Marina Sartori
Position:
Teaching Associate (academic year 2025-2026)
Faculty / College Address:
Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Pusey Lane, Oxford, OX1 2LE
Email:
Research Interests:
Ancient Egyptian visual culture and art history, hieroglyphic palaeography, especially of polychrome hieroglyphs
Current Projects:
Intermediality in New Kingdom Tombs and Manuscripts; Colour in ancient Egyptian Writing; Layout and visual strategies in the Pyramid Texts; Epigraphic and Artistic Practices in Middle Kingdom Theban Tombs.
Biography
In 2022, I earned my PhD in Egyptology from the University of Basel, where my dissertation examined the visuality of the hieroglyphic script and its interplay with figurative representation in ancient Egyptian texts. As a postdoctoral fellow at Oxford, I have been investigating the palaeography and cultural significance of polychrome hieroglyphs in funerary manuscripts, comparing these with monumental inscriptions. As an epigraphist, I have been active in several archaeological missions, spanning research in Old Kingdom pyramids with the French-Swiss Mission in Saqqara, Middle Kingdom tombs in the Theban necropolis with the Polish Archaeological Mission in North Asasif and in New Kingdom Theban tombs with the Swiss Mission in Sheikh Abd el-Qurna. As a keen communicator, I have been keen to organise academic events, including the Oxford Summer School on Egyptian and Sudanese Art 2024 and Current Research in Egyptology 2024 in Liverpool.
Recent Publications:
- Sartori, M. 2021. "Visual studies in TT84", in A. Loprieno-Gnirs (ed.), Life Histories of Theban Tombs: Transdisciplinary Investigations of a cluster of rock-cut tombs at Sheikh ‘Abd el-Qurna, Cairo, American University in Cairo Press, 91–94.
- Sartori, M. 2022a. "Tombe tebane in dialogo: TT84, TT95 e la rete di committenti", in A. Di Natale and C. Basile (eds), Atti del XIX Convegno die Egittologia e Papirologia, Siracusa, 1-4 ottobre 2020, Quaderni del Museo del Papiro XVIII, Siracuse, tyche, 47–56.
- Sartori, M. 2022b. "Hieratic in the tomb of Ameneminet (TT 277). Epigraphic survey and comparisons among the script typologies present in the tomb", in S. Gülden, T. Konrad, U. Verhoeven (eds), Ägyptologische "Binsen"-Weisheiten IV. Hieratisch des Neuen Reiches: Akteure, Formen und Funktionen, Stuttgart, Franz Steiner Verlag, 455–478.
- Sartori, M. 2022c. "Talking Images. A semiotic and visual analysis of three Eighteenth-Dynasty tombs in Deir el-Medina", in S. Töpfer, P. Del Vesco, F. Poole (eds), Deir el-Medina through the Kaleidoscope. Proceedings of the International Workshop Turin 08th-10th October 2018, Modena, Panini, 651–676. Open access: https://formazioneericerca.museoegizio.it/en/pubblicazioni/deir-el-medina-en/
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Sartori, M. 2023. “Between Freedom and Formality. The visuality of New Kingdom Theban Tombs”, in O. El-Aguizy and B. Kasparian (eds), ICE XII: Proceedings of the Twelfth International Congress of Egyptologists, 3rd – 8th November 2019. Cairo: IFAO, 495–502.
Open access: https://www.ifao.egnet.net/publications/catalogue/?nif=BIGEN071_art_02.pdf&nv=0
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Paksi, J., M. Sartori, and S. Bickel 2025. “Archery-related texts for an unidentified tomb of a royal tutor”, in K. Jasper and B. J. Irsay-Nagy (eds), From the horizon of Thebes: Studies in honour of Tamás A. Bács. Wallasey: Abercromby Press, 210–237.
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C. Bishop, H. Bohun, R. Hutchinson-Wong, J. Rogers, and M. Sartori (eds), Current Research in Egyptology 2024. Archaeopress, 2025. Open access: https://www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress/Products/9781805831136
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M. Sartori, “Not so black and white: Graphic registers and use of colour in New Kingdom manuscripts”, Hieroglyphs 3, forthcoming.
