Janet Richards (Egyptologist)

Janet Richards (born 1959) is an American Egyptologist and academic.

Richards started her higher education at Northwestern University then continued it at Universite de Paris-IV and l'École du Louvre, which led her to her doctorate degree in Anthropology and Oriental Studies at University of Pennsylvania. Some of her previous occupations were Education Coordinator at Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, Field Director for the Pennsylvania-Yale Abydos North Cemetery Project, and Curatorial Assistant, Egyptian Section at University of Pennsylvania Museum. Since 2012, Richards has been Professor of Egyptology and Curator for Dynastic Egypt at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. Richards is the author of "Society and Death in Ancient Egypt: Mortuary Landscapes of the Middle Kingdom" (Cambridge, 2005). She is also co-editor with Mary van Buren of “Order, Legitimacy and Wealth in Ancient States” (Richards 1-5). One of Richards most defined moments is when she and other Egyptologist re-found the lost Tomb of Weni in 1999. When Richards worked for Kelsey Museum of Archaeology and the Pennsylvania-Yale-New York University Expedition she led the expedition that found Weni the Elder. The project was called Abydos Middle Cemetery Project and began in 1995. Richard’s crew dug and found Weni the Elder and how the Old Kingdom’s cemetery was organized (Richards 1-8). In 2013, she was awarded a Berlin Prize by the American Academy of Berlin.

Publications

• Richards, Janet (2000), "Weni the Elder and His Mortuary Neighborhood at Abydos, Egypt", Kelesy Museum Newsletter.

External links

• Richards' web site at the University of Michigan