STARS OF EGYPTOLOGY

Dr Cédric Gobeil received his PhD in Egyptology at the University of Paris-Sorbonne in 2008 and has been Director of the French archaeological mission at Deir el-Medina between 2011 and 2016. In 2016 he was appointed Director of the Egypt Exploration Society in London.

When did you first become interested in Egyptology?

It all started when I was very young, around 9-10 years old. I was going with my mom at the local library and at some point, I became bored by the comics and children’s books so I went into the non-fiction section where big format books were stored. In this section, I rapidly found many intriguing books full of very nice pictures showing ancient buildings and tons of mysterious objects coming from a lost civilization. They were ancient Egypt books! I had then been bitten by the bug and it was too late… The idea of becoming an Egyptologist never left me. 

What qualifications do you have?

I have a PhD in Egyptology obtained in 2008 at the Université Paris IV – Sorbonne in France. It was a lexicographical discussion showing how the ancient Egyptians expressed joy in their daily life. Immediately after my PhD I was appointed scientific member (foreign) at the IFAO in Cairo, thanks to two Canadian postdoctoral scholarships, where I finally specialized in Egyptian archaeology of daily life and developed the skills to become a field director. My current research interests are now focusing on Deir el-Medina and its community of workmen (archaeology of the settlement, social history); the archaeology of enclosed and/or planned settlements (Deir el-Medina, Balat, Coptos, Third Cataract Sudan); the archaeology of sacred complexes (negotiation of space and decorative programme (Coptos, Karnak); the material culture and texts associated to the aforementioned sites, and the cultural anthropology of emotions in ancient Egypt (focusing on the emotion of joy).

What positions have you held in your career?

I had the chance to develop many experiences and I feel very lucky for everything I have done since I started. In 2008, I entered the IFAO as a foreign scientific member. In 2010, I was awarded a two-years postdoctoral fellowship from the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to be spent as an associate scholar at the Université du Québec à Montréal in Canada (UQAM). In 2011, I was appointed field director of the French archaeological mission of Deir el-Medina (IFAO). From 2011 to 2016, I worked as a full-time archaeologist at the IFAO. I have also been an adjunct professor in the History Department at the UQAM since 2011. I am the co-director of the French mission of Coptos (IFAO/Université Lumière-Lyon II), for which I am a Research Associate at the Laboratoire HiSoMA (Université Lumière Lyon 2 in France). I am a member of the Balat/Ayn Asil mission (IFAO), as well as for the Great Hypostyle Hall Project in the Temple of Karnak, a joint mission of the University of Memphis and the UQAM. Between 2016 and 2019, I was the Director of the Egypt Exploration Society in London, where I also became field director of a new archaeological mission in Sudan (Third Cataract Project), which I carried in my new position of curator at the Museo Egizio in Turin (Italy), where I was appointed in 2019. 

You have done quite a bit of work in Deir el-Medina. Could you explain a bit about the work you have undertaken at the site and your role?

I became a member of the mission of Deir el-Medina in 2008, before being its field director between 2011 and 2016. Since then, I got back to being a regular member of the mission and I am carrying on my research projects like before. In 2019, I also started to supervise the project carried by the Museo Egizio at Deir el-Medina as part of the IFAO mission. As usual, most of the work achieved is the result of teamwork and I couldn’t thank them all enough for all the efforts they have put in the different projects we have done, and are still doing, for some of them. I started my work on the site by focusing on the TT250, a tomb commissioned by the royal scribe Ramose for nine women related to his household. The management of the mission had, however, forced me to put this study on the side to concentrate more on preserving and cleaning the entire site. Many cleanings and conservation projects were then carried in the workmen’s village, in the votive chapels, and in the tombs, all of them leading to fantastic results and discoveries. Worth mentioning are the restoration of the northeastern votive chapel, the only one that had kept its original paintings, and of course the tattooed female mummy found by Anne Austin, which we published together in 2016. The same year, we also managed to prepare and open three new tombs for the visitors, namely the TT218-219-220. One of my main goals was indeed to develop the site together with the Ministry of Antiquities to enhance the possibilities for the visitors to appreciate the site a little bit more than before. Currently, the Museo Egizio of Turin has been given by the IFAO the chance to clean, study and restore the TT214, as part of the IFAO mission. This work should keep us busy for a little while!

 Do you have an upcoming project/ book in the pipeline, so to speak?

As always, I have so much to do! I am working on two monographs based on my archaeological work at Deir el-Medina (study of TT250) and at Balat/Ayn Asil (the southeastern enclosure of the governor’s palace). With the Museo Egizio, I am now also involved in many new projects based on our Deir el-Medina collection, and based on our Third Cataract Project in Sudan. We are working at developing new digital tools for the visitors of our museum, which we hope will bring them a new experience. But I have to keep quiet on this, since it is still a surprise … so shh, don’t tell anyone!

What advice would you give to young people who want to become Egyptologists? 

To stay highly motivated despite the many setbacks you face. To always continue and persevere despite what people around you may say. A oiece of good advice for those who would like to be involved in fieldwork is to acquire skills and techniques that are useful on an excavation, but not originally inherent to Egyptology, such as ceramic study, archaeometric analysis, osteology, etc. You always have to keep an eye open for new trends in the discipline so as to be aware of the needs. It may sound a bit curious, but I would say that it is one of the ways to be an interesting candidate for many positions. Usually, Egyptologists are employed by institutions requiring them to perform other tasks (museum curator, university professor, archivist, etc.). Remember that flexibility is key. I hope I did not discourage anyone! 

Not at all! It doubtless gives aspiring Egyptologists food for thought. Thank you for your time, Cédric. Now readers, feel free to watch the lecture!