The Tomb of Tutankhamun in Context & Tutankhamun: From Zero to Hero

The tour took place on February 3rd in Los Angeles and February 5th in San Francisco.

The American Research Center in Egypt and the Ancient Art Council of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, in collaboration with ARCE Northern California, ARCE Orange County, and the de Young Museum, are pleased to present an evening with Dr. Aidan Dodson in celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the discovery of the tomb of King Tutankhamun.

February 3rd

The spectacle of an all-but-intact royal tomb raises the important question of how representative it was of other kings’ tombs of the period. In this lecture we will explore the ways in which the tomb and its contents represented a continuation of what had gone before the fracture represented by the Amarna Period, in what ways it innovated, how it may have been shaped by circumstance, how it hinted at a way forward- and where it is seemingly unique.

February 5th

This lecture will trace how Tutankhamun came to be written out of history soon after his death, and then how the earliest Egyptologists began to piece together evidence for his existence, and some of their theories as to his identity and place in events. We then trace the events that led up to the discovery of his tomb in 1922, catapulting the king from obscurity to universal fame.

Aidan Dodson Bio: 

Dr. Dodson is an honorary full Professor of Egyptology at the University of Bristol, UK, where he has taught since 1996. A graduate of Liverpool (BA) and Cambridge (MPhil, PhD), he was Simpson Professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo for the spring of 2013, and Chair of Trustees of Egypt Exploration Society, the UK equivalent of ARCE, from 2011 to 2016. He has been a member of ARCE for some 30 years and is currently part of the Missouri Chapter. Professor Dodson is the author more than 25 books and 400 articles and reviews, the most recent book being Tutankhamun, King of Egypt: his life and afterlife, published by AUC Press in December 2022.

The American Research Center in Egypt and the Ancient Art Council of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, in collaboration with ARCE Northern California and the de Young Museum, are pleased to present an evening with Dr. Aidan Dodson.

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