Alex Loktionov was born to a Russian family in France but was educated in the UK; a multicultural background that inspired his interest in diverse human societies from a young age. In 2011, he started studying for a BA degree in Archaeology and Anthropology at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He graduated in 2014 and received an MPhil in Egyptology from St. John’s College, Cambridge, the following year. In 2019, Alex received his PhD from Robinson College, Cambridge, having completed a thesis on the development of the justice system in Ancient Egypt from the Old to the Middle Kingdom, with a particular focus on the changing prosopographies of officials involved in the Egyptian judicial process. During his PhD, he also began to consider the wider place of Egyptian law and justice in African and Near Eastern intellectual traditions, and was supported in this through a six month AHRC-funded research fellowship at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

In 2018, Alex became a Bye-Fellow in Egyptology at his alma mater, Selwyn, which accompanied a role as Teaching Associate in Egyptian Language at the Cambridge Department of Archaeology. The following year he became Budge Fellow at Christ’s, where he has continued his work on Egyptian legal evolution with a growing focus on New Kingdom material. In 2021, Alex obtained further AHRC funding to expand his work in this area and to draw wider comparisons with the cuneiform world, becoming Principal Investigator of the Development of Early Constitutional Thought project at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. In 2023, Alex also became Director of Studies in Archaeology at Selwyn and a Visiting Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Political Economy at King's College, London.

In addition to his work at Cambridge, Alex has launched a new Egyptology programme at HSE University in Moscow, which ultimately aims to integrate Russian Egyptology into international academic discourse. Given his own family background and exposure to the Russian academic tradition, this is a topic close to his heart – and Alex is determined to demonstrate that Western and Russian Egyptologists are capable of standing shoulder to shoulder even at a time when geopolitical forces might be seeking to drive them apart. In 2022, he became Professor of Egyptology at HSE.

Academic Publications

Loktionov, A. (ed.) Compulsion and Control in Ancient Egypt. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2023.

Loktionov, A. "From Class Foes to the Upper Class: Diverse Paths to Fame and Fortune in Soviet Egyptology". In Navratilova, H, T. Gertzen, M. De Meyer, A. Dodson & A. Bednarski (eds.) Addressing Diversity: Inclusive Histories of Egyptology. Münster: Zaphon, 2023: 557-572.

Loktionov, A. "Regulating Labour through Foreign Punishment? Codification and Sanction at Work in New Kingdom Egypt", International Review of Social History 68(S31): Punishing Workers, Managing Labour, 2023: 33-52.

Loktionov, A. "Egyptian Oracles and the Afterlife". In Marlow, H., K. Pollmann & H. van Noorden (eds.) Eschatology in Antiquity. Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge, 2021: 49-62. 

Loktionov, A. "Detecting Conceptual Resilience: the Ancient Egyptian Notion of Judicial Sd̠m ('hearing') over 1500 years", Archaeological Review from Cambridge 36(1): Resilience & Archaeology, 2021: 175-191. 

Loktionov, A. & C. Schmidhuber. "Luminous Oils and Waters of Wisdom: Shedding New Light on Oil Divination". In de Graef, K. & A. Goddeeris (eds.) Law and (Dis)Order in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 59th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale Held at Ghent, Belgium, 14-19 July 2013. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press (Eisenbrauns), 2021: 169-176. 

Loktionov, A. "Rethinking Pharaonic Government: Constitutional Lessons from Ancient Egypt", Cambridge Journal of Law, Politics, and Art 1, 2021: 383-386.

Loktionov, A. "The First 'Lawyers'? Judicial Offices, Administration and Legal Pluralism in Ancient Egypt, c.2500-1800BCE". In Cavanagh, E. (ed.) Empire and Legal Thought: Ideas and Institutions from Antiquity to Modernity. Leiden: Brill (Studies in the History of International Law 41/16), 2020: 36-68. 

