About Richard Bussmann

Prof. Richard Bussmann studies ancient Egypt in its wider regional context from a combined archaeological, philological, and anthropological perspective. He is interested in comparative perspectives on ancient Egypt and in cross-disciplinary approaches to the study of the past and its heritage. In his book The archaeology of Pharaonic Egypt: society and culture, 2700-1700 BC (Cambridge University Press, 2023) he develops key themes in World Archaeology with evidence from ancient Egypt, including urbanism, interregional exchange in Northeast Africa and the Mediterranean, funerary culture, the archaeology of ritual, sacred kingship, archaic states, and realities beyond elites. He also conducts research on early writing and material practices of administration. Richard Bussmann directs the fieldwork project “Zawyet Sultan: Archaeology and heritage in Middle Egypt”. He is the president of the Verband der Ägyptologie and Secretary General of the International Association of Egyptologists.

About “Subaltern bodies in early Egypt” (Abstract) 

“The rise of the ancient Egyptian state was a catalyst for increasing social inequality on a previously unknown scale. Egyptology has made great advances in studying administration, royal ideology, and social structure from the predynastic period to the Old Kingdom (ca. 3,500 to 2,500 BC), but it is still difficult to understand how these phenomena were anchored in the daily lives of the wider population. This gap in research is partially due to a scarcity of preserved and recorded material, and it also raises questions on the level of theory and social modelling. My presentation explores to what extent subalternity can help with developing fresh interpretation. Subalternity means, briefly, studying the agency of marginalized groups. It has been much debated in history and post-colonial studies, but hardly in Egyptology. The focus of my presentation will be on the human body, a medium of communication that all human beings have, yet at different degrees of autonomy. The body has been a major object of study across the social and cultural sciences from the 1970s onwards, and since the 1990s also in archaeology and Egyptology. I argue that there is scope in Egyptology for reconciling written and visual data for the body with archaeology and physical anthropology. I will present fresh results from my current excavation in Zawyet Sultan (Middle Egypt) which have inspired my research.”

Please join us!