Junior Katherine Hall (History major with concentrations in Archaeological Sciences and Classic Mediterranean History ‘26) conducted research this summer with mentor, Dr. Leslie Anne Warden, through Roanoke’s Summer Scholars program. Her project titled, Renegotiating the Social History of Egypt’s Non-Elite through Ceramic Analysis, examines ancient Egyptian ceramics through a social-historical lens to analyze ceramic typology and determine how different social classes existed. By investigating ceramic material in the form of drawn diagnostic sherds excavated in the summer of 2023, Katherine began to understand how the non-elite lived in Egypt. Her analysis of the sherds presents a larger date range which indicates that the site was active longer than previously believed and that the fractured political structure of Egypt at the time did not destabilize the inhabitants of this site throughout the transition from the Old Kingdom to the Middle Kingdom. Additionally, the sherds provided a glimpse of what a non-elite household consumed for cooking and food storage. Prior research on the site, Kom el-Hisn Egypt, revealed the general date of the entire site but not the date of the individual ceramics or how the sherds, pieces of broken ceramics, functioned in everyday life. During her investigation, Katherine gained numerous research skills that she will continuously use in her academic and professional career such as learning new history and terminology, and how to use research materials effectively to produce results. Katherine is currently preparing for her Honors Distinction Project, however, her research is not finished. The site she is examining will be further excavated and analyzed, hopefully on location in Egypt in summer 2025. The material will be analyzed and cataloged in a distinction project that aims to further renegotiate the social history of the non-elite. Furthermore, she has already started plans for her next research project, Recovering Egyptian Daily Life through Domestic Trash, with the intent to uncover the social history of non-elites of Egypt through discarded sherds. After graduating from Roanoke College, she plans to get her Master’s and PhD to continue her passion in recovering history that has been forgotten.
Congratulations and good luck on your Honors Distinction Project!