Katharina Zinn
Contact Details
School of Archaeology, History and AnthropologyCampus
Lampeter CampusJob Title
Part-time Lecturer in Egyptology
Role in the University
part-time lecturer in Egyptology
Teaching Responsibilities
Funerary Beliefs in Ancient Egypt; The History of Ancient Egypt from Menes to Cleopatra and beyond: 4000BC to 400AD
Background
Katharina is a part-time lecturer in Egyptology, having previously taught for 3 years as affiliated lecturer and supervisor at Cambridge University both within the Oriental Tripos (Egyptology) and the Archaeological Tripos as well as at the University of Leipzig, Germany. Her courses were covering ancient Egyptian religion, history and social history, art and architecture as well as interconnections with neighboring countries. Furthermore she gave language classes on Middle and Late Egyptian. She is also teaching ancient Egyptian art and architecture as well as the MA course “Beyond Mummies: Interpreting Mortuary Data in Ancient Egypt” at Swansea University.
Katharina has broad historical, cultural, and religious interests that cross disciplines and time periods, having been trained both in Egyptology (with a focus on social aspects of ancient Egyptian history and society) and as a media-historian (PhD in Egyptology, University of Leipzig, Germany; MA in Egyptology, Media Science and Economy, University of Leipzig; Diploma of Library Sciences, University of applied sciences HTWK Leipzig). This is combined with a long-standing interest in interdisciplinary and comparative approaches to cultural phenomena, especially those of ancient Egypt. Knowledge and its rootedness in society is an area that she is keen to expand. This long-standing interest for interdisciplinary work is reflected in her PhD dissertation “Bibliotheken, Archive und Erinnerungskultur im Alten Ägypten” (Libraries, Archives, and the Organization of Collective Wisdom in Ancient Egypt).
Her new post-doctoral research project sets out to explore the connection between knowledge, ritual, and bureaucracy in ancient Egypt. Focusing on ancient Egyptian temples, the aim of this project is to analyze how management of knowledge, performance of ritual, and bureaucratic routine were intertwined and how the patterns of their interconnection defined the self-understanding of the Ancient Egyptian elite.
Besides her ability to use a wide range of textual sources, she is especially interested in archaeology and material culture, mainly focusing on museum environments with several stints and projects in the Ägyptisches Museum der Universität Leipzig, the Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim, the Princeton University Art Museum (Department of Ancient Art) as well as the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge.
Publications
Articles
Libraries, Pharaonic Egypt
Magic, Pharaonic Egypt
Literacy, Pharaonic Egypt
Khepry
Education, Pharaonic Egypt
Cults: divine
All entries in: Encyclopedia of Ancient World, ed. by Roger Bagnall, et.al. Oxford: Blackwell. (In preparation, forthcoming 2011).
Temples, Palaces and Libraries – a search for their alliance between archaeological and textual evidence. In: Fifth Symposium on Egyptian Royal Ideology: Palace and Temple – Architecture, Decoration, Ritual, ed. by Kate Spence and Rolf Gundlach. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. (Königtum, Staat und Gesellschaft früher Hochkulturen; 4,2) (Forthcoming 2010)
Altägyptische Tempelbibliotheken. In: Die Bibliothek des Weissen Klosters: Leben und Lesen in frühchristlichen Ägypten: Katalog zur Ausstellung im Papyrusmuseum der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek Wien. Wien: Phoibos, 2008.
Libraries, Archives, and the Organization of Collective Wisdom in Ancient Egypt. In: Proceedings of the VIIth Current Research in Egyptology Symposium, ed. by Maria Cannata and Tom Hardwick. Oxford: Oxbow, 2007. pp. 169-176.
Migration/Population Movement. In: Encyclopedia of Society and Culture in the Ancient World. Dallas, Tx.: Schlager Group, 2007.
Storage and Preservation. In: Encyclopedia of Society and Culture in the Ancient World. Dallas, Tx.: Schlager Group, 2007.
„Fremdsprachigkeit im alten Ägypten.“ [Multilingualism in Ancient Egypt] In: Thotweb (2000)29 (Paris) – internet edition (www.thotweb.com/pro/zinn2000.htm)
„Skizzen aus dem Alten Ägypten: Anstelle eines Nachwortes = Sketches from Ancient Egypt: In Place of a Postscript.“ In: Quitz, Marion. Kalinke, Viktor. Echo der Stille: Skizzen aus Ägypten = The Echo of Silence, Sketches of Egypt. Leipzig: edition erata, 2000. S. 31-38. (Text German and English).
„Sprache im alten Ägypten. Dimensionen eines Phänomens - Teil 2: Sprache als Dimension der Gottesnähe und Göttlichkeit.“ [Language in Ancient Egypt. Dimensions of a phenomenon – Part 2: The importance of language in divine revelation and in seeking proximity to God] In: Philokles. Zeitschrift für populäre Philosophie (1999)2, S. 20-24.
„Sprache im alten Ägypten. Dimensionen eines Phänomens - Teil 1: Der Gebrauch der Sprache.“ [Language in Ancient Egypt. Dimensions of a phenomenon – Part 1: The application of language] In: Philokles. Zeitschrift für populäre Philosophie (1999)1, S. 31-36.
Collaboration
Jansen, Thomas. Chinaliteratur in der Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig (1500-1939). Eine systematische Bibliographie [Books on China in the Leipzig University Library (1500-1939: A Systematic Bibliography]. Teil 1: Werke in westlichen Sprachen [Works in Western Languages]. With the collaboration of Gabriele Schlesinger, Richard Teschke, and Katharina Zinn. Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2003.
