Charles Edwin Wilbour Professor Emeritus of Egyptology

Overview

James P. Allen received his PhD from the University of Chicago. Before joining Brown in 2007, Prof. Allen was an epigrapher with the University of Chicago's Epigraphic Survey, Cairo Director of the American Research Center in Egypt, and curator of Egyptian art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. From 2008 to 2015, he was President of the International Association of Egyptologists.
Prof. Allen's research interests include ancient Egyptian grammar and literature, religion, and history. He has written extensively on these subjects, including Genesis in Egypt: the Philosophy of Ancient Egyptian Creation Accounts (Yale, 1988), Middle Egyptian: an Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs (Cambridge, 2000; 2010, 2014), The Heqanakht Papyri (MMA, 2002), The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts (Society of Biblical Literature, 2005), The Debate between a Man and His Soul (Brill, 2011), The Ancient Egyptian Language, an Historical Study (Cambridge, 2013), Middle Egyptian Literature: Eight Literary Works (2014), and The Grammar of the Pyramid Texts, Vol. 1: Unis. His most recent work has been on Ancient Egyptian Phonology (to be published by Cambridge University Press) and Ancient Egyptian Thought (to be published by the American University in Cairo Press).

Brown Affiliations

Research Areas