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Emily Smith-Sangster, Ph.D. (2025), is a scholar of Egyptian Archaeology with a focus on the Ahmosid Period of the Late Second Intermediate Period and Early New Kingdom. Her work examines the intersection of identity, memory, and funerary practice, with a specific focus on the non-royal population at the Ahmose Cemetery in South Abydos, where she serves as the Associate Director of the Abydos South Project (ASP) and as an active field archaeologist.

Emily is also currently serving as the 2025 W. Benson Harer Egyptology Scholar in Residence at California State University, San Bernardino, where she fulfills her roles as visiting professor and academic researcher, both within the Department of History and the Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art (RAFFMA). She is also currently working on several publications related to both her work at the Ahmose Cemetery site as well as disability in ancient Egypt.

Emily received her B.A., Summa Cum Laude, from the Monmouth University Honors School, where she majored in Anthropology and minored in Archaeology and History. After working in Cultural Resource Management on the East Coast to sharpen her archaeological skills, she went on to receive an M.A. in Ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian Studies from NYU, where she wrote an award-winning Master’s Thesis. Emily completed a Ph.D. in Art and Archaeology at Princeton in 2025, with a dissertation that examined identity expression at the Ahmose Cemetery site in South Abydos, Egypt—a site she and her team (ASP) discovered in 2023.

Recent Publications

Referred Journal Articles

2021 “Crutched Pharaoh, Seated Hunter: An Analysis of Artistic “Portrayals’ of Tutankhamun’s Disabilities,” JARCE 57 (2021).

Referred Book Chapters

Forthcoming “How to Heal a Blessing: Perspectives on Disabilities and Healing in Pharaonic Egypt,” in A. Peterson and M. Lee (eds.), At the Crossroads of Care and Cure: Healing in the Pre-Modern World, Routledge.

2024 “Defining the Idealized Body: A Reexamination of Depictions of Dwarfism in Old Kingdom Art,” in A. Morris and H. Vogel (eds.), All Our Yesterdays: Disability in Ancient Egypt and Egyptology, Routledge Studies in Ancient Disability, 2024.

Non-Referred Book Chapters

2025 “Limbs Counted by the Gods: Proposing the Concept of Artificial ‘Reserve’ and ‘Replacement Parts’ in the Old Kingdom,” Rethinking Ancient Egypt; Studies in Honor of Ann Macy Roth, Harvard Egyptological Studies, Brill, 2025.

Non-Referred Articles

2024 “An Elite Necropolis in South Abydos,” Expedition 66, no. 1, 2024, 2-4.

2021 “Personalized Experience or Royal Canon? A Reanalysis of the Theory of Tutankhamun’s Iconography of Disability,” KMT 32:3 (2021).

2021 “The Abydos Temple of Khentiamentiu,” Database of Religious History. Vancouver, B.C.: University of British Colombia. https://religiondatabase.org/browse/1081/#/ June 4, 2021.

2021 “Old Kingdom Religion at Abydos.” Database of Religious History. Vancouver, B.C.: University of British Colombia. https://religiondatabase.org/browse/1106/#/ June 6, 2021.

Media Coverage

https://www.app.com/story/news/local/2023/07/05/princeton-student-discovers-egyptian-cemetery-emily-smith-sangster/70373706007/ - https://newjersey.news12.com/jersey-proud-wall-township-native-returns-from-excavation-trip-in-egypt - https://artandarchaeol

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Country Focus

Egypt

Expertise by Geography

Africa

Expertise by Chronology

Ancient

Expertise by Topic

Art & Architectural History, Disability, Environment, Gender, Material Culture, Museums, Pedagogy, Religion, Sexuality, Women