The Central European region from the Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary and Slovakia to Slovenia and Italy has seen a long history of connection and disruption, in which the relations with the Orient have played a decisive role. The project focuses its activities on the reconstruction of the network of economic, scientific and political relations connecting the countries of the former Danube Monarchy and Egypt. It shows how the interactions with the Eastern Mediterranean have influenced science, politics and economy in this period before the disintegration of the Hapsburg Monarchy and have thus shaped Central European Culture up until today.

The present team of our Research Group "Egypt and Austria" consists of scholars in » Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Italy, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia, but we are constantly looking for further participants from other countries.

Basis for "Egypt and Austria":
The cooperation Prague – Vienna

The cooperation between Egyptological institutes in » Prague and » Vienna is long-standing. It covers Egyptological, archaeological and historical topics. The Research Group "Egypt and Austria" – that is one of the results of this cooperation – focuses on the issues of the history of Egyptology, history of travel, Egyptomania and Orientalism.

"Egypt and Austria" was started – after a number of forerunners – as a series of workshops in 2003. Three of the four meetings were bilateral (CZ and AT) and were generously supported by AKTION Tschechische Republik – Österreich. Starting with the third meeting, an international workshop was set up, featuring invited speakers from Egypt, France and Slovenia, also including the USA. Since then, there has been considerably more cooperation with other countries.

Besides these meetings, there has been a regular exchange of students and lecturers between the partners in Prague, Vienna and Koper.

Proceedings for the Egypt and Austria conferences can be obtained e.g. from » Oxbow Books.