Position:

Lady Wallis Budge Junior Research Fellow (University College) and Career Development fellowship in Egyptology

Faculty / College Address:

Oriental Institute / University College

Email:

chloe.ragazzoli@orinst.ox.ac.uk

Research Interests:

• Historical anthropology, cultural history, literature, philology, epigraphy
• Scribal culture and practices
• Egyptian towns and landscapes
• Graffiti

My work deals with those who shaped most of the surviving documentation: the scribes. I consider the significance of forms of interaction within the group, with the authorities and with society and how this group fashions and promotes its own identity within a specific historical frame. The methods I have been using are mainly inspired by historical anthropology and I consider literary texts – after a careful philological edition – as the encrypted embodiment of values and representations of the culture of those who produced these works. To that purpose, I have focussed on the image and self-presentation of scribes in the sources of the New Kingdom.

This led me to reconsider for my PhD the corpus of Late-Egyptian Miscellanies from the Ramesside Period (c. 1292-1075 BC) in the theoretical frame workd of the “scribal literature” : these texts are made by scribes, addressed to scribes and speak about scribes and their very existence is a testimony of scribal practices.

My research project in Oxford is now developping my exploration of Egyptian cultural practices by undertaking a broad study of graffiti in Ancient Egypt in a cultural perspective primarily through a research project devoted to the the visitors’ inscriptions in the rich necropolis of Thebes, both in situ and from publications and archival copies from the 19^th century. These elaborate graffiti are placed in the very heart of the decoration of the tombs’ chapels. Some are ‘clandestine’ funerary biographies for the scribes, who were often from a social class that could not easily afford monumental biographies. A first mission sponsored by the Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale in 2010 allowed me to collect substantial new material. I am preparing the publication of unknown graffiti from the tomb of Antefiqer (TT60, a vizir from the 12^th dynasty much visited four centuries later) and as a monograph, the publication of a cave covered with scribes’ inscriptions.

My theoretical research on graffiti as an anthropological object and a cultural practice with lead to a transcultural conference on graffiti in traditional societies to be held in Oxford in 2013.

At the same time, in relation to my curating the Egyptian papyri of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, I am engaged in editing projects of unpublished Hieratic material and I am currently preparing the publication of more than 200 unknown fragments from the New Kingdom in collaboration with Dr Fredrik Hagen (University of Copenhagen).

Current Projects:

• Monograph, Les Artisans du Texte. La culture des scribes en Egypte ancienne d’après les sources du Nouvel Empire (Textual Craftsmen. Scribes’ culture and self-fashioning in Ancient Egypt (New Kingdom)).
• Publication of the New Kingdom visitors’ inscriptions in Thebes’ necropolis : article on the graffiti in the tomb of Antefiqer (TT60) and monograph on Deir-el-Bahari cave (TT 504)
• With F. Hagen, Hieratic Papyri of the Ramesside Period from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

Courses Taught:

• Hieratic
• Middle Egyptian
• Unseen texts
• Introduction to Egyptian History and Civilization

Recent Publications:

• 2008. Éloges de la Ville en Égypte ancienne. Histoire et littérature. Paris: Presses de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne.
• 2010. The Book of the Dead of Ankhesenaset (P. BNF 62-88): traces of a workshop production or scribal experiments ? British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan 15: 225–248.
• 2010. ‘Weak hands and soft mouths’. Elements of a scribal identity in the New Kingdom. Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 137: 157–170.
• 2010. (With L. Coilliot). Le Livre des Respirations Papyrus BNF 246-1.  Revue d’Égyptologie 61: 187–195.
• 2011. Catalogue des Papyrus hiératiques et hiéroglyphiques de la Bibliothèque nationale de France : http://archivesetmanuscrits.bnf.fr/cdc.html# > Egyptien.
• 2011. Les Fortunes du Papyrus Prisse. In: Visions d’Égypte, Emile Prisse d’Avennes, catalogue de l’exposition. Paris : Bibliothèque nationale de France, 86–91.
• 2011. Lire, écrire, survivre: les graffiti de scribes au Nouvel Empire. Les Lieux de Savoir, vol. 2, directed by C. Jacob. Paris: Albin Michel, 290–311.
• 2011. A Tale of Two Cities: sémiotique de la ville en Égypte ancienne à travers ses representations. In: Die Stadt: Achse und Zentrum der Welt, ed. T. Schabert, M. Riedl. Paderborn: P. Fink Verlag, p. 97-118.
• 2011 (in press). L’Individu et sa ville: représentations et piété urbaines dans la littérature égyptienne d’époque pharaonique. In: Le Territoire dans l’Égypte grecque et romaine, ed. G. Gorre, P. Kossmann et alii. Paris: École Pratique des Hautes-Études.
• Forthcoming. Un nouveau manuscrit du scribe Inéna ? le recueil de miscellanées du Papyrus Koller (P. Berlin 3043). In: Forschung in der Papyrussammlung - Festschrift für das Neue Museum, ed. Verena Lepper.
• Forthcoming. Why Ancient Egyptians longed for their cities ? In: The Graeco-Roman space of the city in Egypt: Image and Reality, ed. E. Subias, P. Azara, J. Carruesco, I. Fiz, Tarragona.
• Forthcoming. ‘The pen promoted my station’: Scholarship and distinction in the New Kingdom biographie. In: Problems of Canonicity and Identity Formation in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, ed. K. Ryholt, G. Barjamovic, Copenhagen.
• In preparation. Toponymie et Materia sacra : un onomasticon fragmentaire de l’époque ptolémaïque (P. BNF 245, 1-2). In: (dir.), Toponymie et Perception de l'espace en Egypte de l'Antiquité au Moyen-Âge, Eds S. Dhenain, C. Somaglino, Cairo.
• In preparation. Le désensauvagement comme processus d’humanisation : figures animalières de la distinction dans la littérature égyptienne. Cahiers de l’Égypte nilotique et Méditerranéenne, ‘Apprivoiser le sauvage – Taming the Wild. Regards sur le monde animal dans l’Égypte ancienne’, Montpellier, 2014.