Date: Saturday, October 22, 2011, 3:30pm

Chapter: Pennsylvania

Presenter: Dr. Thomas Schneider, University of British Columbia

Location: Nevil Classroom , University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

Lectures are FREE to ARCE-PA members, $3 for University of Pennsylvania Museum Members, and $5 for the general public.

Description: The last decade has seen a continuous investigation of the Eastern Sahara to the West and Southwest of Egypt's oases, culminating in the location of the Abu Ballas trail with Old Kingdom inscriptions on the "water–mountain of Djedefre" and new discoveries even further apart. The lecture will present new archaeological, religious, linguistic and scientific evidence to demonstrate that Ancient Egypt entertained close contacts with the Chad basin of Central Africa and that the ancient paleoecological environment of the basin informed the description of the first hours of the Egyptian underworld in the Amduat, one of the Egyptian guides to the Hereafter.

About the Speaker: Prof. Thomas Schneider studied at Zurich, Basel and Paris, achieving his MA and PhD in Egyptology at Basel in 1990 and 1996, respectively. Following this, he served as a Visiting Professor at the University of Vienna (1999) and Heidelberg (2003/4). From 2001-2005 Prof. Schneider was a Research Professor of the Swiss National Science Foundation at the University of Basel, and from 2005-2007 a Professor of Egyptology at the University of Wales, Swansea. Since 2007 he has been Professor of Egyptology and Near Eastern Studies at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. His main areas of research include Egyptian interconnections with the Levant and the Near East, Egyptian history and chronology, and Egyptian historical phonology. Prof. Schneider is also the founder and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Egyptian History, which is currently in its fourth year of publication.