ISAC Visiting Scholar Lecture with Prof. Dr. Verena Lepper

The Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures hosts a visiting scholar lecture on Wednesday, November 18, from 4:00 to 6:00 PM, featuring Prof. Dr. Verena Lepper on the island of Elephantine in Egypt. Lepper, now a senior curator at the Getty Museum, presents findings from a seven-year European Research Council project that digitally unlocked over 10,000 papyri and ostraca from the island. The talk covers how a uniquely diverse population coexisted there for 4,000 years, leaving texts in ten languages and scripts, and how new digital humanities methods—including CT scans that virtually unroll rolled papyri—are making these fragile documents legible for the first time. Free and open to the public.