Supporting the next generation

Thanks to the support of the British Council, in September 2022 the Egypt Exploration Society will welcome four promising early career Egyptian scholars to enhance their professional skills in a month-long work placement.

The four scholars were selected following an Egyptological Archives Skills School held in Cairo in June 2022. During this School, ten scholars received training in the management of archive collections and ways in which diverse audiences might be engaged with stories of Egyptian cultural heritage held within them. Following an assessment based on artefacts displayed in the Egyptian Museum Cairo, four scholars were selected to visit the EES in London.

The four successful scholars are: 

Ahmed Mansour is Director of the Writing and Scripts Centre at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. He holds two MA degrees: Turin (2010) and Alexandria University (2011) before achieving his PhD from the latter in 2016 on the subject of ‘Metalworking Scenes in the Old and Middle Kingdoms’. His current research focuses on the archives of Ahmed Kamal Pasha and the Bulaq Press which are now held in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. 

Mostafa Tolba is an Assistant at the Archive Department of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo. He has studied at Cairo University (2016) and is currently based there and the University of Cologne where his studies focus on ‘Plant Iconography in the Tomb of Sennedjem (TT1) at Deir el-Medina: Archaeobotanical Study’. He has previously worked on the archives of Selim Hassan and is currently involved in fieldwork at the sites of Saqqara and Zawyet Sultan.

Noura Seada is an Assistant Lecturer of Tourism Guidance and Egyptology at October 6 University in Cairo. She received her BA in Tourism Guidance and earned her MA in Egyptology from Helwan University, with a dissertation entitled ‘A Study on the Animal Welfare in Ancient Egypt’. She is currently a doctoral candidate in Helwan University and is particularly interested in archival data management and the impact of archives on international culture exchange.

Zeinab Mahmoud is responsible for research, scientific publishing, and libraries at the Grand Egyptian Museum and is interested in showcasing how research, archives, and publishing can be used as sustainable development tools and to clarify how research and collections within Egyptian museums can be presented to non-academic audiences. She holds a BA (1999), MA (2009), and PhD (2017) from Cairo University before broadening her professional skills by undertaking an MA in Museology at Helwan University (2022).

During their stay in the UK, the scholars will implement the skills learned in Cairo to create educational resources using archives at the EES and artefacts on display in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology (UCL). These resources will cover topics highlighted by the EES Schools Network such as: Daily life in ancient Egypt, Art and architecture of ancient Egypt, Religion and kingship in ancient Egypt, and The discovery of ancient Egypt. The scholars will visit institutions across London as well as Liverpool, Oxford, and Manchester and network with scholars based in the UK to exchange ideas. This transfer of knowledge will promote greater collaboration between UK collections and the teaching of Egyptian heritage in Egypt itself. The personal experience and expertise of the scholars is crucial to this project and we look forward to exploring the subjects together with them.

The Egypt Exploration Society would like to thank the British Council for supporting this programme on the centenary of the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb, led by British archaeologist, Howard Carter, in 1922. This shared commitment to invest in the scholars of the future will ensure discoveries of the future, in archaeology as well as collections of Egyptian heritage all over the world.