ARCE/NY : Deir el-Ballas and the dawn of the Egyptian empire
With Peter Lacovara and Nicholas R. Brown
Date
Location
Sponsor
Admission
Open to the public
RSVP required
$10 | General admission
FREE | Salmagundi Club and ARCE members
A password is required for ARCE member admission. If you’re eligible, please contact your organization for the password.
About the Event
Deir el-Ballas is probably one of the most important sites in Egyptian history and also one of the least well known. It was the forward capitol of the Theban kings during their drive to expel the Hyksos invaders in the north and reunite the land founding the glorious New Kingdom three thousand, five hundred years ago. Built by king Seqenenre Tao around 1550 B. C., it set the pattern for the later royal cities of the New Kingdom like Malqata and Tell el Amarna.
At its center is a monumental structure known as the North Palace that served as the campaign palace for the Kings Seqenenre, Kamose, and Ahmose in their wars against the Hyksos and Nubian kingdoms. Like the later royal cities, there was a series of houses, including large villas for the royal court, a workmen’s settlement with associated cult chapels, storage magazines, and cemeteries.
The site was first excavated by George Andrew Reisner working for the Hearst Expedition of the University of California, Berkeley in the years 1900-1901, but never published and was long forgotten.
Now Peter Lacovara and Nicholas Brown of the Ancient Egyptian Heritage and Archaeology fund are working to preserve and publish this pivotal spot in the story of Egypt.
Hungry?
Ticketed attendees who would like to stay for drinks and dinner should make dining reservations in advance via our Reservations page with the message “ARCE dinner”.
About the Speaker
Peter Lacovara (B.A. 1976, Boston University; Ph.D. 1993 The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago) is the Director of The Ancient Egyptian Archaeology and Heritage Fund. He was Senior Curator of Ancient Egyptian, Nubian, and Near Eastern Art at the Michael C. Carlos Museum from 1998 to 2014. Previously he served as Assistant Curator in the Department of Ancient Egyptian, Nubian and Near Eastern Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Currently, he is also Consulting Curator for the Egyptian Collection at the Albany Institute of History and Art and Visiting Research Scholar at the American University in Cairo.
His archaeological fieldwork has included excavations at the Valley of the Kings at Thebes, the Palace-City of Amenhotep III at Malqata in Western Thebes, Abydos, Hierakonpolis and at the Giza Plateau, and currently he is directing the survey and restoration of the site of Deir el-Ballas. His publications include studies on Daily Life and Urbanism in Ancient Egypt, Egyptian Mortuary Traditions, and the Material Culture of Ancient Egypt and Nubia.
Nicholas R. Brown did his undergraduate work at UC Santa Barbara, and later he earned his MA degree in Egyptology from the American University in Cairo in 2016, and his PhD degree from UCLA in 2024. He has extensive excavation experience in Aswan (at Elephantine Island and Wadi el-Hudi) as well as funerary sites in Luxor, Amarna, and in Sudan. He has also been co-directing the work at Deir el-Ballas and is Professor of Egyptology at Iowa State University.
