Jakob Schneider is currently in the process of finishing his M.A. in Egyptology at the Freie Universität Berlin. During his study, which included a B.A. in Classical Studies (section: Egyptology) he worked at the academy project “Structure and Transformation in the Vocabulary of the Egyptian Language: Texts and Knowledge in the Culture of Ancient Egypt” (Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities), the project „Altägyptische Wörterbücher im Verbund“ (University of Leipzig) and other institutions concerned with Ancient Egyptian lexicography. However, his main interest lies in theories and mechanics of Cultural Memory and their implications for the understanding of historical processes with a special focus on the 18th Dynasty in Ancient Egypt. When he is not troubled by mummies or memory, he is a keen musician who participated in various projects and recordings.

It has long been recognized that the early 18th dynasty in Ancient Egypt (ca. 1550 – 1319 BCE) showed a certain orientation towards their predecessors which manifested itself through archaisms, comments, visitor inscriptions and other acts of veneration. However, due to the diversity of the materials and approaches a comprehensive synopsis was inhibited until now. I argue that an overall picture can be archived if the individual phenomena are understood as constituents of a discourse which can be described with models and theories of Cultural Memory Studies. Thus, my project aims at uncovering the preconditions, elements, carriers and implications of this discourse of the past in order to describe the mechanisms and procedures of 18th dynasty Cultural Memory.