Introduction to a collected volume co-edited by Solange Ashby and Aaron J. Brody. Ancient Nubia p... more Introduction to a collected volume co-edited by Solange Ashby and Aaron J. Brody. Ancient Nubia played key political, social, and economic roles in the ancient world, yet knowledge of Nubian societies remains regrettably narrow, with Nubia often disregarded as derivative of Egypt. This volume provides a timely corrective to this outlook, centering Nubian history and archaeology and presenting research from new, anti-racist perspectives. In addition to demonstrating Nubiology’s potential impact on Egyptological, classical, and biblical scholarship, this volume offers a new window into African achievements and dominance in the ancient world.
Conference proceedings: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Ancient Mediterranean, 2021
Du Bois is not recognized within Egyptology as having contributed to the discipline despite repea... more Du Bois is not recognized within Egyptology as having contributed to the discipline despite repeatedly writing on ancient Nile Valley cultures. The fundamental importance of his work was in countering two incorrect claims: that Africa had no history and that the ancient Egyptian culture was a product of Semitic people. But Du Bois sometimes undermined his own points. Functioning within a predominantly white academic structure, he used the language at hand, and that language was sometimes at odds with his purposes. Nonetheless, his work continues to hold relevance today as arguments backed by genomic sequencing again try to deny the African context of the ancient Nile Valley.
In 1909, Egyptologist James Henry Breasted sent a letter to Booker T. Washington, along with a co... more In 1909, Egyptologist James Henry Breasted sent a letter to Booker T. Washington, along with a copy of an article Breasted had recently published in The Biblical World. To fully understand the short correspondence between the two scholars, this article delves into three related topics: Washington's philosophy of industrial education and its complementarity with the educational program of his contemporary W. E. B. Du Bois; Washington's prominent standing in educational, political, and social circles, including his professional relationship with the president of the University of Chicago William Rainey Harper and his advisory role to US president Theodore Roosevelt; and Breasted's perspective on race and Egyptology. Washington, unlike Breasted, considered connections between ancient Nile Valley cultures and cultures elsewhere in Africa, a point of inquiry that has recently gained momentum in a variety of fields. In the correspondence between Washington and Breasted, we see demonstrations of precarity and privilege as related to scientific research, an imbalance seen also in the infamous syphilis study carried out at Tuskegee. This article points out the continued need to interrogate benefit by asking who constructs research questions and whom does research benefit.
Amy Jacques Garvey and Marcus Garvey argued for the Africanity of ancient Nile Valley cultures, i... more Amy Jacques Garvey and Marcus Garvey argued for the Africanity of ancient Nile Valley cultures, in direct opposition to some academics. In early 20th-century United States, incorrect narratives alleged that Africa had no history. The Garveys, and other Black intellectuals, looked to the Nile Valley to show the absurdity of that claim. The pan-Africanism of Garveyism instilled pride in African descended communities and united them against colonial structures. Pan-Africanism factored strongly in President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s conception of the modern nation-state of Egypt. Egyptian scholars from a variety of fields, including Nile Valley studies, continue to understand ancient Egypt as part of a network of African cultures. Amy Jacques Garvey et Marcus Garvey ont plaidé pour l’africanité des anciennes cultures de la vallée du Nil, en opposition directe avec certains universitaires. Au début du XXe siècle aux États-Unis, des récits incorrects alléguaient que l’Afrique n’avait pas d’histoire. Les Garveys et d’autres intellectuels noirs se sont tournés vers la vallée du Nil pour montrer l’absurdité de cette affirmation. Le panafricanisme du Garveyisme a inspiré la fierté des communautés d’ascendance africaine et les a unies contre les structures coloniales. Le panafricanisme a joué un rôle important dans la conception du président Gamal Abdel Nasser de l’État-nation moderne de l’Égypte. Les érudits égyptiens de divers domaines, y compris les études sur la vallée du Nil, continuent de comprendre l’Égypte ancienne comme faisant partie d’un réseau de cultures africaines.
Pauline Hopkins was an African American editor, author, and singer who lived in Boston, Massachus... more Pauline Hopkins was an African American editor, author, and singer who lived in Boston, Massachusetts, at the turn of the twentieth century. Through her novel, Of One Blood (1902), she uses historical and literary sources to set the record straight about the Africanity of ancient Nile Valley cultures.
See: www.vrhdavies.com/_files/ugd/d48351_27f40a3b8cb24efb8806ee2c80ffdd2b.pdf
This online exhibition highlights two conferences on race that Bryn Mawr students co-organized in... more This online exhibition highlights two conferences on race that Bryn Mawr students co-organized in the early twentieth century. The 1924 conference was a three-day event co-organized by students at Bryn Mawr College, Swarthmore College, and the University of Pennsylvania and held in the town of Swarthmore. Students—black and white, male and female—from other institutions attended, exchanged ideas, and socialized with one another. The 1931 conference was a one-day event organized by Bryn Mawr students and held on Bryn Mawr’s campus. It featured many prominent speakers of color, including Walter White, head of the NAACP; Alice Dunbar Nelson, poet and member of the Interracial Committee of the Society of Friends; and W. E. B. Du Bois, editor of The Crisis.
In 1908, when James Henry Breasted published ancient copies of some Biblical texts, he hoped that... more In 1908, when James Henry Breasted published ancient copies of some Biblical texts, he hoped that one interested reader would be Booker T. Washington.
