Individual Scholarship - Foy Scalf

Foy D. Scalf

Research Associate
Director of the ISAC Data Research Center and Research Archives Library
Lecturer

PhD, University of Chicago, 2014

Projects

ISAC Museum Demotic Ostraca Online
Transmission of the Book of the Dead, part of the Critical Editions for Digital Analysis and Research (CEDAR) Project, funded by the University of Chicago’s Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society.

Books

2021. Brian P. Muhs, Foy D. Scalf, and Jacqueline E. Jay. The Archive of Thotsutmis, son of Panouphis: Early Ptolemaic Ostraca from Deir el Bahari (O. Edgerton). Oriental Institute Publications 146. Chicago: Oriental Institute, 2021.
2017. (Editor). Book of the Dead: Becoming God in Ancient Egypt. Oriental Institute Museum Publications 39. Chicago: Oriental Institute, 2017.
2014. Passports to Eternity: Formulaic Demotic Funerary Texts and the Final Phase of Egyptian Funerary Literature in Roman Egypt. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Chicago, 2014.

Select Publications

2025: Foy Scalf and Robert K. Ritner. "Intertextuality between Compilation and Application: A Demotic Spell for Compulsion and the So-Called Greco-Egyptian Magical Formularies." Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 62 (2025): 67–94.
2025: Foy Scalf. “New Papyri from Bab el Gusus? The Prosopography and Provenience of Papyrus HM 84123.” Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale 125 (2025): 425–448.
2024. "Assemblage Theory and Remix Culture in the Book of the Dead: A Case Study of Repeated Spells." Brimingham Egyptology Journal 10 (2023–24), 1–21.
2023. “The Funerary Literature Related to the Book of the Dead.” In Rita Lucarelli, and Andreas Stadler (eds.), The Oxford Handbook to the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023, 279–294.
2022. “Oriental Institute Museum Notes 17: An Abydos Setting for a Stela of Osiris Sety I.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 81 (2022), 85–98.
2022. Co-authored with Brian P. Muhs. “Making a Living Off the Dead: Body Brokers in Ptolemaic Egypt.” Oriental Institute News & Notes 251 (2022), 16–19.
2021. “Adult Education at the Oriental Institute in the Twenty-First Century.” Journal of Archaeology and Education 5, Perspectives on Teaching, Learning, and Doing Archaeology and Anthropology Online, 1–7.
2020. “The First Book of Breathing: A New Assessment Based on an Edition of Papyrus FMNH 31324.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 79 (2020), 151–182.
2020. Co-authored with Robert K. Ritner. "Erotica from Roman Egypt: A Demotic Magical Spell to Induce Lovesickness." Oriental Institute News & Notes 246 (Summer 2020), 4–9.
2020. "'Where a Shattered Visage Lies.' Digital Restoration of Oriental Institute Books of the Dead." Oriental Institute News & Notes 244 (Winter 2020), 28–31, with contributions by Lucía Díaz-Iglesias Llanos and Mareike Wagner.
2019. Co-Authored with Robert K. Ritner. "Anubis, Archer Figures, and Demotic Magic." Göttinger Miszellen 259 (2019), 185–212.
2019. “The Pragmatics of Interment: How the Placement of Funerary Papyri Embodied the Divine in Roman Egypt.” Maarav 25 (2019), 151–175.
2019. "A Kind of Paradise: The Research Archives of the OI." In Discovering New Pasts: The OI at 100, edited by Theo van den Hout, pp. 134–158. Chicago: Oriental Institute.
2019. Co-Authored with Anne Flannery. "Printing God's Words with the Devil's Infernal Machine: The Hieroglyphic Printing Font in the Oriental Institute." Oriental Institute News & Notes 242 (Summer 2019), 18–24.
2019. Co-Authored with Anne Flannery and Knut Boehmer. "Listening is Good for People: The Oriental Institute Oral History Project." Oriental Institute News & Note 240 (2019), 24–27.
