David O'Connor (Egyptologist)

Between 1964 and 1995 O’Connor was a Professor of Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology in the Department of Oriental Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as Curator-in-Charge of the Egyptian collection at the Penn Museum.[1] O’Connor had a dual role at the institution, working as a lecturer and mentor to PhD students at the University, as well as exhibiting and maintaining the Ancient Egyptian collection at the Museum.[3]

O’Connor claims to have always preferred education through the use of artefacts, having previously been particularly interested in the student-accessible collections at the University of Sydney and University College London.[3] He utilised the large collection of Ancient Egyptian artefacts to aid in tutoring post-graduate students.[3]

O’Connor expanded his use of the Museum’s collection through a series of touring exhibitions. He began with an exhibition of artefacts from Abydos, using a mixture of the Museum’s collection as well as new material distributed by the Egyptian Government.[3] The most well-travelled exhibition was of Nubian artefacts, displaying a selection of the Museum’s collection at eight cities in the United States, including New York.[3] In an oral history where he recounted his career, O'Connor stated that while he enjoyed his time curating exhibitions, it was not well respected by peers within his discipline, and it did little to progress his career.[3] This attitude of contributing to popular history sometimes at the expense of participating in more scholarly activity, such as lecturing, writing, and fieldwork, is further shown in O'Connor's appearance in documentaries about Ancient Egypt, like PBS's Egypt's Golden Empire in 2001.[7]

The main sites O'Connor worked at during this period were Abydos and Malkata. Abydos was an important place of worship for Ancient Egyptians to the god Osiris during the Middle Kingdom era to the Late Period.[8] O’Connor’s work at Abydos began in 1967 as part of a joint Penn-Yale Expedition, and he continues to be involved in study of the site today.[2]

O’Connor was temporarily excluded from work at Abydos as a result of the 1973 Yom Kippur War.[3] The Israeli occupation of the Sinai Peninsula and threat of further conflict in Egypt led Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat, to evacuate foreign tourists from Egypt and consolidate foreign archaeologists in a few central locations.[3] O’Connor was relocated to the urban site of Malkata, near Thebes, studying the artificial lake of the Malkata Palace as well as a collection of ancient ceramics.[3] O’Connor co-directed this project with his former University of Cambridge peer, Barry Kemp.[3]

O’Connor’s most notable student from his time at the University of Pennsylvania was archaeologist and former Egyptian Minister of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass.[3][9] O’Connor first met Hawass when the former was excavating at Malkata in 1974, and the latter was working as an inspector of antiquities for the Egyptian Government.[10] They reunited at the Abydos dig-site in 1979, where Hawass’s in interest Egyptology prompted O’Connor and co-director, William Kelly Simpson, to invite him to the United States to view museum collections.[10] Hawass began his doctoral work at the University of Pennsylvania as a Fulbright Scholar in 1980, with O’Connor acting as an advisor to Hawass’s dissertation.[10]

Having left the institution in 1995, O’Connor now holds the role of Curator Emeritus of the University of Pennsylvania’s Egyptian Museum.[11]

From 1995 to 2017 O’Connor worked at the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University as the Lila Acheson Wallace Professor of Ancient Egyptian Art.[1] Here O’Connor continued his fieldwork at Abydos and role as a teacher of tertiary-level students.[1] O’Connor also continued to publish works on his findings at Abydos as well as in the fields of Ancient Egyptian Art and the foreign relations of Ancient Egypt with other civilizations.

