Westchester Society

08/23/07

Upcoming Lecture

Sunday, September 16, 2007

     Location: Chappaqua Library, Chappaqua, NY

     Speaker: Colleen Manassa, Marilyn M. and William K. Assistant Professor of Egyptology, Yale

     University

And Its Seed Is Not: Egyptian Military Strategy in the Reign of Merneptah

The military events of the reign of Merneptah, best known for the sole mention of Israel in Egyptian documents, illuminate Egyptian strategy on several fronts.  Border reports indicate a vigorous policy in the north, while more detailed texts record a large-scale Libyan invasion in Year 5 of Merneptah's reign.  This lecture will address the tactics at the Battle of Perire in the western Delta, the importance of the Sea Peoples for the subsequent history of both Egypt and Israel, and present a comparison of 
fortifications in Egypt's northeastern and western territories.

Colleen Manassa is currently the Marilyn M. and William K. Assistant Professor of Egyptology at Yale University, where she received her PhD in 2005.  Her publications include The Great Karnak Inscription of Merneptah: Grand Strategy in the 13th Century BC and a new book co-authored with John Coleman Darnell, Tutankhamun's Armies: Battle and Conquest in Ancient Egypt's Late Eighteenth Dynasty.  She has also written on Egyptian art history and religion, including a forthcoming monograph, The Late Egyptian Underworld.  During academic recesses, she participates in Yale expeditions in the Egyptian Western Desert.