Curator collections Egypt and Nubia
Dr. Daniel Soliman
Phone number: +31 (0)71 5163 155
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ORCID ID: 0000-0003-4802-0687
Study and career
Daniel Soliman (1985) studied Egyptology at Leiden University. In 2016 he obtained his PhD from the same university with a dissertation on identity marks and literacy in the community of necropolis workers at Deir el-Medina. He then worked as a lecturer and researcher at the University of Copenhagen within a research project on the economics and administration of monumental tomb building during the New Kingdom. In 2018-2019, Daniel Soliman contributed to a research project at the British Museum on the illicit trade in antiquities. Since 2019, he has been a curator of the Egyptian Collection at the National Museum of Antiquities. There he conducts research and creates exhibitions on ancient Egypt.
Research
As a student, Soliman was involved in excavations at Abydos and Sakkara. At the National Museum of Antiquities, he now works as an Egyptologist and epigrapher on the excavation at Sakkara. He also carried out research on ancient Egyptian sculpture and documentary texts from the Egyptian New Kingdom. At the museum he coordinates a research project on the late Meroitic settlement of Shokan and within the Vatican Coffin Project he studies the decoration and production of ancient Egyptian coffins. In addition, he researches the origins of Egyptian collections and the reception and perception of ancient Egypt and Egyptology in the West and in contemporary Egypt.
Ask me a question about
- Language, writing, literacy and society in ancient Egypt
- Life in the settlement of Deir el-Medina
- Ancient Egyptian sculpture
- Trade in ancient Egyptian objects
- Ancient Egypt in contemporary film and music
Important research projects
- Research into the Nubian village Shokan (2019-present)
- Research into the cemetery of Sakkara (2019-present, in collaboration with Leiden University and Museo Egizio)
- Research on the coffins of Amun priests (2019-present, in international collaboration)
- Research into tomb building in the Egyptian New Kingdom (2015-present, in collaboration with Copenhagen University and Cambridge University)
Daniel Soliman
Important publications
- Soliman, 2021. Fake relief. Things That Talk.
- Soliman, 2021. Two groups of Deir el-Medina ostraca recording duty rosters and daily deliveries composed with identity marks. In Ast, Choat, Cromwell, Lougovaya and Yuen-Collingridge (red.), Observing the Scribe at Work: Scribal Practice in the Ancient World, Leuven/Louvain, Peeters Publishers, 45-61.
- Soliman, 2021. ‘Gouwe Ankh Posse’: waarom het oude Egypte een speciale plek inneemt in hiphop uit de Afrikaanse diaspora. nY 45, 108-118.
- Soliman, 2020. At the hands of Senwosret III? The iconography and style of the reworked colossi Cairo JE 45975 and JE 45976. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 105, 97-105.
- Soliman, 2020. Bring it back: Ancient Egypt as imagined in Afro-American music. Antiquipop.
- Soliman, 2020. Late Antique and Medieval remains at Saqqara: a retrospective. Friends of Saqqara Newsletter 18, 21-33.
- Soliman and Van der Zon (red.), 2020. Textiel uit Egypte. Leiden, Sidestone Press.
- Del Vesco, Greco, Soliman, Staring and Weiss, 2020. The Leiden-Turin Archaeological Expedition to Saqqara: Preliminary Results of the 2019 Fieldwork Season. Rivista del Museo Egizio 4.
- Soliman, 2019. Ostraca with Identity Marks and the Organisation of the Royal Necropolis Workmen of the 18th Dynasty. BIFAO 118, 465-524.
- Haring, Moezel and Soliman (red.), 2018. Decoding Signs of Identity. Egyptian Workmen’s Marks in archaeological, historical, comparative and theoretical perspective. Egyptologische Uitgaven 32, Leiden. Leuven/Louvain, Peeters Publishers.
- Gabler and Soliman, 2018. P. Turin Provv. 3581: An Eighteenth Dynasty Letter from the Valley of the Queens in Context. Rivista del Museo Egizio 2.
