Judith Sheila McKenzie was a leading specialist in the art and archaeology of the Middle East. She was associate professor of late antique Egypt and the Holy Land at the University of Oxford. McKenzie was known in particular for her work on the architecture of Petra and Alexandria publishing two monographs on the subject. She was the director of the Manar Al-Athar project, an open-access image archive of the Middle East.
Education
McKenzie studied archaeology, chemistry and English at the University of Sydney. McKenzie completed her PhD in 1986 at the University of Sydney, spending extended periods of time in Petra, Jordan, in the 1980s. Her thesis was titled The Architecture of Petra and was published by Oxford University Press in 1990.
Career
McKenzie was an annual scholar at the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem. She held a Rhys-Davids Junior Research Fellow, followed by a British Academypostdoctoral research fellow at the St Hugh's College, Oxford. She was a Queen Elizabeth Fellow at the University of Sydney and then at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. From 2003, McKenzie directed the Khirbet et-Tannur Nabataean Temple Project. In 2016, she received a European Research Council Advanced Grant for the project Monumental Art of the Christian and Early Islamic East: Cultural Identities and Classical Heritage. McKenzie directed the Manar Al-Athar project, which provides an open access image archive of the Middle East. McKenzie's 2007 book The Architecture Of Alexandria And Egypt was awarded the James R. Wiseman book award by the Archaeological Institute of America in 2010, which described the monograph as a "a monumental accomplishment". McKenzie's work had been instrumental in understanding how ancient architecture influences later buildings, particularly the influence of the Pharos, the lighthouse of Alexandria. McKenzie worked on the Garima Gospels, publishing a volume on them with Francis Watson in 2016. The book is the first to reproduce all the illuminated pages in colour. McKenzie also curated an exhibition on the gospels, The Hidden Gospels of Abba Garima, Treasures of the Ethiopian Highland, at the Ioannou Centre, Oxford in 2017. McKenzie died on 27 May 2019 at the age of 61.
Selected publications
Books
1990. The Architecture of Petra. Oxford University Press.
2013. J. McKenzie, J. Greene, A.T. Reyes, et al.,The Nabataean Temple at Khirbet et-Tannur, Jordan, Volume 2. Cultic Offerings, Vessels, and Other Specialist Reports, Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 68.
2016. Judith S. McKenzie and Francis Watson The Garima Gospels: Early Illuminated Gospel Books from Ethiopia
2004. J. McKenzie, S. Gibson and A.T. Reyes. Reconstructing the Serapeum in Alexandria from the Archaeological Evidence. Journal of Roman Studies 94: 73–114.
2009. The Serapeum of Alexandria: its Destruction and Reconstruction. Journal of Roman Archaeology 22: 772–782.
2013. J. McKenzie and A.T. Reyes. The Alexandrian Tychaion, a Pantheon? Journal of Roman Archaeology 26: 36–52.
2014. J. McKenzie and S Norodom. Mediterranean Archaeology Vol. 27 : 15–29.
2016. J. McKenzie, F. Watson, et al., The Garima Gospels: Early Illuminated Manuscripts from Ethiopia. Oxford.
