Barbara Richter is a Lecturer in Egyptology in the Department of Middle Eastern Languages & Cultures, where
she earned her degrees in Egyptology (M.A., 2008; Ph.D., 2012) and has taught the various
stages and scripts of the ancient language since 2008. Before pursuing her life-long interest in the
languages and cultures of the ancient Near East, she earned an A.B. degree in music from
Stanford University.
Dr. Richter’s primary research interest is in the ancient Egyptian language and religion, with
particular emphasis on the texts and their multi-layered stylistic devices. Her recent book shows
how texts, reliefs, and architecture work together within the three-dimensional space of the
Temple of Hathor at Dendera, creating interrelationships that cross boundaries and mirror the
complexity of the divine Creation.
Current projects include a Demotic grammar book, and the translation and stylistic analysis of a
Ptolemaic child’s coffin in the Hearst Museum of Anthopology. Dr. Richter is also a contributing
researcher for the Script Encoding Initiative of UC Berkeley’s Linguistics Department, which is
encoding the extended sign list of Egyptian hieroglyphs into Unicode.
