Education and qualifications

2025

Certificate in the Anthropology of Skill and Craftwork, the Royal Anthropological Institute

2010–2021

PhD in History, University of Pennsylvania

Dissertation: Empire of Dust: Egyptian Archaeology and Archaeological Labor in Nineteenth-century Egypt (supervisors: Robert Vitalis, Donald Reid). https://doi.org/20.500.14332/31388.

2009

Middlebury College Arabic School

2008–2010

PhD student in History, Binghamton University (supervisors: Bonnie Effros, Donald Quataert)

2003–2007

MA in Museology, University of Washington

Thesis: Presenting Egypt’s Past: Archaeology and Identity in Egyptian Museum Practice (WAGS/UMI Distinguished Master’s Thesis Award Nominee)

1995–1999

BA in Linguistics and Anthropology, Dean’s List, University of Washington

Conferences organized

Bodies of Knowledge: Arabic Language, Egyptian Labor, and Communities of Practice in the History of Archaeology and Egyptology. International Conference, organized with Marleen De Meyer at the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo (NVIC), 19–21 November 2024.

Digging for Diversity in Egyptology: Assessing the Arabic Diaries of the Harvard University–Boston Museum of Fine Arts Excavations in Egypt and Sudan. Radcliffe Accelerator Workshop, organized with Peter Der Manuelian at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, 29–30 June 2023.

Invited presentations and affiliations

Invited Presenter, Lost Cities Rediscovered: Reexamining Excavation Histories in Late Ottoman and Mandate Western Asia, forthcoming at the Royal Academy of Sciences and Letters, Copenhagen (5/2/2026)

Invited Chair, Berliner Seminar of the Forum Transregionale Studien (16/7/2025, and forthcoming SoSe 2026)

Corresponding Member, Ethics Committee of the Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin (2024–2025)

Invited Presenter, Exploring Egypt Seminar of the Institut français d’archéologie orientale du Caire (16/4/2024)

Invited Chair, Egyptian Cultural Heritage Now conference panel, American Research Center in Egypt and American University in Cairo (11/11/2023)

Invited Lecturer, Archaeology and Heritage in the Global South Colloquium of the Institute for African Studies and Egyptology, Cologne (13/7/2022)

Invited Discussant, Modern Egyptian Studies Forum, Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, University of Pennsylvania (27/10/2022)

Invited Presenter, Friends of the Petrie Museum, London (1/7/2022, and forthcoming 24/4/2026)

Invited Lecturer, Harvard Museums of Science and Culture, Boston (21/4/2022)

Invited Lecturer, Global Middle East(s) Seminar, Department of History, University of Amsterdam (24/2/2022)

Invited Presenter, Unmasking Ideology in Imperial and Colonial Archaeology, American Council of Learned Societies Workshop, Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere, Gainesville (8/1/2015)

Invited Member, ARCE-Egyptian Museum Registrars Training and Database project, Egyptian Museum in Cairo (2005–2006)

Wendy Doyon is an historian of archaeology in modern Egypt and the Middle East. Her research focuses on the relationship between archaeology, state, society, and language in 19^th and early 20^th Century Egypt and Sudan.

2024–2026 (ongoing)

Ghost Writers of Upper Egypt: Arabic Archaeological Diaries and Archives in Translation, Fellow of Europe in the Middle East—the Middle East in Europe (EUME) at the Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin

2024–2025

Ghost Writers of Upper Egypt: A Unique Archive of Arabic Field Diaries in the Archaeological Literature of Egypt and Sudan, co-Investigator, NEH Scholarly Editions and Translations Award, National Endowment for the Humanities Project RQ-300089-24 (awarded 2024, terminated on ideological grounds by the U.S. government, 2/4/2025)

2022–2023

Antiquity and the Egyptian Economy, 1800–1914, CAORC Research Fellow of the American Research Center in Egypt, Cairo