Blog post about my book Peace in Ancient Egypt (Harvard Egyptological Series, 2018).
ANE Today, V... more Blog post about my book Peace in Ancient Egypt (Harvard Egyptological Series, 2018). ANE Today, Vol. VII, No. 6, June 2019
High school students who have exposure to college-level learning and to research projects that ar... more High school students who have exposure to college-level learning and to research projects that are meaningful for their lives practice the liberal arts, gaining skills in reading, research, writing, presenting, and critical thinking.
Histories of Egyptology as an academic discipline have overlooked the contributions of writers an... more Histories of Egyptology as an academic discipline have overlooked the contributions of writers and scholars of African descent. Between 1900 and 1925, a number of conversations occurred between white Egyptologists and scholars and writers of African descent in America. This talk will explore two of these conversations involving W. E. B. Du Bois and Pauline Hopkins.
Understanding Du Bois and Hopkins’ treatments of ancient Egypt and ancient Sudan gives us a richer perspective on the history of the discipline of Egyptology in the United States. It also provides important insight into the ramifications of a study of genomes in ancient Egyptian mummies that was published in May 2017 in Nature Communications.
A microanalysis of hieroglyphs in the Small Temple of Medinet Habu gives insight into how hierogl... more A microanalysis of hieroglyphs in the Small Temple of Medinet Habu gives insight into how hieroglyphs were conceived, how work was carried out, and environmental and personal effects on both worker and work. A brief comparison of the Medinet Habu hieroglyphs with those at Luxor Temple illustrates stylistic differences and, interestingly, similarities, suggesting that the Theban workforce was not stylistically divided by the Nile River.
In Seti I's Karnak battle reliefs, each of the four complete campaigns describes the defeated for... more In Seti I's Karnak battle reliefs, each of the four complete campaigns describes the defeated foreigners as bringing 'tribute on their backs'. The depictions of these foreigners, however, portray them as captives of the king, bound and unable to carry anything at all. This article compares these textual and pictorial portrayals with examples from the eighteenth Dynasty, and argues that the texts convey the foreigners' submission to the king, while the images' contorted and struggling bodies evoke their 'not knowing egypt', a reference to their lack of accord with maat which is contained only by the bindings that the king controls.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
Long before Egyptology was ever taught as a formal discipline in US universities, intellectuals o... more Long before Egyptology was ever taught as a formal discipline in US universities, intellectuals of African descent were already studying and writing about the ancient cultures of the Nile Valley. But the disciplinary history, as it is currently written, incorrectly excludes those voices. Conversations between Black scholars and writers and white Egyptologists in the early 20th century must be recognized as part of the formation of the discipline in the United States and integral to its future.
A talk given at the Archaeological Institute of America, Kentucky chapter, March 2021
Repositioning Egyptologies: Conversations on Representations of North African Pasts in Art Histor... more Repositioning Egyptologies: Conversations on Representations of North African Pasts in Art History and Museums with Solange Ashby, Vanessa Davies, Lisa Saladino Haney and Elizabeth Minor, hosted by Dr. Jennifer Miyuki Babcock and Dr. Alexander Nagel. A collaboration supported by ARCE-NY and the FIT Art History Department.
The Solar Shrine (Burning Man 2020)
This video is a virtual discourse on how contemporary art has... more The Solar Shrine (Burning Man 2020) This video is a virtual discourse on how contemporary art has been influenced by the cultures of Ancient Egypt and Nubia. Antwane Lee moderates a conversation with Dr. Vanessa Davies and artist and filmmaker Michael Anthony Brown. Vanessa is an Egyptologist and writer who received her Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago. Michael attended Howard University for his graduate studies where he currently teaches.
THE KULTURE SHOW W/ KULU PRESENTS...
"WHEN KEMET BECAME EGYPT"
Call in: 1-516-387-1545
June 21,... more THE KULTURE SHOW W/ KULU PRESENTS...
"WHEN KEMET BECAME EGYPT"
Call in: 1-516-387-1545 June 21, 2020 THE KULTURE SHOW W/ KULU "Exclusive Interview with Egyptologist, Vanessa Davies" Part 1: Q&A on I, Black Pharaoh Novel & Black History (Open Discussion) Part 2: Interview with Egyptologist, Vanessa Davies Part 3: Should Ancient Black History be taught in schools? The state of the World. Part 4: Hatshepsut the Queen who became Pharaoh (open discussion)
Introduction to a collected volume co-edited by Solange Ashby and Aaron J. Brody. Ancient Nubia p... more Introduction to a collected volume co-edited by Solange Ashby and Aaron J. Brody. Ancient Nubia played key political, social, and economic roles in the ancient world, yet knowledge of Nubian societies remains regrettably narrow, with Nubia often disregarded as derivative of Egypt. This volume provides a timely corrective to this outlook, centering Nubian history and archaeology and presenting research from new, anti-racist perspectives. In addition to demonstrating Nubiology’s potential impact on Egyptological, classical, and biblical scholarship, this volume offers a new window into African achievements and dominance in the ancient world.
