CONFERENCES AT THE MARQ

DAY: 15 /06 / 2010
VENUE: MARQ ASSEMBLY HALL
TIME : 19:00H
                                         

Death in the village: The population of the Kharga oasis during the Greco-Roman period.

1st lecture: Omnipresence of traditional religion (F. Dunand)
Lecture 2: What we learn from the living through the dead (R. Lichtenberg)

It was thought that the rite of mummification in Egypt was reserved exclusively for the pharaohs and their noble and select entourage. This was the case for a long time, but in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods the situation changed. Archaeological exploration of the villages of the Kharga oasis shows that the majority of the population enjoyed more or less elaborate and exclusive care for the body. Traditional funerary practices and beliefs were still alive at this time, as evidenced by the tomb furnishings. The study of human remains in situ gives us a fairly clear idea of the life of the inhabitants of these settlements and allows us to carry out a genuine palaeoethnology.

 

 

                                         

                                                                                              Françoise Dunand   

University Professor.
Professor emeritus of history of religions at the University of Strasbourg.
He has been a member of the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology in Cairo.
She has worked and been involved for 30 years in the ancient necropolis of the Kharga oasis.

                                                                                              Roger Lichtenberg  

Doctor of Medicine. Radiologist.
He has been head of the Radiology Section at the Arthur Vernes Institute in Paris.
He participated in the study of the mummy of Ramses II during his stay in Paris in 1976.
He has worked on various archaeological excavations in Egypt (Saqqara, Tebitnis, Deir el-Medina).
He has been working for 30 years with Françoise Dunand on the necropolis of the Kharga oasis.