A three-dimensional Virtual Reality model of the Karnak temple complex enables us to see the temple in different periods of its existence, from small mud-brick Middle Kingdom temple to the sprawling complex that we know today. By considering which pharaoh was remembered, and whose monuments could be taken apart, Karnak Temple is a monument to political power struggles. By looking at the traces of worship the Virtual Reality model also enables us to trace the routes and access points of priests and ordinary people. The lecture will be based on a real-time exploration of the model. See also Digital Karnak online: http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Karnak

Willeke Wendrich  (PhD Leiden University, the Netherlands, 1999) holds the Joan Silsbee Chair in African Cultural Archaeology and is professor of Egyptian Archaeology and Digital Humanities in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at the Univerisity of California, Los Angeles. She is co-directing an excavation and survey project in the Fayum. She is the Director of the Center for Digital Humanities at UCLA, the Editor-in-Chief of the online UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, the Editorial Director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press and Chair of the Board of the Institute for Field Research. Her latest books are Egyptian Archaeology (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010) and Archaeology and Apprenticeship, Body Knowledge, Identity, and Communities of Practice  (University of Arizona Press, 2012).