Camilla Di Biase-Dyson

A Sydneysider born and bred, with a passion for Ancient Egypt from childhood, I was awarded BA(Hons) and PhD degrees in Ancient History (specialising in Egyptology) at Macquarie University (2000–2008). I then moved to Berlin to conduct postdoctoral research, first as a Fellow of the Excellence Cluster 'Topoi: The Formation and Transformation of Space and Knowledge in Ancient Civilizations' and then with the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (2009–2012). After this, I took up a Junior Professorship in Egyptology at the Georg-August University in Göttingen, Germany (2012–2019), followed by a short stint as a Research Fellow at the University of Vienna (2019–2020). In April 2020 I moved back to Sydney to take up a Lectureship in Egyptology at Macquarie University.

I am passionate about exploring how ancient texts and languages help us access ancient ways of thinking. My current research focuses on metaphor in Ancient Egyptian, as well as Egyptian language, ancient medicine and everyday religion. My approches range from linguistics and cognitive science to literary analyis and cultural studies and I am focused on utilising and expanding the tools of digital corpus analysis for ancient languages.

I teach Egyptian language (Old Egyptian, Middle Egyptian and Late Egyptian) and script (Hieroglyphs and Hieratic), Egyptian history and culture, literature, language history, medicine, magic and religion. I have also directed digital literacy projects with and for students, devising digital content for an Egyptian text database and annotating metaphors in Egyptian texts. I also love taking students to Egyptian collections!

I supervised numerous doctoral, master and bachelor theses at the University of Göttingen in Germany between 2012 and 2019. At Macquarie I am now supervising a number of MRes and PhD projects.

I love giving public lectures and was a frequent participant at open nights hosted by the Univesity of Göttingen in Germany. In this context, I presented a range of talks, together with students, on the portrayal of Egypt in film, Egyptian language and Egyptian medicine. I have also taken part in science slams and contributed to a childrens' book of ancient creation myths.