Augusta McMahon

Image of a white woman with cropped dark grey hair and black glasses.
Professor of Mesopotamian Archaeology
Director of Graduate Studies, Ancient Fields
she/her/hers
Ph.D. University of Chicago, 1993
Teaching at UChicago since 2022

Augusta McMahon is Professor of Mesopotamian Archaeology in NELC and the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures. She returns to Chicago in the autumn of 2022 after teaching in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge, UK, since 1995. She has excavated widely in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Egypt, and Yemen, including directing excavation projects at Chagar Bazar and Tell Brak in Syria and at Lagash in south Iraq. Her research focuses on late prehistoric and historic Mesopotamia during the 5th through 1st millennia BC, particularly issues of early urbanism and urban challenges, social stress and warfare, political economy, and sensory archaeology.

Affiliated Departments and Centers: Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures
Subject Area: Near Eastern Art and Archaeology