Oral History Project

In 2017, as a pilot for a series on the Oral History of American Egyptology, we were able to record a video oral history interview with Dr. David O’Connor, who is one of the country’s leading archaeologists and gave a wonderful overview of his more than sixty years of working in Egypt. This sort of documentation is a crucial part of our mission to help preserve the record of our finest colleagues’ work and interpretation to be preserved for future generations. Our project is continuing with more interviews (see below) and has been exclusively funded by private donors to the Ancient Egyptian Heritage and Archaeology Fund.

Dr. Kent R. Weeks is most well known for The American University in Cairo’s Theban Mapping Project–an ambitious plan to systematically record, photograph and map every temple and tomb in the Theban Necropolis. A major discovery made during the project 1995 was in identifying the tomb of the sons of Ramesses II (KV 5) in the Valley of the Kings. He also undertook important fieldwork elsewhere in Egypt, working on the Nubian Salvage Project, and at the sites of Hierakonpolis, Sakkara, Giza, and Mendes.

Dr. Christine Lilyquist is a pioneering curator who transformed the way Egyptological collections are exhibited to the public, created the first blockbuster exhibition, the Treasures of Tutankhamun as well as conducted important archeological fieldwork and material culture studies. She is the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s former head of the Department of Egyptian Art and Lila Acheson Wallace Research Curator in Egyptology and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Visiting Scholar at the Hood Museum at Dartmouth.

Jack Josephson an expert on the art history of the Egyptian Late Period and studied at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University (NYU), under the tutelage of Bernard Bothmer. He authored a catalog of the Late Period Sculpture In the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and was appointed Chairman of the Cultural Property Advisory Committee of the United States by President George H. W. Bush. He also became chairman of the International Foundation for Art Research. He also excavated at the site of Mendes in the Delta and has been working on the recent discoveries of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo at Abydos and the art of Egypt’s earliest dynasties.