Ellen Morris
Department
Classics and Ancient Studies, First Year Foundation
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Ellen Morris has published two books and numerous articles on issues pertinent to ancient Egyptian imperialism. Her first book is entitled The Architecture of Imperialism: Military Bases and the Evolution of Foreign Policy in Egypt’s New Kingdom (Brill, 2005). Her second, Ancient Egyptian Imperialism (Wiley-Blackwell Press, 2018), engages the work of scholars of early empires in examining various instances of Egyptian imperialism from an explicitly cross-cultural perspective. Her most recent book, Famine and Feast in Ancient Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 2023) addresses the subject of trauma and social memory. Ongoing research interests and other publications focus on topics such as the dynamics of political fragmentation, state formation, sexuality and sacred performance, international relations and diplomacy, retainer sacrifice, and divine kingship. (Most of her publications are accessible through Academia.edu). She has excavated in the Nile Valley at Abydos, Deir el-Ballas, and Mendes, and at the site of Amheida in the Dakhleh Oasis. Morris earned her B.A. from Barnard College in Ancient Studies and did her graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania.
- Imperialism in Egypt and the ancient Near East
- Social history of ancient Egypt
- Sexuality, power, and performance
- Political fragmentation
Professor Morris teaches lecture courses on the archaeology and society of ancient Egypt (Identity and Society in Ancient Egypt; The Archaeology of Ancient Egypt; Egypt in the Classical World) and on the ancient Mediterranean (The Archaeology of Crisis: The Collapse of the Late Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean World). She also teaches First Year Seminars (On Dreams and Nightmares; Reacting to the Past) and seminars having to with the Ancient Mediterranean more broadly (Ethnicity Race and Power in the Ancient Mediterranean World; Mapping the Ancient Novel; Society and Environment in the Ancient Mediterranean World).
Publications
2023 Famine and Feast in Ancient Egypt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2018 Ancient Egyptian Imperialism. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell Press.
2005 The Architecture of Imperialism: Military Bases and the Evolution of Foreign Policy in Egypt’s New Kingdom. Probleme der Ägyptologie 22. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
2023a On the fringe benefits of life in the shatter zones of Egypt’s Empire. In Power and Identity at the Margins of the Ancient Near East, ed. S. Mohr, S. Thompson. Denver: University Press of Colorado, 159-180.
2023b Reassessing the value of autobiographical inscriptions from the First Intermediate Period and “pessimistic literature” for understanding Egypt’s social history. In Ancient Egyptian Society: Challenging Assumptions, Exploring Approaches, ed. D. Candelora, N. Ben-Marzouk, and K. Cooney. New York: Routledge, 265-278.
2022 Daggers and axes for the queen: considering Ahhotep’s weapons in their cultural context. In The Treasure of the Egyptian Queen Ahhotep and International Relations at the Turn of the Middle Bronze Age (1550 B.C., eds. G. Miniaci and P. Lacovara. Middle Kingdom Studies 11, London: Golden House Productions, 165-186.
2020a Machiavellian masculinities: historicizing and contextualizing the “civilizing process” in ancient Egypt. Journal of Egyptian History 13.1-2. Special Issue: “Egyptology and Global History,” 127-168.
2020b Writing trauma: Ipuwer and the curation of cultural memory. In “An Excellent Fortress for His Armies, a Refuge for the People”: Egyptological, Archaeological, and Biblical Studies in Honor of James K. Hoffmeier, eds. R. E. Averbeck and K. L. Younger, Jr. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press/Eisenbrauns, 231-252.
2019 Ancient Egyptian exceptionalism: fragility, flexibility and the art of not collapsing. In The Evolution of Fragility: Setting the Terms, ed. N. Yoffee. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 61-87.
2018 Théorie insulaire et affordances des oasis du désert égyptien, trans. Lise Garond. In Mer et désert de l’Antiquité à nos jours: visions croisées, ed. G. Tallet and T. Sauzeau. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 63-90.
2017a Middle Kingdom clappers, dancers, birth magic, and the reinvention of ritual. In Company of Images: Modelling the Imaginary World of Middle Kingdom Egypt (2000-1500 BC), ed. Gianluca Miniaci, Marilina Betrò, Stephen Quirke. Leuven: Peeters Publishers, pp. 285-335.
