LIAM MCNAMARA

Liam’s research interests centre on the archaeology and material culture of ancient Egypt and Sudan. He specialises in the late Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods (late 4th–early 3rd millennium BC), for which the Ashmolean holds the most significant collections outside Egypt.

He is currently working on a catalogue and study of the Ashmolean’s unpublished ivory and bone artefacts from the Hierakonpolis ‘Main Deposit’ (a cache of early votive objects excavated at the site in 1897), including a major reinterpretation of the archaeological context in which they were discovered.

Liam is also interested in the history of museums, particularly the relationship between archaeological fieldwork, object distribution and the development of museum collections, as well as the disciplinary histories of archaeology, anthropology and Egyptology.

Research projects

‘Holy rubbish’? Ancient Egyptian ivories from the Hierakonpolis ‘Main Deposit’.

Co-Director of the Hierakonpolis Expedition, archaeological fieldwork project in Egypt
Co-Investigator on the AHRC-funded research project Artefacts of Excavation: British Excavations in Egypt 1880–1980

Liam teaches for several Faculties and Departments at the University of Oxford:

Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford

• Final Honour School Paper for BA Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies: Selected Egyptian Artefacts.
• Honour Moderations Paper for BA Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies: History and Civilisations of the Ancient Near East.

School of Archaeology, University of Oxford

• Final Honour School Option Paper for BA in Archaeology: Mesopotamia and Egypt 3500–2000 BC.
• Honour Moderations Paper I for BA in Archaeology: Introduction to World Archaeology.

Faculty of Classics, University of Oxford

• Final Honour School Option Paper for BA in Classical Archaeology and Ancient History (CAAH): Ancient Egyptian Art and Material Culture.

Faculty of History, University of Oxford

• Prelims Paper 4 for BA History of Art: Extended Essay: Images, Objects and Buildings in Oxford.

Department for Continuing Education, University of Oxford

• Handling sessions and gallery tours Oxford University Summer School for Adults – Egyptology programmes.

Liam is happy to supervise doctoral (DPhil) research on the Ashmolean’s collections from ancient Egypt and Sudan, especially within his specialism on the Predynastic and Early Dynastic Periods, as well as other topics in the art, archaeology and material culture of the region. For a list of potential D.Phil. research projects based on the Ashmolean collections, please contact the Department of Antiquities.

Liam also supervises undergraduate (BA) and postgraduate (MSt; MPhil) extended essays and dissertations in his areas of expertise and/or with a particular focus on the Ashmolean’s collections.

Current research students

Late Neolithic spheres of interaction: a comparative study of the lithic assemblages of the Egyptian southern Western Desert and the Upper Egyptian Nile Valley

Hebatallah Ibrahim Abdelbasset | DPhil Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (Egyptology) | Supervisors: Renée Friedman, Liam McNamara and Richard Parkinson

Previous research students

Pilgrim flasks: chronological and cultural transformations from the New Kingdom to the Napatan period
Loretta Kilroe (2019) ORA | DPhil Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (Egyptology) | Supervisors: Linda Hulin, Liam McNamara and Richard Parkinson

2020
International workshop Tracing ancient Egypt and Sudan: copying the scenes on the Shrine of King Taharqa in the Ashmolean Museum.
Funder: Africa-Oxford Intitative (AfOx)
Total value of award: £1,640

2019
Conservation and study of an Early Dynastic limestone statue from Hierakonpolis in the Egyptian Museum Cairo (JE 32159).
Funder: Antiquities Endowment Fund, American Research Center in Egypt
Total value of award: $14,628 USD

2014–2017
Co-Investigator Artefacts of Excavation: British Excavations in Egypt 1880–1980
Funder: Arts and Humanities Research Council (Ref. AH/L004569/1)
Total value of award: £479,505
UKRI webpage for the project

2022 Documentary Tutankhamun: The Last Exhibition (Director: Ernesto Pagano; Producer: Sandro Vannini) marking the centenary of the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922 and the preparation of the major international exhibition of treasures from the tomb in Los Angeles in 2019.
2018 Smithsonian Channel documentary Beasts of the Pharaohs (Blink Films). Interview about excavations at Hierakonpolis and animals in ancient Egypt.
https://www.smithsonianchannel.com/episodes/9iowsp/secrets-unlocked-beasts-of-the-pharaohs-season-1-ep-11.
2018 BBC Four television documentary Dwarfs in art: a new perspective (What Larks! Productions). Interview about representations of dwarfs in ancient Egyptian art and material culture.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bgffgg.
2017 BBC Four television documentary The man who shot Tutankhamun (Wavelength Films). Interview about the Howard Carter archive in the Griffith Institute, University of Oxford.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08h99sb.
2014 BBC Radio 4 Front Row. Interview about the Ashmolean Museum’s temporary exhibition Discovering Tutankhamun. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b049yqzg (Time stamp: 21:22).
2011 BBC Radio 4 Front Row. Interview about the opening of the Ashmolean Museum’s new galleries for ancient Egypt and Sudan. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b017chqd (Time stamp 22:45).

• Member of the Management Committee for the Gerald Averay Wainwright Fund for Near Eastern Archaeology, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford.
• Member of the Griffith Institute Management Committee and the Griffith Egyptological Fund, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford.
• Committee member of the Sudan Archaeological Research Society, London.
• Trustee of the Egypt Exploration Society, London (2015–2018).
• Member of the International Scientific Committee for Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt.