Elisabeth R. O’Connell

Elisabeth R. O’Connell is an Assistant Keeper (Curator) in the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan with responsibility for Roman and Late Antique collections.

She joined the museum in 2007, having completed a PhD in the Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology Graduate Group at the University of California, Berkeley, with a dissertation on adaptive reuse of ancient Egyptian monumental architecture in Late Antiquity. Her wider research interests include the social history and material culture of Roman Empire and Late Antiquity. Her research engages approaches to the integrated study of ancient texts and their archaeological contexts.

In addition to research on the collection, Elisabeth co-directs (with W. V. Davies) the British Museum Expedition to Hagr Edfu (Egypt) and conducts fieldwork at Sheikh Ibada (Egypt). She gained previous fieldwork experience at sites in both Egypt and Tunisia.

Current projects

• Hagr Edfu, Egypt
• Antinoupolis at The British Museum
• Wadi Sarga at The British Museum
• Editor, British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan

External fellowships

• 2012 Antiquities Endowment Fund/American Research Center in Egypt (Principle Investigator)
• 2010 Antiquities Endowment Fund/American Research Center in Egypt (Principle Investigator)
• 2009 Yale Egyptological Institute (Principle Investigator)
• 2008 Pasold Research Fund Grant (with S. Marzinzik, BM, and H. Persson, V&A)
• 2008 Sarah J. Clackson Coptic Fund Grant
• 2008 Yale Egyptological Institute (Principle Investigator)
• 2006 Joan B. Gruen Prize
• 2005–2006 Kress Fellowship in Egyptian Art and Architecture, American Research Center in Egypt
• 2005 Multi-Campus Research Group in Late Antiquity Summer Stipend
• 2000 Multi-Campus Research Group in Late Antiquity Fellowship

Select publications

W. V. Davies and E. R. O'Connell, 'The British Museum Expedition to Elkab and Hagr Edfu 2012.' British Museum Studies inAncient Egypt and Sudan 19: 51–85.

W. V. Davies and E. R. O'Connell, 'The British Museum Expedition to Elkab and Hagr Edfu 2011,' British Museum Studies inAncient Egypt and Sudan 17 (2011): 1–29.

W. V. Davies and E. R. O’Connell, 'The British Museum Expedition to Elkab and Hagr Edfu 2010,' British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan 16 (2011): 101–32.

E. R. O’Connell, 'Excavating Late Antique Western Thebes: A History,' in Christianity and Monasticism in Upper Egypt II: Nag Hammadi-Esna, ed. G. Gabra and H. N. Takla, 253–70 (Cairo: AUC Press, 2010).

E. R. O’Connell, 'The British Museum Expedition to Hagr Edfu 2010: Conservation through documentation project,' Bulletin of the American Research Center in Egypt 197 (Fall 2010): 1, 3–8.

W. V. Davies and E. R. O’Connell, 'The British Museum Expedition to Elkab and Hagr Edfu 2009,' British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan 14 (2009): 51–72.

E. R. O’Connell, Ancient Egypt Sticker Book (London: British Museum Press, 2009).

E. R. O’Connell, 'Representation and Self-Presentation in Late Antique Egypt: ‘Coptic’ Textiles in the British Museum,' in Textiles as Cultural Expressions: Proceedings of the Textile Society of America 11th Biennial Symposium, September 24–27, 2008, ed. A. Svenson Perlman (Earlesville, MD: Textile Society of America, 2009).

P. Grossmann and E. R. O’Connell, 'Antinoopolis Oktober 2009: Vorläufiger Bericht über die Arbeiten in der Nordnekropole,' Aegyptus 90: 277–98.

N. Holmes and E. R. O’Connell, 'A Parcel of Late Roman Bronze Coins from Thebes,' Numismatic Chronicle 126 (2008): 21–26.  

E. R. O’Connell, 'Transforming Monumental Landscapes in Late Antique Egypt,' in Holy Households: Domestic Space, Property, and Power, ed. Kristina Sessa, Journal of Early Christian Studies 15 (2007): 239–74.

E. R. O’Connell, 'Redefining the Monastic Desert,' Bulletin of the American Research Center in Egypt 191 (2007): 32–36.

E. R. O’Connell, 'Recontextualizing Berkeley’s Tebtunis Papyri,' in Proceedings of the XXIVth International Congress of Papyrology, Helsinki 1–7 August 2004, ed. J. Frösén, et al., 2:807–26, Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum 122 (Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 2007).

E. R. O’Connell, 'Ostraca from Late Antique Western Thebes: Provenance and History of the Collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Columbia University,' in Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 43 (2006): 113–37.

E. R. O’Connell, 'Readers and Writers in Roman Tebtunis,' An on-line version of an exhibition for the Center for the Tebtunis Papyri, Doe Library, University of California, Berkeley (2005, last accessed 2011).

E. R. O’Connell, 'Ethnic Identity in Graeco-Roman Egypt,' An on-line version of an exhibition for the Center for the Tebtunis Papyri, Doe Library, University of California, Berkeley (2004, last accessed 2011).

E. R. O’Connell, 'The Discovery of Christian Egypt: From Manuscript Hunters toward an Archaeology of Late Antiquity,' in Coptic Civilization, ed. G. Gabra (Cairo: AUC Press, in press).

E. R. O’Connell, 'Sources for the study of Late Antique and early Medieval Hagr Edfu, in Christianity and monasticism in Aswan and Nubia, ed. G. Gabra and H. N. Takla, 237–48 (Cairo: American University in Cairo, in press). 

In preparation (ed. with W. V. Davies). The British Museum at Hagr Edfu: A Decade of Discovery. Leuven: Peeters.

In preparation (ed.). Pagans, Christians and Muslims: Egypt in the First Millennium AD. Proceedings of the Annual International Egyptological Colloquium held at The British Museum 9–10 July 2012. Leuven: Peeters.

In preparation. 'John de Monins Johnson’s 1913/14 Egypt Exploration Fund Expedition to Antinoupolis (Antinoë),' in Antinoupolis II: Scavi e material, ed. R. Pintaudi. Florence: Istituto papirologico “G. Vitelli.”

In preparation (ed.). 'Catalogue of British Museum Objects from The Egypt Exploration Fund’s 1913/14 Excavation at Antinoupolis (Antinoë),' in Antinoupolis II: Scavi e material, ed. R. Pintaudi. Florence: Istituto papirologico “G. Vitelli.”