She walks like an Egyptian
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Photography
by Reed Hutchinson
UCLA Photographic Services
Egyptian archaeologist Willeke Wendrich
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BY WENDY SODERBURG
UCLA Today Staff
Willeke Wendrich, associate professor in the Department of Near
Eastern Languages and Cultures, wasn’t even living in the
United States during King Tut’s record-breaking stint at the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in 1978.
This time around, however, the Dutch-born archaeologist was one
of the first to experience Tut’s triumphant return to LACMA
as an invited guest to the opening of “Tutankhamun and the
Golden Age of the Pharaohs.” Wendrich, in fact, is one of
four Egyptology experts who will speak on July 9 at UCLA Extension’s
“Tutankhamun: In Death, Larger Than Life,” a one-day
program that will explore the life and times of the boy king.
“Tutankhamun is an icon for the mystery of ancient Egypt,
combining gold, precious stones, incredible craftsmanship, mysterious
gods, symbolism and a very touching humanity, all wrapped in one,”
she said.
One of only two Egyptologists on campus — philologist Jacco
Dieleman is the other — Wendrich has been in great demand
as an expert on Egyptian archaeology. Besides lecturing at the Bowers
Museum in Santa Ana, Calif., which currently boasts its own exhibition,
“Mummies: Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt,”
she is also on the academic editorial committee for UCLA’s
Encyclopedia of Egyptology, an online publication that will be an
English version of the Lexikon der Agyptologie, the standard reference
work in the field.
In her popular Fiat Lux classes, Wendrich’s freshman students
are immersed in Egyptian history and archaeology and are required
to speak in class on topics ranging from mummification to the Book
of the Dead, while her graduate students present research as part
of Wendrich’s annual public lecture series, “Wep Wa-ut
in Westwood.”
It sounds cool, but for Wendrich, it’s all in a day’s
work. Every Fall Quarter, she takes graduate students to Egypt for
a three-month fieldwork seminar. “If you work in this area,
you have to visit the region. We don’t want any ‘armchair’
Egyptologists,” she said, laughing.
Born in the Dutch town of Haarlem, Wendrich was raised on an island
in the northern Netherlands called Texel. At 17, she attended the
University of Amsterdam and chose history of religion as a major
because she feared that Egyptology, her true love, would be too
specialized for her to find work.
But the lure of the field proved too strong, and Wendrich received
a Ph.D. in Egyptian archaeology at Leiden University in the Netherlands.
While writing her thesis on ancient Egyptian basketry, she organized
an excavation in a remote desert site near the Sudanese border.
The site, called Berenike, was the first dig Wendrich co-directed.
In 2000, she accepted an assistant professorship at UCLA and brought
her husband, Hans Barnard, with her. A medical doctor, Barnard has
become as enthusiastic about archaeology as his wife and is working
on a Ph.D. in ceramics from Leiden University.
Wendrich laughs at comparisons to Indiana Jones, but admits there
are similarities. “It has aspects of that, I must confess,”
she said. “Driving around the desert in a four-wheel-drive
pickup ...”
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