Lecture Access

This lecture will be available to view until 3 August 2026

  • 00 Days
  • 00 Hours
  • 00 Minutes
  • 00 Seconds

Overview

Watch on Demand | One-Hour Lecture

In Ancient Egypt, the pharaoh occupied a position that blurred the boundary between human ruler and divine presence. 

More than a political leader, he was understood as the intermediary between gods and people, charged with maintaining cosmic order, or maat. The Pharaoh was regarded as divine, and that status was expressed, reinforced, and sometimes contested through art and ideology, with royal imagery evolving across periods of stability and change, adapting to political needs and religious expectations.

Drawing on material from the landmark 2004 Pharaohs exhibition, developed in partnership with the British Museum and the National Gallery of Victoria, Egyptologist Lucia Gahlin examines three thousand years of royal representation in ancient Egyptian sculpture, relief, and ceremonial art, using visual language, ritual symbolism, and monumental display.

LECTURER

Biography

Lucia Gahlin is an Egyptologist based in the UK with over 20 years experience of leading tours to Egypt, and to collections of Egyptian antiquities in museums around the world. She has a strong personal interest in the art, archaeology, literature and architecture of ancient Egypt, and is the author of chapters and books, such as ‘Egypt: gods, myths and religion’. Lucia holds a First Class Honours Degree in Egyptology/Ancient History from University College London. Her postgraduate research took her into university teaching, curatorial work in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London, and archaeological excavations in Egypt. She has taught Egyptology for the Continuing Education departments of a number of universities in the UK, and has taught undergraduates at University College London and the Universities of Warwick and Bristol. Lucia is an Honorary Research Associate at University College London’s Institute of Archaeology. She continues to teach occasional continuing education courses in Bristol, and lectures widely.

Lucia Gahlin

Egyptologist