Event: Friday Seminar: " 'What is the Past But a Once Material Existence Now Silenced?' Understanding the Archaeology and History of Egypt's First Intermediate Period"

Speaker: Dr. Thomas Schneider, University of British Columbia

The First Intermediate Period has presented archaeology and historiography with significant epistemological problems. Gaps in the evidence available to us and the uncertainty about how to interpret a variety of material and textual sources, have as much led to widely different views as modern paradigmatic shifts, depicting the
FIP either as a time of crisis or to the contrary, a time of regional innovation. This paper will look at the methodological problems with which archaeologists and historians of the FIP are faced today. What can we know today and what are possible avenues of future research?