Rita Lucarelli
Rita Lucarelli studied at the University of Naples "L'Orientale," Italy, where she took her MA degree in Classical Languages and Egyptology. She holds her Ph.D. from Leiden University, The Netherlands (2005) and her Ph.D. thesis was published in 2006 as The Book of the Dead of Gatseshen. Ancient Egyptian Funerary Religion in the 10th Century BC. Currently she works as Research Scholar at the Book of the Dead Project of the University of Bonn, Germany. Her primary research interests are the magical and funerary compositions of the Pharaonic and Greco-Roman Egypt, in particular those of the so-called “Book of the Dead” papyri whose contents aimed at the protection of the dead during his journey in the netherworld. She is also currently preparing a monograph on demonology in ancient Egypt, where she is attempting to disclose and clarify the meaning and function of that category of intermediate beings conventionally called “demons”. During her stay at the ISAW she will develop her research on demonology on an interdisciplinary level, by comparing the beliefs in demons in ancient Egypt with those in Mesopotamia during the 1st Millennium BCE.