Staff profiles

Co-Programme Director MSc Ancient Worlds

Undergraduate Teaching Director for Archaeology

I have been working in the Nile Delta since 1998 on projects ranging in date from the Middle Palaeolithic and Neolithic to the Ptolemaic and Roman. I gained my PhD in Archaeology from the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, in 2004, with a dissertation topic connected with early complex societies in Egypt and the quantitative study of mortuary data in the eastern Nile Delta in the 4^th-early 3^rd millennium BC. I was a research fellow at the Research Lab for Archaeology (University of Oxford) on the Egyptian chronology project (2006-9), after which I moved to the Egyptian Department of the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels as a scientific collaborator for the renewed investigations of the Belgian Expedition to El Kab in southern Egypt. From 2010-16, I held the position of Junior Professor in Egyptian Archaeology at the Freie Universitaet Berlin. I am director of two fieldwork projects in the Nile Delta, both under the auspices of the Egypt Exploration Society, the Imbaba Prehistoric Survey and the Minufiyeh Archaeological Survey. I joined the School in 2016 as Lecturer in Archaeology. I am also the course organiser for ARCA10091 - Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs: The Basics and Beyond.

Read a short interview with Dr Rowland

Dr Rowland introduces her course 'Ancient Egyptian Religion and the Afterlife', part of the online MSc History

Research in a Nutshell with Dr Joanne Rowland - Egyptology  

Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

Member of the BANEA Steering Committee.

Member of the Editorial Board for ‘Prague Egyptological Studies’ at the Czech Institute of Egyptology, Charles University, Prague.

External Examiner, Institute of Archaeology, University College London.

• Shortlisted for the 2020 Newton Prize https://www.newtonfund.ac.uk/news/latest-news/newton-prize-2020-shortlist-announced/
• National Geographic Explorer:  https://www.nationalgeographic.org/find-explorers/?filter=&page=1&q=%20Joanne%20%20M.%20%20Rowland%20
• http://edinburgh.academia.edu/JoanneRowland
• Twitter: Joanne Rowland, @Quesna

The Naqada Regional Archaeological Survey and Site Management Project

https://www.ees.ac.uk/naqada; Twitter: @NaqadaS

Neolithic of the Nile Delta project and work at Merimde Beni Salama / Imbaba Prehistoric Survey

• https://www.ees.ac.uk/imbaba
• http://www.topoi.org/project/a-2-4/
• http://samlingar.varldskulturmuseerna.se/unlocking-neolithic-foods/
• http://samlingar.varldskulturmuseerna.se/forhistoriska-froer-under-luppen/
• http://repository.edition-topoi.org/collection/MRMD/

Summary of research interests

• Africa
• Mediterranean
• Near East

• Ancient Civilisations
• Culture
• Landscapes & Monuments
• Material Culture
• Religion
• Society

• Prehistory
• Early Historic
• Antiquity

• The archaeology of the Nile Delta across prehistoric and historic periods
• The processes of Neolithisation in the Near East and North Africa
• The origins of complex societies within Egypt - with special interest in the analysis of mortuary practices from c. 5000-2500 BC
• Archaeological field methods: the history of and developments within
• Human-environmental relationships during prehistory
• Egyptian state formation
• Environmental survey and reconstruction of the palaeoenvironment in the Nile DeltaChronology, including scientific dating methods

Another area of research in which I am engaged is environmental survey and reconstruction of the palaeoenvironment within the Delta, in conjunction with colleagues at Cairo University. Within this I am concerned with human-landscape relationships over time, and the impact of global climatic and local environmental change upon this relationship. 

Sedimentary coring for environmental reconstruction along the western Nile Delta, in collaboration with M. Hamdan, Cairo University. Copyright. J. Rowland/Egypt Exploration Society. 

My current research is focussed on a combination of new field investigations and archival research connected with the site of Merimde Beni Salama in the western Nile Delta. Merimde Beni Salama is the earliest farming village in North Africa, first settled by c. 5000 BC. There has been research activity at the site since 1928, with excavations having taken place from 1929-39 led by Hermann Junker for the Austrian West Delta Expedition, Zahi Hawass and Fekri Hassan in the 1970s, and by Josef Eiwanger for the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut from 1977-82. The archival based research (carried out as part of the TOPOI Excellence Cluster in Berlin’s ‘Neolithic of the Nile Delta’ project) is now collated within a spatial database together with site plans, and is in the process of being expanded to include data from all investigations at the site. This resource will help to address the issues of change and development over the course of the 5^th millennium BC at the site, including the relationship of human groups with their natural environment and available resources.  Scientific methods not in use at the time of previous investigations in the region are being employed to re-analyse the museum-based material. So far this has included AMS radiocarbon measurements which are helping to refine the absolute chronology of Merimde Beni Salama, and help to re-evaluate the overall phasing of the site largely based on the relative ceramic chronology; also being used is organic residue analysis, which is revealing what these ceramic containers were actually used for.

