David P. Silverman
National Curator for "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs"
PHILADELPHIA, 2006 - Dr. Silverman is serving as the national curator, advisor and academic content creator for “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs.” This exhibit truly comes full circle for him, as in 1977, he was in charge of curatorial content for the “Treasures of Tutankhamun” at Chicago’s Field Museum, and he co-authored the text panels and labels that traveled around the U.S. with the exhibition.
Tutankhamun and the Golden Age
of the Pharaohs
Photo courtesy of National Geographic Traveler
Presently, Dr. Silverman is the Eckley B. Coxe, Jr. professor and curator at the University of Pennsylvania. He also is the chairman of the department of near eastern languages and civilizations and the curator-in-charge of the Egyptian collection at the University of Pennsylvania Museum.
Since 1973, Dr. Silverman has held numerous professorial and curatorial positions, including assistant research curator, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago; curator for the “Treasures of Tutankhamun” at the Field Museum in Chicago; visiting Willcombe professor in fine arts, Harvard University; and visiting professor in Paris at L’École Pratique, Sorbonne.
Dr. Silverman received his Ph.D. in Egyptology from the department of near eastern languages and civilizations of the University of Chicago. He earned his A.B. in art, with honors, from the department of art at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey.
He has authored and edited 12 books, written more than 45 articles and worked on more than 12 exhibitions on ancient Egypt. He also currently directs an expedition to Saqqara, Egypt.
Dr. Silverman’s last two books, Searching for Ancient Egypt and Ancient Egypt, received honors from The Athenaeum Society of Philadelphia in 1997, and the National Endowment for Humanities has supported his research and many of his field projects and exhibitions. He also has received funding support from the University of Pennsylvania Research Foundation, Yale University, the American Research Center and the Schiff-Giorgini Foundation for his field projects.