Conference proceedings: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Ancient Mediterranean, 2021
Du Bois is not recognized within Egyptology as having contributed to the discipline despite repea... more Du Bois is not recognized within Egyptology as having contributed to the discipline despite repeatedly writing on ancient Nile Valley cultures. The fundamental importance of his work was in countering two incorrect claims: that Africa had no history and that the ancient Egyptian culture was a product of Semitic people. But Du Bois sometimes undermined his own points. Functioning within a predominantly white academic structure, he used the language at hand, and that language was sometimes at odds with his purposes. Nonetheless, his work continues to hold relevance today as arguments backed by genomic sequencing again try to deny the African context of the ancient Nile Valley.
In 1909, Egyptologist James Henry Breasted sent a letter to Booker T. Washington, along with a co... more In 1909, Egyptologist James Henry Breasted sent a letter to Booker T. Washington, along with a copy of an article Breasted had recently published in The Biblical World. To fully understand the short correspondence between the two scholars, this article delves into three related topics: Washington's philosophy of industrial education and its complementarity with the educational program of his contemporary W. E. B. Du Bois; Washington's prominent standing in educational, political, and social circles, including his professional relationship with the president of the University of Chicago William Rainey Harper and his advisory role to US president Theodore Roosevelt; and Breasted's perspective on race and Egyptology. Washington, unlike Breasted, considered connections between ancient Nile Valley cultures and cultures elsewhere in Africa, a point of inquiry that has recently gained momentum in a variety of fields. In the correspondence between Washington and Breasted, we see demonstrations of precarity and privilege as related to scientific research, an imbalance seen also in the infamous syphilis study carried out at Tuskegee. This article points out the continued need to interrogate benefit by asking who constructs research questions and whom does research benefit.
Amy Jacques Garvey and Marcus Garvey argued for the Africanity of ancient Nile Valley cultures, i... more Amy Jacques Garvey and Marcus Garvey argued for the Africanity of ancient Nile Valley cultures, in direct opposition to some academics. In early 20th-century United States, incorrect narratives alleged that Africa had no history. The Garveys, and other Black intellectuals, looked to the Nile Valley to show the absurdity of that claim. The pan-Africanism of Garveyism instilled pride in African descended communities and united them against colonial structures. Pan-Africanism factored strongly in President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s conception of the modern nation-state of Egypt. Egyptian scholars from a variety of fields, including Nile Valley studies, continue to understand ancient Egypt as part of a network of African cultures. Amy Jacques Garvey et Marcus Garvey ont plaidé pour l’africanité des anciennes cultures de la vallée du Nil, en opposition directe avec certains universitaires. Au début du XXe siècle aux États-Unis, des récits incorrects alléguaient que l’Afrique n’avait pas d’histoire. Les Garveys et d’autres intellectuels noirs se sont tournés vers la vallée du Nil pour montrer l’absurdité de cette affirmation. Le panafricanisme du Garveyisme a inspiré la fierté des communautés d’ascendance africaine et les a unies contre les structures coloniales. Le panafricanisme a joué un rôle important dans la conception du président Gamal Abdel Nasser de l’État-nation moderne de l’Égypte. Les érudits égyptiens de divers domaines, y compris les études sur la vallée du Nil, continuent de comprendre l’Égypte ancienne comme faisant partie d’un réseau de cultures africaines.
Pauline Hopkins was an African American editor, author, and singer who lived in Boston, Massachus... more Pauline Hopkins was an African American editor, author, and singer who lived in Boston, Massachusetts, at the turn of the twentieth century. Through her novel, Of One Blood (1902), she uses historical and literary sources to set the record straight about the Africanity of ancient Nile Valley cultures.
See: www.vrhdavies.com/_files/ugd/d48351_27f40a3b8cb24efb8806ee2c80ffdd2b.pdf
This online exhibition highlights two conferences on race that Bryn Mawr students co-organized in... more This online exhibition highlights two conferences on race that Bryn Mawr students co-organized in the early twentieth century. The 1924 conference was a three-day event co-organized by students at Bryn Mawr College, Swarthmore College, and the University of Pennsylvania and held in the town of Swarthmore. Students—black and white, male and female—from other institutions attended, exchanged ideas, and socialized with one another. The 1931 conference was a one-day event organized by Bryn Mawr students and held on Bryn Mawr’s campus. It featured many prominent speakers of color, including Walter White, head of the NAACP; Alice Dunbar Nelson, poet and member of the Interracial Committee of the Society of Friends; and W. E. B. Du Bois, editor of The Crisis.
In 1908, when James Henry Breasted published ancient copies of some Biblical texts, he hoped that... more In 1908, when James Henry Breasted published ancient copies of some Biblical texts, he hoped that one interested reader would be Booker T. Washington.
Blog post about my book Peace in Ancient Egypt (Harvard Egyptological Series, 2018).
ANE Today, V... more Blog post about my book Peace in Ancient Egypt (Harvard Egyptological Series, 2018). ANE Today, Vol. VII, No. 6, June 2019
High school students who have exposure to college-level learning and to research projects that ar... more High school students who have exposure to college-level learning and to research projects that are meaningful for their lives practice the liberal arts, gaining skills in reading, research, writing, presenting, and critical thinking.
Histories of Egyptology as an academic discipline have overlooked the contributions of writers an... more Histories of Egyptology as an academic discipline have overlooked the contributions of writers and scholars of African descent. Between 1900 and 1925, a number of conversations occurred between white Egyptologists and scholars and writers of African descent in America. This talk will explore two of these conversations involving W. E. B. Du Bois and Pauline Hopkins.
