Mykola Tarasenko

I am an Egyptolоgist specialized in the study of ancient Egyptian funerary literature and art, especially the Book of the Dead. I am a Research Fellow at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford and Fellow at the Trinity College. At the same time I am also a Leading Researcher at the А. Yu. Krymskyi Institute of Oriental Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Department of Near and Middle East (Kyiv) and Head of the Center of Egyptology at the А. Yu. Krymskyi Institute of Oriental Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

My research interests centre on culture, religion, mythology, and art of ancient Egypt. I am also interested in the history and archeology of civilizations of the Ancient Near East. The topics of my publications are visual and textual traditions of Egyptian funerary objects (papyri, coffins, mummy bandages, etc.) and ancient Egyptian artefacts in the museums of Ukraine. I’ve studied and published Egyptian objects in a number of Ukrainian museums, among them Odesa Archaeological Museum of the NAS of Ukraine, which contains the largest and oldest collection.

I have archaeological field experience, having taken part in the excavations of international expeditions in Giza necropolis (Egypt), Bilsk settlement in the Forest-Steppe Scythia (Poltava Region, Ukraine), ancient Hellenic settlements and the necropoleis of Tyras (Odesa Region, Ukraine), Iluraton and Kytea (Eastern Crimea, Ukraine).

• “Online Egyptological Bibliography”. Project of the Griffith Institute, University of Oxford; Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, and the International Association of Egyptologists (responsible for material in Cyrillic script).
• Ukrainian-Lithuanian Research Project “Ukrainian Mummy Project” (Department   of   Anatomy,   Histology   and   Anthropology   of   the   Vilnius   University   and A. Yu. Krymskyi Institute of Oriental Studies Institute of Oriental Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine) (coordinator and head of the Ukrainian research team).
• International Project “The Gate of the Priests. Bab el-Gasus Project: Funeral pragmatics of the ancient Egyptian (religious) elite in the Third Intermediate Period” (University of Coimbra, Portugal) (cooperation in publication of the 21^st Dynasty artefacts from Bab el-Gasus Cache from the museums of Eastern Europe).

Monograph

2016. Studies on the Vignettes from Chapter 17 of the Book of the Dead. I: The Image of mś.w Bdšt in Ancient Egyptian Mythology (Archaeopress Egyptology 16). Oxford: Archaeopress.

Articles

2022. “The semantics of the expression m-ḫt mni=f in the Book of the Dead Spell 17”, in: M. K. Jakobsen (ed.), Sociolinguistics: Past, Present and Future Perspectives, New York: Nova Publishers: 107–119.

2022. “Ancient Egypt in Ukraine”, ICOM/CIPEG E-News, 17: Special issue on Egyptian collections in the Ukraine: http://cipeg.icom.museum/media/docs/2022-17-cipeg-e-news.pdf

2021. “Egyptian Mummies in Ukrainian Museums: An Overview”, in: Journal of the Hellenic Institute of Egyptology 4: 145–150.

2021. (with Piombino-Mascali D. & Jankauskas R.) “What’s hidden in the Sarcophagus? The first-ever Lithuanian mummy exhibition (2021–2022)”, Journal of the Hellenic Institute of Egyptology 4: 141–144.

2021. “Oud-Egypte in Oekraïne”, in: Mehen. Essays over het oude Egypte (2021–2022), Leiden: 132–147.

2021. “Some Remarks to the Semantics of Image of Deity on the Coffin of Sepi III (Cairo CG 28083)”, in: L. Vives-Ferrándiz Sánchez (ed.), Eternal Sadness: Representations of Death in Visual Culture from Antiquity to the Present Time (Eikón Imago 10 (Monographic Issue)), Madrid: 229–239.

2021. “The Lot VI of Bab el-Gasus in the light of the new archive documents”, in: R. Sousa, A. Amenta, & K. M. Cooney (eds), Bab el-Gasus in Context. Rediscovering the Tomb of the Priests of Amun (Egitto Antico 4), Roma & Bristol: L'Erma di Bretschneider: 263–278.

2020. “Gliedervergottung Texts & Theogonic Ideas in Ancient Egypt”, in: A. Maravelia & N. Guilhou (eds), Environment and Religion in Ancient and Coptic Egypt: Sensing the Cosmos through the Eyes of the Divine (Archaeopress Egyptology 30), Oxford: Archaeopress: 431–442.

2020. “The vignettes of Chapter 17 from the Book of the Dead as found in the Papyrus of Nakht (London BM EA 10471):  at the beginning of the Ramesside Iconographic Tradition”, Journal of the Hellenic Institute of Egyptology 3: 131–146.

2019. “The Book of the Dead fragments in the Collection of the Institute of Manuscripts of the V. I. Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine (F. VIII, no. 565/15)”, in: M. Mosher, Jr. (ed.), The Book of the Dead, Saite through Ptolemaic Periods. Essays on Books of the Dead and Related Topics (SPBD Studies), Prescott (Arizona): 541–555.

2019. “Mummy-cover fragment Ar–227 in the Lviv Museum of History of Religion” in: H. Strudwick & J. Dawson (eds), Ancient Egyptian Coffins: Past – Present – Future, Oxford & Philadelphia: Oxbow: 215.