Transgender people at the time of the pyramids: a series of meetings at the Egyptian museum

The cycle of 2022-2023 Conferences of the Egyptian Museum kicks off tomorrow Thursday 20 October in Turin, about twenty meetings with academics, museum curators and international scholars, which will take place between October 2022 and May 2023.

The protagonist of the first appointment on Thursday 20 October at 6.00 pm will be Federico Poole, curator of the Egyptian Collection and Research Department and director of the magazine of the Egyptian Museum. «’Transgender’ funerary statuettes: an epistemological problem» is the title of the first conference, entirely dedicated to the ushebti, ancient funeral statuettes, a sort of alter ego of the deceased. Starting from the Ramesside era, statuettes in male clothes were often found to accompany the dead to the tomb, an ambiguity that serves as a starting point for investigating the nature of artistic representation in ancient Egypt and the nature of the ushebti. Admission is free subject to availability.

At the base of the series of conferences is the idea of ​​keeping alive the collaboration and dialogue between the Egyptian Museum and the international scientific community, but also of disseminating research and studies to the general public, conducted not only in the academic field. , but also by the curators of the Egyptian Museum. The cycle, curated in collaboration with Acme (Amici Collaboratoti of the Egyptian Museum of Turin) and the Department of Historical Studies of the University of Turin, will bring Egyptologists and internationally renowned experts from the most prestigious universities worldwide to the museum in Turin. There will also be an appointment with the director of the Museum, Christian Greco, who on January 31 will talk about the Tomb of Tutankhamun, the first centenary of which is discovered on November 4.