Joachim Friedrich QuackView profile
Professor
Joachim Friedrich Quack is Professor of Egyptology and Director of the Institute of Egyptology at Heidelberg University , Faculty of Arts. Since 2009 he has been a full member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and since 2017 a foreign member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters . Education & Career: 1985 – Abitur, Hermann-Tast-Schule, Husum 1985–1990 – Studies in Egyptology, Semitic Studies and Biblical Archaeology, Eberhard Karls University Tübingen (German National Academic Foundation scholar) 1988–1989 – Study visits, École pratique des hautes Études & Collège de France, Paris 1990 – M.A. (magna cum laude), Tübingen 1993 – Ph.D. summa cum laude , Tübingen; dissertation on „The Teachings of Ani“ 2003 – Habilitation, Free University of Berlin 2003–2005 – DFG Heisenberg Fellowship Since 2005 – Professor and Director, Institute of Egyptology, Heidelberg University Research Interests: Quack’s work bridges philology, religion, and cultural history of Egypt from the Late Period through Greco-Roman times. His core projects revolve around the Book of the Temple , Demotic magical and divinatory texts, animal omina, and the reception of Egyptian traditions in the classical world. Linguistically, he analyses Demotic grammar, Afro-Asiatic etymology, and the emergence of Coptic. A further strand explores purity concepts, priestly norms, and ritual dynamics, integrating papyrological evidence with broader anthropological questions. Publications & Trends: With more than 300 scholarly items, his output ranges from critical text editions ( Carlsberg Papyri ) to synthetic monographs such as the Anthology of Demotic Literature (2018, with F. Hoffmann). Recent articles increasingly address astral religion, cross-cultural deity transfer, and the materiality of writing, reflecting a methodological shift toward interdisciplinary and theoretical frameworks while remaining grounded in meticulous philology. Awards & Memberships: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize (DFG, 2011) University of Heidelberg Annual Research Prize (2011) Member, Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (since 2009) Foreign Member, Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Humanities (since 2017) Heisenberg Fellowship, German Research Foundation (2003–2005) Projects & Grants: Quack has directed numerous externally funded initiatives, most notably the DFG long-term project on the Book of the Temple , reconstructing this fundamental priestly handbook from papyrus fragments. Further ventures include editions of Demotic magical texts, the Corpus of Demotic Magical Texts , studies on the Names of Horus , and cataloguing the Heidelberg Papyrus Collection . Laboratory & Teams: As Institute Director, he oversees the Heidelberg Papyrus Collection with dedicated conservation labs, digital humanities units for multispectral imaging, and several ongoing doctoral and post-doctoral projects funded by the DFG and the European Research Council.
