Elizabeth Frood

Position:

Associate Professor of Egyptology; Fellow of St Cross; Honorary Fellow of The Queen's College

Faculty / College Address:

Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies / St Cross College

Email:

elizabeth.frood@ames.ox.ac.uk 

 

Research Interests:

  • Ancient Egyptian self-presentation, including biographies, graffiti, and visual culture
  • Sacred space and landscape
  • Social life and experience (including gender, disability)

My research centres on the self-presentation of Egyptian non-royal people, especially of the late New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period (mid-second to early first millennium BCE). This currently encompasses a range of projects: biographical texts of the late New Kingdom; non-royal statues; and graffiti. I also recently presented the BBC4 documentary Tutankhamun in Colour (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000k48q, Also available on YouTube).

My projects on graffiti in the temple of Amun-Re at Karnak are undertaken in collaboration with the Centre Franco-Égyptien d’Étude des Temples de Karnak and co-directed with Chiara Salvador (Montpellier). This work began with the temple of Ptah, in the northern part of the complex, and we are now also working to publish the eighth pylon.

Collaborative Projects

  • Karnak Graffiti Project, co-directed with Chiara Salvador (Montpellier) and in collaboration with the Centre Franco-Égyptien d’Étude des Temples de Karnak (2011–)

1) ‘Graffiti in the Temple of Ptah’: part of the publication of the Ptah temple, under the directorship of Christophe Thiers: http://www.cfeetk.cnrs.fr/accueil/programmes-scientifiques/axe-2-les-secteurs-peripheriques/le-secteur-du-temple-de-ptah/

2) ‘The Eighth Pylon of the Temple of Amun-Re’: co-director with Sébastien Biston-Moulin (2013–): http://www.cfeetk.cnrs.fr/accueil/programmes-scientifiques/axe-1-pouvoir-et-marques-de-pouvoir-a-karnak/axe1-theme5/

This short video introduces our work: 'When is it okay to graffiti a temple?': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ist8xmC-mg&feature=youtu.be

 

Courses Taught:

  • History, culture, and archaeology of Dynastic Egypt
  • Egyptian art and architecture
  • Egyptian artefacts and material culture (classes held in the Ashmolean Museum)
  • Old, Middle, and Late Egyptian language and texts

 

Selected Publications:

Monographs

in preparation. Elizabeth Frood and Chiara Salvador, with contributions by Ahmed Altaher, Claude Traunecker, Julia Troche, Ghislaine Widmer, and Michael Zellmann-Rohrer. The temple of Ptah at Karnak 4. Graffiti. Travaux du CFEETK. Cairo: IFAO.

2007. Biographical texts from Ramessid Egypt. Writings from the Ancient World 26. Atlanta: Society for Biblical Literature.

Edited volumes and resources

Julie Stauder-Porchet, Elizabeth Frood, and Andréas Stauder 2020. Ancient Egyptian Biographies: contexts, forms, functions. Wilbour Studies in Egyptology and Assyriology 6. Lockwood Press.

Chloé Ragazzoli, Ömür Harmansah, Chiara Salvador, and Elizabeth Frood 2018. Scribbling through history. Graffiti, people and places from antiquity to modern times. London: Bloomsbury.

Elizabeth Frood and Rubina Raja (eds.) 2014. Redefining the sacred: religious architecture and text in the Near East and Egypt 1000 BC – AD 300. Contextualising the Sacred 1. Turnhout: Brepols.

Elizabeth Frood and Angela McDonald (eds.) 2013. Decorum and experience: essays on ancient culture for John Baines. Oxford: Griffith Institute.

2006 - 2015. Area editor for "Individual and Society". UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology:  https://escholarship.org/uc/nelc_uee

Articles and chapters

Forthcoming. Minmose the miller: a Ramessid serving statue preparing incense (Berlin AM 24179). Accepted for Bulletin de l'Institut Francais d'Archeologie Orientale 123.

2020. Biographical monuments: displaying selves and lives in ancient Egypt. Pages 463–76 in The Oxford handbook of ancient biography. Edited by Koen de Temmerman. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Elizabeth Frood, Chiara Salvador, and Ellen Jones 2020. Chasing shadows: graffiti in the eighth pylon at Karnak. Egyptian Archaeology 57: 4–9.

Julie Stauder-Porchet, Elizabeth Frood, and Andréas Stauder 2020. Introduction. Pages 1–6 in Julie Stauder-Porchet, Elizabeth Frood, and Andréas Stauder. Ancient Egyptian Biographies: contexts, forms, functions. Wilbour Studies in Assyriology and Egyptology 6. Lockwood Press.

