West Midlands Egyptology Society

We have an exciting conference coming up on Saturday 14th October 2017 at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. View our conferences page for more information

We will be going to Oxford on Saturday 16th September! Please see here for more details! Everyone invited!

Our 2017-2018 committee has been finalised, to view the new committee please see here!

Please see Talks: 2017 – 2018 for our updated programme for the year

WMES are co-hosting a Symposium with the Midlands Egyptian Society entitled ‘Tutankhamun and Ancient Technologies’ Saturday 15th July.

Tickets for this event are now available on Eventbrite: Please follow this link to order

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/tutankhamun-and-egyptian-technologies-tickets-35157332528

Schedule:
13.00-14.00pm: Dr. Mohammed Saleh, Ex-Director of the Egyptian Museum ‘Tutankhamun and the Ancient Egyptian Technology Innovations’
14.00-14.30: Tea/Coffee Break
14.30pm-3.30pm: Prof. Fathi Saleh –Advisor to Egypt’s Prime Minister for Heritage Affairs and Amaratus Director & Founder of Center for the Documentation of Cultural & Natural Heritage (CULTNAT) – Bibliotheca Alexandrina
‘Virtual Presentation of the Discovery of Tutankhamun Tomb’
3.30-4.00pm – Display of Interactive ‘Wall of Knowledge’ of the tomb of Tutankhamun using Virtual and Augmented Reality Technology

WMES and the Midlands Egyptian Society are pleased to present the Wall of Knowledge. It is a display system based on a large horizontal poster (Normally around 3m x 1m) that is hung on the wall and by using the virtual and augmented reality (AVR), one can point a Smart Phone or a Tablet to the different areas of the poster, and get in-depth information in the form of texts, images or videos about objects they are pointing at. The subject in the poster could be in the form spatial arrangement of objects or chronological arrangement of subjects. The application displayed here is the spatial arrangement of the object found in situ in the ante chamber of the tomb of king Tutankhamen as found by Carter in 1922.

There will be a post reception dinner held at the Egyptian Room in Bacchus Bar in Birmignham. Please note this is NOT included in the price, but is open to all who wish to join.

View our poster here: Tutankhamun Conference poster

We are excited to announce that we will be going to visit the newly refurbished Egyptian Galleries in the World Museum at Liverpool. This is a fantastic opportunity to see these recently opened galleries, which now feature many objects previously held in storage.

We will be traveling by coach leaving Birmingham, Hill Street at 8:30am and arriving at Liverpool at approximately 11am. We will be having a tour of the galleries between 11:30-1pm with an hour for lunch. Please note that lunch is not provided so please make provisions for this. There will then be free time to explore the galleries before leaving Liverpool at 4pm for arrival in Birmingham at approximately 7pm.

All are welcome to join us on the trip! We will be taking payments via cash, cheque and direct bank transfer. Booking forms will be available at our next talk Wednesday 10th May. If you would like a booking form you can email wmesevents@outlook.com.

PLEASE NOTE: Spaces on the coach will be limited so if you want a space you MUST book as soon as possible to secure a seat. To book, please email wmesevents@outlook.com. You may travel to Liverpool by your own means if you’d prefer. We look forward to you joining us!

West Midlands Egyptology Society invites you to join us at Birmingham Thinktank Science Museum on Sunday 5th March for Stars of the Pharaohs – A planetarium show!

You can download your booking form here. Full information and prices are on the form.

Please email all completed forms, and any additional queries to secretarywmes@outlook.com

We hope to see you there!

West Midlands Egyptology Society invites you to join us for our final talk of 2016. Christian Langer will be presenting:

“Innumerable were the captives that his majesty took in his victories”: Deportations in New Kingdom Egypt.

Abstract:

Deportation – and also forced migration in general – has been an understudied issue in Egyptology. While mass deportations have been well-researched in connection with the Neo-Assyrian Empire, comprehensive studies into this matter are lacking for ancient Egypt. Based on my doctoral research on deportations in Egyptian history between 3000 and 332 BCE, I will highlight some preliminary results with regard to the New Kingdom. At the centre of the talk will be textual source material and the information that has not yet been uncovered from these. We can trace the fate of the deportees and reconstruct why they were deported in the first place and, in some instances, see what happened to them upon their arrival in Egypt. For instance, the bigger part seems to have been utilized as labourers in the production of staple foods. Deportation seems to have been an essential part in New Kingdom policy and possibly even contributed to Egypt’s rise as a regional great power.

Christian Langer has an MA in Egyptology, Near Eastern Archaeology and Prehistory from the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, and is a doctoral candidate at the Freie Universität Berlin writing his thesis on deportations in ancient Egyptian history between 3000 and 332 BCE. Currently, he is an Erasmus visiting research student at the Institute of Archaeology at UCL. He has worked at excavations in Egypt, Germany, and the UK, and also for the Egyptian museum in Berlin.

His main research interests are political and social history, political theory, imperialism and colonialism, ideology, foreign and domestic policy, unfree labour and forced migration in pharaonic Egypt as well as the colonial heritage of Egyptology and its impact on modern Egyptian society. He has published his MA thesis on 18th dynasty imperialism and, most recently, his paper “The Political Realism of the Egyptian Elite: A Comparison between the Teaching for Merikare and Niccolò Machiavelli’s Il Principe”. Currently, he is editing a volume assembling young Egyptologists from all over the world: Global Egyptology (working title).

As always, tickets will be available at  Waterstones, Birmingham from 6pm. The talk will begin at 6.45pm, allowing time for refreshments. On the door prices: Free for WMES Members  – £5 Adults  – £4 Students / Concessions.

We look forward to seeing everyone for our final talk of the year!

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for the latest updates and news.

West Midlands Egyptology Society would like to invite you to join us on Friday 9th December for an evening of festivities!

We will be hosting a Christmas Party at 6/8 Kafe, Temple Row, Birmingham City Centre.

There will be a Christmas buffet, alongside a film screening of Karl Frueund’s 1932 classic The Mummy – with an introduction by Alice Baddeley.

The party and the buffet will take place from 6.00 – 9.00pm, the film screening will begin at 6.45pm. We will also be hosting a raffle with some great prizes just in time for Christmas, as well as a book sale to pick up some stocking fillers!

Prices

Members – £25

Non-members – £27

Your booking includes a buffet, one complimentary drink at the bar and the film screening.

Booking

The Christmas party booking form can be downloaded here. Please email your completed booking form to secretarywmes@outlook.com by Monday 5th December.

Buffet Menu

Dear all,

We are very happy to welcome you back for a new year of talks with the society and hope you had a very restful and interesting summer. This is the society’s third year and one we are very excited about! We have our very first conference happening 29th-30th October (More information on our conference page) alongside another full year of talks, trips and events for you.

Our first talk will be with Peter Robinson and we encourage you to share this poster with family and friends.

Membership, as well as on the door admission, will be changed this year to reflect our growth as a society and we hope you will be able to join us again for another full year.

We hope to see new and old faces alike on Wednesday 12th October for our first talk!

-WMES Committee.