My research primarily focuses on the material culture of Egypt and Sudan. Most of my work concentrates on New Kingdom funerary material, though I have also worked with earlier and later Egyptian and Nubian material, both from cemeteries and settlements. My research has a strong theoretical focus. I am especially interested in postcolonial theory, decolonial theory, colonisation through objects, social stratification and power, relations of production, consumption patterns, and how inequalities determine the expression of identities through material culture.

My current research project, funded by the British Academy, aims to understand, through scientific analyses of material culture, how Egyptian-style objects are subverted in colonised Nubia. The project focuses on coffins, kohl and clays from Debeira and Aniba in Lower Nubia. Materials analyses of coffins from colonised Nubia may shed light on local strategies for manufacturing Egyptian-style objects. Preliminary analyses of kohl are progressively revealing local patterns of use of Egyptian funerary objects in Nubia during the New Kingdom colonial period. Recently, I have also done residue analysis of 18th Dynasty canopic jars from Lower Nubia, which shed further light onto local patterns of use of foreign objects in local contexts and the existence of alternative networks through which materials used in the Nubian colony circulated.

I am currently co-directing, with Ikhlas Abdellatif, a research project on the 18th Dynasty tomb of Djehutyhotep, chief of Tehkhet (Debeira, Lower Nubia). Due to the flooding of Lower Nubia, the tomb chapel has been relocated from Debeira and reassembled in the courtyard of the Sudan National Museum in Khartoum. The project aims to (1) document the tomb's architectural and artistic features in Khartoum using state-of-the-art digital techniques, in conjunction with legacy data from excavations in the 1950s and to produce a digital reconstruction of the lost monument; (2) record and study the burial assemblages from the tomb, including scientific analyses; (3) disseminate knowledge on Djehutyhotep and promote community-led activities towards decolonisation. This work has received funding from the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge.

I am the Assistant Director of the Sanam Temple Project in north Sudan. At Sanam, I have previously excavated and am currently investigating a Napatan Period faience production workshop located at the rear of the main stone temple. The products of this workshop probably ended up in mortuary contexts of the Napatan Period. Until further excavations can be done, this project will focus on scientific analyses of faience objects from Sanam in UK collections.

I am also engaged in fieldwork in Luxor, Egypt, where I have excavated a series of tombs ranging from the Old Kingdom to the late New Kingdom. These tombs were reused from the Third Intermediate Period to the Ptolemaic Period. I am currently in the process of publishing the results of these excavations. In Egypt, I have also worked at the Great Aten Temple and one of the non-elite cemeteries in Akhenaten's capital, modern-day Amarna. Other fieldwork in Sudan includes excavations at a large Kerma cemetery in Ginis East, which served a relatively wealthy provincial community within the Kerma empire of the Middle Bronze Age. I am currently writing up analyses of material from this cemetery for publication and will be contributing later to its final publication.

I am currently in the process of publishing my PhD research, which consists of a fresh interpretation of the role of foreign objects in local contexts in New Kingdom colonial Nubia.

Collaborators

• Dr Kate Spence (Cambridge)
• Dr Kathyn Howley (NYU)
• Dr Ikhlas Abdellatif (National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums of Sudan)
• Dr W. Vivian Davies (University of Oxford)
• Prof Julia Budka (LMU Munich)
• Dr Kate Fulcher (Bodlean Library, Oxford)
• Prof Jonas Bergquist (Uppsala University)
• Ludmila Werkström (Gustavianum Museum, Uppsala University)
• Emma Hocker (Gustavianum Museum, Uppsala University)
• Dr Leonardo Impett (Cambridge Digital Humanities)
• Dr Claudia Rodrigues-Carvalho (The National Museum, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro)
• Prof Violeta Pereyra (University of Buenos Aires)
• Dr Oliva Menozzi (University of Chieti and Pescara)
• Dr Carl Walsh (Barnes Foundation)
• Dr Manuela Lehmann
• Dr Frederik Rademaker (British Museum)
• Prof Marcos Martinón Torres (Cambridge)
• Caterina Zaggia (Cambridge)