Education

11/2016 – 01/2023
M.A. in Environmental Archaeology, Egyptology Department – Faculty of Archaeology, Cairo University in collaboration with the University of Cologne.

10/2012 – 06/2016
B.A. in Egyptology – Faculty of Archaeology, Cairo University.

Research/office work

01/2023
Egyptologist, Arabic Excavation Archive from Quft, the Arabic Diaries of the Harvard University-Boston Museum of Fine Arts Excavations in Egypt and Sudan, 1913–1947.

05/2019 – 05/2024
Archive Team Member, German Archaeological Institute in Cairo (DAIK).

04/2020 – 12/2022
Research Assistant, Zahi Hawass Center of Egyptology.

12/2020 – 05/2021
Teaching Assistant, Zahi Hawass Egyptology Diploma, International Digital University (IDU).

04/2019 – 04/2019
Young Explorers Tutor, Egypt Exploration Society (EES), Cairo Office.

07/2018 – 11/2018
Archaeological Translator, Egyptian Heritage Rescue Foundation (EHRF), the project of Adaptation and Translation of the Arabic Version of "RE-ORG: A Method to Reorganize Museum Storage" on behalf of the ICCROM.

01/2016 – 05/2016
Research Intern, Center for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage (CULTNAT) – Bibliotheca Alexandrina.

03/2015 – 03/2018
Volunteer, Egypt Exploration Society (EES), Cairo Office.

Fieldwork

11/2017
Field Archaeologist, Saqqara Saite Tombs Project (SSTP) – University of Tübingen.

02/2019 – 03/2022
Field Archaeologist, Zawyet Sultan Mission: Archaeology and Heritage in Middle Egypt – University of Cologne.

01/2019 – 01/2019
Assistant Archaeological Photographer, Berenike Project on the Red Sea coast, Egypt – The Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology of the University of Warsaw.

09/2017 – 09/2017
Field Archaeologist Intern, The excavation of the Magdalenian site in Bad Kösen-Lengefeld, Germany – University of Cologne: Institute of Prehistoric Archaeology.

08/2017 – 08/2017
Field Archaeologist Intern, The salvage excavation of the site "HA 2017/0014" within the coal mining area at Hambach, Germany – Branch Titz of the LVR-Office for the Preservation of Ground Monuments in the Rhineland.

08/2014 – 08/2014
Field Archaeologist Intern, The project of Developing Archaeological Sites in North Sinai, Egypt – Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities (MoTA).

12/2013 – 12/2013
Field Archaeologist Intern, Cairo University excavation of the New Kingdom Cemetery in Saqqara, Egypt.

The Funerary Texts in the Tomb of Tjanehebu in Saqqara: Digital Epigraphic Documentation, Palaeographical and Philological Study

The burial chambers of the Saqqara Saite-Persian shaft tombs are inscribed with funerary texts inherited from older religious corpora, known as the Pyramid Texts, Coffin Texts, and the Book of the Dead. Using this textual heritage in tomb decoration is one of the representations of the so-called ‘archaism phenomenon’ common in Dynasty 26 (ca. 664–525 BC). My dissertation tackles the palaeography and philology of the text program inscribed in the burial chamber of Tjanehebu—a sarcophagus tomb in Saqqara dating to the Saite-Persian Period (ca. 664–332 BC). Relying on modern digital documentation techniques, the project seeks an accurate examination of the scribal practices in tomb decoration. It also investigates the development of Tjanehebu’s funerary texts over the centuries through comparisons with older and contemporary sources to understand the process of text composition and transmission during the Saite Period.

2024
Tolba, M. I., Hamdy, R., Atallah. M., Darius, F. 2024. Plant Remains from the Tomb of Sennedjem (TT1) in Deir el-Medina. In Christian Leitz, Janice Kamrin, Mohamed Ismail Khaled (eds.), Kingdom of the Mummies: Essays in Memory of Ramadan B. Hussein (Supplément aux Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte) 46, 485–506. Cairo: Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

2023
Tolba, M. I. 2023. On the Trail of Ahmed Fakhry: The Legacy of an Egyptian Archaeologist. In Hana Navratilova, Thomas L. Gertzen, Marleen De Meyer, Aidan Dodson and Andrew Bednarski (eds.), Addressing Diversity: Inclusive Histories of Egyptology, 277–307. Investigatio Orientis 9. Münster: Zaphon.

2022
Tolba, M. I., Atallah. M., Hamdy, R., Darius, F. 2022. Phyto-religious Symbolism in the Funerary Banquet Scene of the Tomb of Sennedjem (TT1) at Deir el-Medina. Journal of the Faculty of Archaeology, Cairo University 25 (12), 227–245. DOI: 10.21608/jarch.2022.212068.