Manchester Study Day: Egypt under The Ramesside Kings
Event Info
Host: EES
Type: Education - Lecture
Time and Place
Start Time: Saturday, 29th October 2011, 1:00 pm
End Time: Saturday, 29th October 2011, 7:30 pm
Location: Manchester Conference Centre/Days Inn Hotel, Weston Building
Street: Sackville Street
City/Town: Manchester
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Contact Details
Email: contact@ees.ac.uk
Phone: 02072422268
Link:
Description
This event follows the successful study day held in Manchester in October 2010.
For some, the period of the Nineteenth Dynasty was perhaps the most glorious in Egypt's history. This was the age of Sety I and his son Ramesses II - 'Ramesses the great' - builders of some of the most spectacular monuments ever constructed, and great military campaigners who created the biggest and most powerful Empire there had ever been, with Egypt at its centre. Ramesses II's immensely long reign and legacy of greatness cast a long shadow, giving his successors a lot to live up to. While some achieved greatness themselves, by the time of the last of the rulers named Ramesses - Ramesses XI - the empire had shrunk, Pharaoh's power had weakened, and the country was eventually split in two. This day of lectures by internationally renowned experts on the period will draw attention to the major features of the period and help to show how, over the course of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties - the Ramesside Period - Egypt rose to a great peak of power and influence, and then fell into decline.
13.00 Dr Karen Exell, Welcome
13.10 Dr Morris Bierbrier, How to Become a Pharaoh. Or Not...
14.10 Dr Aidan Dodson The Ramesside Way of Death
15.10 Tea / Coffee
15.40 Professor Kenneth Kitchen, War, Peace and Cultures: the Ramessides in Western Asia, an overview
16.40 Discussion and closing remarks
17.00 Wine Reception
Dr Morris Bierbrier is a former Assistant Keeper in the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan, the British Musuem, and the Editor of Who Was Who in Egyptology. Royal dynasties followed each other throughout the course of Egyptian history but the mechanics of succession within and without these dynasties are poorly understood. During the Ramesside period, an attempt was made to regulate the succession to provide for a clear transmission of power but this plan soon foundered in civil war and assassination. Ramesses II, the man not born to be king, determined to create a strong and stable dynasty, setting the example for future monarchs as a ruler but failing to ensure the permanent rule of his own descendants.
Dr Aidan Dodson is an EES Trustee, Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Archaeology & Anthropology at the University of Bristol, and author of Poisoned Legacy: The Fall of the Nineteenth Egyptian Dynasty. The Ramesside Period saw major changes in the design and decoration of Egyptian tombs. This lecture will explore some of these and place the tombs in their historical and architectural context.
Professor Kenneth Kitchen is Emeritus Professor in the School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, University of Liverpool. With varying dominance in Canaan and the Levant, Egypt's 'imperial' involvement ran on from Sety I through to Ramesses III (c. 1290- 1180), then it shrank, down to the death of Ramesses XI (c.1070). Professor Kitchen will look at the ebb and flow of Egypto-Hittite military rivalry, and the less-known sidelights under Merenptah and Ramesses III. Leaving conflicts aside, cultural interconnections witness to more peaceful engagements on all sides.
All proceeds from ticket sales go towards the continuation of the Society's work in Egypt and the UK.