Presenter: Dr. Yekaterina Barbash, Assistant Curator of Egyptian Art at the Brooklyn Museum

Location: Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, 15 East 84th Street (between 5th and Madison)

This lecture is free and open to the public.

Egyptologist Yekaterina Barbash joined the Brooklyn Museum in 2008. A onetime intern in the Museum’s department of Egyptian, Classical, and Ancient Middle Eastern Art, Barbash received a Ph.D. in ancient Egyptian history, Art, and Philology from the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, where she was also awarded an M.A. She is the recipient of a B.A. from New York University and has studied at the Netherlands Institute of Archaeology and Arabic Studies in Cairo, Egypt. Dr. Barbash has taught at New York University’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies, Berkeley College, The College of New Jersey, and Staten Island CUNY. She has been a member of the Johns Hopkins University expedition to the Mut Precinct in Karnak, Egypt, where the Brooklyn Museum also maintains an excavation, and was a researcher at the Walters Art Museum.

This lecture, held in conjunction with the current exhibition now on display at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, explores ancient Egyptian art from a slightly new perspective. Egyptians respected the divinity of every element of the human body and paid careful attention to its depictions. For this reason, fragments of sculpture and relief which have come down to us through the ages can reveal significant insights into the art and beliefs of ancient Egypt. The lecture will also examine details of the manufacture of wooden sculpture and composite statues, shed light upon specifics of symbolism of certain body parts, and explore the magnificence of ancient Egyptian craftsmanship.