Institute

Dr.

Natasha Ayers

Postdoctoral Fellow

RG »Archaeology in Egypt and Sudan«

Contact

Telephone: +43 1 51581-6153

Location: Dominikanerbastei 16 | 1010 Vienna

Biographical sketch

Natasha Ayers is an archaeologist specializing in Egyptian archaeology and a FWF ESPRIT Programme Senior Postdoctoral Fellow. She was awarded a grant for her ESPRIT project »Communities Reassembled – Rethinking Identity in Ancient Egypt« (ESP 293-G), which has been underway since March 2023. Her research focuses on exploring ways to use material culture in combination with theoretical models to better understand the complexities of social practice, identity, and community in ancient Egypt.

She earned a PhD in Egyptian Archaeology from the University of Chicago (Honors 2017), where she specialized in settlement archaeology and ceramics. After her PhD, Natasha joined the FWF START project »Beyond Politics: Material Culture in Second Intermediate Period Egypt and Nubia« (PI: B. Bader; FWF Y754-G19) as a postdoctoral fellow (2019–2021). She was a guest researcher (2022–2023) at the Austrian Archaeological Institute with her project »A New Approach to Concepts of Community and Identity at Qau el-Kebir and Badari«, funded by the Stiftungsfonds für Postgraduates der Ägyptologie.

Natasha has been a member of the excavations at Tell Edfu in Upper Egypt since 2007 and has been the ceramicist for Middle Kingdom – New Kingdom pottery (ca. 2000–1070 BCE) since 2009. She also has worked in collaboration with numerous museum-based projects, such as at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures in Chicago, and The Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology in Berkeley.

DETAILED CV

    Research Projects

    Research interests

    • Funerary and settlement archaeology in ancient Egypt
    • The Middle Kingdom through early New Kingdom (ca. 2000–1070 BCE)
    • Material culture studies
    • Identity theory, especially as a way to re-evaluate the ‘Egyptian’ vs ‘Nubian’ dichotomy
    • Ceramic studies
    • Intercultural contacts between Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean

     

    Publications

    Contribution in Collection (3)

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