Gertrude Caton-Thompson from Abydos to Zimbabwe, Visiting Scholar of the Robert Anderson Trust, London

Digging for Diversity in Egyptology: Assessing the Arabic Diaries of the Harvard University–Boston Museum of Fine Arts Excavations in Egypt and Sudan, 1913–1947, co-PI, Harvard Radcliffe Institute Accelerator Grant, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study

2012–2013

The Archaeological Economy of Egypt, Mellon–IHR Dissertation Research Fellow, Institute of Historical Research, School of Advanced Study University of London

2011–2012

U.S. Department of Education Foreign Language and Area Studies FLAS Fellow in Arabic, University of Pennsylvania

2010–2017

Doctoral Fellowships in History at the University of Pennsylvania: Vartan Gregorian Research Fellow (2010), Samuel H. Preston Presidential Prize Fellow (2011), Faye Rattner Research Fellow (2012), Benjamin Franklin Research Fellow (2012, 2014, 2015), Annenberg History Fellow (2013), Dissertation Research Fellow (2015), PhDs with Children Family Grant (2017)

2005–2006

Egyptian Museography: Patterns of Archaeological Representation in National Museum Practice, Research Associate (first MA recipient) of the American Research Center in Egypt, Cairo

PUBLICATIONS

Books

1. Doyon, Wendy, and Marleen De Meyer, eds. 2026 forthcoming. Bodies of Knowledge تجسيد المعرفة : Arabic Language, Egyptian Labor, and Communities of Practice in the History of Archaeology and Egyptology. Special Issue of the International Conference at the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo, 19–21 November 2024. Cairo: Dossiers du CEDEJ.

2. Doyon, Wendy. 2021. Empire of Dust: Egyptian Archaeology and Archaeological Labor in Nineteenth-century Egypt, University of Pennsylvania, PhD dissertation (currently in preparation as a revised monograph). https://doi.org/20.500.14332/31388.

Articles

1. Doyon, Wendy. 2025 in press. “Egyptology Under the Khedives: Antiquities Land, Archaeological Labor, and State-building in Nineteenth-century Egypt.” In Pyramids and Progress: Perspectives on the Entanglement of Imperialisms and Early Egyptology (1800–1950), edited by M. De Meyer, V. Oeters, J. Vandersmissen, and H. Willems. Leuven: Peeters.

2. Doyon, Wendy. 2025 in press. “The Rayyis, the Quftis, and the Rural Elite: Archaeological Labor and Social Classes in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-century Egypt.” Égypte Soudan Mondes Arabes. Special Issue of Rural Worlds and Social Classes in Egypt, edited by M. Vannetzel and F. Bonnefoi. Cairo: CEDEJ.

3. Doyon, Wendy. 2025. “Ghost Writers of Upper Egypt: A Paradigm Shift in Archaeological Knowledge Production.” TRAFO Blog for Transregional Research (18 February 2025). https://doi.org/10.58079/13c43.

4. Doyon, Wendy. 2025. “The One Egypt and the Many Egypts in the Twenty-First-Century Museum.” Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies 13(1–2): 188–193. https://doi.org/10.5325/jeasmedarcherstu.13.1-2.0188.

5. Doyon, Wendy. 2024. “« To Hell with Translation, Philology, Rougé, and the Louvre itself! » Auguste Mariette and the Egyptianization of Archaeology and Egyptology, 1855–1875.” In Auguste Mariette, Deux siècles après, edited by J.-L. Podvin and D. Devauchelle, 285–298. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses universitaires du Septentrion.

6. Zack, Liesbeth, and Wendy Doyon. 2024. “DIGlossia: Egyptian Arabic between Rural and Urban Practices in Archaeological Dig Diaries from the Early Twentieth Century.” Linguistics in Amsterdam 15(1): 164–209.