O’Connor also expanded his academic role at the Institute of Fine Arts, beginning work in the field of Art History.[3] He was not formally educated in this discipline, but had always incorporated it into his Egyptological work, such as in his study of ceramics at Malkata.[3] This transition supported the Institute of Fine Arts’ aim to diversify archaeological focuses among their faculty.[3]

Retired since 2017, O’Connor now holds the title of Lila Acheson Wallace Professor Emeritus at New York University.[2]

An annotated, hand-drawn map of the Abydos site from 1914

O’Connor has worked at the Abydos archaeological site since 1967.[2] First excavations occurred at Abydos in the late 19th century, headed by archaeologists, Emile-Clément and Sir Flinders Petrie.[8] Abydos was historically a site for worship of the jackal god Khenti-Amentiu in the Old Kingdom era before it transitioned to the main site of worship of the god Osiris during the Fifth Dynasty.[8] Osiris was a god of the netherworld who decided which souls could enter, and which could not.[12] A symbol of rebirth, it was believed Osiris sacrificed himself so that the banks of the Nile could flood and water the crops that grew along it.[12] Due to these beliefs, Osiris was worshipped by Ancient Egyptians as a god of fertility.[12] O’Connor’s work at Abydos focused on unearthing sites connected to the worship of Osiris. These buildings most often took the form of chapels, where bodies and inscriptions of names were kept, so spirits could witness yearly festivities at the Temple of Osiris.[12][13]

O’Connor excavated and researched a variety of chapels in various sites, mainly in North Abydos. His work involved distinguishing between tomb chapels, like those of pharaohs such as Senwosret III, Ahmose II and Tetishri in the North Cemetery, and lesser ‘mahat’ chapels of the Middle Kingdom era.[13]

Some of O’Connor’s notable work at Abydos includes:

• Locating the ‘Terrace of the God’, referenced in Egyptian texts, as a collection of chapels in the North Cemetery.[13]
• Suggestion that many structures discovered damaged in the North Cemetery were intentionally demolished after a short period of use as part of ritual celebration (with the notable exception of the funerary complex of Khasekhemwy).[13][14]
• A theory that Nebhepetre made cult offerings to Osiris as evidenced by the location of an offering table at a chapel at Umm el-Qa’ab.[13]
• A theory that the tomb of Djer once had a brick chapel attached to it which has since been lost.[13]

Khasekhemwy's funerary complex, Shunet el-Zebib

O’Connor has also led a successful conservation project at the Abydos site. King Khasekhemwy of the Second Dynasty was the last early Egyptian king to have been buried at Abydos, and his funerary monument, Shunet el-Zebib, is the last standing monument of its kind in the area.[14][15] With walls reaching 12 metres tall in some parts of the complex, Shunet el-Zebib is one of the oldest mud brick buildings in the world, but, over more than 4000 years it has collapsed in some places and is at risk of further destruction as a rising water table, wind, rain erosion, and animals digging into it for burrows have compromised its stability.[15] From 2008 to 2009 O’Connor led a project to keep the structure standing.[3][14][15] This conservation work focused on supporting the current structure through the sealing of animal burrows (mostly those of hornets and foxes), and reinforcing structurally unstable walls through the fabrication and use of 150,000 mud bricks, made and put in place by local workers.[15] Support for the project was provided by O’Connor’s employer at the time, New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts, as well as the World Monuments Fund and the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities.[15]  Additional financing for the project was provided through the American Research Center in Egypt’s EAP, EAC and AEF grants, which were funded by the USAID program.[14]

O’Connor no longer works on site at Abydos but he remains the Director Emeritus of the Abydos Archaeology Project.[2]

• Ancient Egypt: A Social History, co-author, 1983.
• Ancient Nubia: Egypt's Rival in Africa, 1994.
• Society and Individual in Early Egypt, in, Order, Legitimacy, and Wealth in Ancient States, 2000.
• Abydos: Egypt’s First Pharaohs and the Cult of Osiris, 2011.
• The Old Kingdom Town at Buhen, 2014.

• Ancient Egyptian Kingship: New Investigations, co-editor, 1994.
• Amenhotep III. Perspectives on His Reign, co-editor, 1998.
• Encounters With Ancient Egypt, co-editor, 2003.
• Thutmose III: A New Biography, co-editor with Eric H. Cline, 2006.
• Ramesses III: The Life and Times of Egypt's Last Hero, co-editor, 2012.