ARCE-PA Symposium

Live Streaming Option Available

This symposium on the archaeology of Abydos will honor Dr. David B. O’Connor, the Penn Museum curator who started the Pennsylvania-Yale Expedition to Abydos. From the 1960s to the –1990s, his research at Abydos focused on it’s the cemeteries and temples of North Abydos, associated with the cult of the Egyptian funerary god Osiris. Over the course of his later career, both at Penn and then at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts, O’Connor continued to be a leader and an advocate of the intensive archaeological activity at Abydos.

Recent archaeological research has uncovered more secrets from ancient Egypt, including, the mortuary landscape of the Middle Kingdom, the royal funerary complexes of Kings Senwosret III and Ahmose at South Abydos, and the memorial temples of Kings Thutmose III and Ramses II. To examine these rich developments, O’Connor published Abydos: Egypt’s First Pharaohs and the Cult of Osiris in 2009.

With the continued sponsorship of the Penn Museum, the Institute of Fine Arts, and the University of Michigan, the Abydos and Egypt program has grown and prospered, building on the foundation of the pioneering of O’Connor. The symposium will include speakers Dr. Matthew D. Adams, Dr. Janet Richards, Dr. Josef Wegner, Dr. Stephen Harvey, Dr. Michelle Marlar, Dr. Sameh Iskander, and Dr. Diana Craig Patch. There will also be a video shown with short presentations by several of David O'Connor's Egyptian colleagues from Abydos.