Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections – serie

Subjects covered in this volume: Egyptian amulets from Jebel Qurma, Jordan; Scarabs and seals in the Central Italian Peninsula; the faience industry at Kermat; Egyptianizing faience from the sanctuary of Apollo Hylates, Cyprus; Egyptian Serekh-like incisions on a vessel found at En Esur, Israel; reappraisal of the history of Philae in the C4th CE. The Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections (JAEI) is a scholarly publication integrating Egyptology with Mediterranean, Near Eastern, and African studies - providing a dedicated venue for this growing field of interdisciplinary and inter-area research.

The origin of the second Kingdom of Kush (c. 850 BCE-350 CE) has been the subject of much discussion and debate over the years. The kingdom that arose at Napata lasted over a thousand years, evolving over time and continuing to influence the polities that emerged after the kingdom broke apart in about 350 CE. One of the kingdom's modern legacies is as an early example of an African state, allowing for an exploration of larger theoretical questions surrounding state formation, religion and ideology, political economy, identity, and intercultural interaction. At the same time, the Kingdom of Kush has played an important and controversial role in the development of Black studies, the discourse of Afrocentrism, and a consideration of the asymmetries in the racial discourse surrounding Egypt in particular and Africa more generally, both in their historical and contemporary incarnations. The Origins and Afterlives of Kush conference was held at the University of California, Santa Barbara, July 25-27, 2019. Organized by Stuart Tyson Smith with the assistance of Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei and sponsored by the UCSB Department of Anthropology with support from the College of Letters and Sciences and the Institute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research, it featured daily discussion sessions and twenty-one presentations, of which ten are published in this special volume of the Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections.

In December of 2016, the University of the Aegean's Department of Mediterranean Studies held a symposium in Rhodes on the topic of "Religion, Politics, and Culture in the Mediterranean from the 8th to the 6th Centuries BC." The conference was organized by the Aegean Egyptology group and Laboratory of the Ancient World of the Eastern Mediterranean and was directed by Panagiotis Kousoulis. This volume publishes a selection of the papers presented at the symposium.

The present volume grew out of the Second Missouri Egyptological Symposium held at Missouri State University in October 2019. This meeting followed in the footsteps of the tremendous efforts of the organizers of the inaugural Missouri Egyptological Symposium, held the year prior at Truman State University in Kirksville, MO. Principal among those organizers was Sara Orel. The theme of the second symposium was "Unwrapping Ancient Egypt" -- that is, laying bare the study of ancient Egypt in its numerous contexts. The primary heuristic driving this "unwrapping" was the location and demonstration of the various connections between Egyptology and other fields and intellectual practices, broadly defined. As represented in this volume, the scholars at the symposium drew these interconnecting lines between Egypt and other cultures in antiquity, Egypt and the history of the United States, and ancient Egypt and the museum. The symposium involved an additional important point of connection: academic research and pre-college education. The organizers of the symposium reached out to K-12 educators in Missouri to invite them to participate in workshops that addressed the unique challenges of teaching about antiquity (particularly ancient Egypt) and allowed for the exchange of resources and curricula.

The second millennium BCE in the ancient Near East saw increased interactions and interconnections between Egypt and the regions of the southern Levant. The essays in this volume explore these interconnections. Mobility and movement between these regions were key factors in the exchange of ideas, technologies and values; they were, therefore, essential components of the evolution of both societies. The archaeological record provides a wealth of material for reconstructing expressions of cultures, identities, status, and economic ways of life based on questions of mobility.

The relationships between ancient Egypt and other cultures transcend time, so in this volume of the Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections the reader will find a sampling of the diverse ways in which these have manifested: a 19th century "multi-media" exhibition; the challenges of museum exhibits that place Egypt in a wider African context; interplay between Egyptology and opera; Eastern European travelers to Egypt; mummies as souvenirs; what is lost by the emphasis on the pharaonic period in archaeological excavation; excavation of Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1923) film set; the origin of the term "Egyptomania"; and two book reviews related to Egyptological history.

