The director of the MKTP, Antonio Morales, has just announced a new 3-year project at the University of Alcalá (UAH): “The Middle Kingdom Theban Project: social change, cultural innovation, political struggle, and state reformation in First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom Thebes” (PID2020-114188GB-100).
The project, funded by the National Research Agency, Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, represents a step forward in the previous investigations of the Middle Kingdom Theban Project, an initiative that dealt with some tombs of officials dating to the late Eleventh Dynasty and early Twelfth Dynasty in the cemeteries of Asasif and Deir el-Bahari. Associated research initiatives for the Middle Kingdom Theban Project are also funded by the Research Agencies of the Community of Castilla-La Mancha and Community of Madrid, the Spanish Ministry of Culture, Palarq Foundation, and the Spanish Association of Egyptology.
In this new phase, the Middle Kingdom Theban Project will apply an unprecedented large-scale, multidisciplinary approach to the study of the city of Thebes in the First Intermediate Period and the Middle Kingdom. The intended research will take place along four axes: (1) the study of the Theban cemeteries and their development in this period; (2) the examination of the settlements and urban landscape of Thebes; (3) the analysis of the temples and their cultic activities; and (4) the mapping and study of the entire province of Waset.
The fundamental purpose of the project is to clarify the role of the ruling elites and communities of Thebes in the construction of the Middle Kingdom and, in doing so, help to define the environmental, social, and cultural transformations experienced by the city during 200 years, since the fall of the Old Kingdom until the reign of Senwosret I. This will be the first application of such a large-scale broad approach to the study of the pre-New Kingdom city and community of Thebes.
Publications by project members on particular topics of interests, material culture, and texts of this period can be found in the following website https://thebanproject.com/en/project-publications/.
