John Darnell | |
---|---|
Born | John Coleman Darnell August 1962 (age 61) Prattville, Alabama, U.S. |
Spouses | |
Academic background | |
Education | Johns Hopkins University (BA, MA) University of Chicago (PhD) |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Egyptologist |
Sub-discipline | Desert caravan routes |
Institutions | Yale University |
John Coleman Darnell (born August 1962) [2] is an American Egyptologist.
Darnell attributes his interest in archaeology to his mother,who also had a lifelong interest in archaeology. She grew up in south Alabama and had a particular interest in the Mississippian Mound Builders. Darnell tells a story of her reading him archaeology books as a child,hoping he would take a nap,but he was fascinated and did not nap. [3] [4] [5]
Darnell got his BA (1984) and MA (1985) at Johns Hopkins University and his PhD (1995) at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. He joined the Yale Department of Near Eastern Languages &Civilizations as Assistant Professor in 1998;he became Associate Professor in 2004,and Professor of Egyptology in 2005. [6]
He was the director of the Theban Desert Road Survey,which has used remote sensing to detect transportation networks between settlements in the Western Desert of Egypt that has focused on the connections between Thebes and such settlements as the Kharga Oasis. [7]
In December 2006 a student of his created a Facebook group titled,"John C. Darnell...Man,Myth or Legend?" due to eccentricates such as wearing a monocle,and one time when "Darnell accidentally took a chunk out of a classroom chair with an ancient sword". [3] [8]
In January 2013,scandal broke out when it was discovered that John Darnell had engaged in a long-running affair with his student-turned-coworker Colleen Manassa. Within the small Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (NELC) department,they were the only two faculty members in the even-smaller Egyptology program. [9] "Four individuals with close ties to the department" claimed the relationship was common knowledge within the department, [10] and Assyriology professor Benjamin Foster reported "the basic situation has been known for a very long time." [11] In divorce documents filed by Darnell's wife Deborah Darnell on November 5,2012,she asserted that the affair began in 2000 when Manassa was an undergraduate student under Darnell's supervision. [1] On January 8,2013,John Darnell admitted to the affair and accepted a one-year suspension without pay. [12] [13] [14] Darnell also admitted to “participating in the review" of Manassa's hiring and attempting to cover up his multiple policy violations. [11] In August the university prohibited Darnell from holding an administrative position until 2023,and Manassa until 2018. [9] [15]
Eventually John was invited back to teach,but Colleen left Yale in 2015. [16]
Now married,the pair are residents of Durham,Connecticut,dress in 1920s-era vintage clothing,both in their professional life and on an every-day basis. Their book Egypt’s Golden Couple:When Akhenaten and Nefertiti Were Gods on Earth was released in November 2022. [17]
In 2007 he had a dog Antef,named after King Antef II. [3] In 2020 he and Colleen have two Basenji dogs,Narmer (after Narmer) and Kemi (from the root km meaning "black").
Tutankhamun, Tutankhamon or Tutankhamen, also known as Tutankhaten, was the antepenultimate pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt. His death marked the cessation of the dynasty's royal line.
Amarna is an extensive Egyptian archaeological site containing the remains of what was the capital city of the late Eighteenth Dynasty. The city was established in 1346 BC, built at the direction of the Pharaoh Akhenaten, and abandoned shortly after his death in 1332 BC. The name that the ancient Egyptians used for the city is transliterated as Akhetaten or Akhetaton, meaning "the horizon of the Aten".
Akhenaten, also spelled Akhenaton or Echnaton, was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh reigning c. 1353–1336 or 1351–1334 BC, the tenth ruler of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Before the fifth year of his reign, he was known as Amenhotep IV.
Nefertiti was a queen of the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, the great royal wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten. Nefertiti and her husband were known for their radical overhaul of state religious policy, in which they promoted the earliest known form of monotheism, Atenism, centered on the sun disc and its direct connection to the royal household. With her husband, she reigned at what was arguably the wealthiest period of ancient Egyptian history. Some scholars believe that Nefertiti ruled briefly as the female king Neferneferuaten after her husband's death and before the ascension of Tutankhamun, although this identification is a matter of ongoing debate. If Nefertiti did rule as Pharaoh, her reign was marked by the fall of Amarna and relocation of the capital back to the traditional city of Thebes.
Kiya was one of the wives of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten. Little is known about her, and her actions and roles are poorly documented in the historical record, in contrast to those of Akhenaten's ‘Great royal wife’, Nefertiti. Her unusual name suggests that she may originally have been a Mitanni princess. Surviving evidence demonstrates that Kiya was an important figure at Akhenaten's court during the middle years of his reign, when she had a daughter with him. She disappears from history a few years before her royal husband's death. In previous years, she was thought to be mother of Tutankhamun, but recent DNA evidence suggests this is unlikely.