Understanding Du Bois and Hopkins’ treatments of ancient Egypt and ancient Sudan gives us a richer perspective on the history of the discipline of Egyptology in the United States. It also provides important insight into the ramifications of a study of genomes in ancient Egyptian mummies that was published in May 2017 in Nature Communications.
A microanalysis of hieroglyphs in the Small Temple of Medinet Habu gives insight into how hierogl... more A microanalysis of hieroglyphs in the Small Temple of Medinet Habu gives insight into how hieroglyphs were conceived, how work was carried out, and environmental and personal effects on both worker and work. A brief comparison of the Medinet Habu hieroglyphs with those at Luxor Temple illustrates stylistic differences and, interestingly, similarities, suggesting that the Theban workforce was not stylistically divided by the Nile River.
In Seti I's Karnak battle reliefs, each of the four complete campaigns describes the defeated for... more In Seti I's Karnak battle reliefs, each of the four complete campaigns describes the defeated foreigners as bringing 'tribute on their backs'. The depictions of these foreigners, however, portray them as captives of the king, bound and unable to carry anything at all. This article compares these textual and pictorial portrayals with examples from the eighteenth Dynasty, and argues that the texts convey the foreigners' submission to the king, while the images' contorted and struggling bodies evoke their 'not knowing egypt', a reference to their lack of accord with maat which is contained only by the bindings that the king controls.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
Long before Egyptology was ever taught as a formal discipline in US universities, intellectuals o... more Long before Egyptology was ever taught as a formal discipline in US universities, intellectuals of African descent were already studying and writing about the ancient cultures of the Nile Valley. But the disciplinary history, as it is currently written, incorrectly excludes those voices. Conversations between Black scholars and writers and white Egyptologists in the early 20th century must be recognized as part of the formation of the discipline in the United States and integral to its future.
A talk given at the Archaeological Institute of America, Kentucky chapter, March 2021
Repositioning Egyptologies: Conversations on Representations of North African Pasts in Art Histor... more Repositioning Egyptologies: Conversations on Representations of North African Pasts in Art History and Museums with Solange Ashby, Vanessa Davies, Lisa Saladino Haney and Elizabeth Minor, hosted by Dr. Jennifer Miyuki Babcock and Dr. Alexander Nagel. A collaboration supported by ARCE-NY and the FIT Art History Department.
The Solar Shrine (Burning Man 2020)
This video is a virtual discourse on how contemporary art has... more The Solar Shrine (Burning Man 2020) This video is a virtual discourse on how contemporary art has been influenced by the cultures of Ancient Egypt and Nubia. Antwane Lee moderates a conversation with Dr. Vanessa Davies and artist and filmmaker Michael Anthony Brown. Vanessa is an Egyptologist and writer who received her Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago. Michael attended Howard University for his graduate studies where he currently teaches.
THE KULTURE SHOW W/ KULU PRESENTS...
"WHEN KEMET BECAME EGYPT"
Call in: 1-516-387-1545
June 21,... more THE KULTURE SHOW W/ KULU PRESENTS...
"WHEN KEMET BECAME EGYPT"
Call in: 1-516-387-1545 June 21, 2020 THE KULTURE SHOW W/ KULU "Exclusive Interview with Egyptologist, Vanessa Davies" Part 1: Q&A on I, Black Pharaoh Novel & Black History (Open Discussion) Part 2: Interview with Egyptologist, Vanessa Davies Part 3: Should Ancient Black History be taught in schools? The state of the World. Part 4: Hatshepsut the Queen who became Pharaoh (open discussion)
Join me this Tuesday May 19, 2020 (5PM Eastern Time) as we welcome Dr. Vanessa Davies, Egyptologi... more Join me this Tuesday May 19, 2020 (5PM Eastern Time) as we welcome Dr. Vanessa Davies, Egyptologist and Associate director for Institutional & Research Grants at Bryn Mawr College. We will discuss her work in ancient Egyptian epigraphy and paleography, her research on the intellectual contributions of scholars of African descent to Egyptology, as well as the relationship between W.E.B. Dubois and Williams Flinders Petrie in the early 20th century. This is definitely an event not to miss. Please like, share, and keep the conversation going. And don't forget to subscribe to the channel.
Short video accompanying the exhibition Ancient Nubia Now at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Oct... more Short video accompanying the exhibition Ancient Nubia Now at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, October 2019-January 2020
American Research Center in Egypt annual meeting
April 13, 2019
Washington DC
In the past de... more American Research Center in Egypt annual meeting April 13, 2019 Washington DC In the past decade, the field of Egyptology has increasingly turned its attention to our disciplinary history. Absent from recently published collected volumes and overarching narratives is any attention to people of African descent in North America. When the discipline of Egyptology was being established in the United States, black scholars and writers and white Egyptologists who held university posts engaged with one another over matters related to Egypt, ancient and modern. These conversations form a fascinating and overlooked part of Egyptology's history. Bringing them to the fore contributes to a fuller, richer picture of the intellectual issues that early university Egyptologists grappled with. This talk will give an overview of five conversations that took place between 1900 and 1925. The people of color who have participated in our discipline's history include Pauline Hopkins, W. E. B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, Marcus and Amy Jacques Garvey, and Alain Locke. Prior to 1900, intellectuals such as Frederick Douglass and David Walker argued against racist, exclusionary views and used ancient Egyptian and Nubian cultures to argue for the humanity of black people at a time when others argued that Africa and people of African descent had no history. Hopkins, Du Bois, and the Garveys took that argument one step further. They engaged with the young university discipline of Egyptology, marshalling scholarly evidence of the glorious past of the Nile River Valley to construct an African history in order to inspire black people in the Americas to understand their existence as valuable.
