Dr Aidan Dodson

BA (Liverpool), MPhil, PhD (Cambridge), FSA

Senior Research Fellow

Department of Archaeology and Anthropology
University of Bristol
43 Woodland Road
BRISTOL BS8 1UU, UK


Fax: +44 (0) 117 954 6001
E-mail: Aidan.Dodson@bris.ac.uk

Aidan Dodson was born in London in 1962, and educated at Langley Grammar School, Berkshire (1975-81), Collingwood College, University of Durham, (1981-82), the University of Liverpool (1982-85) and Christ's College, University of Cambridge (1985-6). The Royal Institution (Iliff) Scholar at Liverpool from 1983-5, he was awarded a BA(Hons) in Archaeology  of the Eastern Mediterranean in 1985, an MPhil in Museum Practice & Archaeology in 1986 and a PhD in Egyptology in 1995. He was appointed to a Visiting Fellowship in the Department of Archaeology at Bristol in 1996, and became a Research Fellow in the Department of Archaeology & Anthropology in 2005, teaching extramural courses during 1996-1999, and undergraduate and postgraduate units from 1997 onwards as Unit Director for Egyptology.He became a Senior Research Fellow in 2009.

Elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in September 2003, he is Treasurer of the Egypt Exploration Society, a Contributing Editor of the Kmt: A Modern Journal of Egyptology as well as Chairman of the Egypt Society of Bristol, and the author of eleven books and over two hundred papers, articles and reviews.

Current research interests
Egyptian funerary archaeology; dynastic history; history of Egyptology; royal funerary archaeology of Europe.

Current work covers a variety of areas within Egyptian archaeology, but centre on the development of funerary equipment and architecture, history and chronology, from Second to Third Intermediate Periods, and the history of Egyptology and Egyptian collections, particularly in the south west of England.

As part of the latter, he acted as an advisor in the setting up of the new Egyptian gallery in Bristol's City Museum and Art Gallery, opened in 2007, and worked with Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery on the preparations for the reinstallation of their Egyptian collection in the autumn of 2008. He has also been working on the biographies of pioneers of Egyptian studies in Bristol, in particular Ernest Sibree (1859-1927), the University's first teacher of ancient Egyptian, and De Lacy O'Leary (1872-1957), a specialist in the early Eastern churches and the Coptic language.

Work began in the summer of  2008 on a comprehensive catalogue of the Egyptian coffins in the south-west of the United Kingdom, in particular in Bristol, Exeter, Swansea and Truro; a second volume will cover Liverpool, Manchester and Bolton, and it is hoped that other British provincial collections will follow.

There is also collaboration with Dr Bill Manley of National Museums Scotland in publishing their Egyptian coffins, and with Simon Eccles of Glasgow Museums in publishing the sarcophagi once owned by Alexander, tenth Duke of Hamilton.

A project to publish the coffins and related equipment from the tomb of Tutankhamun is nearing completion. Much of this builds on the catalogue cards and photographs left behind by Howard Carter when he died in 1939, but also includes a catalogue and study of all extant Egyptian royal coffins. Textual translations and grammatical commentaries have been prepared by Dr Manley; it is hoped that the manuscript will go to the editor during 2009 - unfortunately much delayed by the authors' other commitments.

Work is now complete on a study of the the late Eighteenth Dynasty, entitled Amarna Sunset: Nefertiti, Tutankhamun, Ay, Horemheb and the Egyptian Counter-Reformation. It is scheduled for publication by the American University in Cairo Press in November 2009.

A companion work on the the late Nineteenth Dynasty in Egypt is almost complete; to be entitled Rameses II's Poisoned Legacy: the fall of the Nineteenth Egyptian Dynasty, it is hoped that it will be published during 2010. A study of Egyptian tomb development (with Professor Salima Ikram of the American University in Cairo) was published in February 2008.

Dr Dodson regularly acts as a guest Egyptologist on tours of Egypt, and lectures extensively to Egyptological societies around the United Kingdom, the United States and elsewhere.

Every year, the University hosts a distinguished lecture in Egyptology, in memory of Amelia Edwards, the Bristolian founder of the Egypt Exploration Fund (now Society). The next lecture is listed in the Programme of the Egypt Society of Bristol.

Affiliations


Publications
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