 1:30pm
Lenna Lyons - PhD student at Durham University - New Kingdom Gold and the Idea of Value
Despite the vast interest in Egyptian gold artefacts, the current perception of gold value in ancient Egypt is heavily biased by our modern economic and cultural influences. Deconstructing these preconceived views is essential to understanding gold’s place in Egyptian culture. Gold artefacts at the Oriental Museum can help to shed light on stylistic trends that emerge during the New Kingdom as well as gold’s value and how it was perceived in the professions of craftworkers.
Lenna Lyons is a PhD student at Durham University with an interest in gold working and the profession of goldworkers. She has a background in History where she studied at West Virginia University, and has just completed her Masters in Archaeology at Durham University.
TICKETS
Entry Price for Non-Members ~ £5.00 (GBP) pay at the door
Teams tickets can be purchased for £5.00 (GBP) via PayPal
Deadline date for Teams tickets - Thursday 5th February 2026 ~ 11:00am
PayPal:
Log into your PayPal account and use neaesoc@googlemail.com as payee, to make your PayPal payment, please click donation
Please make sure you add your e-mail address, so I can send you the Teams Codes.
Any problems, e-mail neaesoc@googlemail.com
NEAES Lectures 7th March 2026 ~ 9:00am - 12:30pm (UK Time)
Face to Face at:-
Dawson Building, Archaeology Department, Science Site, Lecture room D110 Map
Plus Teams hybrid
Programme
9:00am – 10:00am
Talk 1: Francis Gotto - Durham University
Making the Most of the Sudan Archive at Durham University
Francis Gotto is Archivist in the University Library and Collections. He will discuss the Sudan Archive held at Durham University, which has its 70th Anniversary at Durham next year. He will explain the purpose and future development of the archive.
10:00am – 10:10am – Break
10:10am – 11:10am
Talk 2: Natasha Rai, University of Cambridge
Old Kingdom Buhen: Egyptian-Nubian interactions in the Nubian landscapes
Natasha Rai has recently passed her PhD viva at the University of Cambridge. Her thesis, which focused on the Old Kingdom town of Buhen, has considerably advanced our knowledge of the site, opening space for new perspectives on the interaction between Egyptian and Nubians in the early moment of contact. Ms Rai is currently an Affiliated Lecturer in ancient Egyptian language and archaeology at the University of Cambridge.
11:10am – 11:20am – Break
11:20am – 12:20pm
Talk 3: Mohamed Saad, National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums, Sudan
Witnessing the Death of History
Mohamed Saad is senior inspector at National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums of Sudan (NCAM). An archaeologist and bioarchaeologist with extensive experience throughout Sudan, Mohamed is currently the head of NCAM’s M. Bolheim Bioarchaeological Laboratory.
TICKETS
Entry Price for Non-Members ~ £8.00 (GBP) pay at the door
Teams tickets can be purchased for £8.00 (GBP) via PayPal
PayPal:
Log into your PayPal account and use neaesoc@googlemail.com as payee, to make your PayPal payment, please click donation
Please make sure you add your e-mail address, so I can send you the Teams Codes.
NEAES Lectures 9th May 2026 ~ 2:00 - 5:00pm (UK Time)
Face to Face at:-
Elvet Hill House, Oriental Museum, Durham, DH1 3TH doors to open at 1:30pm
Plus Teams hybrid ~ Teams to open at 1:30pm
Mohamed Kenawi is a Research Associate at the School of Archaeology and Ancient History University of Leicester
Programme:
2:00pm:
Lecture 1: Recent investigations in the Western Nile Delta, Kom al-Ahmer and Kom Wasit.
The year 2026 marks the fourteenth year of an interdisciplinary project, started in 2012, and dedicated to the study of the interconnected sites of Kom al-Ahmer and Kom Wasit (ancient Metelis). This investigation seeks to shed light on the historical and archaeological significance of the Western Nile Delta, while addressing key questions surrounding ancient communities, including patterns of human adaptation, religious life, and daily practices. The lecture will examine these settlements from the Late Dynastic through the Late Roman period and early Islamic one.
Recent excavations in 2025 and study season in spring 2026 have further enriched our understanding of these sites, uncovering sections of an early Roman necropolis as well as a significance workshop dating to the Late Dynastic period.
Break
3.15 pm:
Lecture 2: Living Archaeology in Middle Egypt and the Case of Deir al-Ganadla
The ongoing documentary efforts carried out by the Regions in Flux project focus on two different regions in Egypt to make obscure heritage sites more widely known. Therefore, a higher number of researchers, experts, and students can use these data and enjoy the heritage in a different way.
