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Institute of Egyptian Art and Archaeology

Joshua A. Roberson, Ph.D.

Joshua Roberson

Associate Professor of Art History
Assistant Director

Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania
Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, 2007


Address:
Department of Art and Design
University of Memphis
202 Art & Communication Bldg.
Memphis, TN 38152-3140

E-mail:
Joshua.Roberson@Memphis.edu

Telephone:
901.678.3895

Dr. Roberson is Associate Professor of Art History in the Department of Art and Design and a member of the Institute of Egyptian Art & Archaeology at the University of Memphis. He teaches Egyptian language and offers courses on ancient Egyptian literature, history and archaeology.

RESEARCH INTERESTS:

Egyptian language and religion; cosmology, cosmography, and mortuary literature; cryptography; seals and seal impressions; digital epigraphy; and 3D modelling of objects and spaces.

PUBLICATIONS:

Monographs and other books:

  • A Teaching Grammar of Middle Egyptian. Atlanta: Lockwood press, 2025.
  • Ancient Egypt—New technology, co-edited with Rita Lucarellia and Steve Vinson. Harvard Egyptological Studies 17. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2023.
  • Lexicon of Ancient Egyptian Cryptography of the New Kingdom, Enigmatic Writing in the Egyptian New Kingdom vol. 2, Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde Beiheft 12, 2. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020.
  • Ramesside Inscriptions: Historical and Biographical, vol. IX. Wallasey, UK, Abercromby Press, 2018.
  • The Awakening of Osiris and the Transit of the Solar Barques: Royal Apotheosis in a Most Concise Book of the Underworld and Sky. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis vol. 262. Freibourg, Vandehoeck & Rupprech, 2013.
  • The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Earth. Brown University, Wilbour Studies in Egypt and Ancient Western Asia vol. 1.  Atlanta, Lockwood Press, 2012.
  • "The seal impressions."  In Guillaume Charloux, Raphaël Angevin, Sylvia Marchand, Hervé Monchot, Agnès Oboussier, Joshua Roberson, and Hélène Virenque, Le parvis du temple d'Opet à Karnak. Exploration archéologique (2006–2007), Travaux du Centre franco-égyptien d'étude des temples de Karnak, Bibliothèque générale 41 (Cairo 2012), 125-144.


Select Articles:

  • “Syntactic and Modal Markers (“Particles”) in the Texts of the Shabaqo Stone,” in Brian Muhs and Foy Scalf, eds., A Master of Secrets in the Chamber of Darkness: Egyptological Studies in Honor of Robert K. Ritner, Presented on the Occasion of His 68th Birthday, Studies in Ancient Cultures 3 (Chicago: University press, 2024), 261–276.
  • “The Iconicity of the Vertical in Egyptian Cosmological (Con-)Texts,” in Ilona Zsolnay, ed., Seen Not Heard: Composition, Iconicity, and the Classifier Systems of Logosyllabic Scripts, Oriental Institute Seminars 14 (Chicago: Oriental Institute, 2023), 31–62.
  • “The ‘Jackal Hymn of the West’ in the Book of the Night,” in A. Stauder and D. Klotz, eds., Enigmatic Writing in the Egyptian New Kingdom. Revealing, Transforming, and Display in Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde Beiheft 12, 1 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020), 149–194.
  • “A Brief Excursus on the Mechanisms of Cryptographic Sign Substitution,” in A. Stauder and D. Klotz, eds., Enigmatic Writing in the Egyptian New Kingdom. Revealing, Transforming, and Display in Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde Beiheft 12, 1 (Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter, 2020), 141–148.
  • “Whose Error Anyway? Epigraphic and Orthographic Variation in a Book of the Earth as Evidence for Multiple Master Documents in the Sarcophagus Chamber of Ramesses VI,” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 55 (2019): 161–171.
  • “Tête-à-tête: Some Observations and Counter-Arguments Regarding a Contentious Phonological Value,” Lingua Aegyptia 26 (2018): 185–202.
  • "Chapter 21: The Royal Funerary Books." In K. Weeks and R. Wilkinson (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Valley of the Kings (Oxford 2016, in press).
  • "A New Nautical Idiom for Hoisting Sails (in the Underworld)?" In Göttinger Miszellen, 233 (2012), 43–50
  • "The Trampled Foe: Two New Examples of a Rare Amuletic Form." In Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 96 (2010), 219–222.
  • "Observations on the so-called 'sw sḏm=f,' or Middle Egyptian Proclitic Pronoun Construction." In Z. Hawass and J. Wegner (eds.), Millions of Jubilees: Studies in Honor of David P. Silverman (SASAE 39, vol. 2, Cairo 2010), 185–205.
  • "A Solar Litany from the Tomb of Ramesses IX" In Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, 45 (2009), 227–232.
  • "Inside or at Home? An Observation on Syntax in the Serpent's Prophesy, Shipwrecked Sailor 167–69." In Göttinger Miszellen, 222 (2009), 51–55.
  • "The Early History of "New Kingdom" Netherworld Iconography: A Late Middle Kingdom Apotropaic Wand Reconsidered." In D.P. Silverman, W.K. Simpson, and J. Wegner (eds.), Archaism and Innovation: Studies in the Culture of Middle Kingdom Egypt (New Haven 2009), 427–445
  • "The Rebirth of the Sun: Mortuary Art and Architecture in the Royal Tombs of New Kingdom Egypt." In Expedition, 50/2 (2008), 14–25.
  • "An Enigmatic Wall from the Cenotaph of Seti I at Abydos." In Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, 43 (2007), 93–112.


Field Projects:

  • Since 2014, Dr. Roberson has served as the seal-impressions analyst for the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo (DAIK) expedition Lebenswirklichkeiten - Eine Synthese von Archäologie und Naturwissenschaften ("Realities of Life - A Synthesis of Archaeology and the Natural Sciences"), at Elephantine Island in Aswan, Egypt.