Janet Helen Johnson | |
---|---|
Born | December 24, 1944 |
Nationality | American |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | University of Chicago |
Thesis | Demotic verbs and dialects (1972) |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Egyptologist |
Janet Helen Johnson (born December 24,1944) is an American Egyptologist and academic,specializing in Egyptian language and the Late Period of ancient Egypt. Since 2003,she has been Morton D. Hull Distinguished Service Professor of Egyptology at the University of Chicago. She was Director of Chicago's Oriental Institute from 1983 to 1989. [1] [2] [3]
Johnson studied at the University of Chicago,graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1967 and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in 1972. [2] She has spent almost all of her academic career at the University of Chicago:she was appointed assistant professor in 1972,promoted to associate professor in 1979 and to professor in 1981. [1] She has also been a research associate at the Field Museum of Natural History,holding the position from 1980 to 1984 and from 1994 to 1999. [2]
Johnson was awarded a Festschrift in 2018:it was titled "Essays for the Library of Seshat:Studies Presented to Janet H. Johnson on the Occasion of Her 70th Birthday" and was edited by Robert K. Ritner. [4]
The Egyptian language or Ancient Egyptian is an extinct Afro-Asiatic language that was spoken in ancient Egypt. It is known today from a large corpus of surviving texts which were made accessible to the modern world following the decipherment of the ancient Egyptian scripts in the early 19th century. Egyptian is one of the earliest written languages, first being recorded in the hieroglyphic script in the late 4th millennium BC. It is also the longest-attested human language, with a written record spanning over 4000 years. Its classical form is known as Middle Egyptian, the vernacular of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt which remained the literary language of Egypt until the Roman period. By the time of classical antiquity the spoken language had evolved into Demotic, and by the Roman era it had diversified into the Coptic dialects. These were eventually supplanted by Arabic after the Muslim conquest of Egypt, although Bohairic Coptic remains in use as the liturgical language of the Coptic Church.
Seshat, Ancient Egyptian: sš3t, under various spellings, was the ancient Egyptian goddess of writing, wisdom, and knowledge. She was seen as a scribe and record keeper; her name means "female scribe". She is credited with inventing writing. She also became identified as the goddess of accounting, architecture, astronomy, astrology, building, mathematics, and surveying.
The Book of Abraham is a work produced between 1835 and 1842 by Joseph Smith following the purchase of two Egyptian scrolls from a traveling mummy exhibition. According to Smith, the book was "a translation of some ancient records... purporting to be the writings of Abraham, while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon papyrus". Smith said the papyri described Abraham's early life, his travels to Canaan and Egypt, and his vision of the cosmos and its creation.
The Oriental Institute (OI), established in 1919, is the University of Chicago's interdisciplinary research center for ancient Near Eastern ("Orient") studies and archaeology museum. It was founded for the university by professor James Henry Breasted with funds donated by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. It conducts research on ancient civilizations throughout the Near East, including at its facility, Chicago House, in Luxor, Egypt. The Institute publicly exhibits an extensive collection of artifacts related to ancient civilizations at its on-campus building in Hyde Park, Chicago. According to anthropologist William Parkinson of the Field Museum, the OI's highly focused "near Eastern, or southwest Asian and Egyptian" collection is one of the finest in the world.
James Henry Breasted was an American archaeologist, Egyptologist, and historian. After completing his PhD at the University of Berlin in 1894, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago. In 1901 he became director of the Haskell Oriental Museum at the university, where he continued to concentrate on Egypt. In 1905 Breasted was promoted to full professor, and held the first chair in Egyptology and Oriental History in the United States.
In the field of Egyptology, transliteration of Ancient Egyptian is the process of converting texts written in the Egyptian language to alphabetic symbols representing uniliteral hieroglyphs or their hieratic and Demotic counterparts. This process facilitates the publication of texts where the inclusion of photographs or drawings of an actual Egyptian document is impractical.
The Edwin Smith Papyrus is an ancient Egyptian medical text, named after Edwin Smith who bought it in 1862, and the oldest known surgical treatise on trauma. From a cited quotation in another text, it may have been known to ancient surgeons as the "Secret Book of the Physician".