2017b Prevention through deterrence along Egypt’s northeastern border. Or the politics of a weaponized desert. Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies 5.2: 133-147.
2015a Egypt, Ugarit, the god Ba’al, and the puzzle of a royal rebuff. In The Crossroads II, Or There and Back Again. Proceedings of an International Conference on the Relations of Egypt and the Near East in the Bronze Age, Prague 15-18, 2014, ed. J. Mynářová. Prague: Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Arts, pp. 315-351.
2015b Exchange, extraction, and the politics of ideological money laundering in Egypt’s New Kingdom Empire. In Policies of Exchange: Political Systems and Modes of Interaction in the Aegean and the Near East in the 2nd Millennium B.C.E., Proceedings of the International Symposium at the University of Freiburg Institute for Archaeological Studies, 30th May-2nd June 2012, ed. B. Eder and R. Pruzsinszky. Oriental and European Archaeology v. 2. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, pp. 167-190.
2014a Mitanni enslaved: prisoners of war, pride, and productivity in a new imperial regime. In Creativity and Innovation in the Reign of Hatshepsut, eds. J. Galán, B. M. Bryan, and P. F. Dorman. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 361-379.
2014b (Un)Dying loyalty: meditations on retainer sacrifice in Ancient Egypt and elsewhere. In Violence and Civilization: Studies of Social Violence in History and Prehistory, ed. Rod Campbell. Oxford: Oxbow Books, pp. 61-93.
2013 Propaganda and performance at the dawn of the state. In Experiencing Power, Generating Authority: Cosmos, Politics, and the Ideology of Kingship in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, ed. J. A. Hill, et al. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum Press, pp. 33-64.
2011 Paddle dolls and performance in ancient Egypt. Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 47: 71-103.
2010a Insularity and island identity in the oases bordering Egypt’s Great Sand Sea. In Thebes and Beyond: Studies in Honour of Kent R. Weeks, ed. Zahi Hawass and Salima Ikram. Cairo: Supreme Council of Antiquities Press, pp. 129-144.
2010b The pharaoh and pharaonic office. In The Blackwell Companion to Ancient Egypt, ed. A.B. Lloyd. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 201-217.
2010c Opportunism in contested lands, B.C. and A.D. Or how Abdi-Ashirta, Aziru, and Padsha Khan Zadran got away with murder. In Millions of Jubilees: Studies in Honor of David Silverman, vol. I, ed. Zahi Hawass and Jennifer Houser Wegner. Cairo: Supreme Council of Antiquities Press, pp. 413-438.
2007a Sacred and obscene laughter in The Contendings of Horus and Seth, in Egyptian inversions of everyday life, and in the context of cultic competition. In Egyptian Stories: A British Egyptological Tribute to Alan B. Lloyd, ed. Thomas Schneider and Kasia Szpakowska. Alter Orient und Altes Testament Series. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, pp. 197-224.
2007b On the ownership of the Saqqara mastabas and the allotment of political and ideological power at the dawn of the state. In The Archaeology and Art of Ancient Egypt: Essays in Honor of David B. O’Connor, vol. II, ed. Zahi Hawass and Janet Richards. Cairo: Supreme Council of Antiquities Press, pp. 171-190.
2007c Sacrifice for the state: royal funerals and the rites at Macramallah’s Rectangle. In Performing Death. Social Analyses of Ancient Funerary Traditions in the Mediterranean, ed. Nicola Laneri. Chicago: Oriental Institute, pp. 15-37.
2006a Lo, nobles lament, the poor rejoice. State formation in the wake of social flux. In After Collapse: The Regeneration of Complex Societies, ed. Glenn Schwartz and John Nichols. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, pp. 58-71.
2006b Bowing and scraping in the Ancient Near East: an investigation into obsequiousness in the Amarna Letters. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 65: 179-195.
In The News
Barnard’s expert Egyptologist — Professor Ellen Morris ’91 — steps back in time with her new book on famines to illustrate the impact of societal memory on avoiding modern-day catastrophes.