Public Programs @ The Institute
Signs in Motion: Hieroglyphic Transformation from Late Period Egypt to Rome
New York, October 2–4, 2026
“Signs in Motion” examines the changing forms and meanings of hieroglyphic signs from the Late Period through the Roman era, illuminating the intellectual vitality of Egypt’s “last scholars,” their intricate games with signs, and their negotiations with the other cultures active in Egypt. The conference will explore how individual signs developed, disappeared, and were revived; how variations responded to particular monuments, materials, genres, and registers; and how earlier traditions informed the development of Ptolemaic hieroglyphs. At the same time, it will place Egyptian scribal culture within a broader Mediterranean context, asking how Egyptian, Persian, Greek, and Roman linguistic and intellectual traditions interacted within shared imperial frameworks. Particular attention will be given to the transmission of ideas about hieroglyphs, the production of Egyptian writing beyond Egypt itself, and the relationship between local scholarly traditions and Greek and Roman conceptions of the symbolic power of hieroglyphic writing.
The conference brings together scholars of Late Period, Hellenistic, and Roman Egypt and scholars of the wider Greco-Roman world to reflect on Egyptian hieroglyphic writing. Together with papers addressing both the Egyptian evidence and the Greek and Latin traditions that engaged with Egypt’s writing system, these lectures will frame a three-day conversation on the transformation, interpretation, and cultural mobility of hieroglyphic signs between the seventh century BCE and the fourth century CE.
“Signs in Motion” has been made possible through the generous support of The Stanwood Cockey Lodge Foundation of the Department of Classics at Columbia University, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Institute of Fine Arts (IFA), and The Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW) at New York University.
Schedule
Keynote Lecture
Friday, October 2, 2026 at 5:30 pm
The Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (NYU)
15 East 84th Street, New York, Lecture Hall
Orly Goldwasser, Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Keynote Lecture)
A Window into the Ptolemaic Mind: Woman Classifiers in the Egyptian Script
Conference
Saturday, October 3 - Sunday, October 4, 2026
The Institute of Fine Arts (NYU), 1 East 78th Street, New York
Schedule
Saturday, October 3rd
Session I: Creativity, Negotiation, and Experimentation
Chair: Ellen Morris – Barnard College / Columbia University
9:00 – 9:10 am
Opening Remarks
9:10 – 9:45 am
Lingxin Zhang – Georgetown University
“Picasso” of the 3rd Century BCE? The Scribe of Anemhor’s Funerary Stela (KMV 162)
9:45 – 10:20 am
Stéphane Polis – ULiège
What Changes When a Repertoire Changes? The Evolution of Egyptian Hieroglyphs, with a Case Study on the Theban Funerary Stelae of the Late and Greco-Roman Periods
10:20 – 10:55 am
Carl Elkins – Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Recasting Domitian: Semiotic Negotiation of Roman Hegemony in Hermopolis
10:55 – 11:30 am
Leopoldo Fox-Zampiccoli – Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, NYU
Egypt as a Site of Memory in the Iron Age Northern Levant (1200–600 BCE)
11:30 – 11:50 am
Break (Great Hall)
Session II: Signs and the Natural World
Chair: Yekaterina Barbash – Brooklyn Museum
11:50 am – 12:25 pm
Stefan Baumann – KU Leuven / Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Bruxelles
More Than Meets the Eye: Graphic Variance and Pseudo-Etymology in Ancient Egyptian Mineral Designations
12:25 – 1:00 pm
Erin Peters – Appalachian State University
Cultivating Complexity: Color in Linguistic Contexts at Temples from Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt
1:00 – 1:35 pm
Alessandro Piccolo – University of Bologna / Sapienza University of Rome
Do I See “Horseness”? Plato in the Shadow of Thoth, and the West in the Shadow of Plato
1:35 – 2:35 pm
Lunch Break
Session III: Sign Efficacies
Chair: Marc Leblanc – ISAW / New York University
2:35 – 3:10 pm
Michael Zellmann-Rohrer – Macquarie University
“I Adjure You, Holy Marks”: Magical Signs (charaktēres) from Roman Egypt in a Hieroglyphic Frame
3:10 – 3:45 pm
Shiro Burnette – The Institute of Fine Arts / New York University
The Mensa Isiaca: On the Veracity of Text and Ritual Efficacy
3:45 – 4:20 pm
Hazem Farrag – Ain Shams University
Signs in Motion at Esna: Visual Density, Sacred Semiotics, and Priestly Agency under Roman Rule
4:20 – 4:55 pm
Barbara Richter – University of California, Berkeley
Materializing the Divine: Patterns of Orthographic Variation at Dendera
4:55 – 5:15 pm
Break (Great Hall)
5:15 – 6:15 pm
Jean Winand – ULiège – Royal Academy of Belgium (Keynote Lecture)
Why were Classical Authors so Fascinated with Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs?
Sunday, October 4th
Session IV: Peculiar Signs and Hidden Meanings
Chair: Niv Allon – The Metropolitan Museum of Art
9:00 – 9:35 am
Katherine Davis – University of Michigan
The Interpretation of Signs: Discourse, Revelation and Audience
9:35 – 10:10 am
Edward Kelting – University of California, San Diego
Crocodiles, Classifiers, and the Reinvention of Seth in Egypt and in Rome
10:10 – 10:30 am
Break (Great Hall)
10:30 – 11:05 am
Luigi Prada – Uppsala Universite
Egyptian Hieroglyphs as (Roman) Imperial Script: The Making of Obelisk Inscriptions under the Caesars
11:05 – 11:40 am
Foy Scalf – University of Chicago
Voices in Stone? Phonetic Change and Ritual Speech in Ptolemaic-Roman Temple Texts
11:40 am – 12:15 pm
Brendan Hainline – The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Sign Forms and Functions in The Met's Temple of Dendur
12:15 am – 1:15 pm
Lunch Break
Session V: Sign Ontologies
Chair: Kathryn Howley – The Institute of Fine Arts / New York University
1:15 – 1:50 pm
Umberto Verdura – Columbia University
Catering to the Audience: Chaeremon’s Hieroglyphica Bridging Egyptian and Greco-Roman Conceptions of Hieroglyphs
1:50 – 2:25 pm
Claus Jurman – Universität Wie
Signs of Age (and Place): Hieroglyphic Forms and Repertoires in First Millennium BCE Memphis
2:25 – 3:00 pm
Andreas Pries – Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg
Signs and Beings: On the Ontological Status of Hieroglyphs as a Continuous Concept in Cultural Change
3:00 – 3:35 pm
Isabel Caspar – University of Chicago
And Yet They Move: The Historicity of the Egyptian Script in Lucan’s Pharsalia and Egyptian Scholars
3:35 pm
Closing Remarks
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