About the Faculty

John C. Darnell
Egyptology
john.darnell@yale.edu

John Coleman Darnell (B.A. 1984, M.A. 1985, The Johns Hopkins University; Ph.D. 1995, The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago) joined the faculty of the Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations as Assistant Professor in 1998; he became Associate Professor in 2004, and Professor of Egyptology in 2005. His interests include Egyptian religion, cryptography (see his recent The Enigmatic Netherworld Books of the Solar-Osirian Unit), the scripts and texts of Graeco-Roman Egypt (the study of which he pursued as a DAAD Stipendiat at the University of Cologne in 1985 and 1986), and the archaeological and epigraphic remains of ancient activity in the Egyptian Western Desert.  The latter work has led him to his current interest in state formation, the use of rock inscriptions in the creation of "ordered" space, and the economic status of the oases and the desert regions, particularly from the late Old Kingdom through the Third Intermediate Period.

Darnell has considerable field experience in Egypt. After working on the staff of the Demotic Dictionary Project in Chicago, in 1988 he joined the Epigraphic Survey of the Oriental institute, based at Chicago House in Luxor, Egypt. Before leaving the Epigraphic Survey as Senior Epigrapher in 1998, to take up his current duties at Yale University, he had helped to collate over three-quarters of the epigraphic copies now published in the first two volumes of the Reliefs and Inscriptions at Luxor Temple series, had co-authored the commentary volumes for those volumes, and had worked extensively at Medinet Habu.

Darnell is director of the Yale Egyptological Institute in Egypt (see www.yale.edu/egyptology); under the auspices of that institute he is director of the Theban Desert Road Survey, an expedition continuing to grow and expand in the Western Desert of Egypt, now in its seventeenth field season (2008-2009); he is also director of the Yale Toshka Desert Survey, a complementary expedition to the Theban Desert Road Survey farther south. With Deborah Darnell serving as co-director of both, Darnell's twin expeditions have discovered a wealth of material of considerable importance ranging in date from the earliest Predynastic cultures through the early Islamic period. Several publications of the work have already appeared, including J.C. Darnell, Theban Desert Road Survey in the Egyptian Western Desert 1, Gebel Tjauti Rock-Inscriptions 1-45 and Wadi el-Hol Rock Inscriptions 1-45, OIP 119 (Chicago: Oriental Institute Press, 2002). Discoveries have included the Scorpion tableau, perhaps the earliest historical record of ancient Egypt, recording the Abydene subjugation of Naqada and the foundation of a unified Upper Egyptian state at the dawn of Dynasty 0; the earliest alphabetic inscriptions in the Wadi el-Hol; a new Middle Egyptian literary text from the same site; important archaeological remains of the Tasian culture; and many more things too numerous to detail here.

Darnell is the author of a number of scholarly articles, dealing with many aspects of pharaonic culture, history, and language. At Yale he has taught image-assisted courses on Egyptian religion and religious architecture, and a survey of Egyptian history, focusing on the mechanics of unity and disunity within the Nile Valley. With Beatrice Gruendler (NELC) and Michael Fischer (Computer Science), and other guest lecturers he assists in teaching a course surveying the history of human communication; with Eckart Frahm (NELC) he has also presented an introduction to the ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian Civilizations. He also teaches a wide range of Egyptian text courses, for both graduate students and qualified undergraduates, reading the ancient texts and scripts; titles of these have included: Ancient Egyptian Netherworld Books, Lapidary Hieratic Inscriptions, Ancient Egyptian Love Poetry and Related Texts, Medinet Habu Inscriptions, Demotic and Demotic Texts, Cosmographic Books, etc.

Recent Publications

Recent Articles

2007    "The Antiquity of Ghueita Temple," Göttinger Miszellen 212: 29-40 (a slightly altered version is at www.yale.edu/egyptology/gebel_rear_chamber.htm)

2007    "The Deserts," in T. Wilkinson, ed., The Egyptian World (Routledge), pp. 29-48

2007    "Food Supply Along the Theban Desert Roads (Egypt): the Gebel Roma', Wadi el-Hôl, and Gebel Qarn el-Gir Caravansary Deposits," (with R.T.J. Cappers, L. Sikking, and D. Darnell), in R. Cappers, ed., Fields of Change: Progress in African Archaeobotany. Groningen Archaeological Studies 5. Groningen, 2007, pp. 127-138.

