Blueprints for Bureaucracy: How the Egyptian Government Designed Settlements in the Desert to oversee Amethyst Mining

The design of a space is an essential element to the organization of productive work generated by the people using that space. The principles of organization of administration can speak to the greater importance of architecture and design as means of control and productivity. This talk will present results from ongoing archaeological survey and excavation of the Wadi el-Hudi Expedition in Egypt’s Eastern Desert. The focus will be on Sites 5 and 9. These types of settlements have often been confused with fortresses because of elements from their designs, but fortification was not its main purpose. Various architectural and archaeological nuances demonstrate how Egyptian officials designed their spaces to maximize amethyst production quarried at these sites through the organization their workforces and workspaces.

Kate Liszka is the Benson and Pamela Harer Fellow in Egyptology and an Associate Professor of History at California State University, San Bernardino. She received her PhD in Egyptology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2012. From 2012-2015 she was a Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow in the Society of Fellows at Princeton University. Her research for the last decade has focused on interactions between Nubians and Egyptians. Kate also directs an archaeological project at Wadi el-Hudi, in the Eastern Egyptian Desert, where large Egyptian and Roman expeditions mined amethyst during the Middle Kingdom and Roman Period.