Miroslav Bárta is a Czech Egyptologist and archaeologist and currently the only Czech member of The American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He graduated from the Jan Neruda Gymnasium (Prague 1) in 1988. After studying prehistoric and early medieval archaeology at Charles University (graduated in 1993), he continued his studies in Egyptology at the universities of Prague and Hamburg. In 1997 he defended his doctorate, since 2003 he has been an associate professor of Egyptology, and in 2003-2004 he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. In 2000-2004 he was Deputy Director of the Czech National Centre for Egyptology, in 2000 and 2005 he received the prize of the Swiss Fondation Michael Schiff Giorgini, in 2008 he was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung fellow, Freie Universität, Berlin. In 2009 he was appointed Professor of Egyptology, in 2011 he received the Rector’s Award of the Year (with M. Kovář) for his monograph Collapse and Regeneration, and in 2012 the Bedřich Hrozný Award of Charles University in Prague for his archaeological discoveries in Abūsír and the development of multidisciplinary research. In 2014, he was a visiting professor at the Marilyn and William K. Simpson American University in Cairo. His most recent work, The Story of Civilization (Academia 2016), was named both the best book of the year and the publisher’s best scholarly book of the year. In 2017, he was one of five Charles University scholars to receive research support, the so-called Donatio Universitatis Carolinae, in recognition of outstanding scientific achievement.