Friday, January 5, 2019
1:45pm
Egyptologists no longer believe that people of a white European ra... more Friday, January 5, 2019 1:45pm Egyptologists no longer believe that people of a white European race invaded the Nile River Valley in antiquity, bringing with them the building blocks of the region’s famed material culture. But in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many, in fact, did believe this narrative, including the man who devised the basic principles of archaeology in Egypt, W. M. Flinders Petrie. Petrie used artistic conventions, skull measurements, and changes in the pottery sequence as his evidence for this race’s presence in Egypt during the predynastic era.
In the summer of 2017, a scientific article that garnered attention in the popular press made a similar argument: that the ancient Egyptians shared more DNA with Middle Easterners than do modern Egyptians, who have more DNA from sub-Saharan Africa. The dangerous implications of such an argument could lead us down the exclusionary, unscientific paths that have already been trodden.
Egyptian archaeologists’ counterarguments to Petrie’s “Dynastic Race” theory are well documented, but the contributions of scholars of African descent who worked outside of formal Egyptological circles have been lost to the field. This talk highlights three sets of contributions by black intellectuals who used the archaeology of Egypt and Nubia to construct an alternative framework for understanding ancient African history.
Intellectuals including Pauline Hopkins, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Marcus and Amy Jacques Garvey did not just argue against racist, exclusionary views. They also used ancient Egyptian and Nubian cultures to argue for the humanity of black people, and they marshalled the evidence of the glorious past of the Nile River Valley to construct an African history in order to inspire black people in the Americas to understand their existence as valuable.
See URL for an audio recording of the talk.
Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins
University... more See URL for an audio recording of the talk.
Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins University of Pennsylvania September 13, 2018
In its formative stages, the academic discipline of Egyptology was rooted in Biblical studies. In the English-speaking world, the study of ancient Egypt was of great interest because of its role in Biblical narrative, and many early Egyptologists had interests and training in the textual and archaeological study of the Biblical world.
Black Americans of the nineteenth century, such as David Walker and Frederick Douglass, used the backdrop of the Bible, sometimes in conjunction with a discussion of science, to link modern Africans with the ancient culture of Egypt. At the turn of the twentieth century, as the discipline of Egyptology was being established in US universities, that tradition was continued by Pauline Hopkins who engaged with ancient and contemporary historians, often from a Biblical perspective, to argue for connections between ancient Egypt and modern Africans.
In this seminar, we will discuss three chapters from Pauline Hopkins' serialized novel Of One Blood (1902-1903). Through close reading, we will compare her text with her sources, looking at similarities and at those places where her writing differs from her sources.
I believe that Pauline Hopkins consciously used her chosen genre of fiction to write a work of scholarly argumentation. She marshalled historical sources of her day to argue that black people in Africa and in America were the heirs of a long culturally rich historical tradition based at Meroe that was connected with ancient Egypt and with the Bible.
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Montclair State University
This talk addresses the question of why Rams... more Wednesday, March 29, 2017 Montclair State University This talk addresses the question of why Ramses II concluded a peace treaty with the Hittite king Hattušili III 16 years after a major battle between Egyptian and Hittite forces (c. 1257 BCE). To answer this question, we will explore the meaning of the “peace,” or hetep, that the treaty established.
Our study of this word will take us on an artistic adventure, as we look at images of “offering” (also hetep) found in temples and tombs and consider the symbolism of those images. Focusing on the visual play between the word hetep (“offerings”) and the image of offering, this talk will show that the purpose of the offering ritual and the symbolic meaning of the offering scene was to provide the recipient not with physical items, but with recognition by and interaction with the living.
This interpretation then informs our understanding of why Ramses established hetep (“peace”) in the absence of war and why the hieroglyphic version of the peace treaty contains a preamble not found in the Hittites’ version of the treaty.
Thursday, March 30, 2017, 6:00pm
Penn Museum
Three prominent writers of the early twentieth centu... more Thursday, March 30, 2017, 6:00pm Penn Museum Three prominent writers of the early twentieth century—W. E. B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, and Pauline Hopkins—incorporated ancient Egyptian culture into their writings. Attacking a common theory of their day, DuBois and Garvey used ancient Egyptian culture to argue for the humanity of people of African descent, marshaling evidence of Egypt’s glorious past to inspire people of African descent in the Americas with feelings of hope and self-worth. They also engaged with the contemporary work of prominent archaeologists, a fact lost in most histories of Egyptology. Hopkins’ novel Of One Blood places the reality of the racial discrimination and the racial “passing” of her day against the backdrop of ancient Egypt. Like Du Bois, she advocates for the education of black Americans, and like Garvey, she constructs an African safe haven for her novel’s protagonist. Understanding these three writers’ treatments of ancient Egypt, Davies argues, provides a richer perspective on the history of the discipline of Egyptology.
