egyptological colloquium 2009

Dr Richard Parkinson is one of the British Museum's most senior Egyptologists, assuming the title of Assistant Keeper of Ancient Pharaonic Culture at the London institution. Dr Parkinson is responsible for the care, collection and display of the museum's inscribed Egyptian artefacts. These include such famous items as the Papyrus of Ani and the Rosetta Stone - the redisplay of which Dr Parkinson was in charge in 2004. Dr Parkinson is also responsible for university liaison with the museum, and has worked on a great number of projects and papers since his move to the BM from Oxford University in 1991. Dr Parkinson's interests also wade into poetry of the Egyptian classic age (1940-1640 BC) - and he examines ancient manuscripts in terms of their sexuality, performance and cultural power. As well as qualifications on British shores, Dr Parkinson is also a visiting lecturer at the University of Koln and an honorary doctor at Sofia's New Bulgarian University.

Dr Barbara Luscher is one of the world's foremost authorities on Egyptology, and a key figure in the ongoing Totenbuch Project. Currently based at the University of Basel, Dr Luscher has produced a number of publications on the Book of the Dead, and is a keen scholar on the Book's early historical understandings. Dr Luscher is also the co-founder of the Totenbuchtexte; a series of publications aimed at re-editing the spells of the Book of the Dead, and replacing Edouard Naville's outdated 1886 edition. Her most recent work has seen her present at the Egyptological Colloquium 2009, where she presented an update of the Totenbuchtexte series, as well as outlining the historical work of Naville and Karl Richard Lepsius.

Irmtraut Munro is a professor of Egyptology at the University of Bonn, and one of the world's foremost scholars on the Book of the Dead. She has produced a plethora of books on the subject which span a wide range of Book of the Dead issues, such as the provenance of the first 18th Dynasty BD and many problematic papyri like that of the high priest Pa-Nedjem II, and has played an integral role in the university's Totenbuch project. Most recently Dr Munro has spoken at the Egyptological Colloquium 2009, where she outlined yet another problem manuscript; this time relating to the 26th Dynasty and the shift in sequences from the standardised so-called Saite Rescension of BD spells.