Claim: Svetlana Berzina was a Russian Egyptologist who worked at MSU in the Africanist department for five years then got her doctorate in 1970 then in 1981 went to work at the State Museum of the East.
Evidence: In 1977, she started to work towards the degree of doctor nauk in history in the department of the Ancient Near East in the Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences and she successfully achieved it in 1979 with a work entitled Мероэ и окружающий мир.