federico.zangani(at)ff.cuni.cz          Academia

Federico Zangani is a postdoctoral fellow at the Czech Institute of Egyptology, Charles University in Prague. He received a BA in Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies in 2014 from the University of Oxford, where he studied both Egyptology and Assyriology, and a Ph.D. in Egyptology in 2020 from Brown University, in the USA. His Ph.D. dissertation investigated the evolution of the foreign policy of the Egyptian 18^th Dynasty in the northern Levant and how this process led to the diplomatic system of the Amarna letters.

Having been trained as a philologist in Egyptian, Akkadian, and several other Near Eastern languages, his research is primarily concerned with the political, literary, and cultural history of New Kingdom Egypt, Egyptian imperialism in the Levant and its portrayal in royal inscriptions and literature, the Amarna letters, Late Bronze Age Syria, and, more generally, the interconnectedness of Egypt, the Near East, and the Mediterranean.

Federico first came to the Czech Institute of Egyptology in September-December 2018 as a visiting student while still pursuing his Ph.D. at Brown. Prior to his current postdoc, he taught Egyptian and Near Eastern history in the History department of Wheaton College Massachusetts in Spring 2020, as part of the Brown/Wheaton fellowship programme. His other experience includes voluntary work on cuneiform tablets in the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford in 2013, archaeological excavations in Turkey in 2013 and 2015, and an internship at the Museo Egizio of Turin in 2016 focusing on the hieratic and figurative ostraca from Deir el-Medina.

Education

• 2014-2020: Ph.D. in Egyptology, Brown University, USA; Ph.D. dissertation: The Origin of the Amarna International System: Egyptian Imperialism in the Northern Levant and Geopolitical Dynamics in the Late Bronze Age
• 2018 (September-December): visiting student at the Czech Institute of Egyptology, Charles University in Prague
• 2011-2014: BA Hons. (first class) Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies (promoted to MA on 10 November 2018), University of Oxford, St Benet’s Hall

Grants and Awards

At Charles University in Prague

• International Post-Doc Stays Fund: 2-year postdoctoral fellowship for international researchers

At Brown

• Brown/Wheaton Faculty Fellows Program to teach at Wheaton College Massachusetts in Spring 2020
• Brown Graduate School International Travel Fund 2019
• Brown Program in Early Cultures fund 2019
• Joukowsky Summer Research Award 2016
• Brown Graduate Research Award in Egyptology and Assyriology 2016 and 2019
• ASOR Excavation Fellowship 2015

At Oxford

• Shillito Prize 2014
• Arthur Lenman Senior Memorial Prize 2014
• Invitation to the Encaenia Honorary Degree Ceremony, with academic achievements mentioned in the Creweian Oration (2013)
• St Benet’s Hall grant for archaeological fieldwork in Turkey 2013
• Gibbs Prize in Oriental Studies 2012
• Arthur Lenman Memorial Prize 2012
• St Benet’s Hall Academic Scholarship 2012

Publications

2019    ‘Foreign-Indigenous Interactions in the Late Bronze Age Levant: Tuthmosid Imperialism and the Origin of the Amarna Diplomatic System’, in J. Mynářová, M. Kilani, S. Alivernini (eds.) A Stranger in the House – the Crossroads III. Proceedings of an International Conference on Foreigners in Ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern Societies of the Bronze Age Held in Prague, September 10-13, 2018, Prague: Charles University, Faculty of Arts, pp. 405-423.

2017    ‘Amenhotep II and Ugarit: Evidence from Egyptian Phonology’, Göttinger Miszellen 253, pp. 151-159.

2016    ‘Amarna and Uluburun: Reconsidering Patterns of Exchange in the Late Bronze Age’, Palestine Exploration Quarterly 148 (4), pp. 230-244.