Vincent Morel
Vincent Morel specializes in philology and Pharaonic rock inscriptions from the Eastern Desert of Egypt. Using a novel approach that associates spatial, visual and (inter)textual investigations, He embraces multidisciplinary perspectives that nourish his research and intellectual curiosity: from semiotics and visual studies to geology, from linguistics and textual studies to (experimental) archaeology.
He completed his PhD at the University of Geneva and the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris Sciences & Lettres University) in 2021. Focused on Pharaonic inscriptions from the Wadi Hammamat quarries, his thesis was conducted as part of the Swiss National Science Foundation project “Monumental Discourse in Third Millennium BCE Egypt: Image, Writing, Text” (2016–2020; dir.: Julie Stauder-Porchet). His research was deeply enriched by several research stays in Egypt (IFAO, Cairo), the United Kingdom (University of Oxford) and the United States (Yale University). Several scholarships and grants, including the Jacques Vandier grant from the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (Paris) and a Fondation Gandur pour l’Art grant (Geneva), also facilitated his work. His dissertation has already been submitted for publication as a monograph: Écrire en expédition. Les inscriptions des carrières du Ouadi Hammamat, de l’Ancien à la fin du Moyen Empire.
In addition to his research, he had the opportunity of teaching students of various levels at the University of Geneva (2017), Yale University (2019–2020), and the Institut d’égyptologie Khéops in Paris (2021–2022). As a member of the Hatnub epigraphic and archaeological project (dir.: Yannis Gourdon; Roland Enmarch) since 2018, he has participated in surveying and studying the large plateau around the main alabaster quarry.
Since 2019, he has been engaged in a large publication project in collaboration with Annie Gasse (CNRS) and Jean-Guillaume Olette-Pelletier (Sorbonne University), which aims at (re)editing the rich epigraphic material discovered in the Wadi Hammamat quarries (Eastern Desert), namely some 400 previously- and newly-found inscriptions from the early dynastic period to the end of the New Kingdom. Since 2021, he has been working on another collaborative project with Jonathan Maître (EPHE, PSL) and Dorian Vanhulle (FNRS & ULB). Its ambition is to be a holistic edition of hundreds of underexplored examples of rock art at Wadi Hammamat, from Predynastic to medieval times. Both volumes are to be published by the IFAO as part of the MIFAO collection.
As a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer in Egyptology in the Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations at Yale, he is currently expanding the scope of his PhD research, both geographically and chronologically. His ongoing “Landscape Laboratories and the Early History of Egypt’s Central Eastern Desert” project incorporates archives (including Fernand Debono’s at the IFAO), new surveys and systematic collections of documentation in an interoperable database to present organized and spatialized data. Its ambition is to nourish the writings of local and regional stories that deal with graphic investments and the human dynamics of circulation, occupation, and the physical and mental appropriation of desert spaces.
Publications
Monographs
(Forthc.) Écrire en expédition. Les inscriptions des carrières du Ouadi Hammamat, de l’Ancien à la fin du Moyen Empire, preface by John C. Darnell, MIFAO (Ouadi Hammamat 2), Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale.
(in preparation a) A. Gasse, V. Morel, J.-G. Olette-Pelletier, Les inscriptions pharaoniques du Ouadi Hammamat. Des premières époques à la fin du Nouvel Empire, MIFAO (Ouadi Hammamat 1), Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale.
(in preparation b) J. Maître, V. Morel, D. Vanhulle, with contributions from Julien Cooper and Denis Mercier, Les inscriptions figurées du Ouadi Hammamat, MIFAO (Ouadi Hammamat 3), Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale.
Articles
2022 “Écrire en expédition”, in: St. Polis (ed.), Guide des écritures de l’Égypte antique, Cairo: IFAO, p. 284-287 (English version available soon).
2022 With Y. Gourdon et al., “Hatnoub (2021)”, Bulletin archéologique des Écoles françaises à l’étranger 3, 2022 (online: < https://journals.openedition.org/baefe/6305>).
2021 With J.-G. Olette-Pelletier, “Découvertes chromatiques dans les carrières du Ouadi Hammamat”, Bulletin de la Société française d’égyptologie 205, p. 14-37.
Forthc. “Palimpsestic Practices and Pharaonic Receptions of Primo Rock Inscriptions at Wadi Hammamat”, in: J. Hamilton (éd.), Making and Experiencing Graffiti, EgUit, Leiden.
Forthc. With J. Maître and D. Vanhulle, “Landscape Laboratory: (Re)Exploring Rock Art at Wadi Hammamat”, Egyptian Archaeology 61, 2022, p. 30-35.
Forthc. With J.-G. Olette-Pelletier, “L’ostracon OL 4116 : une eulogie royale ramesside inédite”, in: A. Gasse and Fl. Albert (eds.), Cahiers de l’Académie hiératique 2, Cairo: IFAO.
In prep. With D. Farout, “The Egyptians & the Sahara: At the Crossroads of Sources”, in: Fr.-X. Fauvelle and J.-L. Le Quellec (eds.), Oxford History of the Sahara to 650 CE, New York: Oxford University Press.
Scientific notes
2021 “Fernand Debono et le désert Oriental” (“Une image, un commentaire…” section on the IFAO website: <https://www.ifao.egnet.net/image/75/>).
Forthc. “L’étude de la langue égyptienne aujourd’hui”; “La stèle dite ‘de la restauration’ de Toutânkhamon”; “La Grammaire égyptienne de Champollion”; “Notice: Jean-François Champollion, Précis du système hiéroglyphique, Paris, Treuttel and Würtz, 1824”, in: Ph. Collombert, D. Lefèvre, N. Monbaron, and A. Quirion (eds.), Révéler l’Égypte oubliée. 1822-1922-2022, CSÉG 14, Geneva: Société d’égyptologie, Genève, 2022, p. 82-83, 128-129, 162-167 and 234-235.
Poster
2022 With J. Maître and D. Vanhulle, “Landscape Laboratory: (Re)Exploring Rock Art at Wadi Hammamat” – 7th International Conference on Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt (Origins, Paris).
Websites