Date: Saturday, November 7, 5:00 p.m.

Chapter: Illinois

Presenters: Ann Macy Roth

Ann Macy Roth received her PhD in Egyptology from the University of Chicago. She spent two years as a research assistant at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, two more as a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, and then ten years as an assistant and associate professor at Howard University in Washington, DC, before coming to New York University in 2003. She is currently a Clinical Associate Professor in the departments of Art History and Hebrew & Judaic Studies at NYU, and she is director of graduate studies for the program in Ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian Studies. Prof. Roth has specialized in the Old Kingdom period of Egyptian history (2700-2150 BCE), the age of the pyramid builders. Her dissertation was a study of phyles, groups of people who may have begun as tribal groups supporting the king in the prehistoric period and evolved into a system rotating service that built the pyramids and staffed the temples and palaces.

As a student, Professor Roth worked on archaeological projects in Arizona, at Quseir on the Red Sea, and in and around Luxor temple in southern Egypt, as well as a season as an epigrapher for the Oriental Institute Epigraphic Survey at Chicago House. Since 1989, she has directed archaeological work on the Giza plateau, both recording chapel decoration and conducting a controlled re-clearance of tombs and chapels excavated in the early 20th century. Her second book dealt witha group of tombs on the Giza plateau, The Cemetery of the Palace Attendants, and she is currently working on a third book dealing with the adjacent tombs, The Tombs of the Palace Guard. In 2009, she received a year-long fellowship from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to prepare for publication the three Old Kingdom mastaba chapels at the museum.

Location: The Oriental Institute, LaSalle Bank Room, 1155 East 58th Street, Chicago, 60637

Description: In this lecture, Professor Roth will present her new research on Old Kingdom mastabas including their social context and the careers of their owners.