
Zoom | Hermopolis Magna: Insights from a New Excavation with Yvona K. Trnka-Amrhein
A New Excavation of Ancient Egyptian and Greco-Roman Architecture
February 26 @ 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Hermopolis Magna: Insights from a New Excavation of Ancient Egyptian and Greco-Roman Architecture

Roland Unger, Wikipedia Commons
The ancient Egyptian city of Hermopolis Magna, situated between Cairo and Luxor, was a key religious and cultural hub from ancient times to the Byzantine era. Hermopolis originally was renowned for its temple dedicated to Thoth, the Egyptian god of magic, wisdom and writing. In later centuries, Hermopolis developed into a major city of the Greek and Roman Empire in Egypt and was modeled after Alexandria. Recent archeological discoveries have provided new insights into the city’s Greek and Roman architectural evolution, offering a rare glimpse into the classical architecture of a city now lost beneath modern developments. In this lecture, Dr. Yvona K. Trnka-Amrhein will present findings from the American-Egyptian excavation in 2023 and discuss Hermopolis’s classical architectural heritage. Her lecture will examine the complex history of Hermopolis’s excavation, which over the centuries has attracted Egyptian, German, British, and Polish archaeological teams in between global conflicts. Dr. Trnka-Amrhein will talk about the interplay between politics and archaeology, and illustrate how the latest excavation is reshaping the understanding of this fascinating ancient city and its enduring legacy.
Dr. Yvona K. Trnka-Amrhein is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics at the University of Colorado Boulder. She holds a PhD from Harvard University and has previously taught at Harvard and held a postdoctoral fellowship at Trinity College, Dublin. Her research focuses on Greek and Latin literature of the Imperial period, Hellenistic literature, and Greco-Roman Egypt. She has published extensively, including a forthcoming book Portraits of a Pharaoh: The Sesostris Tradition in Ancient Literature and Culture with Oxford University Press. Additionally, she co-directs the American-Egyptian Mission at El-Ashmunein and has a significant history of archaeological fieldwork and academic presentations.