The Nubian Cemeteries at Hierakonpolis: Exploring cultural identity in Middle Kingdom Egypt

A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley in Egyptian Archaeology (MA 1981, PhD 1994), she has worked at many sites throughout Egypt since 1980. As her special interest is the Predynastic, Egypt’s formative period, in 1983 she joined the team working at Hierakonpolis, the largest site of the predynastic period still extant and accessible anywhere in the Nile Valley. She went on to become the co-director with Barbara Adams of the Hierakonpolis Expedition in 1996, and since 2002 has been the sole director, undertaking excavation, conservation, survey and research on various aspects of the desert portion of the site. Currently the Heagy Research Curator  in the Dept. of Ancient Egypt and Sudan at the British Museum, she is the author of many scholarly and popular articles especially about the site of Hierakonpolis and she has edited and co-edited several books including The Followers of Horus. Studies in Memory of Michael Hoffman (Oxford, 1992), Egypt and Nubia: Gifts of the Desert (London, 2002), Egypt at its Origins. Studies in Memory of Barbara Adams (Leuven, 2004), and Egypt at its Origins 3, Proceedings of the Third International Conference ‘Origins of the State. Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt (Leuven, 2011). She also co-authored the popular book Egypt Uncovered (1998, US), Egypt (UK), and helped to produce the associated 5 part television series (Discovery Channel, S4C).