Last week, the Austrian Academy of Science hosted the 10th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (ICAANE) on its magnificent premises in the heart of Vienna. A whole day was dedicated to the international launch of the ERC advanced grant The Hyksos Enigma, for which the Austrian Academy and Bournemouth University are co-beneficiaries, combined with a state-of-the-art review of research on the most significant site of the Hyksos, their capital Avaris/Tell el-Dab’a in the eastern Nile Delta. This was an important day to show Bournemouth’s presence and to promulgate its research in the bioarchaeology of the Hyksos, engage in extensive networking with associates and partners of the project, and to establish new links in support of Bournemouth’s role in the project. Regular updates will now appear on the new project website (http://thehyksosenigma.oeaw.ac.at/).
Prof Manfred Bietak (left), project lead, Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and Prof Holger Schutkowski, Co-PI, Department of Archaeology, Anthropology and Forensic Science.