Ancient Egypt is often seen as a monolithic entity, something that sprang into being around 3000 BC and then remained virtually unchanged for several millennia. In the popular imagination, Egypt is the land of gold masks and pyramids. And surely, we know all that there is to know about ancient Egypt, don’t we?

In this fourth episode of the podcast, we try to show that ancient Egypt was every bit as dynamic as any other region of the world (ancient or modern), with plenty of change over time and a large amount of regional variation. Furthermore, modern research looks beyond the eye-catching treasures and massive monuments to better understand what made ancient Egyptian society tick. Host Josho Brouwers is joined by two Italian researchers who are both writing their PhD theses at Leiden University, Renata Schiavo and Arianna Sacco.

In the episode, Renata references an article by J. Moreno García, “The cursed discipline? The peculiarities of Egyptology at the turn of the twenty-first century”, in: W. Carruthers (ed.), Histories of Egyptology: Interdisciplinary Measures (2014), pp. 50-63. The article is available for download on the author’s Academia profile.

This episode is also available on YouTube.