Paola Buzi - Biography#

Paola Buzi is Full Professor of Egyptology and Coptic Studies at Sapienza University in Rome since 1 February 2017.

Paola Buzi studied Classics and Archaeology at Sapienza (MA 1995 in Coptic Language and Literature), attended advanced courses in Egyptology and Coptic Studies at the Netherlands Institute in Cairo (1997), and eventually received a PhD with a dissertation in Coptic Literature at Sapienza on ‘Titles and Authors in the Coptic Literature’ (2002). In 2002–2003 she received a two-year Postdoc scholarship of the ‘Michele Pellegrino’ Foundation for Christian Studies and in 2004–2009 she was a Postdoc Research Fellow and Lecturer (‘Assegnista di Ricerca’) at the Department of Archaeology of Bologna University. In 2009–2010 she was a Research Fellow at Hamburg University on behalf of the KOHD project (‘Katalogisierung der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland’, Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen). She was appointed Assistant Professor of Egyptology and Coptic Studies at Sapienza University of Rome (November 2010–January 2017).

She was a team co-directer in the ESF project Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies (2011-2014), is a member (2012– on) of the scientific board of the International Association for Coptic Studies (IACS), member of the Accademia Ambrosiana (Milan), and a fellow of the Centre for the Study of Manuscripct Cultures (2015– on). In 2016 she obtained an ERC Advanced Grant 2015 with the project ‘Tracking Papyrus and Parchment Paths: An Archaeological Atlas of Coptic Literature. Literary Texts in their Geographical Context: Production, Copying, Usage, Dissemination and Storage’ (PAThs), based in Rome.

She combines historical, literary and codicological interests with archaeological activities. She has taken part in many excavation campaigns in Italy and in Egypt. A member of the Archaeological Mission in Bakchias (Fayyum) since 2002, co-director since 2008, she is vice-director of the Italo-Egyptian Conservation Mission at the Coptic monastery of Abba Nefer (Manqabad, Asyut), collaborator of the Corpus dei Manoscritti Copti Letterari (Rome, Hamburg), and a member of the Italian Institute for Egyptian Culture (IICE).

Her numerous publications range from Coptic literature to codicology and from archaeology to the history of Coptic and Egyptological studies.