For a video of the talk, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAh6cLVds3w
For a one-minute synops... more For a video of the talk, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAh6cLVds3w For a one-minute synopsis, see: https://youtu.be/W5jkcqWfRg0 Tuesday, March 28, 2017, 6:00pm Presented by Harvard Semitic Museum with support from the Marcella Tilles Memorial Fund Recently discovered correspondence from the early twentieth century has shed light on a disagreement between W. E. B. Du Bois and the man who developed Egyptian archaeology as a scientific discipline, W. M. F. Petrie. Their letters focused on the education of people of African descent in America and of Egyptians in Egypt and highlighted the widely divergent views and educational backgrounds of the two men. Vanessa Davies will discuss how issues raised in the Du Bois/Petrie correspondence relate to contemporary concerns about the purpose of education in the twenty-first century.
Images in Egyptian tombs depict the deceased seated before a table loaded with food items. Often... more Images in Egyptian tombs depict the deceased seated before a table loaded with food items. Often, one or more living individuals stand opposite the deceased, proffering more food goods. Archaeological evidence indicates that food actually was presented to the dead in the tomb. What was the purpose in providing food for the dead? Why do texts written in the voice of the deceased ask the living to enact the offering ritual in physical or spoken form? This talk discusses a new interpretation of the offering ritual and the offering scene. Reading the image of the hetep, or “offerings,” as a visual pun, this talk will show that the offering ritual provided the dead not with a food-based nourishment, but rather with recognition and interaction by the living.
Traditionally, the offering scene to the dead has been understood to magically provide sustenance... more Traditionally, the offering scene to the dead has been understood to magically provide sustenance for the deceased’s ka. This argument takes the depiction at face value and does not attribute any symbolic or representative meaning to the artistic motif. Using as a theoretical basis the explanation of over-determination (Überdeterminierung) by V. Angenot (“A Method for Ancient Egyptian Hermeneutics (With Application to the Small Golden Shrine of Tutankhamun),” in: Methodik und Didaktik in der Ägyptologie [München 2011] 262), this paper offers a new interpretation of the offering scene, one that goes beyond the literal and magical. I argue that over-determination describes the use of images of concrete food and drinks, the hetepu or “offerings,” to represent the non-concrete or intangible concept also called hetep, typically translated “contentment, rest, peace.” This hetep is a particular feeling that arises in the context of a relationship founded on properly fulfilled roles. It must be emphasized that the intangible hetep represented by the offering scene is an ideological construct, not a personal sentiment. I will discuss sources that help us reconstruct this ideology, for example, passages in the Pyramid Texts that recount the offering of the eye of Horus to Osiris.
This book presents the results of excavations directed by George A. Reisner and led by Arthur C. Mace. The site of Naga ed-Deir, Egypt, is unusual for its continued use over a long period of time (c. 3500 BCE–650 CE). Burials in N 2000 and N 2500 date to the First Intermediate Period/Middle Kingdom and the Coptic era. In keeping with Reisner’s earlier publications of Naga ed-Deir, this volume presents artifacts in chapter-length studies devoted to a particular object type and includes a burial-by-burial description. The excavators’ original drawings, notes, and photographs are complemented by a contemporary analysis of the objects by experts in their subfields.
Epigraphy and palaeography are ways of recording, analyzing, and interpreting texts and images. T... more Epigraphy and palaeography are ways of recording, analyzing, and interpreting texts and images. This Handbook discusses technical issues about recording text and art and interpretive questions about what we do with those records and why we do it. The Handbook aims to discuss current theories with regard to the cultural setting and material realities in which Egyptian epigraphy was produced; familiarize the reader with epigraphic techniques and practices; and outline and review traditional and emerging techniques and challenges as a guide for future research.
One of the world's oldest treaties provides the backdrop for a new analysis of the Egyptian conce... more One of the world's oldest treaties provides the backdrop for a new analysis of the Egyptian concept of hetep ("peace"). To understand the full range of meaning of hetep, Peace in Ancient Egypt explores battles against Egypt's enemies, royal offerings to deities, and rituals of communing with the dead. Vanessa Davies argues that hetep is the result of action that is just, true, and in accord with right order (maat). Central to the concept of hetep are the issues of rhetoric and community. Beyond detailing the ancient Egyptian concept of hetep, it is hoped that this book will provide a useful framework that can be considered in relation to concepts of peace in other cultures.
Uploads
Papers by Vanessa Davies
Amy Jacques Garvey et Marcus Garvey ont plaidé pour l’africanité des anciennes cultures de la vallée du Nil, en opposition directe avec certains universitaires. Au début du XXe siècle aux États-Unis, des récits incorrects alléguaient que l’Afrique n’avait pas d’histoire. Les Garveys et d’autres intellectuels noirs se sont tournés vers la vallée du Nil pour montrer l’absurdité de cette affirmation. Le panafricanisme du Garveyisme a inspiré la fierté des communautés d’ascendance africaine et les a unies contre les structures coloniales. Le panafricanisme a joué un rôle important dans la conception du président Gamal Abdel Nasser de l’État-nation moderne de l’Égypte. Les érudits égyptiens de divers domaines, y compris les études sur la vallée du Nil, continuent de comprendre l’Égypte ancienne comme faisant partie d’un réseau de cultures africaines.