2018. "The Papyrus of the Treasury Scribe Iry-Iry: A New Ramesside Source for a Memphite Hymn to Osiris and the Book of Caves (BD 168)." Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 104 (2018), 9–27.
2017. "An Embalmer's Bowl with Demotic Inscription (Oriental Institute Museum E9115)." In Essays for the Library of Seshat: Studies Presented to Janet H. Johnson on the Occasion of Her 70th Birthday, edited by Robert K. Ritner, pp. 311–323. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilizations 70. Chicago: Oriental Institute.
2017. "Reviving the Book of the Dead at Chicago’s Oriental Institute.” KMT 29 (2017), 58-67.
2017. "The Death of the Book of the Dead." In Foy Scalf (ed.). Book of the Dead: Becoming God in Ancient Egypt. Oriental Institute Museum Publications 39. Chicago: Oriental Institute, 2017, 139–150.
2017. "What is the Book of the Dead?" In Foy Scalf (ed.). Book of the Dead: Becoming God in Ancient Egypt. Oriental Institute Museum Publications 39. Chicago: Oriental Institute, 2017, 21-27.
2017. "Book of the Dead: Becoming God in Ancient Egypt." Oriental Institute News & Notes 235 (2017), 4–11.
2016. "Demotic and Hieratic Scholia in Funerary Papyir and their Implications for the Manufacturing Process." Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities 42 (2015–2016), 69–82.
2016. Co-Authored with Anne Flannery. "Managing Our Past for the Future." Oriental Institute News & Notes 228: 10–13.
2016. “Magic.” In Edwin M. Yamauchi and Marvin R. Wilson (eds.). Dictionary of Daily Life in Biblical and Post-Biblical Antiquity. Volume III: I-N. Peabody: Hendrickson, 2016, 201–220.
2015. "From the Beginning to the End: How to Generate and Transmit Funerary Texts in Ancient Egypt." Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 15: 202–223.
2015. "Resurrecting an Ibis Cult: A Collection of Demotic Votive Texts from the Oriental Institute Museum of the University of Chicago." In Mélanges offerts à Ola el-Aguizy, edited by Fayza Haikal, pp. 361–388. Bibliothèque d’Étude 164. Cairo: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale.
2014. Co-Authored with Jackie Jay. "Oriental Institute Demotic Ostraca Online (OIDOO): Mergin Text Publication and Research Tools." In Acts of the Tenth International Congress of Demotic Studies: Leuven, 26-30 August 2008, edited Mark Depauw and Yanne Broux, pp. 243-261. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 231. Leuven: Peeters.
2014. Co-Authored with Scott Branting and Jack Green. Digging through Data at the Oriental Institute.
2013. Provisioning the Temple of the Muses: Expanding Capacity in the Research Archives through Compact Storage Installation
2013. Fulfilling Breasted's Vision: The Oriental Institute Integrated Database Project. Co- Authored with Scott Branting and Jack Green.
2012. The Role of Birds within the Religious Landscape of Ancient Egypt
2009. Is That a Rhetorical Question? Shipwrecked Sailor (pHermitage 1115), 150 Reconsidered
2009. Rereading the 7th Count of Snefru in the Palermo Stone
2009. Magical Bricks in the Oriental Institute Museum of the University of Chicago
2009. Accounting for Life in Ptolemaic and Roman Thebes: Online Access to Ancient Archives (with Jackie Jay)
2009. A Feast of Knowledge: Libraries and Archives, Past and Present. A James Henry Breasted Society Event
2009. Oriental Institute Museum Collection Highlights: Magical Bricks from Ancient Egypt
2008. Statements of Identity and the m of Predication
2008. Recovering the Lost Story of the Rise of Man: The Research Archives of the Oriental Institute

Individual Scholarship

Individual Scholarship - Foy Scalf

Projects

Books

Select Publications

Annual Reports