7. Doyon, Wendy. 2023. “Xia Nai’s Egypt in the Archaeology of China: Field Workers and Field Methods in Xia Nai’s Diary at Armant, Egypt, 1938.” In Addressing Diversity: Inclusive Histories of Egyptology, edited by H. Navratilova, T. L. Gertzen, M. De Meyer, A. Dodson, and A. Bednarski, 509–534. Münster: Zaphon.

8. Doyon, Wendy. 2019. Review of Contesting Antiquity in Egypt: Archaeologies, Museums and the Struggle for Identities from World War I to Nasser, by Donald Malcolm Reid (AUC Press). Journal of the American Oriental Society 139(2): 516–518. https://doi.org/10.7817/jameroriesoci.139.2.0516.

9. Doyon, Wendy. 2018. “The History of Archaeology through the Eyes of Egyptians.” In Unmasking Ideology in Imperial and Colonial Archaeology: Vocabulary, Symbols, and Legacy, edited by B. Effros and G. Lai, 173–200. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvdjrrt0.15.

10. Doyon, Wendy. 2015. “On Archaeological Labor in Modern Egypt.” In Histories of Egyptology. Interdisciplinary Measures, edited by W. Carruthers, 141–156. London: Routledge.

11. Doyon, Wendy. 2013. “Egyptology in the Shadow of Class.” Egyptian and Egyptological Documents, Archives, Libraries 4: 261–272. Proceedings of the International Conference Forming Material Egypt, London, 20–21 May 2013, edited by P. Piacentini, C. Orsenigo, and S. Quirke. Milan: Pontremoli.

12. Doyon, Wendy. 2012. “The Imam and the Museum: An Islamic Provenance for Ancient Egypt at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.” Egyptian and Egyptological Documents, Archives, Libraries 3: 97–119.

13. Doyon, Wendy. 2008. “The Poetics of Egyptian Museum Practice.” British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan 10: 1–37.

Blogs

2025

5in10 with Wendy Doyon. “I’m fascinated by language in all its facets.” TRAFO Blog for Transregional Research (17 July 2025). https://doi.org/10.58079/14d0b.

2023

Wendy Doyon. The Robert Anderson Trust (4 September 2023).

2019–2024

Selected articles from the Abydos Archaeology Blog. Named “Top 50 Archaeology Blogs” by Feedspot (2021). https://abydos.org.

What Would King Narmer Do with 100,000 Pints of Beer? (20 March 2022)

A Sherd’s-Eye View of Abydos over a Century of Excavation (29 August 2021)

The Thirstiest Kings Who Ever Lived (14 February 2021)

Archaeology in the Time of Corona: A letter from the Egyptian desert (28 May 2020)

Anatomy of an Excavation: Abydos Archaeology in the Field (20 May 2020)

The Basket Makers of al-Hagz & the Local Roots of Archaeological Fieldwork at Abydos (30 April 2019)

Conference papers

“They Braved Arabs to Find Lost Cities:” Freya Stark, Gertrude Caton-Thompson, Elinor Gardner, and the Archaeology of the Ḥaḍramūt, 1937–1938. Dispersing Past Cities through Collecting, Royal Academy of Sciences and Letters, Copenhagen, 5–6 February 2026.

Of Falcons and Field Hoes: Linguistic Innovation in Archaeological Field Diaries from Early Twentieth-century Egypt (with Liesbeth Zack). International Association of Arabic Dialectology (AIDA) conference, Università di Catania, 23–26 June 2026.

Quftis at Work: Mixed Arabic and its Discourse in a Unique Corpus of Excavation Diaries from Egypt and Sudan, 1913–1947 (with Liesbeth Zack). International Association for the Study of Middle and Mixed Arabic (AIMA) conference, University of Naples L’Orientale, 11 September 2025.

Whither Archaeology? Berliner Seminar, Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin, 16 July 2025.

Ghost Writers of Upper Egypt: Arabic Field Diaries from Egypt and Sudan in the History of Archaeology. Berliner Seminar, Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin, 15 January 2025.