See: www.vrhdavies.com/_files/ugd/d48351_27f40a3b8cb24efb8806ee2c80ffdd2b.pdf
ANE Today, Vol. VII, No. 6, June 2019
Understanding Du Bois and Hopkins’ treatments of ancient Egypt and ancient Sudan gives us a richer perspective on the history of the discipline of Egyptology in the United States. It also provides important insight into the ramifications of a study of genomes in ancient Egyptian mummies that was published in May 2017 in Nature Communications.
Talks by Vanessa Davies
A talk given at the Archaeological Institute of America, Kentucky chapter, March 2021
A collaboration supported by ARCE-NY and the FIT Art History Department.
This video is a virtual discourse on how contemporary art has been influenced by the cultures of Ancient Egypt and Nubia. Antwane Lee moderates a conversation with Dr. Vanessa Davies and artist and filmmaker Michael Anthony Brown. Vanessa is an Egyptologist and writer who received her Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago. Michael attended Howard University for his graduate studies where he currently teaches.
"WHEN KEMET BECAME EGYPT"
Call in: 1-516-387-1545
June 21, 2020
THE KULTURE SHOW W/ KULU "Exclusive Interview with Egyptologist, Vanessa Davies"
Part 1: Q&A on I, Black Pharaoh Novel & Black History (Open Discussion)
Part 2: Interview with Egyptologist, Vanessa Davies
Part 3: Should Ancient Black History be taught in schools? The state of the World.
Part 4: Hatshepsut the Queen who became Pharaoh (open discussion)
Amy Jacques Garvey et Marcus Garvey ont plaidé pour l’africanité des anciennes cultures de la vallée du Nil, en opposition directe avec certains universitaires. Au début du XXe siècle aux États-Unis, des récits incorrects alléguaient que l’Afrique n’avait pas d’histoire. Les Garveys et d’autres intellectuels noirs se sont tournés vers la vallée du Nil pour montrer l’absurdité de cette affirmation. Le panafricanisme du Garveyisme a inspiré la fierté des communautés d’ascendance africaine et les a unies contre les structures coloniales. Le panafricanisme a joué un rôle important dans la conception du président Gamal Abdel Nasser de l’État-nation moderne de l’Égypte. Les érudits égyptiens de divers domaines, y compris les études sur la vallée du Nil, continuent de comprendre l’Égypte ancienne comme faisant partie d’un réseau de cultures africaines.
See: www.vrhdavies.com/_files/ugd/d48351_27f40a3b8cb24efb8806ee2c80ffdd2b.pdf
ANE Today, Vol. VII, No. 6, June 2019
Understanding Du Bois and Hopkins’ treatments of ancient Egypt and ancient Sudan gives us a richer perspective on the history of the discipline of Egyptology in the United States. It also provides important insight into the ramifications of a study of genomes in ancient Egyptian mummies that was published in May 2017 in Nature Communications.
A talk given at the Archaeological Institute of America, Kentucky chapter, March 2021
A collaboration supported by ARCE-NY and the FIT Art History Department.
This video is a virtual discourse on how contemporary art has been influenced by the cultures of Ancient Egypt and Nubia. Antwane Lee moderates a conversation with Dr. Vanessa Davies and artist and filmmaker Michael Anthony Brown. Vanessa is an Egyptologist and writer who received her Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago. Michael attended Howard University for his graduate studies where he currently teaches.
"WHEN KEMET BECAME EGYPT"
Call in: 1-516-387-1545
June 21, 2020
THE KULTURE SHOW W/ KULU "Exclusive Interview with Egyptologist, Vanessa Davies"
Part 1: Q&A on I, Black Pharaoh Novel & Black History (Open Discussion)
Part 2: Interview with Egyptologist, Vanessa Davies
Part 3: Should Ancient Black History be taught in schools? The state of the World.
Part 4: Hatshepsut the Queen who became Pharaoh (open discussion)
April 13, 2019
Washington DC
In the past decade, the field of Egyptology has increasingly turned its attention to our disciplinary history. Absent from recently published collected volumes and overarching narratives is any attention to people of African descent in North America.
When the discipline of Egyptology was being established in the United States, black scholars and writers and white Egyptologists who held university posts engaged with one another over matters related to Egypt, ancient and modern. These conversations form a fascinating and overlooked part of Egyptology's history. Bringing them to the fore contributes to a fuller, richer picture of the intellectual issues that early university Egyptologists grappled with.
This talk will give an overview of five conversations that took place between 1900 and 1925. The people of color who have participated in our discipline's history include Pauline Hopkins, W. E. B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, Marcus and Amy Jacques Garvey, and Alain Locke. Prior to 1900, intellectuals such as Frederick Douglass and David Walker argued against racist, exclusionary views and used ancient Egyptian and Nubian cultures to argue for the humanity of black people at a time when others argued that Africa and people of African descent had no history. Hopkins, Du Bois, and the Garveys took that argument one step further. They engaged with the young university discipline of Egyptology, marshalling scholarly evidence of the glorious past of the Nile River Valley to construct an African history in order to inspire black people in the Americas to understand their existence as valuable.
1:45pm
Egyptologists no longer believe that people of a white European race invaded the Nile River Valley in antiquity, bringing with them the building blocks of the region’s famed material culture. But in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many, in fact, did believe this narrative, including the man who devised the basic principles of archaeology in Egypt, W. M. Flinders Petrie. Petrie used artistic conventions, skull measurements, and changes in the pottery sequence as his evidence for this race’s presence in Egypt during the predynastic era.
