I am an Egyptologist, author and educator. My scholarship focuses on translations of ancient hieroglyphic and hieratic texts. Through my publications, lectures, and Instagram account, I bring the rich history and culture of ancient Egypt to world-wide audiences.
Photograph by Ahmed Othman
I am the author of six books and dozens of articles and book chapters. In addition to continuing my academic career (beginning with my PhD in Egyptology from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Yale University in 2005), I am committed to bringing ancient Egypt—its history, religion, art, and language—to a world-wide audience through lectures, Zoom classes, articles in popular journals, and my Instagram accounts @vintage_egyptologist and @howtoreadhieroglyphs. I am a regular contributor to documentaries, especially Nat Geo’s “Lost Treasures of Egypt” (streaming on Disney+). My passion for vintage fashion and modeling has led to exciting collaborations with Egypt’s premier jewelry designer Azza Fahmy, famous Cairo-based photographers and videographers, and Egypt’s top magazine for women’s empowerment What Women Want.
Photograph by Nina Galicheva
Wearing Jewelry by Azza Fahmy
Photograph by Rose Callahan
My research and publications focus on ancient Egyptian religion, literature, and military history. My most recent book is Egypt’s Golden Couple: When Akhenaten and Nefertiti Were Gods on Earth (St. Martins Press, 2022), co-authored with my husband, John Coleman Darnell, Professor of Egyptology at Yale University. In Imagining the Past: Historical Fiction in New Kingdom Egypt (Oxford University Press, 2013), I published the first study to bring together four works of ancient Egyptian historical fiction, stories (preserved in hieratic script on papyri) that are mostly set between 1550 and 1450 BCE, but composed two centuries later. My publications have contributed to topics as diverse as Old Kingdom epistolography, Middle Kingdom ostraca, New Kingdom military and religion, Graeco-Roman tourism, the archaeology of the third Upper Egyptian nome, and ancient soundscapes.
I have lectured around the world on topics related to my publications, my work in Egypt, and my interest in historic and vintage fashion. In April 2023, I delivered the Lynda Thomas Distinguished Lecture at the Bowers Museum (Santa Ana, California), “Five Thousand Years of Ancient Egyptian Fashion.” I taught at Yale University as the Marilyn M. and William K. Simpson Assistant Professor of Egyptology (2006-2010), and Associate Professor (2010-2015). Currently, I am an Adjunct Professor of Art History at Naugatuck Valley Community College in Waterbury, CT, and I am proud to be a part of this college’s diverse campus.
In 2013, I curated the ground-breaking exhibition at the Yale Peabody Museum entitled "Echoes of Egypt: Conjuring the Land of the Pharaohs,” and served as the editor and primary author of the accompanying catalog. From 2008 to 2015, I directed the Mo’alla Survey Project (MSP) in conjunction with the Ministry of Antiquities, which made several important discoveries including a Pan Grave cemetery, a desert road connecting region south of Mo’alla with other points north and south in the Nile Valley, and an important Late Roman site (ca. 350-650 CE), with over a hundred dry stone structures, and several satellite settlements in the surrounding desert.
I live with my husband, John, and our three basenji dogs, Narmer, Kemi, and Selqet, in Durham, CT.
Photograph by Jennifer Schulten