Murder, Poetry, and Scribes in Ancient Egypt

“The Teaching of Amenemhat” is the only ancient Egyptian literary work to describe the assassination of a king. Told from the perspective of the murdered Pharaoh Amenemhat I, the poem is remarkable for its grim subject matter and popularity in ancient Egypt and Nubia. While previous scholarship on “Amenemhat” has focused on the poem’s composition, Geoga’s lecture will focus on its enduring legacy after 1,000 years in circulation. Margaret Geoga will explore who read “The Teaching of Amenemhat,” how they understood it, and how ancient interpretations differ from those of modern Egyptologists.

Advance registration recommended for in-person and online attendance. Free event parking at 52 Oxford Street Garage.

Margaret Geoga is assistant professor of Egyptology at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures and the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at The University of Chicago. Her research focuses on ancient Egyptian literature, scribal culture, textual transmission, and reception in both ancient Egypt and later periods. Her other research interests include ancient Egyptian intellectual history, translation, literary theory, and the history of Egyptology. Her work has been supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, and the American Philosophical Society. She is also a Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography (2023–25). Geoga holds a PhD in Egyptology from Brown University, where she also completed a concurrent MA in Comparative Literature. Prior to The University of Chicago, she was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities at the Wolf Humanities Center of the University of Pennsylvania. She also taught at Brown University and Providence College. Her current book project focuses on “The Teaching of Amenemhat,” an enigmatic Middle Egyptian poem depicting the murder of a pharaoh. Combining textual criticism, material philology, and reception theory, the monograph investigates how this unusual and highly popular text was passed down, edited, and reinterpreted over the course of approximately 1,000 years by its many ancient readers in both Egypt and Nubia.