Cross-Cultural Approaches to Empire; Ancient Egyptian Social History
Ellen Morris has published two books and numerous articles on issues pertinent to ancient Egyptian imperialism. The Architecture of Imperialism: Military Bases and the Evolution of Foreign Policy in Egypt's New Kingdom (Brill, 2005) is a cross-frontier study of Egyptian bases over a period of nearly 500 years. Her second book Ancient Egyptian Imperialism (Wiley-Blackwell Press, 2018) engages the work of scholars of early empires in examining various instances of Egyptian imperialism from an explicitly cross-cultural perspective. Most recently she published Famine and Feast in Ancient Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 2023), which addresses the subjects of famine, trauma, and social memory. Ongoing research interests and other publications focus on topics such as the dynamics of political fragmentation, state formation, sexuality and sacred performance, international relations and diplomacy, retainer sacrifice, and divine kingship. She has also excavated in the Nile Valley at Abydos, Deir el-Ballas, and Mendes, and at the site of Amheida in the Dakhleh Oasis.