Demotic is the ancient Egyptian script derived from northern forms of hieratic used in the Nile Delta, and the stage of the Egyptian language written in this script, following Late Egyptian and preceding Coptic. The term was first used by the Greek historian Herodotus to distinguish it from hieratic and hieroglyphic scripts. By convention, the word "Demotic" is capitalized in order to distinguish it from demotic Greek.
Richard Anthony Parker was a prominent Egyptologist and professor of Egyptology. Originally from Chicago, he attended Mt. Carmel High School with acclaimed author James T. Farrell. He received an A.B. from Dartmouth College in 1930, and a Ph.D. in Egyptology from the University of Chicago in 1938. He then went to Luxor, Egypt to work as an epigrapher with the University of Chicago's Epigraphic and Architectural Survey, studying the mortuary temple of Ramses III. When World War II necessitated a temporary halt to the project, Parker came back to Chicago to teach Egyptology at the university. In 1946, he returned to Egypt to continue his work on the epigraphic survey, and soon rose to the position of field director.
The Book of Abraham is a work produced between 1835 and 1842 by the Latter Day Saints (LDS) movement founder Joseph Smith that he said was based on Egyptian papyri purchased from a traveling mummy exhibition. According to Smith, the book was "a translation of some ancient records ... purporting to be the writings of Abraham, while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon papyrus". The work was first published in 1842 and today is a canonical part of the Pearl of Great Price. Since its printing, the Book of Abraham has been a source of controversy. Numerous non-LDS Egyptologists, beginning in the mid-19th century, have heavily criticized Joseph Smith's translation and explanations of the facsimiles, unanimously concluding that his interpretations are inaccurate. They have also asserted that missing portions of the facsimiles were reconstructed incorrectly by Smith.
Meresamun was an ancient Egyptian singer-priestess in the inner sanctum at the temple in Karnak. Her mummy, ca. 800 BC, was on exhibit at the Oriental Institute of Chicago Museum of the University of Chicago from February 10 to December 6, 2009. A special exhibition, “The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt,” opened in February 2009 and provides a personal look into Meresamun’s life.
The Instruction of Ankhsheshonq is an Ancient Egyptian papyrus that has been tentatively dated to the Ptolemaic period, although the content may be earlier in origin. It contains an introductory narrative and a list of maxims on many topics, its style has been described as pragmatic and humorous. The papyrus was obtained in 1896 by the British Museum.
Johannes Bronkhorst is a Dutch Orientalist and Indologist, specializing in Buddhist studies and early Buddhism. He is emeritus professor at the University of Lausanne.
Robert Kriech Ritner was an American Egyptologist most recently at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.
Wendy Rosalind James, is a British retired social anthropologist and academic. She was Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford from 1996 to 2007, and President of the Royal Anthropological Institute from 2001 to 2004.
Theban Tomb TT72 is located in the Theban Necropolis, on the west bank of the Nile, opposite to Luxor. It was the tomb of Re, who was the First Prophet of Amun in the Mortuary temple of Thutmosis III. The tomb is located in the necropolis area around Sheikh Abd el-Qurna and dates to the time of Amenhotep II.
The Theban Tomb TT120 is located in Sheikh Abd el-Qurna. It forms part of the Theban Necropolis, situated on the west bank of the Nile opposite Luxor. The tomb is the burial place of the ancient Egyptian official Ahmose, who was the second prophet of Amun-Ra at Karnak and later the first prophet of Amun at Henqet-Ankh, the mortuary temple of Tuthmosis III at Qurnah during the reign of the Tuthmosis III.
Renpetneferet is a minor goddess who is credited as being either the sister or the wife of Imhotep in Late Period Egyptian texts. There is no evidence of an individual by this name existing during the reign of King Djoser, although similar names were being used for women during the fourth dynasty.
Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati is an American archaeologist, who focused her research on the Caucasus and ancient Syria in the third and second millennium B.C..
Ola El Aguizy is an Egyptian Egyptologist and Emeritus Professor at the University of Cairo. An expert in Demotic, she has published widely on the language. Since 2005 she has led excavations at Saqqara, uncovering the tombs of several notable figures connected to Ramesses II. Inn 2015 her colleagues presented her with a Festschrift entitled Mélanges offerts à Ola el-Aguizy.