This lecture will present some of the collected data, focusing on the transformation of the landscape in Middle Egypt. Many tens of ancient Egyptian, Hellenistic, and Roman sites were inhabited, converted to Christianity, and in some cases to Islamic sites. Continuous changes in the landscape are still happening today.
Particular attention will be given to Deir al-Ganadla, an example of a unique quarry church in the Asyut region, on which a dedicated new book has recently been published.
Mohamed Kenawi is a Research Associate at the School of Archaeology and Ancient History University of Leicester. He was a Researcher and Training Manager at the School of Archaeology University of Oxford for the Endangered Archaeology of the Middle East and North Africa project. He was Head Researcher (2011-16) followed by Acting Director (2016-17) of the Hellenistic Centre of Bibliotheca Alexandrina. He taught at the American University in Cairo and at Catania University. He has participated in various archaeological missions in Libya, Italy and Egypt among them those at Kom al-Ahmer/Kom Wasit Athribis Dionysias and Manqbad. He currently collaborates on projects with Padua University in Italy and Tübingen University in Germany.
TICKETS
Entry Price for Non-Members ~ £8.00 (GBP) pay at the door
Teams tickets can be purchased for £8.00 (GBP) via PayPal
PayPal:
Log into your PayPal account and use neaesoc@googlemail.com as payee, to make your PayPal payment, please click donation
Please make sure you add your e-mail address, so I can send you the Teams Codes.
July 2026 ~ TBA
Date and Venue tbc
Saturday 10th October 2026 ~ 2:00 – 4:15pm
Face to Face at:-
Elvet Hill House, Oriental Museum, Durham, DH1 3TH doors to open at 1:30pm
Plus Teams hybrid ~ Teams to open at 1:30pm
Dr Hana Navratilova
Tracking Time and Memory at the Pyramids
Programme:
2:00 – 2:50pm
Lecture 1: How many lives for a pyramid? History of the pyramid fields at Memphis
The pyramid fields of Memphis now appear as a vast open-air museum, a heritage landscape that attracts both local and international visitors. Yet over millennia, they have been places of work and lived experience, of mourning and display, as well as of memory and devotion. How can we maintain a perspective on this palimpsest landscape? By tracing the lives of pyramids, we uncover both shared and divergent histories of the making, maintenance, and dismantling of the royal precincts that serve as focal points within the landscape. These histories can be understood through distinct, localized narratives. The pyramid of Sahure at Abusir became a place of devotion; the precinct of Netjerikhet Djoser evolved into a realm of memory; and the pyramid of Senwosret III at Dahshur became, notably, a place of resource extraction. Yet all three sites embody these aspects to varying degrees, enriching a broader narrative of the life of pyramids.
Break
2:50 - 3:00pm
3.00 – 3:50pm:
Lecture 2: Graffiti at Meidum: Builders, Scribes and Politics
Graffiti were among the most widespread forms of communication in ancient Egypt. Painted, written, scratched, or carved onto monuments, they could be created by many different people and served a variety of social, religious, and political purposes. Although often overlooked, these informal inscriptions offer a valuable window into the lives of past communities and challenge more traditional historical narratives. The pyramid complex of Sneferu at Meidum provides an exceptional case study because its graffiti span different stages in the life of the monument, from builders’ marks associated with its construction to later inscriptions that form part of its reception history. Revisiting these records reveals commemorative practices that began as early as the late Old Kingdom and continued for more than a millennium, from the 6th Dynasty to the Ramesside period. Like comparable texts from Abu Ghurab, Saqqara, and Dahshur, the Meidum inscriptions show how later visitors remembered Sneferu as both a revered ruler and a source of political legitimacy, transforming Old Kingdom pyramids into enduring sites of memory and public discourse.
Dr Hana Navratilova is Supernumerary Fellow of Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford. An Egyptologist specialising in epigraphy, the history of Egyptology, and heritage reception, she has worked on Egyptian secondary epigraphy (graffiti) since 2003 and in field epigraphy since 2010. She is a member of the expeditions to Abusir, Dahshur, and Abydos, and contributes to the Egypt Exploration Society’s Who Was Who in Egyptology project. Her current research focuses on graffiti in pyramid complexes at Dahshur and Meidum, digital humanities, and the cultural biographies of ancient Egyptian monuments.
TICKETS
Entry Price for Non-Members ~ £8.00 (GBP) pay at the door
Teams tickets can be purchased for £8.00 (GBP) via PayPal
PayPal:
Log into your PayPal account and use neaesoc@googlemail.com as payee, to make your PayPal payment, please click donation
Please make sure you add your e-mail address, so I can send you the Teams Codes.
