The SHAPED conference

Materials, people and written words in ancient cultures

Organised by

Gersande Eschenbrenner Diemer, director of the MEDJEHU project

Carlos Gracia Zamacona, director of the MORTEXVAR project

The relationships between matter, society and texts are highly complex. And to a certain extent, they are one of the main characteristics of a culture. This is the approach of SHAPED, an international conference on the relationships between the material, the written and the social in ancient cultures with figurative scripts in search of common points and differences to better understand the relationship between these three elements by bringing together different approaches such as history of ideas, archaeology, material and digital philology, linguistics and anthropology.

The primary interest of SHAPED lies in echoing those approaches that highlight both the material dimension of the manifestations of a culture and its ideological aspects to go beyond the hylomorphism that has sustained (and sustains) the distinction between matter and form (or archaeology and philology mutatis mutandis), and which, furthermore, has left out of the equation the capacity for action of individuals as creators and consumers of such manifestations (agency).

To limit this research, SHAPED proposes the following transversal lines of research articulated in the three conference panels.

Statuette of Merer, from Meir or Asyut, 11th dynasty. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 10.176.59.

Schedule

All times CET

(R) indicates “remote talk”

10 December

- Taking shape -

Chaired by Leah Mascia, Universität Hamburg

9:30 – 9:45 h. Presentation

9:45 – 10:05 h. Lisa Sartini (Medjehu Project)

The funerary formulae on black coffins with yellow decoration of the New Kingdom: The materiality of the texts and their chronological, regional and social peculiarities.

10:05 – 10:25 h. Pinar Durgun (The Morgan Library and Museum, New York)

Materiality of copies and materials of copying in ancient western Asia.

10:25 – 10:45 h. Gael Papola (École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris)

From End to Beginning: Decoding the Reversed Narrative of Papyrus BNF Égyptien 156.

10:45 – 11:05 h. (R) Zsombor Földi (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) The Electronic Babylonian Literature Project: Results and prospects.

11:05 – 11:25 h. (R) Marina Sartori (University of Oxford)

Of papyrus and stone: Graphic registers and intermediality in ancient Egyptian funerary production.

11:25 – 12:05 h. Break

12:05 – 12:25 h. Niv Allon (Metropolitan Museum, New York)

Text and matter in seal impressions from the Festival Palace.

12:25 – 12:45 h. Angela McDonald (University of Glasgow)

Shaping Intentions? The Materiality and Dynamics of Udjahorresne’s Biography.

12:45 – 13:05 h. Beatriz Noria Serrano (Università di Pisa)

“Out of the margins”: side and edge inscriptions in Middle Kingdom stelae.

13:05 – 13:25 h. Roxana Flammini (CONICET, Buenos Aires)

Reassessing King Kamose's Titulary Preserved on a Block at the Open-Air Museum (Karnak).

13:25 – 15:00 h. Lunch

15:00 – 15:20 h. (R) Pedro Canto (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, Brasil)

Between retrograde writing and paths of the afterlife: Textual spatiality and material engagement in Seti I’s tomb (KV17).

15:20 – 16:50 h. Discussion

16:50 - 17:40 h. Keynote speaker: Gordon Whittaker (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)

Modulating shape, colour and setting in the Aztec writing system.

17:40 – 19:00 h. Visit to the exhibition Beyond the Tree: A Journey into the Traditions of Egyptian Woodcraft.

11 December

- In motion -

Chaired by Margaret Serpico (University College London)

9:30 – 9:50 h. Andrea Fanciulli (Museo Egizio, Turin)

Re-examining Ramesside royal hymns: the materiality beyond texts; the case of the Turin papyrus Doc ID 28.

9:50 – 10:10 h. Christina Karlshausen (Université Catholique de Louvain)

Truths and lies about stones in ancient Egyptian texts.

10:10– 10:30 h. Gersande Eschenbrenner Diemer (Universidad de Alcalá)

“Seeing through its house of eternity, embodying its own eternity": Some remarks on the perception of the coffin between the Ancient and New Kingdom.

10:30 – 10:50 h. Aude Semat (Metropolitan Museum, New York)

The Beam and the Mat: Trompe-l’œil and Meta-Architecture in Ancient Egypt.

10:50 – 11:10 h. Julie Desjardins (Université du Québec à Montréal)

Between Imitation and Authenticity: a Closer Look of Inscribed Wood Imitations from the Theban Region.

11:10 – 11:50 h. Break

11:50 – 12:10 h. Margaret Serpico (University College London)

Up in smoke: snṯr and ʿntyw as resins and incense.

12:10 – 12:30 h. Rogério Sousa (Universidade de Lisboa)

Yellow coffins and visual culture: what painting reveals about the craftsmen’s communities from Thebes.

12:30 – 13:30 h. Discussion

13:30 – 15:00 h. Lunch

15:00-15:50 h. Keynote speaker: Geoffrey Killen

Wood, tools and non-textual methods used by ancient Egyptian carpenters.

- Networks and transmission -

Chaired by Danijela Stefanović (Univerzitet u Beogradu)

15:50 – 16:10 h. (R) Luisa M. García González (Northeast Normal University - NENU, Changchun)

A Social Perspective of the Mortuary Texts: Preliminary Tests and Results of Applying Social Network Analysis to Southern Egyptian Archaeological Sources.

16:10 – 16:30 h. David Fuentes & Carlos Gracia Zamacona (Universidad de Alcalá)

Understanding word and phrase relations in ancient Egyptian using Neural Networks.

16:30 – 16:50 h. Anna Giulia de Marco (Medjehu project)

The reality of Deir el-Medina's wooden objects: from texts to material culture.

16:50 – 17:00 h. Veronika Dulíková & Marek Bukáček (Univerzita Karlova, Prague)

The importance of title importance.

17:00 – 17:20 h. (R) Elizabeth Bettles (Universiteit Leiden)

Text transmission of the Negative Confession (BD 125) at Deir el-Medina: Human agency in the tombs of TT3 and TT 265.

17:20 – 17:40 h. (R) Joaquín Jiménez Puerto (Universidad de Valencia) Unravelling the networks of the past: Applications and potential of Social Network Analysis for archaeological research.

17:40 – 19:10 h. Discussion

19:10 - 20:10 h. Demonstration of woodworking tools’ use by Geoffrey Killen.