Dr. Melanie Wasmuth new associate editor of JAEI

The Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections (JAEI) is an independent academic journal based at the University of Arizona. Since 2009 it provides an online publication platform for high-level research that interrelates ancient Egypt with Mediterranean, Near Eastern and African studies.

I am very pleased to share the information that I have been invited to join the editorial team of JAEI as an associate editor. The JAEI is one of rather few scientific journals I can whole-heartedly approve of: topic- and quality-wise, but also due to its structural design as an independent journal that successfully manages the cross-over of requiring a certain income for copy-editing and type-setting and opportunities for the author beyond “green” open-access.

How does JAEI relate to my own research?

I am myself an Egyptologist and Ancient Near Eastern Historian with special interest in the question of how cross-regional migration and cultural encounters affect identity display, power constellations, and living realities. Accordingly, the JAEI has been instrumental to me for accessing new high-level publications in my own field of interest and for publishing my research.

Together with the editor-in-chief, Dr Pearce Paul Creasman, I published the outcome of the workshop on “People on the Move: Framework, Means, and Impact of Mobility across the East Mediterranean Region in the 8th to 6th c. BCE” (CH-Castelen: 03–06 Aug. 2015) as a special issue (2016). We are currently preparing a further special issue on Udjahorresnet, one of the key figures who negotiated the transition from the Saitic period (dyn. 26) to the inclusion of Egypt into the Persian Empire around 525 BCE. The volume, which is based on another specialist workshop and an open call for papers is scheduled for publication in spring. I organized the workshop “" together with Dr Alexander Schütze and Prof Andreas Schwab in Munich, 12–15 September 2018.

How does JAEI relate to ANEE?

Both ANEE and JAEI promote cross-disciplinary research with a wide spatial and chronological scope. Any of the ‘empires’ studied in the Centre of Excellence, i.e. the major powers ruling over substantial parts of the ancient world during the 1st millennium BCE, have in one way or another a close connection to Egypt. Throughout this period, Egypt was seen either as a rival, a potential ally, or as an important source of cultural and economic wealth. As a consequence, any high-level research taking up this connection could suitably and prominently be placed in a JAEI volume.