In today’s Academic Minute, Dr. Mary-Ann Pouls Wegner of the University of Toronto reveals some recent finds from an archaeological excavation in Abydos, Egypt.

Mary-Ann Pouls Wegner is Assistant Professor of Egyptian Archaeology in the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto. She also serves at Project Director for the North Abydos Votive Zone Project , an ongoing project which focuses on understanding the social organization of the community that left behind traces of votive activity at the site. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

The site of Abydos in southern Egypt has long attracted pilgrims and archaeologists. As the center of the cult of Osiris, god of death and regeneration, Abydos drew people from allwalks of life to participate in a festival that dramatized the god’s successful post-mortemtransformation. The focal point of the festival was a procession in which statues of Osiris, along with his wife Isis and son Horus, were carried on the shoulders of priests in boat-shaped shrinesacross the desert landscape from his temple dwelling to his tomb.