Vera is an Egyptologist with a background in Classics and Art Theory, currently investigating iconoclastic practices in Old Kingdom Egypt. Her doctoral project “If You Hurt Me, I’ll Erase You: Iconoclasm in Old Kingdom Élite Tombs” focuses on erasures carried out on wall decorations in tombs of the élite. By examining and comparing study cases from different necropolises, she aims at detecting any underlying patterns, creating diverse categories of damage, and better understanding the significance and interpretation of Egyptian funerary icons throughout time.

Her methodology benefits from the use of disciplines such as anthropology, psychology, art theory, semiotics and sociology. Thanks to an interdisciplinary approach, she is able to address the iconoclastic circumstances in a well-rounded and generally unbiased way. Dating, agency, reason and scope are investigated against an archaeological background and a wide network of more or less influential families, whom the tomb owners belonged to, and whose values were partly portrayed in funerary chapels.

Vera is currently a visiting scholar at Harvard. She intends to deepen her knowledge of the Giza Plateau, and especially of the tombs of the noblemen in the Western and Eastern Cemeteries around Khufu’s pyramid. Her stay was made possible thanks to a DocMobility Fund awarded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). She is originally a PhD candidate at eikones - Centre for the Theory and History of the Image (University of Basel), where in 2019 and 2021 she co-hosted the two-chapter international workshop “Altering Images. Iconoclasm in Egypt”. Since 2022, she is a member of the Kings Valley Project, under the direction of Prof. Susanne Bickel (University of Basel).