Elizabeth Frood and Christelle Alvarez 2019. A votive Isis-throne for Minmose (Ashmolean Museum AN 1888.561)? Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 105: 17-28.

2019. When statues speak about themselves. Pages 3–20 in Statues in context: production, meaning and (re)uses. Edited by Aurélia Masson-Berghoff. British Museum Publications on Egypt and Sudan 10. Peeters: Leuven.

2018. A beautiful enigma. Review of Tyldesley, Joyce. 2018. Nefertiti's face: creation of an icon. Profile Books. The Spectator: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/a-beautiful-enigma

2016. Role-play and group biography in Ramessid stelae from the Serapeum. Pages 69–87 in Rich and great: studies in honour of Anthony J. Spalinger on the occasion of his 70th feast of Thoth. Edited by Renata Landgráfová and Jana Mynářová. Prague: Czech Institute of Egyptology, Charles University in Prague/Agama.

2013. Egyptian temple graffiti and the gods: appropriation and ritualization in Karnak and Luxor. Pages 285–318 in Heaven on earth: temples, ritual and cosmic symbolism in the ancient world. Edited by Deena Ragavan. Oriental Institute Seminars. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.

Some PDFs are available here: https://oxford.academia.edu/ElizabethFrood

Media

Ongoing: Disability Narratives: https://parking.haiku.fry-it.com/dn

2023: Rituals: our anchors in a changing world. BBC World Service, The Forum https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct38tt

Imaging and reimagining statue bodies in the late New Kingdom. Lecture for the Museo Egizio, Turin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ACEBbS8LzI 

2022: "The contested legacy of an icon": episode 7 of Tutankhamun: Life, Death, and Legacy. BBC HistoryExtra podcast, with Heba Abd el Gawad: https://www.historyextra.com/tag/tutankhamun-podcast-series/ 

2020: Presenter for Tutankhamun in Colour, BBC4: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000k48q

Interview: Ancient Lives, with Dominic Perry. The History of Egypt podcast: https://play.acast.com/s/egyptianhistorypodcast/interview-ancientliveswithprof.elizabethfrood

2019: In Our Time: Tutankhamun, BBC Radio 4, Melvyn Bragg with Christina Riggs and John Taylor: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000cng6

2019: The Merton Equality Conversation: https://vimeo.com/321789463

2019: Interview for The Project NZ, TV 3: https://www.facebook.com/TheProjectNZ/videos/2281439122175384/

2019: Shining a light. 40 years of women at Queen's College, Oxford: https://www.queens.ox.ac.uk/shining-light

2018: Inside Out South BBC1 mini-documentary: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-oxfordshire-45811189/oxford-professor-heads-back-to-egypt-after-losing-legs

2018: Returning to Egypt: http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/arts-blog/returning-egypt-acquired-disability-and-fieldwork

2018: Artistic Licence: 'I was here...in ancient Egypt' by Bethany White: https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/arts-blog/artistic-licence-i-was-here%E2%80%A6-ancient-egypt

2017: Acquired disability and reframing fieldwork. Autonomy, Community, Destiny: Reimagining Disability, TORCH Disability and Curriculum seminar series: http://torch.ox.ac.uk/autonomy-community-destiny-re-imagining-disability

2017: The Gaps Between Installation, TORCH: https://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/article/the-gaps-between-0; https://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/article/hidden-stories

 

Current research students:

Trent Hugler: Reassessing the evidence for the erasure of Hatshepsut's names and images

Paul Docherty (co-supervision with Paul Wordsworth): The places of and for ancient graffiti: https://www.humanities.ox.ac.uk/places-and-ancient-graffiti

Solène Klein: From viscera to Sons of Horus: reassessing canopic practices in the early first millennium BCE. Submitted!

 

Previous Research Students:

Jordan Miller (co-supervision with John Baines): ‘The forms and construction of composite images in ancient Egyptian visual culture’

James Oakley (Classics: co-supervision with Adrian Kelly): ‘The conquered and the conquerors: representations of warfare and combat in Greek and Egyptian literature’

Thais Rocha da Silva (co-supervision with Linda Hulin): ‘Putting people in their place: gender, domestic space and privacy in New Kingdom Egypt’

 

Solène Klein: ‘The protection of the viscera in the early 1st millennium’

 

Julia Hamilton (co-supervision with Richard Parkinson): ‘Beloved of the ka: Personal names in the complex of Mereuka Meri at Saqqara’

 

Chiara Salvador: ‘Repopulating the court of the seventh pylon at Karnak: a study of graffiti in context’

 

Leire Olabarria (co-supervision with John Baines): ‘Materialising kinship, constructing relatedness: kin group display and commemoration in First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom Egypt (ca 2150–1650 BCE)’

Elizabeth Frood