Winter Lecture: Why Are We So Fascinated By Ancient Egypt?

***Please note, this lecture will now take place on the 2 April 2025 and not 13 March as previously advertised***

Dr Campbell Price explores why we are so fascinated by ancient Egypt in the last Winter Lecture of the series.

Pharaonic Egypt has an enduring hold on the popular imagination that few other ancient civilizations can match. Glamour, mystery, fear and strange sense of familiarity have combined to create both an intoxicating mirage – but also a monolithic ‘museum culture’. This lecture interrogates the child-like wonder of first encounters with ‘Ancient Egypt’, its various influences in Western perceptions, and explores the circularity of influences between museums and popular culture.

Speaker: Dr Campbell Price has been Curator of Egypt and Sudan at Manchester Museum since 2011. He studied Egyptology at the University of Liverpool, where he is now an Honorary Research Fellow. Recent books include Totally Chaotic History. Ancient Egypt Gets Unruly! (with Greg Jenner) (Walker, 2024) and Brief Histories: Ancient Egypt (Seven Dials, 2024). He is currently Chair of Trustees at the Egypt Exploration Society, the UK’s foremost charity promoting Egypt’s cultural heritage.

How to take part

Thanks to the generous sponsorship from the Friends of Bristol Museums, Galleries & Archives , this season’s Winter Lectures will be held in person at M Shed and online via Zoom.

If you are attending in-person, please arrive 15 minutes before the advertised start time to take your seat. Parking in the area can be difficult so you may want to allow extra time to find a space if you are driving to the venue.

If you are attending online, this lecture will take place over Zoom. Details of how to join the session will be in your registration email.

Please note, this lecture will not be recorded unless specified above.