November 2026 ~ 21st November 2026 ~ 10:30 – 5:00pm (UK Time)
NEAES Study Day and AGM
In-Person - Literary and Philosophical Society, 23 Westgate Road, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 1SE
For Location see https://www.google.co.uk/maps
Plus Teams hybrid
Ancient Egyptian World and Afterworld Views
Programme:
10:30 – 11:30
Lecture 1:
Nicky van de Beek, NINO, Leiden/Mainz University
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: Animals as Markers of Landscape Change in Old Kingdom Tomb Art
Abstract:
Ancient Egyptian tomb chapels teem with animal life: from large game to burrowing hedgehogs in the desert, lively flocks of birds in orchards, and schools of fish, lurking crocodiles and angry hippopotami in the marshes. Were these scenes simply decorative to the life and perceived afterlife of the tomb owner, or do the animals signify something more complex - an encyclopaedia or map of the known world? From recent studies about ancient climate change we know the landscape was undergoing significant alterations at the end of the Old Kingdom, where most of our artistic evidence comes from. How did the ancient Egyptians deal with their changing environment?
Drawing on doctoral research into landscape and climate change in Old Kingdom funerary art (c. 2700-2200 BCE), this lecture examines how the desert and marsh fauna functioned within prototypical scenes: cultural codes through which the ancient Egyptians categorised and controlled their environment - affected as it was by large and small climate fluctuations.
11:30 – 11:45 break
11:45 – 12:45
Lecture 2:
Nicky van de Beek, NINO, Leiden/Mainz University
Reading the Green World: Plants, Glyphs and the Shape of Nature in Old Kingdom Tomb Art
Abstract:
Ancient Egyptian tomb walls are filled with so-called "scenes of daily life," a curated version of everything that mattered to the tomb owner in this life and beyond. Yet where the animals in these scenes are often rendered in striking detail, the plants tend toward heavy stylisation: grain and flax in the cultivated fields, papyrus and pondweed in the marshes, a handful of recurring fruit trees in orchards and gardens. Even the "desert" scenes, on closer inspection, contain a surprising amount of vegetation. Is it really a desert that is being depicted? And why did the Egyptians need four different words for marshland?
A clue lies in the hieroglyphic script itself, where a system of determinatives neatly sorts the world into categories. Drawing on doctoral research into landscape in Old Kingdom funerary art, this lecture reads script and images side by side, treating both as emic classifications of nature. Reconstructing this categorised, cultivated view of the landscape, can we delve deeper into the ancient Egyptian worldview?
Nicky van de Beek is an Egyptologist and PhD candidate from Leiden University, where she is a NINO Visiting Fellow. Her doctoral research ('A Tomb with a View') conducted at Mainz University examines how landscape and climate change are conceptualized in Old Kingdom funerary art. She also works on the digital epigraphy and publication of the tomb chapel of Hetepherakhty, and is active as a freelance Egyptologist in the role of consultant, lecturer and cultural tour guide.
12:45 – 1:00 break
1:00 – 2:00 NEAES - AGM
2:00 – 3:00
Talk 1:
Christina Geisen, British Museum
Between Image, Word, and Material: Heka and the Hidden Power of Magical Objects
The talk will focus on magic/ritual/materiality, and include a case study of a Horus stela from the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology of the University of Cambridge.
3:00 – 3:30 break + raffle
3:30 – 4:30
Talk 2:
Christina Geisen, British Museum
Exploring the Ancient Egyptian Afterlife: From Sacred Texts and Beliefs to Scientific Insights
The talk will focus on Egyptian Afterlife books, with a focus on Christina’s current project on the British Museum Amduat Papyri. This would also include results of two case studies with 2.5D imaging of some of the papyri, as well as pigment and colour analysis.
Christina Geisen received her PhD in Egyptology from the University of Toronto in 2012, with a new edition and interpretation of the Ramesseum Dramatic Papyrus (BM EA 10610), a ritual text honouring king Senwosret I. She held a postdoctoral fellowship from Canada’s SSHRC, researching personal names containing royal names, and went on to academic positions at Yale, Oxford, and Cambridge before joining the British Museum as Curator of Egyptian Written Culture. Her research focuses on funerary, ritual, and magical texts, as well as human-environment interactions in ancient Egypt. She applies approaches such as materiality, cognitive linguistics, and art agency, with a growing interest in digital humanities. She is currently studying the British Museum’s Amduat Papyri, a funerary corpus that describes the sun god's journey through the night.
4:30 – 4:45 Q and A
5:00 close
TICKETS
Entry Price for Non-Members ~ £10.00 (GBP) pay at the door
Teams tickets can be purchased for £10.00 (GBP) via PayPal
PayPal:
Log into your PayPal account and use neaesoc@googlemail.com as payee, to make your PayPal payment, please click donation
Please make sure you add your e-mail address, so I can send you the Teams Codes.