“Reconstructing the Mid-Second Millennium BCE Using Scarab Amulets” Dr Stephanie Boonstra, 3rd November 2019

Click here to download the review of this meeting.

Egypt’s history has often been written using grand narratives, royal monuments, and objects of the elite. However, small and unassuming artefacts, such as scarab amulets, can be used to illuminate and mirror the known and unknown periods of Egyptian history. By using the minute details of the miniature amulets, trade routes, workshops, and cultural influences can be reconstructed and used to create another dimension to the history of ancient Egypt. Evidence from scarab and seal amulet workshops from the Second Intermediate Period and early Eighteenth Dynasty will be analysed.

Dr Stephanie Boonstra completed her PhD in 2019 at the University of Birmingham focusing on the production of 18th Dynasty scarab amulets in 2019. She previously received a BA in Near Eastern and Classical Archaeology from Wilfrid Laurier University (Waterloo, Canada), where she worked as a supervisor on the Khirbat al-Mudayna, Wadi ath-Thamad excavation project in Jordan. She also holds an MA in Egyptian Archaeology from UCL, where her research focus was on the SIP scarabs of Tell el-‘Ajjul. She works for the Egypt Exploration Society where she manages the Society’s library and archives, which includes overseeing cataloguing, new acquisitions, volunteer projects, researchers in accessing the collections. For more see her information page on the EES website.

This talk was given at the November 2019 meeting of the Essex Egyptology Group, which was held on 3rd November 2019 at 3pm – click here to download the review of this meeting.