Since 09/2020
Ph.D. in Ancient Near Eastern Studies/Egyptology
Harvard University, United States of America
Supervisor: Prof. Peter Der Manuelian

10/2016 – 07/2018
M.Phil. in Egyptology
University of Oxford, United Kingdom
Supervisors: Dr. Francisco Bosch-Puche and Dr. Andreas Winkler

10/2012 – 07/2016
B.A. in Literature
University La Sapienza, Rome, Italy
Supervisor: Prof. Paola Buzi

Gaia Bencini is a Ph.D. candidate in Egyptology at the department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. She holds an M.Phil. in Egyptology from the University of Oxford and a B.A. in Literature from the University La Sapienza of Rome. Her primary research interests include digital epigraphy, ancient Egyptian art history and iconography, museum studies and the history of reception of ancient Egyptian scripts. Her MPhil thesis conducted at the Griffith Institute of Oxford investigated a newly discovered manuscript on the interpretation of hieroglyphs by Pietro Bracci, the eighteenth-century Roman sculptor whose works include the central group of the Trevi fountain. As well as being member of several archeological missions to the Fayum, Egypt, Gaia held an internship position in the Papyrus Collection of the Turin Egyptian Museum and was recently awarded a U.S.-Italy Fulbright Commission scholarship for a research project on the mechanisms underlying the human cognitive and material process of miniaturization within ancient Egyptian visual and material culture.