Univ Record 2018

Leaving Fellows and Staff
PROFESSOR MARK J SMITH
Lady Wallis Budge Fellow in Egyptology 1980-2018
Professor of Egyptology 2007-2018
Reader in Egyptology 1996-2007
University Lecturer in Ancient Egyptian and Coptic 1980-1996
Mark Smith is retiring this October following an – aptly – pharaonic career at Univ. He
first arrived in our College in 1980, still in his twenties, having received his PhD in
Egyptology from the University of Chicago the previous year. While moving up the
ladder of University appointments, from Lecturer to Reader to Professor, he has occupied
the Lady Wallis Budge Fellowship in Egyptology at Univ for almost four decades, longer
than any of his predecessors. The Budge Fellowship was established in 1936, even before
an Institute of Egyptology had been formally founded at Oxford, and has since remained
one of the most distinguished posts in Egyptology in the country, turning Univ into an
internationally-renowned and welcoming home for Egyptology students and scholars
from far and wide. Over the years, Mark has further enhanced the College’s standing
in Egyptology – not only through his own academic work, but also by investing in its
resources. It was under his supervision that, in 1990, the College welcomed the first
Lady Wallis Budge Junior Research Fellow in Egyptology, and today Univ prides itself
on being the powerhouse of Oxford Egyptology at the collegiate level. Univ scores now
consistently as the preferred college by applicants in the subject, and, at the beginning of
this academic year, our Common Room will count more Egyptologists than any other
Oxford college has – to my knowledge – ever had: the Lady Wallis Budge Fellow, an
incoming Lady Wallis Budge JRF, and a Supernumerary Fellow in Egyptology.
Despite his familiar presence in the College, Mark’s Univ colleagues may be
unaware of the influence he has had on the
international stage of Egyptology. Wellversed
in all aspects of the discipline, since
his student days Mark has had a penchant
for the study of ancient Egyptian religious
and funerary texts, particularly those from
the later phases of Egypt’s history (the late
first millennium BC and the first centuries
of the Common Era). These texts are
notorious amongst Egyptologists for being
highly complex and difficult compositions,
especially when written in the hard-to-read
cursive script typical of that historical period,
known as Demotic. Not only has Mark had
the nerve to tackle and publish such arduous
texts, from which so many of his colleagues
would shy away; he has also shown how this
field of study, far from being an obscure
branch of Egyptology, holds incredible
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