Uppsala University PhD alum receives 2023 Disa prize

The 2023 Disa prize is awarded to Sofia Häggman, Egyptologist and curator at the Mediterranean Museum. She receives the award for her efforts in popular science, including with the book Mummies. Fact, research, fiction.

The jury’s reasoning reads:

“The Disa prize in 2023 is awarded to the Egyptologist Sofia Häggman for her contributions to popular science, not least the captivating and knowledgeable book “Mummies. Fakta, forskning, fiktion” (2022). As a doctoral student in Uppsala and now curator at the Mediterranean Museum in Stockholm, Sofia Häggman has spread insights in a field that engages many. In Mummies, she succeeds in conveying both the enthusiasm of knowledge and a wealth of scientific perspective with direct address and well-chosen visual material.”

Sofia Häggman is an Egyptologist and has a PhD at Uppsala University on the thesis Directing Deir el-Medina, a study in ancient Egyptian state administration with a starting point in a gravedigger society in the Valley of the Kings. In recent years, she has mainly focused on the history of Egyptology and the image of Egypt in Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries. For her book about research traveler GA Wallin in Egypt, Sofia Häggman received the state award for knowledge transfer in Finland (2012). She is a diligent lecturer and frequently hired expert on TV and radio. In addition to “Mumies – facts, research, fiction” she has published several books, most recently the biography “Dedicated to Palestine – the Life and Work of Ethnologist Hilma Granqvist” (2023). Currently, she is also working on the new exhibition about Egypt at the Gustavianum, Uppsala University Museum.

The prize is SEK 50,000 and is awarded by principal Anders Hagfeldt at Kulturnatten. In connection with the distribution, Sofia Häggman gives the lecture: “Mummies – from Egypt’s graves to Sweden’s nature chambers”.