2007     "Abu Ziyar and Tundaba," on-line article at www.yale.edu/egyptology/ae_tundaba.htm (an expanded version will appear in print)

2008    "The Tundaba Cistern," on-line article at www.yale.edu/egyptology/ae_tundaba_cistern.htm

in press     "The Archaeology of Kurkur Oasis, Nuq’ Maneih, Bir Nakheila, and the Sinn el-Kiddab," (with D. Darnell), in D. raue, ed., The Archaeology of the First Cataract (with D. Darnell)

in press     "The Eleventh Dynasty Royal Inscription from Deir el-Ballas," in Revue d'Égyptologie 59 (2008): 81-109

in press     "Festival of Opet," in the UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology (on-line resource)

in press     "Graffiti and Rock Inscriptions," chapter in J. Allen and I. Shaw, eds., Oxford Handbook of Egyptology (Oxford)

in press,     "A Stela of Sety I from the Region of Kurkur Oasis," in S. Snape and M. Collier, eds., Ramesside Studies in Honour of K.A. Kitchen

in press,     "The Eleventh Dynasty Royal Inscription from Deir el-Ballas," in Revue d’Égyptologie

Recent Monographs

2006    The Inscription of Queen Katimala at Semna and the Origins of the Napatan State

2006    Two Early Alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi el-Hôl: New Evidence for the Origin of the Alphabet from the Western Desert of Egypt, Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 59/2 (with C. Dobbs-Allsopp et al.)

2007    Tutankhamun's Armies: Battle and Conquest in Ancient Egypt's Late Eighteenth  Dynasty (J. Wiley and Sons, Inc.; with C. Manassa)

in progress     Theban Desert Road Survey II: The Rock Shrine of Pahu, Gebel Akhenaton, and Other Rock Inscriptions from the Western Hinterland of Naqada

in progress    Theban Desert Road Survey III: Dominion Behind Thebes—the Rock Inscriptions of the Wadi Nag el-Birka

Brief description of the covers, from left to right:

a. The Enigmatic Netherworld Books of the Solar-Osirian Unity: Cryptographic Compositions in the Tombs of Tutankhamun, Ramesses VI, and Ramesses IX . Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 198. Freiburg and Göttingen. (2004)

This study is the first detailed examination of the cryptographic texts on the Tutankhamun shrine and in the tomb of Ramesses IX and contains the first treatment of much of the Ramesses VI Corridor G inscriptions. These three enigmatic texts are related in theology, iconography, and physical layout, and are based on a common template, incorporating enigmatic texts, Book of the Dead extracts, and a figure of the giant unified Re-Osiris.  The work includes an overview of New Kingdom cryptography, and discusses in detail two sentral concepts of the three cryptographic treatises-the figure of the giant unified Re-Osiris, and the concept of inversion in the netherworld.

b.  Theban Desert Road Survey I: The Rock Inscriptions of Gebel Tjauti in the Theban
Western Desert, Part 1, and the Rock Inscriptions of the Wadi el Hôl, Part 1. Oriental Institute Publication 117.  Chicago. (2002) (with contributions by Deborah Darnell, René Friedman, and Stan Hendrickx).

Publication of 90 rock inscriptions from two sites in the desert filling the Qena Bend of
the Nile.  The texts range in date from the Predynastic through the Coptic Periods, and
include the Scorpion tableau, recording the unification of Upper Egypt at the beginning of the Naqada III Period, and the "road Construction" inscription of the Coptite noarch
Tjauti.  Also published are the Wadi el-Hôl literary graffito, and an inscription from the
reign of Amenemhat III in the form of a lapidary letter, quoting apparently from the story of Sinuhe.  Other inscriptions relate to the worship of the goddess Hathor in the desert, and late inscriptions include Coptic cryptographic texts.

c. Reliefs and Inscriptions at Luxor Temple Vol. 2. Oriental Institute Publication Chicago  (1998) (with the Epigraphic Survey).

