The Uruguayan Society of Egyptology was founded in 1980 with the purpose of achieving the maximum possible popularization in Uruguay of the facts concerning the ancient Egyptian Pharaonic civilization.

In order to carry out this task, the Society organizes public lectures, both for the general public and for educational institutions, opened to the public an Egyptian Museum, organizes regular Egyptology Contests with prizes consisting of books, other educational materials and a trophy to the best papers, organizes regular study trips to Egypt for members and students escorted by instructors and professors of the Uruguayan Institute of Egyptology, organizes special exhibitions of Egyptian antiquities and brings whenever possible, foreign scholars to lecture on the subject. All these activities are free of charge, as it corresponds to a non-profit institution that wishes to involve as many people as possible in a better appreciation of that ancient civilization to which the nations of the Western Hemisphere, and the world at large, owe so much.

Finally, the Society publishes a learned Journal, the Revista de la Sociedad Uruguaya de Egiptología which has appeared regularly since 1984, printed with very modest means but which offers an opportunity to local students and scholars to publish their work. This Journal has a different approach since it also includes at the end of each issue poetry, short stories or other such material of good quality referring to Ancient Egypt, besides the customary news, academic papers and book reviews.

The Egyptian Ambassador (1997), Mr. Ekram Zaafarany, giving the prize to one of the winners of our Egyptological Contests

The Society also publishes monographs and books on the subject, whenever the funds become available, in the belief that modest printing is preferable to not having publications at all.

Besides very successful public exhibitions held in 1985 and 1986, organized in cooperation with the local Egyptian Embassy and the Uruguayan-Egyptian Cultural Association, which attracted over 50,000 people each, the Society does its best to encourage such events that provide a visual perception better than many books. From these occasions we have had surges in our general membership and recruiting at the Institute, besides providing local schools with opportunities to see and discuss the subject of ancient Egypt.

Exhibition organized by us at the Lycée Français of Montevideo

We have not been successful yet to attract travelling exhibitions of ancient Egyptian objects which the large museums of Europe and North America provide, but we expect to be able to organize such events in due course. The lack of funds which hampers many of our best intentions is a limitation but we do not lose hope to have somehow one day the possibility of offering Uruguayans the opportunity to see artifacts and works of art that today most can see only in books.

A few years ago (1995) we had the visit of an Assyriologist, Dr. Jeremy Black of Oxford University in the UK, who was kind enough to lecture for us twice, once the subject of the origin of the Sumerians and then on recent discoveries in Mesopotamian archaeology. Both lectures were open to the public and were very well attended, many questions were asked after them and we all learned much. Dr. Black was able to visit a Montevideo museum where ancient Mesopotamian objects were on display and managed to publish some of them in a specialized journal.

In 1996 we were visited by Mr. Marcus Müller MA of Tübingen University (now Dr. Marcus Müller of Potsdam University) in Germany, who also delivered two lectures for us on the subject of battle scenes in Ramesside temples. The German Ambassador, Dr. Buerstedde, was kind enough to invite the visitor and our Director for lunch at his residence where he inquired on their professional activities and on German egyptology.

In 1997 Prof. Marcelo Campagno of the University of Buenos Aires visited us to lecture on the religious beliefs of the Egyptians in the Predynastic Period, a thorny subject which he managed very well in spite of the limited information available.

One lecture of each of the above mentioned scholars was recorded in video and was made available at once for those who had not been able to attend and increased the contents of our library.

In 1998 a series of lectures was organized in cooperation with the Egyptian Embassy for mid-July, among them one by Dr. Alberto Galasso on Health and Medicine in ancient Egypt and by Mr. Roberto Rodríguez, a student of our Institute from Argentine, on The Egyptian state and the eastern nomads.

In 2000 Prof. J. J. Castillos lectured on 12 May at the IAVA Pre-University Institute of Montevideo on "Basic principles of ancient Egyptian Art", which he has repeated every year at the teacher's request, and on 20 May at the Uruguayan Institute of Egyptology addressing a group of Members of the "Friends of Egyptology" Association of Buenos Aires, Argentina, on "Current Egyptology".

On 23 November 2000 Prof. Marcelo Campagno visited us again and was kind enough to lecture on a very interesting subject: The origin of the state in ancient Egypt . In spite of a terrible storm that turned many Montevideo streets into rivers, a gathering of corageous members of our Society and other Uruguayans keen on the subject enjoyed a very eloquent update on the current egyptological thinking concerning this rather difficult topic. Questions from the audience moved the speaker to clarify some aspects that had remained obscure and everybody left convinced that defying the wrath of an unkind weather had been worthwhile.

