Egyptologist Stuart Tyson Smith Will Visit U of M for Two Lectures

For release: November 2, 2009
For press information, contact Gabrielle Maxey (901) 678-2843

Celebrated Egyptologist Stuart Tyson Smith will visit the University of Memphis for two very different lectures. The first lecture, sponsored by the Institute of Egyptian Art and Archaeology (IEAA) and the Department of  History, will be the fourth annual William J. Murnane Memorial Lecture on Friday, November 13, at 7 p.m. in the Manning Hall Auditorium. A reception will precede the lecture at 6:30 p.m. in the Manning Hall lobby.

For the second lecture, Smith, who served as a consultant on ancient Egyptian language and culture for the movies Stargate, The Mummy, and The Mummy Returns, will share his behind-the-scenes Hollywood stories in “Secrets of the Stargate” on Sunday, November 15, at 2 p.m. in the Manning Hall Auditorium. This lecture is presented by the Egyptology Graduate Student Association and Student Activities Funds. Both events are free and open to the public.

In the Murnane lecture, Smith, a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, will present “Revenge of the Kushites! Egyptianization, Cultural Entanglements, and the Emergence of the Nubian Pharaohs,” an illustrated lecture focusing on his archaeological research along the Sudanese Nile. His research centers on the civilizations of ancient Egypt and Nubia in the Sudan. He recently conducted excavations in Sudan as part of an international rescue effort to salvage archaeological remains threatened by the new Khartoum dam on the Nile River. Smith is especially interested in imperialism and cultural contact between Egypt and its southern neighbors. He has worked on several archaeological expeditions to Egypt, including the Nile Delta, Middle Egypt, and Luxor’s Theban necropolis.

For more information, contact the IEAA at (901) 678-2555.