Join Betsy Bryan, the Alexander Badawy Chair in Egyptian Art and Archaeology for Excavation is Just the Beginning: Twenty Years Investigating the Temple of the Egyptian Goddess Mut at South Karnak as she guides you through the discovery of Temple and the artifacts therein. You'll join Dr. Bryan and a few special guests in weekly lectures that shed light on how the temple was uncovered, and unexpected discovery, and the ways in which these discoveries shape our understanding of Egyptian ritual and culture.

Dr. Betsy M. Bryan is the Alexander Badawy Professor of Egyptian Art and Archaeology and currently Vice Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences at Johns Hopkins University, where she has taught since 1986. Dr. Bryan specializes in the history, art, and archaeology of the New Kingdom in Egypt, ca. 1600-1000 B.C., with a particular emphasis on the 18th Dynasty, ca. 1550-1300 B.C. Dr. Bryan's research interests include the organization and techniques of art production as well as the religious and cultural significance of tomb and temple ritual and decoration. As part of this research she studies the social meaning of painting and sculpture in the 18th Dynasty as well as the interrelationships of religion and crafts.

Since 2001 Dr. Bryan has led the Johns Hopkins fieldwork project in the temple complex of the goddess Mut at South Karnak. Her excavation and conservation work focuses on defining the earliest forms of the temple of Mut of Isheru and clarifying the ritual functions of that goddess between approximately 1700 and 1200 B.C.. Excavations within the temple uncovered the Porch of Drunkenness dating to Hatshepsut’s reign, as well as portions of that ruler’s original Mut Temple. Behind the Sacred Lake excavations have identified the support areas to the temple in that period. The nature of the goddess Mut’s cult before 1350 B.C. has been greatly changed by the results of the work, and currently Dr. Bryan is working with an interdisciplinary team of archaeologists, surveyors, geophysical experts, osteologists, and ceramicists to publish the full findings from the site.

Event page: https://events.jhu.edu/form/HAHtempleofmut