In October 2001 Prof. J. J. Castillos was elected a Professional Member of the Board of the Société Française d'Égyptologie of Paris, France, one of the most important Egyptological institutions in the world, that publishes the prestigious Révue d'Égyptologie, which was considered an honour for our Director and for Uruguay as a country where Egyptology is trying to develop strong academic roots. He was then re-elected for this position in 2005.

In August 2003 Prof. Castillos also gave two lectures in Buenos Aires, Argentina (Universidad del Salvador), the first on "The Origins of Egypt" and the second on "Recent Advances in the Prehistory of Northeast Africa", the latter being a Report with extensive comments on the 2003 Poznan Symposium on the subject. In November 2003 he travelled to Toronto, Canada in order to participate as a speaker in a Scholars' Colloquium in which he talked about "Inequality in Predynastic Egypt".

In June 2004 Prof. Castillos lectured for two large groups of people, first for a local branch of the Rotary Club and then for one of the local Lions International Club, on "The relevance of the study of ancient Egypt today". Both lectures, illustrated by many slides, generated great interest in the public and there were many questions on several related topics which extended both meetings well beyond the planned time limits.

On the 2 October 2006 Prof. Castillos lectured at the National Museum of Natural History and Anthropology of Montevideo on the origins of class stratification in Egypt, a paper he repeated on the 28 October at a Symposium in Buenos Aires organized by the CEEMO scholars from the local Buenos Aires and Salvador Universities and then on the 3 November he gave the same lecture, this time in English, at a Scholars´ Colloquium in Toronto, Canada.

In May 2007 Prof. Castillos was invited as an honoured guest, with all expenses paid, to participate in a Symposium organized by a Brazilian university in Porto Alegre, in which he gave the inaugural lecture on Egyptomania in the world and then two days later a second one on his research on social stratification in early Egypt.

A similar invitation was sent to Prof. Castillos to speak at another Symposium in Curitiba, Brazil, on the 30 August 2007, organized by scholars of a local university, in which he talked about his most recent research.

Ricardo García, Instructor at the Institute, and students during a break in the Society’s latest study trip to Egypt

In 1992 Prof. Castillos led a group of Uruguayans interested in ancient Egypt to that country, lecturing for the group before each visit to the ancient monuments. Press here to see some images of that trip.

Our Egyptian Museum was opened in 1984 including a very small collection of mostly good reproductions of ancient Egyptian art, bought at some of the great museums in Europe and North America.

Its main purpose at the time was to help the students of our Institute see ancient Egypt without having to leave our premises. As many people asked to visit it, they offered to donate objects in their possession that their relatives had brought from Egypt many years ago . After inspection most of those artifacts turned out to be more or less crude fakes but some were original and increased our collection to the point that more than 50% of it is authentic. This stretched our finances to breaking point but the result has been very rewarding, especially after seeing the interest the objects arouse in elementary and high school students, the ones from whose ranks future Uruguayan egyptologists will arise. An ambitious plan to refurbish our museum has been set up but we are figuring out how to raise the necessary funds.

Some of the stories donors told made us very happy to have rescued the objects for the enjoyment and education of many, since otherwise they might not have survived long. In one case lower paleolithic and neolithic stone tools were given to a child to play with and an inscribed fragment of a stela was used as a paperweight at a businessman’s residence. Many of the donors preferred to remain anonymous, others allowed us to mention their names in the display cases, a minimum gesture to express our gratitude for their generosity.

Mummy bandages, one of our museum’s exhibits

Busloads of students visit our museum and after they have been there, we encourage them to ask us any questions they want, not only about the museum but about ancient Egypt and we have been often surprised by the intelligence some of those questions reveal. We give a small prize (printed material, scarabs, etc.) to the best question in order to encourage their interest. This service is free of charge as are all those we provide, although visitors can make donations if they wish, there is a box for the purpose. Another source of small sums for the maintenance of the museum is the sale of papyri and of our Society’s publications.

In spite of our limited resources, we have the largest collection of egyptological publications in the country and we make them available not only for our Members and students, but anybody can visit our Society Reading Room and consult any material they want. Besides books we have a small collection of microfiches and a Video Library, also a small collection of recordings on sound tapes (lectures, etc.).

You can reach us at :

Regular mail : 4 de Julio 3068 Montevideo

CP 11600 URUGUAY

Fax : ( 598 2 ) 622 5352

Phone : ( 598 2 ) 628 0743

Members of our staff and students at the tomb of Horemheb in Sakkara

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