Kathryn A. Bard

Kathryn A. Bard (born March 9, 1957) is an American archaeologist and Egyptologist. She retired as a Professor Emerita of Archaeology and Classical Studies at Boston University. She served as a co-director of the joint University of Naples "l’Orientale" and Boston University Excavations at Mersa/WadiGawasis, Egypt. She is known for her significant contributions to Egyptian archaeology, and her work in finding the evidence of the sea trade of ancient Egyptians with the Land of Punt.

She has yielded the data of civilization, ancient artifacts, and a wealth of valuable information. She is also the author of An Introduction to the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, a well-known overview of the archaeology of ancient Egypt, that serves as a valuable resource for students and scholars. Her contributions thus have earned accolades and recognition from the society.

Early life and education
Kathryn A. Bard was born in the United States and attended schools at Merrill Elementary and Field Elementary School in 1960, where she found her fascination with ancient Egypt. Trace back to her childhood in Park Ridge, when she was 12, she took out every book on ancient Egypt that she could find to read it. Later on, she first got close to Egyptian history in Chicago's Field Museum during an elementary school trip. The statues of a cat and two kittens made by ancient Egyptians caught Bard's attention, and she was highly interested in things related to tombs. These statues are often made from stone, wood, or metal instead of real cats that represent Bastet, the ancient Egyptian goddess of domesticity, fertility, childbirth, home, and cats. The spirit of worshiping cats held a special place in ancient Egyptian culture, the symbol of good fortune, and was completely engrossed by Bard. These cat statues inspired Brad of lifelong wonder about ancient Egypt.

She earned her PhD in Egyptian archaeology from the University of Toronto in 1987, following an MA in Near and Middle Eastern studies from the University of Michigan. She has degrees from Yale University and Connecticut College in M.F.A and B.A respectively.

Career
During her PhD she had her first excavation at an ancient Egyptian temple site at Karnak. They found evidence of four temples by Akhenaten, a heretical king who was the father of Tutankhamun and husband of Nefertiti. These temple foundations were demolished after Akhenaten passed away.

After her PhD she joined Boston University as an assistant professor in the Department of Archaeology in 1988. She conducted major excavations in Egypt (Hu and Semaineh, Mersa/Wadi Gawasis) and Ethiopia (Aksum). Her research involved studying the origin of complex societies in Northeast Africa and Red Sea trading networks in the Bronze Age.

She and her team unearthed the remains of elite tombs and palaces from the excavations of Aksum (1993 -2002). These excavations shed light on social divisions in the ancient Egyptian civilization, where the tombs of persons with high social status were built larger and richer than the rest of the tombs. In one of the tombs, they found a Roman wine jar from a vineyard, that was located in southern France. The other tomb, at the site known as Hierakonpolis, had unique secondary burials of animals, humans, and wooden structures. These founded tombs foreshadowed ancient African civilization of Aksum occurred by finding wild animals bones, retainers, and ancient equipment in the afterlife. During her work in the 1990s in the region (just after the civil war ended), she used to wear T-shirts with the words "Don't shoot me, I am an archaeologist" in multiple languages.

Her project in Aksum was cut short due to the escalation of the war in Ethiopia and Eritrea. She and her longtime collaborator Rodolfo Fattovich reached Egypt and began their excavations in Mersa Gawasis (2001–2011). They excavated eight caves in this ancient harbour. The caves were intentionally made as fossil coral shelters to protect valuables and well-preserved papyrus ropes. Due to the volatile nature of the caves, she and her team used robotic snakes, which could explore hard-to-reach and narrow places without disturbing the archaeological remains, to explore their interiors, in collaboration with CMU. Excavations in these caves revealed various materials associated with maritime activities, which proved that sea trading was happening at this 4,000-year-old harbor.

The evidence of ancient ships from her excavations along the Red Sea coast unveiled the seagoing experience of ancient Egyptians. This also proved the existence of the fictional Land of Punt. The Punt is mentioned in the Palermo Stone, an ancient Egyptian stele with a list of Egyptian kings, and some inscriptions from ancient Egypt. It recorded Egyptians going on trips to Punt but the exact location was mysterious and has been debated for over 100 years. She further discovered Egyptians were bringing back valuable goods- gold, ebony logs, incense, live baboons, elephant ivory- from a distant land based on old Egyptian pictures and stories. She also noticed the temple walls further portrayed ships sailing with characteristics of indigenous people and animals. Brad thus believed Punt located somewhere in the southern Red Sea region that is accessible by sea to do seafaring trade. Her team then discovered well-preserved food, expedition timbers and riggings, and artifacts from Punt. They also found recovered cargo boxes, in which there was an inscription "The wonders of Punt", which made it evident that the ancient Egyptians undertook sea trading with Punt. Her research also provided evidence of how the ships were built. They were built with planks so they could be disassembled and locked together plank by plank again. Her work helped to identify the general location and the existence of Punt by having evidence of potential trade with Punt through ships.

Awards and honors
Bard was a recipient of the National Geographical Society's chairman's Award for Exploration in 1998, which claims she "recognizes the excellence of the work of grantees of the National Geographic Society who have provided us with new knowledge of our world". She was also elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2010 by giving a lecture: The Wonderful Things of Punt: Excavations at a Pharaonic Harbor on the Red Sea. In May 2010, Bard received the MLE of Egyptology Award from El Museo Liceo Egipcio de León in Spain, which mentioned her research contribution on cultivation in Ancient Egypt and the rise of the early African civilization of Aksum. She was further honored in China in Sep 2012, in which she was the first of eight scholars invited to speak, Archaeology of Contact and Cultural Diversity: Egypt, Nubia, and Punt, in the SAF World Archaeology Keynote Lecture Series.

Selected papers
Source: Kathryn A Bard's JSTOR Profile