Loktionov, A. "The Development of the Justice System in Ancient Egypt from the Old to the Middle Kingdom". Cambridge: Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository, 2019: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/292228 

Loktionov, A. "Tortured, Banished, Forgotten (and frequently Ripped Off)? Experience of Ancient Egyptian Criminal Judgment and its Consequences through the 2nd Millennium BCE". In Kilroe, L. (ed.) Invisible Archaeologies: Hidden Aspects of Daily Life in Ancient Egypt and Nubia. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2019: 6-16. 

Loktionov, A. "A Revolution in Egyptology, or an Egyptology of the Revolution? Changing Perspectives on Ancient Egypt in Russia". In Navratilova, H, T. Gertzen, A. Dodson & A. Bednarski (eds.) Towards a History of Egyptology: Proceedings of the Egyptological Section of the 8th ESHS Conference in London, 2018. Münster: Zaphon, 2019: 157-170. 

Loktionov, A. "Commentary: Desert shaped by people, or people shaped by desert? Reflections of an Egyptologist", Archaeological Review from Cambridge 34(1): Desert Archaeology, 2019: 20-27. 

Loktionov, A. "May my nose and ears be cut off: Practical and "supra-practical" Aspects of Mutilation in the Egyptian New Kingdom", Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 60(3), 2017: 263-291. 

Loktionov, A. "An 'Egyptianising' Underworld Judging an Assyrian Prince? New Perspectives on VAT 10057", Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History 3(1), 2017: 39-56. 

Loktionov, A. "Thoughts towards a new hypothesis for understanding the legal text in OI 12073", Göttinger Miszellen 253(3), 2017: 89-96. 

Loktionov, A. "Of pilgrims and poets, prisoners and politics: the story of Egyptology in Russia". In Langer, C. (ed.) Global Egyptology: Negotiation in the Production of Knowledges on Ancient Egypt in Global Contexts. London: Golden House Press, 2017: 129-145. 

Loktionov, A. "Importing the law? Possible elements of the Mesopotamian legal tradition in New Kingdom Egypt", BAF Online: Proceedings of the Berner Altorientalisches Forum, 2016: https://bop.unibe.ch/baf/article/view/3500.  

Loktionov, A. "Convicting 'Great Criminals': A New Look at Punishment in the Turin Judicial Papyrus", Égypte Nilotique et Méditerranéenne 8, 2015: 103-111. 

Loktionov, A. "Kušû: Crocodile after all?", Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires 2014(4), 2014: 164-167. 

Loktionov, A. "Something for Everyone: a Ritualistic Interpretation of Bronze Age Burnt Mounds from an Ethnographic Perspective", The Post Hole 26, 2013: 20-33.

Other Publications

Loktionov, A. "The Development of Early Constitutional Thought", Archaeology at Cambridge 2020-2022, 2023: 37.

Loktionov, A. "Obituary: Geoffrey Almeric Thorndike Martin", Christ's College Magazine 247, 2022: 132-133.

Loktionov, A. "Review: Structures of Power: Law and Gender across the Ancient Near East and Beyond. Chicago Oriental Institute Seminars 12 (ed. I. Peled)", Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections 24, 2019: 78-81. 

Blick, A. & A. Loktionov, "Promoting democracy in an ancient state: the case of Egypt", History and Policy 30th Oct, 2017. 

Loktionov, A. "Exploring African Law and Ancient Egypt", Library of Congress Insights Blog 10th Aug, 2017. 

Turello, D., W. Hall, A. Loktionov & J. Lingel. "Emoji, texting and social media: how do they impact language?", Library of Congress Insights Blog 15th Jun, 2017. 

Loktionov, A. "Ramesses II, victor of Kadesh: a kindred spirit of Trump?", The Guardian: Notes and Theories 5th Dec, 2016.  

Loktionov, A. "Divining Destiny in Rural Armenia", Research Horizons 25, 2014: 34-35.