Colleen Darnell

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Colleen Darnell (/dɑːrˈnɛl/; née Manassa; born 1980) is an American Egyptologist. Her areas of expertise include Late Period uses of the Underworld Books, ancient Egyptian military history, the literature of New Kingdom Egypt, and Egyptian revival history.

Her research in Egyptian military history has led to the first recreation of the tactics of the Battle of Perire, c. 1208 BCE and one source says that her study The Great Karnak Inscription of Merneptah "replaces all other earlier studies of the key historical narratives relating Merneptah's war against the Libyans."^[1] Her research on the military role that Tutankhamun might have taken on as pharaoh of Egypt contributed to Tutankhamun's Armies: Battle and Conquest in Ancient Egypt's Late Eighteenth Dynasty (co-authored with John Darnell) and was featured in the historical section of the documentary "King Tut Unwrapped."^[2]

In Egypt, she has made several important archaeological discoveries as the director of the Moalla Survey Project, an ongoing archaeological project.^[3]

Biography[]

Darnell studied for her undergraduate and postgraduate degrees at Yale, gaining her PhD in 2005. In 2006 she was appointed assistant professor and director of undergraduate studies.^[4] Darnell was promoted to associate professor in 2010.^[5] She had married John Darnell and left Yale by 2015 after allegations emerged that she and Darnell had engaged in a long-running affair, beginning when she was a student under Darnell's supervision.^[6] She was listed as visiting professor of art history at the University of Hartford in 2015.^[7] In 2017, Darnell launched an Instagram account with the username 'Vintage Egyptologist' which, as of 2021, has almost 200,000 followers, the highest following of any egyptologist on the platform. With few Egyptian workers appearing in the pictures, the account was included in a critique by fellow egyptologists of 'scholars who know these problematic histories choose to engage in the aesthetics of colonialism.' ^[8]

Archaeological work[]

In 2008, Darnell created the Moalla Survey Project, an archaeological survey expedition in Egypt (under the auspices of the Egyptian Ministry of State for Antiquities) that has discovered several important new sites on the east bank of the Nile approximately 45 south of Luxor, ranging in date from the late Predynastic period through the late Roman period.^[3] In 2010, she discovered an extensive late Roman settlement with over a hundred distinct structures. Within the necropolis of Moalla, the Moalla Survey Project also discovered a Nubian Pan Grave cemetery (ca. 1600 BCE).^[9] In 2010, Darnell presented the first identification of Nubian (Pan Grave) pottery manufactured at the site of Umm Mawagir in Kharga Oasis.^[10]

Museum work[]

As curator of "Echoes of Egypt: Conjuring the Land of the Pharaohs," Darnell assembled nearly one hundred objects ranging from ancient Egyptian objects to pieces that span two millennia of fascination with ancient Egypt.^[11] Critics have described the exhibition as “an ambitious... landmark exhibition”^[12] with “careful curation."^[13] The exhibition is accompanied by print catalog and online catalogs,^[14] and includes a driving tour of Connecticut Egyptian revival buildings.^[15] The online tour of the exhibit makes "Echoes of Egypt" one of the first internationally available online exhibits.^[16]

Books[]

• 2018 The Ancient Egyptian Netherworld Books^[17]
• 2013 Imagining the Past: Historical Fiction in New Kingdom Egypt, Oxford: Oxford University Press
• 2013 Echoes of Egypt: Conjuring the Land of the Pharaohs, New Haven: Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History.
• 2007 The Late Egyptian Underworld: Sarcophagi and Related Texts from the Nectanebid Period, 2 vols., Ägypten und Altes Testament 72, Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. Winner of the Samuel and Ronnie Heyman Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Publication, 2008.
• 2007 Tutankhamun's Armies: Battle and Conquest during Ancient Egypt's Late Eighteenth Dynasty, Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons (co-authored with J. Darnell)
• 2003 The Great Karnak Inscription of Merneptah: Grand Strategy in the 13th Century B.C., Yale Egyptological Studies 5, New Haven: Yale Egyptological Seminar. Winner of the Samuel and Ronnie Heyman Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Publication, 2008

References[]

Further reading[]

• Blouin, Katherine; Hanna, Monica; Bond, Sarah E. (22 October 2020). "How Academics, Egyptologists, and Even Melania Trump Benefit From Colonialist Cosplay". Hyperallergic.