Stuart Tyson Smith
Professor Smith’s research centers on the civilizations of ancient Egypt and Nubia. He is particularly interested in the identification of ethnicity in the archaeological record and the ethnic dynamics of colonial encounters. Ancient Egyptian colonialism, intercultural interaction and the origins of the Napatan state, whose rulers conquered Egypt, becoming Pharaohs of the 25th Dynasty, provide the focus of his current archaeological research. He has published on the dynamics of Egyptian imperialism and royal ideology, the use of sealings in administration, death and burial in ancient Egypt and Nubia, and the ethnic, social and economic dynamics of interaction between ancient Egypt and Nubia. Smith’s material specialization lies in ceramic analysis, including the chemical characterization of absorbed residues. He is also an active field archaeologist, having participated in and led archeological expeditions to Egypt, including the Luxor’s Theban Necropolis and most recently at a Kushite (Nubian) chapel at Karnak, joining the Osiris-Ptah Nebankh Archaeological Project, led by Dr. Essam Nagy and Prof. Danielle Candelora (Holy Cross). Since 1997, has main focus has been on Sudanese Nubia, where he directs excavations at third cataract of the Nile in the New Kingdom and Napatan cemetery of Tombos (photo to right), along with co-directors and UCSB alumni Profs. Michele R. Buzon of Purdue University and Mohamed Faroug Ali of The Africa Center in UAE.
In 1993, he took a break from the academic world and became the Egyptological Consultant on the hit MGM movie ‘Stargate,’ giving advice on the script, sets and costumes, and recreating spoken ancient Egyptian for about half the movie’s dialog. He renewed his Hollywood connection in 1998 by consulting on the script and reconstructing spoken ancient Egyptian for another hit movie, the recent Universal remake of ‘The Mummy,’ continuing this work in 2000 with the sequel ‘The Mummy Returns.’ Most recently, he returned to the Stargate franchise with MGM's 2018 web streaming production, Stargate Origins: Catherine (photo to left). You can find an interview from Egypt Revealed linked here. You can find a recent interview/popular article about the research on Undark. He recently published an article about ‘Stargate’ in the open access journal Aegyptiaca.