In the summer of 2017, a scientific article that garnered attention in the popular press made a similar argument: that the ancient Egyptians shared more DNA with Middle Easterners than do modern Egyptians, who have more DNA from sub-Saharan Africa. The dangerous implications of such an argument could lead us down the exclusionary, unscientific paths that have already been trodden.
Egyptian archaeologists’ counterarguments to Petrie’s “Dynastic Race” theory are well documented, but the contributions of scholars of African descent who worked outside of formal Egyptological circles have been lost to the field. This talk highlights three sets of contributions by black intellectuals who used the archaeology of Egypt and Nubia to construct an alternative framework for understanding ancient African history.
Intellectuals including Pauline Hopkins, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Marcus and Amy Jacques Garvey did not just argue against racist, exclusionary views. They also used ancient Egyptian and Nubian cultures to argue for the humanity of black people, and they marshalled the evidence of the glorious past of the Nile River Valley to construct an African history in order to inspire black people in the Americas to understand their existence as valuable.
Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins
University of Pennsylvania
September 13, 2018
In its formative stages, the academic discipline of Egyptology was rooted in Biblical studies. In the English-speaking world, the study of ancient Egypt was of great interest because of its role in Biblical narrative, and many early Egyptologists had interests and training in the textual and archaeological study of the Biblical world.
Black Americans of the nineteenth century, such as David Walker and Frederick Douglass, used the backdrop of the Bible, sometimes in conjunction with a discussion of science, to link modern Africans with the ancient culture of Egypt. At the turn of the twentieth century, as the discipline of Egyptology was being established in US universities, that tradition was continued by Pauline Hopkins who engaged with ancient and contemporary historians, often from a Biblical perspective, to argue for connections between ancient Egypt and modern Africans.
In this seminar, we will discuss three chapters from Pauline Hopkins' serialized novel Of One Blood (1902-1903). Through close reading, we will compare her text with her sources, looking at similarities and at those places where her writing differs from her sources.
I believe that Pauline Hopkins consciously used her chosen genre of fiction to write a work of scholarly argumentation. She marshalled historical sources of her day to argue that black people in Africa and in America were the heirs of a long culturally rich historical tradition based at Meroe that was connected with ancient Egypt and with the Bible.
Montclair State University
This talk addresses the question of why Ramses II concluded a peace treaty with the Hittite king Hattušili III 16 years after a major battle between Egyptian and Hittite forces (c. 1257 BCE). To answer this question, we will explore the meaning of the “peace,” or hetep, that the treaty established.
Our study of this word will take us on an artistic adventure, as we look at images of “offering” (also hetep) found in temples and tombs and consider the symbolism of those images. Focusing on the visual play between the word hetep (“offerings”) and the image of offering, this talk will show that the purpose of the offering ritual and the symbolic meaning of the offering scene was to provide the recipient not with physical items, but with recognition by and interaction with the living.
This interpretation then informs our understanding of why Ramses established hetep (“peace”) in the absence of war and why the hieroglyphic version of the peace treaty contains a preamble not found in the Hittites’ version of the treaty.
Penn Museum
Three prominent writers of the early twentieth century—W. E. B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, and Pauline Hopkins—incorporated ancient Egyptian culture into their writings. Attacking a common theory of their day, DuBois and Garvey used ancient Egyptian culture to argue for the humanity of people of African descent, marshaling evidence of Egypt’s glorious past to inspire people of African descent in the Americas with feelings of hope and self-worth. They also engaged with the contemporary work of prominent archaeologists, a fact lost in most histories of Egyptology. Hopkins’ novel Of One Blood places the reality of the racial discrimination and the racial “passing” of her day against the backdrop of ancient Egypt. Like Du Bois, she advocates for the education of black Americans, and like Garvey, she constructs an African safe haven for her novel’s protagonist. Understanding these three writers’ treatments of ancient Egypt, Davies argues, provides a richer perspective on the history of the discipline of Egyptology.
For a one-minute synopsis, see: https://youtu.be/W5jkcqWfRg0
Tuesday, March 28, 2017, 6:00pm
Presented by Harvard Semitic Museum with support from the Marcella Tilles Memorial Fund
Recently discovered correspondence from the early twentieth century has shed light on a disagreement between W. E. B. Du Bois and the man who developed Egyptian archaeology as a scientific discipline, W. M. F. Petrie. Their letters focused on the education of people of African descent in America and of Egyptians in Egypt and highlighted the widely divergent views and educational backgrounds of the two men. Vanessa Davies will discuss how issues raised in the Du Bois/Petrie correspondence relate to contemporary concerns about the purpose of education in the twenty-first century.
Artifacts viewable via Open Context at: https://doi.org/10.6078/M75D8PZX
This book presents the results of excavations directed by George A. Reisner and led by Arthur C. Mace. The site of Naga ed-Deir, Egypt, is unusual for its continued use over a long period of time (c. 3500 BCE–650 CE). Burials in N 2000 and N 2500 date to the First Intermediate Period/Middle Kingdom and the Coptic era. In keeping with Reisner’s earlier publications of Naga ed-Deir, this volume presents artifacts in chapter-length studies devoted to a particular object type and includes a burial-by-burial description. The excavators’ original drawings, notes, and photographs are complemented by a contemporary analysis of the objects by experts in their subfields.