A further important element of my research in the western Delta relates to the first movements of modern human groups through the region. Our recent investigations in spring 2016 have discovered new information about the local environment conditions in which our Middle Palaeolithic finds have been made, and OSL samples will provide new information as to the absolute date of these finds. 

Recently, also connected with my research into prehistoric and early historic Egypt, I have joined the teams of the Naqada Regional Archaeological Survey and Site Management Project, and the Kafr Hassan Dawood Project. Naqada is one of the key sites for understanding processes of Egyptian state formation, and Kafr Hassan Dawood is the largest Predynastic-Early Dynasty cemetery site in the Delta. 

I am field director of two main projects based in the Nile Delta. The first project, the Imbaba Governorate Prehistoric Survey (2013-present) is focussed on the Middle Palaeolitlhic and the Neolithic evidence along the fringes of the western Delta. The project includes environmental survey, field survey and excavations at the site of the first farming village in North Africa, Merimde Beni Salama, as well as investigations across the broader region, including the Wadi el-Gamal Pleistocene Terraces. The most recent season during winter-spring 2016 saw the excavation of trenches on the Wadi el-Gamal (adjacent to the main Merimde Beni Salama site) which revealed further in situ Middle Palaeolithic finds first detected in summer 2015, as well as substantial new Neolithic activity. The Cultural Heritage Management plan at Merimde Beni Salama has recently included the successful completion of a protective wall at Merimde Beni Salama, with public engagement in terms of a community centre and information panels planned over the next two years.

• https://www.ees.ac.uk/imbaba

I am also Deputy Director of the Naqada Regional Archaeologial Survey and Site Management Project (2018-present) which is focussed upon a strategy for protection and wider dissemination of in formation for the ancient site of Nubt, as well as across the Naqada region. 

• https://www.ees.ac.uk/naqada

Excavations of Neolithic (5^th millennium BC) contexts on the Wadi el-Gamal, western Nile Delta. Credit: National Geographic Society/American Research Center in Egypt.

The Minufiyeh Archaeological Survey (2005-present) has been successful in bringing 50 findspots of archaeological material of historical periods to the map of the southern central Nile Delta. In addition to environmental survey and field walking survey, new investigations were instigated at the site of Quesna, which is dominated by Ptolemaic and Roman finds including the sacred falcon necropolis, and the cemetery, but has recently revealed a tomb dating to the the mid-3^rd millennium BC (the 3^rd Dynasty of the Old Kingdom). Both projects are international multi-disciplinary collaborations and have included field-training excercises for Egyptian and European students.

I am also a Friend of the project, https://www.medafrica-cam.org/people/

I have been short-listed for the Newton Prize (August 2020 #NewtonPrize), for my project in collaboration with the French University in Egypt. https://www.newtonfund.ac.uk/news/latest-news/newton-prize-2020-shortlist-announced/

This project, 'Earliest Egypt' (2017-2019) supported by the Newton-Mosharafa programme of the British Council (in collaboration with the French University in Egypt) has raised the profile of prehistoric and early historic archaeology in Egypt through a series of training sessions, the launch of a new website, and publication of booklets and site leaflets, as well as a documentary on prehistoric and early historic Egypt.

Undergraduate - Pre-honours

Course Organiser: 

• Semester 2: Archaeology 2B - Archaeology in Action

Contributor to:

• Semester 1: Archaeology 1A
• Semester 1: Archaeology 2A
• Semester 2: Archaeology 1B
• The Human Skeleton

Undergraduate - Honours

• Semester 1: The Archaeology and History of Egypt: the Early Dynastic until the end of the Middle Kingdom (c. 3100-1650 BC)
• Semester 2: The Archaeology and History of Egypt: the Second Intermediate Period until the end of the Late Period (c. 1650-332 BC) 

Contributor to:

• Semester 1: Archaeology in Practice
• Alternate years: Early Roman Egypt (Classics)

Postgraduate

• Semester 1: Themes in Egyptian archaeology: the foundations of the state to the end of the Middle Kingdom   
• Semester 2: Issues in Egyptian archaeology: the second Intermediate Period until the end of the Late Period (1650-332 BC)    

Postgraduate Online

Course Organiser/Co-organiser

• Running Semester 1 2020-21: Ancient Egyptian Religion and the Afterlife
• Semester 1: Research Skills for Archaeology and Classics (Core Course for 'Ancient Worlds'

Contributor to:

• Semester 2 (2020-21): The Origins of Agriculture: Reconsidering the Neolithic