University of Chicago

Graduate Student, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

Head of Research Archives, Oriental Institute

Thesis Title: Passports to Eternity: Formulaic Demotic Funerary Texts and the Final Phase of Egyptian Funerary Literature in Roman Egypt

About

I received a BA in History (2002) with a concentration on the Ancient Mediterranean from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio while studying under the biblical scholar Dr. Edwin Yamauchi. I continued my studies at the University of Chicago where I earned a MA in Egyptology (2004) and where I am currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. Since 2007, I have held the position of Head of Research Archives, which entails supervision and management of a premiere library collection covering the entire ancient Near East.

My current research focuses on the use of funerary texts in 1st-3rd century CE Egypt and the demise of indigenous funerary practices and scripts. I am interested in how language, text and ritual practice interact and influence each other, in addition to the social factors causing and consequences of language/script death with particular reference to Demotic. As the co-creator of Oriental Institute Demotic Ostraca Online (OIDOO) [http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/projects/oidoo/], I am also interested in the administration of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt as reflected in the surviving documentation.

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