Willemina Zwanida "Willeke" Wendrich (born 13 September 1961,

Haarlem Haarlem (; predecessor of ''Harlem'' in English) is a city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland. Haarlem is situated at the northern edge of the Randstad, one of the most populated metropoli ...

) is a Dutch and/or American

Egyptologist Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , '' -logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious ...

and

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

. Wendrich completed her Ph.D. at the Centre for Asian, African and Amerindian Studies (CNWS]) at

Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince o ...

in the Netherlands in 1993. The topic of her dissertation was ''Ethnoarchaeology and the social context of Ancient Egyptian basketry'', which was subsequently published as ''The World According to Basketry'' by the CIoA Press in June 1999. From 1995 to 1999 Wendrich was an assistant professor of Egyptian archaeology at Leiden University, stationed at the Netherlands Institute for Archaeology and Arabic Studies in Cairo. In 2000, Wendrich moved to Los Angeles and became an assistant professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles (

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

). Currently Wendrich holds the Joan Silsbee Chair in African Cultural Archaeology after becoming promoted to full professor in 2009. Wendrich has participated in projects at

Çatal Höyük Çatal is a Turkish word meaning "fork". It may refer to: *Çatal railway station, a station in İzmir Province, Turkey *Çatalhöyük Çatalhöyük (; also ''Çatal Höyük'' and ''Çatal Hüyük''; from Turkish ''çatal'' "fork" + ''höy� ...

Amarna Amarna (; ar, العمارنة, al-ʿamārnah) is an extensive Egyptian archaeological site containing the remains of what was the capital city of the late Eighteenth Dynasty. The city was established in 1346 BC, built at the direction of the Ph ...

, and

Elephantine Elephantine ( ; ; arz, جزيرة الفنتين; el, Ἐλεφαντίνη ''Elephantíne''; , ) is an island on the Nile, forming part of the city of Aswan in Upper Egypt. The archaeological sites on the island were inscribed on the UNESCO ...

, and directed excavations of her own. From 1994 to 2002, she was co-director of excavations at the Roman port city of

Berenike Berenice ( grc, Βερενίκη, ''Bereníkē'') is the ancient Macedonian language, Ancient Macedonian form of the Attic Greek name ''Pherenikē'', which means "bearer of victory" . Berenika, priestess of Demeter in Lete (Mygdonia), Lete ca. 350 ...

on the Egyptian Red Sea coast with Prof. Sidebotham from the

University of Delaware The University of Delaware (colloquially UD or Delaware) is a public land-grant research university located in Newark, Delaware. UD is the largest university in Delaware. It offers three associate's programs, 148 bachelor's programs, 121 mas ...

. Since 2003 Wendrich has been working in the

Fayum Faiyum ( ar, الفيوم ' , borrowed from cop, ̀Ⲫⲓⲟⲙ or Ⲫⲓⲱⲙ ' from egy, pꜣ ym "the Sea, Lake") is a city in Middle Egypt. Located southwest of Cairo, in the Faiyum Oasis, it is the capital of the modern Faiyum ...

region of

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

on the North shore of

Lake Qarun Lake Moeris ( grc, Μοῖρις, genitive Μοίριδος) is an ancient lake in the northwest of the Faiyum Oasis, southwest of Cairo, Egypt. In prehistory, it was a freshwater lake, with an area estimated to vary between and . It persist ...

in cooperation with René Cappers of the

Rijksuniversiteit Groningen The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; nl, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, abbreviated as RUG) is a public research university of more than 30,000 students in the city of Groningen in the Netherlands. Founded in 1614, the university is th ...

and Simon Holdaway of the

University of Auckland , mottoeng = By natural ability and hard work , established = 1883; years ago , endowment = NZD $293 million (31 December 2021) , budget = NZD $1.281 billion (31 December 2021) , chancellor = Cecilia Tarrant , vice_chancellor = Dawn F ...

on the URU. The Fayum Project URU includes excavation work on both a variety of

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

and

Graeco-Roman The Greco-Roman civilization (; also Greco-Roman culture; spelled Graeco-Roman in the Commonwealth), as understood by modern scholars and writers, includes the geographical regions and countries that culturally—and so historically—were di ...

period sites, including

Karanis Karanis ( grc-koi, Καρανίς), located in what is now Kom Oshim, was an agricultural town in the Ptolemaic Kingdom, and Roman Egypt located in the northeast corner of the Faiyum. It was roughly 60 hectares in size and its peak population is ...

(Kom Aushim). Work on the Neolithic materials resulted in the discovery of the evidence for farming in Egypt at the site Kom K. Wendrich has been involved in archaeological education as the chairperson of the board of directors at the

Institute for Field Research The Institute for Field Research (IFR) is a nonprofit organization established in 2011 by a group of academic archaeologists. It operates as an independent, nonprofit academic organization that offers field research courses (field schools) at var ...

. In addition to her field research, Wendrich has been involved in a number of

digital humanities Digital humanities (DH) is an area of scholarly activity at the intersection of computing or Information technology, digital technologies and the disciplines of the humanities. It includes the systematic use of digital resources in the humanitie ...

initiatives at UCLA. She is editor-in-chief of the UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, a collaborative project aimed at providing accurate, open-source articles on a wide range of Egyptological topics. In collaboration with members of the

Deutsches Archäologisches Institut The German Archaeological Institute (german: Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, ''DAI'') is a research institute in the field of archaeology (and other related fields). The DAI is a "federal agency" under the Federal Foreign Office of Germany ...

, Kairo, Wendrich developed the Aegeron (Ancient Egyptian Architecture Online) project. Wendrich has also been the director of the Center for Digital Humanities at UCLA since 2013.

External links

Faculty page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wendrich, Willeke 1961 births Living people American Egyptologists Dutch Egyptologists Dutch emigrants to the United States Leiden University alumni Leiden University faculty People from Haarlem University of California, Los Angeles faculty American women archaeologists American women historians 21st-century American women