Narmer was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the Early Dynastic Period. He was the successor to the Protodynastic king Ka. Many scholars consider him the unifier of Egypt and founder of the First Dynasty, and in turn the first king of a unified Egypt. He also had a prominently noticeable presence in Canaan, compared to his predecessors and successors. A majority of Egyptologists believe that Narmer was the same person as Menes. Neithhotep is thought to be his queen consort or his daughter.
Sehertawy Intef I was a local nomarch at Thebes during the early First Intermediate Period and the first member of the 11th Dynasty to lay claim to a Horus name. Intef reigned from 4 to 16 years c. 2120 BC or c. 2070 BC during which time he probably waged war with his northern neighbor, the Coptite nomarch Tjauti. Intef was buried in a saff tomb at El-Tarif, known today as Saff el-Dawaba.
Tomb KV35 is the tomb of Pharaoh Amenhotep II located in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt. Later, it was used as a cache for other royal mummies. It was discovered by Victor Loret in March 1898.
Tomb TT188, located in the necropolis of El-Assasif in Thebes in Egypt, is the tomb of the Steward and King's Cupbearer Parennefer. It has been excavated by the Akhenaten Temple Project. The work has been thoroughly published by Susan Redford with architectural study and drawings by Keith Meikle.
Apepi, Apophis ; regnal names Nebkhepeshre, Aaqenenre and Aauserre) was a Hyksos ruler of Lower Egypt during the Fifteenth Dynasty and the end of the Second Intermediate Period. According to the Turin Canon of Kings, he reigned over the northern portion of Egypt for forty years during the early half of the 16th century BCE. Although officially only in control of the Lower Kingdom, Apepi in practice dominated the majority of Egypt during the early portion of his reign. He outlived his southern rival, Kamose, but not Ahmose I.
Barry John Kemp, is an English archaeologist and Egyptologist. He is Professor Emeritus of Egyptology at the University of Cambridge and directing excavations at Amarna in Egypt. His widely renowned book Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilisation is a core text of Egyptology and many Ancient History courses.
Carl Nicholas Reeves, FSA, is a British Egyptologist, archaeologist and museum curator.
Josef William Wegner is an American Egyptologist, archaeologist and Professor in Egyptology at the department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations of the University of Pennsylvania, where he obtained his Ph.D. degree in Egyptology in 1996. He specializes in Egyptian Middle Kingdom archaeology. His father is the astrophysicist, Gary A. Wegner.
Ankhkheperure-Merit-Neferkheperure/Waenre/Aten Neferneferuaten was a name used to refer to a female king who reigned toward the end of the Amarna Period during the Eighteenth Dynasty. Her gender is confirmed by feminine traces occasionally found in the name and by the epithet Akhet-en-hyes, incorporated into one version of her nomen cartouche. She is distinguished from the king Smenkhkare who used the same throne name, Ankhkheperure, by the presence of epithets in both cartouches. She is suggested to have been either Meritaten or, more likely, Nefertiti. If this person is Nefertiti ruling as sole king, it has been theorized by Egyptologist and archaeologist Zahi Hawass that her reign was marked by the fall of Amarna and relocation of the capital back to the traditional city of Thebes.
Mahu was Chief of Police at Akhetaten.
The Wadi el-Hol inscriptions are two rock inscriptions which appear to show the oldest examples of phonetic alphabetic writing discovered to date.
The Theban Desert Road Survey is an archaeological research project operated in conjunction with the Egyptian Ministry of Culture's Supreme Council for Antiquities that is being conducted in the Western Desert in Egypt that focuses on the ancient connections between Thebes and such settlements as the Kharga Oasis. The project uses remote sensing to identify roads and caravan trails that were used in antiquity to identify possible sites of previously unknown communities. Established in 1991 by Egyptologists Deborah Darnell and her then-husband John Coleman Darnell, the survey project grew substantially when it gained the support of Yale University in 1998. The Theban Desert Road Survey has discovered sites from Predynastic Egypt, including substantial caches of pottery and other artifacts.
Colleen Darnell is an American Egyptologist, whose expertise includes Late Period uses of the Underworld Books, ancient Egyptian military history, the literature of New Kingdom Egypt, and Egyptian revival history.
Herbert Walter Fairman was a British Egyptologist. During his career he served as a field director for two excavations in Egypt that were funded by the Egypt Exploration Society.
The explorations of the Theban Desert Road Survey, a Yale University project co-directed by the Darnells, called attention to the previously underappreciated significance of caravan routes and oasis settlements in Egyptian antiquity.
Egypt's Golden Couple: When Akhenaten and Nefertiti Were Gods on Earth will be published Nov. 1 by the professorial pair of John Coleman Darnell and Colleen Darnell, who live in Durham.... Both John and Colleen prefer to wear vintage fashion in every part of their life and together they run an Instagram account that focuses on vintage styles and ancient Egypt.