# Antonio J. Morales RCC Faculty Research Fellow at the Harvard Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations ![morales_photo.jpg](/sites/g/files/omnuum986/files/styles/hwp_4_5__480x600/public/rcc/files/morales_photo.jpg?itok=dD6oF8MA) email laptop\_windows Antonio J. Morales received his PhD from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania on December 2013. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Heidelberg Universität in 2013-2014 and lectured in the Institute of Egyptology at Freie Universität Berlin between 2014 and 2017 until he was appointed as Ramón y Cajal Fellow at the University of Alcalá (UAH, Madrid). He is currently Assistant Professor of Egyptology at this institution and the director of the University of Alcalá archaeological expedition to Egypt. His areas of expertise are history, religion, language, and literature in Old and Middle Kingdom Egypt. His current work focuses on the political conditions and social and cultural transformations experienced in Egypt during the so-called First Intermediate Period and early Middle Kingdom. As an RCC Fellow, he is committed to explore the origins of the classical period in ancient Egyptian history, the Middle Kingdom, and to identify the major cultural, social, and ideological elements that contributed to the reconfiguration of the state and society after a period of political fragmentation, economic crisis, and social reaction. Dr Morales is particularly interested on the cultural and ideological roots of the period, which further study should identify through the rich variety of regional traditions regarding beliefs, practices, and social organization. Regarding this academic interest, he is currently the director of the project “The Middle Kingdom Theban Project: social change, cultural innovation, political struggle, and state reformation in First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom Egypt”, funded by the National Research Agency, Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2020-114188GB-100). Dr Morales is currently teaching several courses on ancient Egyptian language and script (Old, Middle, and Late Egyptian as well as Hieratic), pharaonic history, and methods and tools in Egyptology, and is the director of the programs Formación en Egiptología, Formación Superior en Egiptología, and Master en Egiptología at the University of Alcalá. He has received several academic awards for his work in the field of Egyptology and Near Eastern Studies, including the William Penn Fellowship (UPenn 2002), the Henri Frankfort Scholarship (London 2011), the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship (Oxford 2011), and the Louis J. Kolb Society Fellowship (UPenn 2012). Prof. Morales will be working at the Harvard Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations with Profs. Khaled El-Rouayheb, James Richard Jewett Professor of Arabic and of Islamic Intellectual History at Harvard University and Chair, Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations and Peter Der Manuelian Barbara Bell Professor of Egyptology at Harvard University and Director, Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East Harvard University from January to June 2022. - ## People Taxonomy [Fellows and Associates](/people-taxonomy/fellows-and-associates) - ## Stakeholders [UAH](/stakeholders/uah)