Maria Carmela Gatto graduated with honors in Near Eastern Studies at Sapienza University of Rome (1993) and holds a PhD in African Studies (Archaeology) from the University of Naples L’Orientale (2001). She held teaching, research, and curatorial positions at Yale University (postdoc, associate research scholar, and lecturer 2008-2013), University of Leicester (research associate and teaching fellow 2014-2017), University of Birmingham (teaching fellow 2016-2017), and the British Museum (visiting curator 2003-2005). More recently, Maria has been the Simpson Visiting Professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo (2019), Visiting Professor of Archaeology at the University of Bologna (2018), and Guest Lecturer at Sapienza University of Rome (2018). From 2017 to 2024, she was an Honorary Visiting Fellow at the School of Archaeology and Ancient History of the University of Leicester. In December 2020, Maria joined the Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, where she directed, in 2021-2024, a research project entitled ‘BORDERSCAPE – Egyptian state formation and the changing socio-spatial landscape of the First Nile Cataract region in the 4th-3rd millennia BCE’ (POLS Call, 2020/37/K/HS3/04097). Since 2005, she has been the PI and co-director of the Aswan-Kom Ombo Archaeological Project in Egypt.

Bibliography 

• Baldi, E., Gatto, M.C. and A. Curci 2025. A Small Byzantine Hoard from the Desert of Aswan, in A. Bursche, J. Bodzek and A. Zapolska (eds), Proceedings of the XVI International Numismatic Congress, 11–16.09.2022, Warsaw: Vol. III. Medieval Numismatics, Warsaw Studies in Archaeology 12, Brepols, 45–58. Https://doi.org/10.1484/M.WSA-EB.5.145264
• Bajeot, J., Ownby, M., Gatto, M.C., 2024. The Social Implication of a “mixed” Ceramic Assemblage: Understanding the Predynastic Community of Nag el-Qarmila (First Nile Cataract, Egypt) Through Pottery Technology. Afr Archaeol Rev 41, 443–475. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10437-024-09602-8
• Gatto, M.C. and O. Siegel 2024. Combining geo-archaeology and historical Nile records to understand Predynastic settlement patterns in the region of the Nile’s First Cataract, Egypt’, Old World: Journal of Ancient Africa and Eurasia, 4, 1-96. https://doi.org/10.1163/26670755-20240003
• Mant, M., Pitre, M.C., Dancer, S. and M.C. Gatto 2024. A case of rheumatoid arthritis in a Nubian woman from the site of Sheikh Mohamed, near Aswan, Egypt, International Journal of Paleopathology 44: 78–84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpp.2023.12.003

Additional content

The BORDERSCAPE Project website

Aswan – Kom Ombo Archaeological Project website

BORDERSCAPE Seminar

Keywords

Prehistoric and historic archaeology of the Nile Valley and the Sahara, culture contact and interregional interactions, pastoralism, landscape archaeology, funerary archaeology, pottery, rock art