The workshop “People on the Move: Framework, Means, and Impact of Mobility across the East Mediterranean Region in the 8th to 6th Century BC,” held at the University of Basel in Switzerland from 3-6 August 2015, which forms the basis of this volume, addressed the question of how the increased cross-regional mobility of people and commodities in the wake of the Kushite, Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and early Achaemenid expansions into the eastern Mediterranean affected travellers, the communities they left behind, and the communities that received them. As demonstrated by the papers published here, the diversity of the sources this period and place requires a large number of specializations, both within the various area studies and regarding cross-regional connectivity.

This new volume brings together papers given at the Middle Bronze Age in the Southern Levant Revisited: Chronology and Connections session of the Annual Meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research in San Antonio, Texas, in November 2016. The goal of the session was to stimulate a renewed discussion on Middle Bronze Age chronology for the southern Levant and its connections with Egypt, as several recent radiocarbon sequences from several sites challenge current chronological assessments and, thus, correlations with the historical chronology of Egypt. Changing the chronology of the Middle Bronze Age would have significant impact on current views on history and development of Near Eastern societies during the first half of the second millennium BCE. The articles assembled here give a first impression of this debate about historical trajectories, absolute chronology, and how discussion might develop in the future.

The authors of all manuscripts in this monograph were specifically invited for papers that would provide new insights into the complex nature of maritime networks, particularly the importance of the seas and coastlines, whether for purposes of defense, trade, prestige, or technological advance. Because seafaring has been such a critical aspect of Egyptian life throughout its history, it is fitting that the works in JAEI 5:1 span from the Predynastic through the Classical periods. While all three of the primary bodies of water in the Egyptian world are covered (the Nile River, the Mediterranean, and the Red Sea), readers will notice an emphasis on the Nile Delta region.The work carries research articles by John Tristan Barnes, University of Missouri; Jeffrey P. Emanuel, Harvard University; Samuel Mark, Texas A&M University at Galveston; and Gregory Mumford, University of Alabama at Birmingham. It also features extended research reports from David Fabre and Franck Goddio, Institut Européen d'Archéologie Sous-Marine; Pierre Tallet, Université Paris-Sorbonne; and Sakuji Yoshimura and Hiromasa Kurokochi, Waseda University and NPO Institute of the Solar Boat.Finally, three recently published books and monographs are reviewed by Steven Sidebotham, University of Delaware; Chiara Zazzaro, University of Naples "L'Orientale"; and the JAEI Staff. All manuscripts were submitted to the journal's standard process of double peer review, and JAEI is grateful to the reviewers who volunteered their time and expertise.

It is with the greatest pleasure that the editors of the Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections dedicate this fascicle as a Festschrift for Professor Nanno Marinatos (University of Illinois at Chicago). Professor Marinatos stands as a leading figure in the area of interconnections between the ancient Aegean and the wider world of the Eastern Mediterranean, the Near East and Egypt, so the editors, along with some of her many friends, feel it particularly fitting to offer this tribute to her and her work. Ten manuscripts authored by some of the most prominent members of their fields are well illustrated (full color) in more than 100 pages.

This special guest-edited fascicle of the Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections focuses on Nubia. Professor Stuart Tyson Smith (University of California Santa Barbara) invited contributions from experts in a range of interconnection topics. The result provides welcome new insights into the complex nature of ancient Nubian and Egyptian networks.

The Sinai Peninsula is a vast region encompassing some 60,000 square kilometers with hundreds if not thousands of archaeological sites, only a relatively small sample of which have been fully explored. The Sinai attracted people in ancient times and continues to do so today, whether as a dwelling place, an area rich in resources, a defensive zone, a refuge, a holy site, or simply as a land through which merchants, armies, emissaries, and others might travel from one region to another. The papers presented here contribute to a greater understanding and appreciation of the rich heritage of the Sinai Peninsula in its role as a key land bridge Africa and Asia and as a region important in its own right.

Archaeologist, Musician, Vaudeville Performer, Filmmaker, Biographer, Scholar of the Cinema. These are only some of the many lives of David Soren. The Editors of the Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections are honored to present papers by his colleagues in tribute to the storied career of David Soren, Regents Professor of Classics at the University of Arizona and Director of the Orvieto Institute in Umbria, Italy.