Kathlyn M. Cooney (Kara)

Biography

Dr. Kara Cooney is an Assistant Professor of Egyptian Art and Architecture at UCLA. She earned her PhD in Near Eastern Studies from Johns Hopkins University in 2002. She has been part of archaeological excavations in Egypt at the craftsmen’s village of Deir el Medina, the royal temple site of Dahshur and various elite Theban tombs. She is published under the name Kathlyn M. Cooney, but called Kara by everyone.

Kara has also taught at Stanford and Howard University. In 2005, she was co-curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs. In 2002, she was Kress fellow at the National Gallery of Art where she was involved with the installation of the Cairo Museum exhibition Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt. A native of Houston, Kara received her B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin. Her first book, The Cost of Death: The Social and Economic Value of Ancient Egyptian Funerary Art in the Ramesside Period was published in 2007, and she is working on a number of articles related to her many research interests, including the gender issues of death in ancient Egypt, craft specialization, funerary arts in the ancient world, and ritual studies.

Kara is currently working on a new comparative archaeology series entitled OUT OF EGYPT, created with her husband, writer/producer Neil Crawford, airing on the Discovery Channel in August, 2009.

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