- Hagen, with Soliman (paragraaf 3.8), 2018. The archives of the tomb-builders of Deir el-Medina. In: Bausi, Brockmann, Friedrich and Kienitz (red.), Manuscripts and Archives: Comparative Views on Record-Keeping. Studies in Manuscript Cultures 11, Berlin/Boston, De Gruyter, 139-153.
- Soliman, 2015. Workmen’s marks in pre-Amarna tombs at Deir el-Medina. In: Budka, Kammerzell, Rzepka, (red.), Non-Textual Marking Systems in Ancient Egypt (and Elsewhere). Lingua Aegyptia. Studia Monographica 16, Hamburg: Widmaier Verlag, 109-132.
- Haring and Soliman, 2014. Reading twentieth Dynasty ostraca with workmen’s marks. In: Haring, Kaper, and Van Walsem (red.), The Workman’s Progress: Studies in the village of Deir el-Medina and documents from Western Thebes in Honour of Rob Demarée. Egyptologische Uitgaven 28, Leiden, Leuven/Louvain, Peeters Publishers, 73-93.
Daniel Soliman
Important expositions
- Kemet. Egypt in Hip-Hop, Jazz, Soul & Funk (Leiden, 2023)
- The papyrus roll of Qenna (Leiden 2022)
- Verbeelding van Egypte. Boeken en archiefstukken uit het Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (Leiden, 2020)
- Textiel uit Egypte. Zeshonderd jaar Egyptische weefsels (ca. 400-1000 na Chr.) (Leiden, 2020)
Important lectures
- 2022, Claiming Alexandria’s past: imaginaries of Cleopatra’s identity and race. Symposium, Universiteit Leiden, Leiden.
- 2021, The Rijksmuseum van Oudheden and the Vatican Coffin Project. Summer school, University of Naples L’Orientale en The Vatican Coffin Project, Napels.
- 2021, Children of the Hapi: Ancient Egypt and Nubia in afrofuturistic music. Symposium, University of Birmingham.
- 2021, De tempel van Taffeh. Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden.
- 2021, ‘The sound of Kemet’: Eurocentric and Afrocentric approaches to an ancient culture. Symposium, Allard Pierson, Amsterdam.
- 2021, Out of Egypt: the complexities of repatriation claims of Egyptian antiquities. Nabu Na’id, Leiden.
- 2020, Culturele verweving: Textiel uit Egypte. RoMeO, Leiden.
- 2020, Dummie de Mummie: an Egyptian body as the undead, exotic Other. Symposium, Rijksmuseum van Oudheden en Universiteit Leiden, Leiden.
- 2020, Vervalsingen in Egyptische kunst. Huis van Horus, Leiden.
- 2019, Geschiedenis en toekomst van Egyptische verzamelingen. Symposium Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden.
- 2019, Collecting Egyptian antiquities in the year 2019. Internationaal congres, Leiden.
- 2019, A re-evaluation of evidence for Deir el-Medina workmen at Amarna. Colloquium, British Museum, Londen.
- 2019, Mummies as medicine. Odorama, Mediamatic, Amsterdam.
- 2019, Bouwen met Buqentuef. RoMeO, Leiden
In the media
- 2021, Daniel Soliman over de gouden parade. Historisch Café, 8 september.
- 2021, Een gouden parade van mummies. OVT, 11 april.
- 2021, Archeologen graven grote nederzetting op bij Luxor. NOS journaal, 9 april.
- 2020, Twijfels bij Tefaf: zijn oudheden op kunstbeurs legaal?. NRC, 6 maart.
- 2019, Belangrijke archeologische vondst van twintig sarcofagen in Egyptische stad Luxor. De Volkskrant, 17 oktober.
Ancillary activities
- Chairman Supervisory Board Stichting Huis van Horus
- Member of the organising committee of the Thirteenth International Congress of Egyptologists (2023)
- Member of the scientific advisory board of Friends of Saqqara Foundation
- Member of the jury for travel grants of Stichting Zenobia
- Peer reviewer scientific journals
