On Thursday, April 23 at 6 PM (CET), in collaboration with ACME (Amici e Collaboratori del Museo Egizio) we will host a lecture held by Pierre Grandet.
Since its inception in 1905 by Ernesto Schiaparelli, the excavation of the village of Deir el-Medina—especially from 1918 to the present day by the Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale—has produced a wealth of ostraca (ca. 20,000), written in hieratic on slabs of limestone or pottery sherds. About half of this number (the remainder consisting of literary and figurative ostraca) documents, in every conceivable way, the life and work of the inhabitants of the village: a community of workmen commissioned by the kings of the New Kingdom to excavate and decorate the royal and princely tombs in the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens. The lecturer, who has been entrusted by the Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale with publishing these documents (six volumes published so far), aims to present some of the insights that can be gleaned from this archive and to enrich our understanding of everyday life in ancient Egypt.
Pierre Grandet is born in 1954. He obtained his doctorate in egyptology at the Sorbonne University in Paris (Paris IV) in 1984, with a translation and commentary of the Papyrus Harris 1 of the British Museum, published in 1994 by the IFAO with a volume of Glossary in 1999. He obtained his qualification à diriger des recherches in 1999. He has taught History, Civilization and Egyptian Language at the Kheops Institute in Paris between 1986 and 2023, at the Université Catholique de l’Ouest at Angiers between 1987 and 2010, at the Université of Poitiers between 2010 and 2011, and at the University of Lille in 2015-2016 and 2019-2020.
He has also taught hieratic at the École pratique des Hautes-Études, IVe Section, between 2004 and 2010. He retired in 2023, but has pursued since a teaching activity as a member of the Collective Kheops. Since 1997, he has been entrusted with the publication of the hieratic non-literary ostraca of the IFAO and has published six volumes to date. Since 2006, he has also been preparing, for the Musée du Louvre, the publication of the ostraca from the former Varille Collection, which is currently in press. He is the author of various articles and books reflecting his research in his other areas of interest, such as the history of Ramesside Egypt.
The lecture will take place in our Conference Room, admission is free with a reservation on Eventbrite. Click HERE to book your place.
The lecture will be broadcast via streaming on the Museum's YouTube channel.
