Julia Hamilton

Originally from Aotearoa New Zealand, I joined the Department of History and Archaeology at Macquarie University in September 2022. Before moving to Australia, I was the NINO Postdoctoral Fellow in Egyptology at Leiden University (2020–22) with a project ‘Writing the self into history: Graffiti from Old Kingdom Saqqara’. I completed a DPhil in Egyptology at The Queen's College, University of Oxford, for which I was awarded a Clarendon Scholarship (2015–20). Before this, I completed a BA (Hons) and MA in Ancient History at Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland.

My research profile sits at the intersection of multiple sub-fields within Egyptology: philology, art history, and archaeological and anthropological theory. My work has a particular focus on Old Kingdom Saqqara, where I work with the Oxford Expedition to Egypt lead by Dr Yvonne Harpur and Paolo Scremin. From 2025, I also work on the Old Kingdom site of Tehnā al-Gabal in Egypt, north of Minya.

I am currently working on a monograph with Bloomsbury entitled Lives and afterlives of ancient Egyptian names, which builds on my interest in anthopological approaches to the study of ancient Egyptian personal names. I also research graffiti on Old Kingdom monuments of the late 3rd Millennium BCE and I organised and chaired an international conference on this topic in December 2021 (‘Making and Experiencing Graffiti in Ancient and Late Antique Egypt and Sudan’) and the proceedings will be published with Peeters. 

My teaching spans languages and social history of the ancient world, with a particular focus on ancient Egypt. In 2026, I am convening AHIS3201 Women and Gender in the Ancient World and PBHS1102 Museums and Museology: Curating Culture, Questioning Power. I lead a module for graduate research students on Texts and Contexts in FOAR8030 Research Methods. I have also taught Old and Middle Egyptian (hieroglyphs and hieratic) and contributed lectures in a number of other graduate and undergraduate courses at Macquarie since 2022.

Before joining Macquarie University, I convened and taught undergraduate and graduate courses at Leiden University, the University of Oxford and Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland.

I was appointed a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in July 2026.