The Department of Near Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins presents a public lecture by Dr. Daniela Mendel-Leitz of the Athribis Temple Project of the University of Tübingen. The lecture is titled “The Bull Sarcophagi of Tell Abu-Yasin” and will take place on March 28, 2023, at 4:00pm in Gilman 130G.

Abstract: In 1937 the Egyptian Antiquities Service undertook a survey in the area of Horbeit north of Zagazig in the province of Sharqiyeh. A preliminary report published only one year later in the Journal Annales du service des antiquités de l’Égypte 38 (1938) made seven more or less fragmentary pieces of large bull sarcophagi known, which contain an extensive program of religious depictions and texts. The seven objects are four sarcophagi (JE 86717–86720) and three lids (JE 86721–86723), from which three sarcophagi and three lids make up a complete sarcophagus. One lid (JE 86723) was partly published in Egyptian Astronomical Texts III (Pl. 24), portraying two different star-clocks involving the Southern and Northern Constellations respectively. The two other complete sarcophagi originally depict close to 500 figures accompanied by small inscriptions telling the story of the regional cult of the sacred bulls once being buried in them.