About

Heike Wilde is a postdoctoral fellow and Egyptologist at the Department of Ancient and Medieval Thought Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Her work focuses on scent, aromata and related raw and manufactured materials in the religious, symbolic and cultic aspects in Ancient Egypt. She is also a member of the Department of Egyptology, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg.

Before PhD in Egyptology, she experienced in fieldwork on excavations in Germany and Egypt. Additionally, she worked as a free lancer for guiding tours and workshops for the Egyptian Collection of Hildesheim, Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum, where she was preparing the exhibition “Schönheit. Auf der Suche nach Vollkommenheit,” including guiding tours and conception of workshops related to ancient Egyptian perfumery, to this special exhibition (2007-2008, Hildesheim and Karlsruhe). After PhD she turned for research to the Heidelberg University, Department of Egyptology. She held also a post in a research project in an interdisciplinary BMBF-Project in Art History at the Faculty of Applied Sciences Wismar, in co-operation with the Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim and the Museum August Kestner, Hannover.

Heike publishes on topics in ancient technology and cultural history and the interrelationship between technology, art, social history and the symbolic / ritual significance of materials in Ancient Egypt. She is co-editor, with Susanne Deicher, of the forthcoming volume Modeling Ancient Egypt. Selected papers of the 2019 conference on the Art History and Egyptology of Models at Luxor University and co-author, with Susanne Deicher, of the volume Akteure in Alltag und Kult. Modellobjekte aus dem alten Nordostafrika.

At Alchemies of Scent, Heike is examining the laboratory scenes of the Edfu Temple and ritual scenes related to the offering of myrrh in Late Egyptian Temples.

She will also be contributing to the design and content of the project’s lexicon of Egyptian and ancient Greek perfumery terms.

Selected Publications

• Glass-Working in Ancient Egypt. Vom künstlichen Stein zum durchsichtigen Massenprodukt Innovationen in der Glastechnik und ihre sozialen Folgen zwischen Bronzezeit und Antike. From Artificial Stone to Mass-Produced Translucence. Use and Production of Glass in Bronze Age and Antiquity. Edition TOPOI (Berlin 2021), 9-28. (https://doi.org/10.17171/3-67)

• The Utilization and Proliferation of New Technologies and Materials during the 2nd Mill. BCE. Improvements in Technology and Networking between Egypt and its Neighbours during the Bronze Age, in: J. Mynářová, P. Onderka, P. Pavúk (Hrsg.): There and Back Again – The Crossroads II. Proceedings of an International Conference held in Prague, September 15-18. 2014, Prag 2015, 129-148.

• Wilde, "Technologie und Kommunikation. Innovationsschübe vor dem Hintergrund der Außenbeziehungen Altägyptens", in: Elke Kaiser and Wolfram Schier (Eds.), Mobilität und Wissenstransfer in diachroner und interdisziplinärer Perspektive, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2013, 115–150. (doi: 10.1515/9783110258912.115)

• Grabbeigaben und ihre symbolische Bedeutung anhand eines Konvolutes aus Giza (Mastaba D 208). Überlegungen zum privaten Jenseitsglauben im Alten Reich, in: ZÄS 140, 2013, S. 182-187.

• Innovation und Tradition. Zur Herstellung und Verbreitung von Prestigegütern im pharaonischen Ägypten, Göttinger Orientforschungen IV, Vol. 49, Wiesbaden 2011.