Julia is a guest researcher at the Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO) for 2020–2022.

More information about Julia Hamilton

Fields of interest

• Egyptology
• Epigraphy
• Graffiti
• Materiality of text

Research

Julia C. F. Hamilton completed her DPhil as a Clarendon Scholar at the University of Oxford (2015–20), and a BA and MA in Ancient History at the University of Auckland (2015). Julia’s doctoral thesis (defended February 2020), was an investigation of the materiality of inscribed personal names and naming practices in Old Kingdom Egypt, using the tomb of Mereruka Meri in Saqqara as a case-study. More generally, her research examines veneration and commemorative practices in ancient Egypt, particularly between the late Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom. She has a particular interest in graffiti, epigraphic practices, and the materiality of text.

Julia’s research project at NINO (2020–22), ‘Writing the self into history: Graffiti from Old Kingdom Saqqara’, will analyse added inscriptions found in non-royal tombs at Saqqara, Egypt, dating to the 3rd Millennium BCE, as material expressions of self and religious belief in writing. This project will broaden the scope for our current understanding of ‘writing users’ in Old Kingdom Egypt.

Grants and awards

Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO) Postdoctoral Fellowship (2020–2022)
Institut français d’archéologie orientale (IFAO) doctoral bursary award (2019)
University of Oxford Clarendon Scholar (2015–2019)
University of Auckland Faculty of Arts master’s thesis scholarship (2014)
OPTIMA award (Outstanding Postgraduate Talk in a Meeting of Australasian Society of Classical Studies) – First place (2014)

Publications