Publication of the "non-Opet" scenes and inscriptionsin the Colonnade Hall of Luxor
Temple.  These include the traces of the original Eighteenth Dynasty decoration of the façade, altered under Ramesses II, a strangely altered scene on the entrance portal suggesting an Atonist attack on an original painted design of Amenhotep III, later repaired by Tutankhamun and restored by Horemhab.  In addition to short but often unusual and interesting texts, and the scenes and inscriptions on the great columns of the Hall, the volume includes graffiti that range from the elaborate tableau of Pinudjem to short Carian and Graco-Roman inscriptions, and an unusual Coptic graffito.

d. Reliefs and Inscriptions at Luxor Temple Vol. 1 The Festival Procession of Opet in the Colonnade Hall. Oriental Institute Publication 112. Chicago (1994) (with the Epigraphic Survey).

Publication, with translation and commentary, of facsimile plates of the scenes of the festival procession of Opet in the Colonnade Hall of Luxor Temple.  Principally the work of the reign of Tutankhamun, these scenes depict the journeys of the barks of the Theban triad, and the deified ruler, from Karnak Temple to Luxor Temple, and back again.  In addition to preserving important details of the people and objects invlved, the reliefs also record important texts, including songs of praise by the military escort, and archaic songs "of the drinking place," of considerable importance for the understanding of the Theban festival cycle.

e. Two Early Alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi el-Hôl: New Evidence for the Origin of the Alphabet from the Western Desert of Egypt, Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 59/2 (2006) (with C. Dobbs-Allsopp et al.).

This volume is the editio princeps of the two early alphabetic inscriptions discovered by
the Theban Desert Road Survey in the Wadi el-Hôl, near the middle of the desert filling the Qena Bend of the Nile.  These early alphabetic inscriptions preserve unique palaeographic features revealing the probable origin of the alphabet during the Egyptian Middle Kingdom, arising from the contact of Egyptian military scribes with foreign language speaking auxiliaries.  The sign forms preserve features of the lapidary hieratic of Middle Kingdom military scribes, and the signs' phonetic values originate in acrophony from the foreign names for the signs.  Associated Middle Kingdom hieratic inscriptions are also published, supporting the presence at the site of Asiatic troops under Egyptian control during the late Middle Kingdom, the probable date of the inscriptions.

f. The Inscription of Queen Katimala at Semna: Textual Evidence for the Origins of the Napatan State, Yale Egyptological Studies 7. New Haven. (2006)

The first complete translation and commentary on the important tableau and inscription of Queen Katimala/Karimala at Semna. Proper understanding of the paleography, grammar, and content reveals Katimala to have been a Nubian ruler at the time of the Twenty-First to Twenty-Second Dynasties of Ancient Egypt. She emerges as a political and military leader who took control of at least Lower Nubia in the wake
of failed military activities on the part of a male predecessor. Katimala's inscription is not illegible, but is a well-composed Lower Nubian example of a politico-religious manifesto applying many of the conventions of earlier Egyptian literary and historical compositions.

g. Tutankhamun’s Armies: Battle and Conquest in Ancient Egypt’s Eighteenth Dynasty (2007) (with Colleen Manassa)

First monograph-length treatment of the military capabilities and strategy of the Amarna Period rulers.  The first two chapters provide an overview of New Kingdom history, with particular focus on the religious trends of the Amarna Period.  The jubilee festival of Amunhotep III and his living deification form the backdrop for the more radical changes that Akhenaten later instituted.   Chaper 2 also provides a new, coherent theory of Atenism that accounts for the location of Akhet-aten, Akhenaten’s alterations to the artistic canon, the non-existence of other deities, and the importance of women at Amarna.  Chapter 3 is devoted to military organization and the development of Egyptian weaponry.  Chapter 4 examines Amarna policy in Nubia, including an analysis of Nubian fortification architecture from the Middle Kingdom through the Eighteenth Dynasty, the Nubian wars of Akhenaten and Tutankhamun, and their celebration in the “durbar” festival.  Western Asia and the Amarna Letters are treated in Chapter 5, which also offers new interpretations Egyptian policy vis-à-vis Mittani and Amurru.  The final chapter encompasses conflicts with Libya and the “police state” during Akhenaten’s rule.