Personal profile

Biography

Georgia Barker is an Honorary Postdoctoral Fellow at Macquarie University in the Department of History and Archaeology, where she specialises in funerary art of the ancient Egyptian Old and Middle Kingdom periods. Most recently she completed a project entitled "Impacts of Instability: Funerary Models, Wall Scenes and Inscriptions at Asyut", during her postdoctoral research fellowship in 2022. This project, through a case study of Asyut, investigated how a period of political instability affected funerary customs during the First Intermediate Period and early Middle Kingdom in Egypt.

She completed a Bachelor of Ancient History (2015) a Master's of Research (2017) and a Doctorate of Philosophy (2021) at Macquarie University. Her PhD research comprised a detailed comparative analysis of funerary models and wall scenes from the sites of Meir, Deir el-Bersha and Beni Hassan in Middle Egypt. She has worked as a tutor and lecturer in Egyptology, teaching undergraduate units on ancient Egyptian history, language and art, and has also worked extensively with museum collections, including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Sydney Living Museums, and the Macquarie Univiersity History Museum.

Research interests

Georgia’s primary research interest is funerary art of the ancient Egyptian Old and Middle Kingdom periods. Her PhD research comprised a comparative analysis of the two principal types of artistic representation in elite tombs: funerary models and wall scenes. The two media exhibit several similarities in design, causing scholars to regularly label funerary models duplicates or substitutes of wall scenes. Her analysis has identified several notable differences between them and demonstrated that each was specifically conceived for its individual role in the tomb.

Her postdoctoral project aimed to determine how a period of political instability affected funerary customs during the First Intermediate Period and early Middle Kingdom through a case study of Asyut. The military holds a prominent place in the inscriptions and representations in the tombs at this site, reflecting a growing feeling of instability and the critical role the province played in the civil war. Notably, this theme remains dominant in the sources after the re-unification of the country in the Middle Kingdom. While the historical importance of the inscriptions has been investigated by scholars, the complementary artistic sources have not been adequately assessed. This project, therefore, comprised the first comparative analysis of the three primary artistic and textual sources found at the site: funerary models, wall scenes and inscriptions. This analysis aimed to highlight the historical importance of artistic representations and to provide new insight into the impact of the turbulent period on the individuals of the region.

External positions

W. Benson Harer Egyptology Scholar in Residence, California State University San Bernardino

Aug 2023Dec 2023

Collections Officer, Sydney Living Museums

Oct 2021Dec 2021

Intern, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jun 2017Jul 2017

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