Matthew Exley
Creating cultural memory: The spatial organisation of the landscape of Old Kingdom and First Intermediate Period Qubbet el-Hawa
Biography
Matthew was awarded his BA and MA, both in Egyptology, from the University of Liverpool.
Since completing his MA he has worked at National Museums Liverpool (NML) within the curatorial and learning and participation teams. He works on programmes to make museums and their collections more accessible and inclusive, to challenge the roles museums play in society today, and to create spaces for storytelling, lifelong learning, and the promotion of social justice. He acts as a representative for the Group for Education in Museums.
Away from NML, he works on projects and initiatives with several charities and organisations to promote access, inclusion, and a more equitable society.
Research interests
My research examines the spatial organisation of the cemetery at Qubbet el-Hawa through the later Old Kingdom and into the First Intermediate Period. The research is grounded in theories of Landscape Archaeology and will bring together archaeological, textual, and topographical information through a Geographic Information System (GIS) to create a more holistic understanding of the spatial organisation of the necropolis within its wider landscape and to consider why Qubbet el-Hawa developed in the way it did.
Bringing these sub-topics together it will be possible to better understand how human factors influenced the spatial organisation of Qubbet el-Hawa but also how the natural environment of the cemetery and beyond influenced the development of the site through its earliest use.