Ghost Writers of Upper Egypt: A Paradigm Shift in Archaeological Knowledge Production? Bodies of Knowledge International Conference, the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo (NVIC), 19 November 2024.

The Eloquent Qufti: Rayyis-ship, Authorship, and the Narrative Voice of the Arabic Diaries in Translation. Bodies of Knowledge International Conference, the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo (NVIC), 19 November 2024.

Building the Suez Canal of Egyptology: Archaeological Labor in Modern Egypt. 15th IBZ Symposium, Internationales Begegnungszentrum der Wissenschaft e.V., Berlin, 30 November 2024.

Dig Arabic (luġat al-ḥafā’ir): An Egyptian idiom in Arabic field diaries from the first half of the 20th Century (with Liesbeth Zack). Association Internationale de Dialectologie Arabe (AIDA) conference, University of Malta, Valleta, 24 May 2024.

Was Egyptology Colonial? State, Labor, and Antiquities Management in Nineteenth-century Egypt. Exploring Egypt Seminar, Institut français d’archéologie orientale du Caire (Ifao) and the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo (NVIC), 16 April 2024.

An Economy in Ruins: Transforming rural Egypt through the creation of antiquities land and the regulatory structures of archaeology, 1850–1914. EGYCLASS conference on Rural Worlds and Social Classes, Cedej & Ifao Cairo, 19–20 November 2023.

Colonial, Indigenous, or Other? The World of an Archaeological rayyis in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 1914. ARCE Fellows Symposium, Cairo, 6 May 2023.

The Power of Antiquity in the Making of Modern Egypt. Harvard Museums of Science and Culture, Cambridge, Mass., 21 April 2022.

The Excavation Craft of Quft as Intangible Cultural Heritage: The Rise and Decline of an Archaeological Commodity in Rural Egypt. Archaeology and Heritage in the Global South Colloquium, Institute for African Studies and Egyptology, Cologne, 13 July 2022.

Egyptology and Modern Egyptian History. Modern Egyptian Studies Forum, Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, University of Pennsylvania, 27 October 2022.

What Imperialism Does & Does Not Tell Us about the History of Egyptology—The case for Egypt’s political economy as a research lens. Pyramids and Progress: Perspectives on the Entanglement of Imperialisms and Early Egyptology (1800–1950). Leuven and Brussels, Belgium, 8–10 November 2021.

‘To Hell with Translation, Philology, Rougé, and the Louvre itself!’ Auguste Mariette and the Egyptianization of Egyptology, 1855–1875. Colloque Mariette, Deux Siècles Après. Centre Universitaire du Musée, Boulogne-sur-Mer, 8–10 September 2021.

Arabic Writing at Archaeological Field Sites in the Early 1900s. History of Science Symposium on Writing Fieldwork, Princeton University, 25 April 2015.

Excavating the Colonial Archive: Archaeologists and rural communities during Egypt’s colonial period (1880–1950). ACLS workshop, Unmasking Ideology in Imperial and Colonial Archaeology. Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere, University of Florida, Gainesville, 8–11 January 2015.

Who Puts the Work in Fieldwork? Labor and Archaeological Discovery in Egypt. NSF-funded panel organizer, Cultures of Work in the Human and Field Sciences. History of Science Society, Chicago, 6–9 November 2014.

Archaeological Battles of the Great War in Egypt. American Research Center in Egypt, Philadelphia, 8 February 2013.

Egyptology in the Shadow of Class. UCL Institute of Archaeology Forming Material Egypt conference, London, 20–21 May 2013.

The Archaeological Rayyis in Egyptian Society. American Research Center in Egypt, Chicago, 1–3 April 2011.

Egyptology from Below: Labor formation in Egyptian archaeology during the colonial period. SOAS Centre for Cultural, Literary and Postcolonial Studies conference on Histories of Egyptology in Multi-Disciplinary Context, University of London, 10–12 June 2010.