New Perspectives on Ancient Nubia at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Lecture 2 of the Africa Interconnected Series)

January 23, 2021 1PM ET/ 8PM EET

(Registration form located at the bottom of this page)

Speaker: Dr. Denise Doxey

Info about the lecture:

The last thirty years of excavation in southern Egypt and especially Sudan has allowed the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, to house the largest collection of ancient Nubian art outside Khartoum. In antiquity, Nubia was home to a series of powerful kingdoms along the Nile valley. The Nubians produced magnificent and powerful art for thousands of years. In Boston, Egyptian art has upstaged that of Nubia for a century. One reason is that for centuries Nubia left no written records, leaving its story to be told by others-first by their rivals and sometimes enemies, the Egyptians. Early 20th century archaeologists, including the MFA’s own George Reisner, brought preconceived notions and prejudices to their interpretations of African cultures, further obscuring Nubia’s grandeur. Preparations for a major exhibition of Nubian art in 2019 led the MFA to reconsider Nubia in light of new information, new interpretations, and voices from outside the museum world. This talk will discuss the planning of the exhibition and lessons learned from the planning. 

About Denise Doxey:

Denise Doxey is curator of Ancient Egyptian, Nubian, and Near Eastern art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Previously, she was keeper of the Egyptian section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. She completed her M.Phil at Oxford University and her Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author or co-author of numerous publications on Egyptian and Nubian art, archaeology, and civilization. She has excavated in Greece and Egypt and has taught Egyptology courses at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University. She currently serves on the board of ICOM’s International Committee for Egyptology and is president of the New England chapter of ARCE. 

Registration will close 24 hours before the lecture starts. Registration does not include any future lectures in this series.