Chapter: Washington, D.C.

Presenter: Dr. Mirek Barta, Professor of Egyptology at Charles University, Prague 

Location: Benjamin T. Rome Auditorium of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, 1619 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC

Lecture is free and open to the public. Please come and bring a guest.

Description: The origins of ancient Egyptian civilization have been attracting the attention of archaeologists ever since the beginnings of Egyptology more than 200 years ago. This lecture will present a new and original interpretation of the rock art in the Egyptian Western Desert which is of key importance for our understanding of the roots of ancient Egyptian civilization. Indeed, its very origins can be most likely dated to the 6th millennium B.C. At that time and in the centuries to follow, the paintings in the Cave of Swimmers, known from the blockbuster film English Patient, and in the Cave of Beasts discovered only a few years ago, were created. These caves are located in a distant and barely accessible part of Egypt, on the borders of Egypt, Libya and Sudan.The rock-art preserved in these caves features several unique motifs that will become the cornerstone of ancient Egyptian iconography and mythology. Among them may be the motif of the sky goddess and the earth god, a prototypic representation of an ancient chieftain in the much later pharaonic guise or the concept of cave creatures protecting the entrance to the Netherworld. During the Fifth and Fourth millennia B.C., the vast areas of the Western Desert suffered from a major depredation of climate that most likely led to a gradual evacuation of the region and instigated the appearance of permanent settlements in the Nile valley which led to the genesis of ancient Egyptian culture. The lecture will present a theory according to which at least some parts of the rock art in the Western Desert were created by an ancient mind that later contributed to the intellectual emergence of ancient Egyptian civilization in the Nile valley.

About the Speaker: Miroslav Bárta graduated in Egyptology and Prehistoric and Early Historic Archaeology at Charles University in Prague. He completed his Ph.D. studies in Prague and Hamburg. In 2002, he completed his second doctorate in Egyptology and since 2009, has been a professor of Egyptology. His main fields of research are: archeology and history of the third and second millenia B.C., landscape archeology in antiquity, rise and fall of complex societies, interdisciplinary research, and archaeological background of the Old Testament. He has been excavating in Egypt since 1991, conducted research of the Western Desert in 2003-2008, and since 2009 has also been working in Sudan. In 2002, he led the first detailed satellite mapping of the pyramid fields of Abusir, Saqqara and Dahshur. In 2003-2004, he taught at the University of Pennsylvania.

Miroslav Bárta has authored and edited several books, and over a hundred articles. The title of his lecture for ARCE-DC is also the title of his most recent publication: Swimmers in the Sand: On the Origins of Ancient Egyptian Civilization.