Bloomsbury Summer School
Fascinated by ancient civilisations?
We offer anyone with any level of knowledge, inspiring short courses on ancient Egypt and other areas of the ancient world.
Contact us
We will be happy to provide any further information about Bloomsbury Summer School you may need.
Get in touch by email: kathryn@bloomsburysummerschool.co.uk
Our postal address:
Bloomsbury Summer School
c/o The Accordia Research Institute
42 Runnemede Road
Egham
TW20 9BL
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)779 155 8195
A brief introduction to BSS
Dr Kathryn E. Piquette, BSS Director, during a visit to the Temple at Esna in Egypt.
Founded in 1990, BSS endeavours to present the finest programme of summer courses in Egyptology and ancient world history, archaeology, languages, and literature, available in the United Kingdom.
- We offer courses on the ancient history, archaeology, ancient languages, and literature, mainly of ancient Egypt and the Near East, taught by experts working in universities, museums, and field archaeology;
- Most courses run for 5 days in summer, but we also run short online courses in the winter and spring on the weekends;
- We deliver our summer programme at one of the world's leading universities, University College London (UCL), in the heart of Bloomsbury in central London, many of which are also live-streamed;
- Although rooted in academia, we offer a relaxed and informal learning environment;
- Our lecturers are distinguished academics and specialists with world-leading expertise, but they are also friendly and approachable;
- 5-day courses have 19 teaching sessions, 4-day courses have 16 sessions, and 2-day courses have 8 sessions of mostly lectures, but may include museum visits and other activities;
- Most courses are live-streamed and video recorded so that if you cannot come to London, you can still enjoy learning and socialising with other students online;
- BSS not only offers well-taught courses in a range of exciting subjects, we also normally organise accompanying social events, all of which combine to create a rich learning experience you would struggle to find elsewhere;
- You are more than likely to go away after your time with us, not only inspired by a wealth of new material and ideas, but having made new friends.
At BSS, we are enormously fortunate to have special access to UCL's stunning museum collections and excellent university facilities. Our classes taught in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology offer privileged access to this internationally important collection of Egyptian and Sudanese artefacts. The opportunity to handle ancient objects is not one to be missed; it is an exceptional experience (note that in 2024 the Petrie Museum is closed for works from late May until mid-August). Our Bloomsbury location also allows us to include teaching sessions in the British Museum, just down the road.
We are proud to have organised at least one BSS in Egypt every year since 2009 (except 2020 - 2022). These courses in Egypt combine lectures / classes with site visits – a perfect learning experience. In 2023 we are offering another course in Amarna in December, this time entitled EXPLORING AMARNA: ITS ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IDEAS BEHIND IT and taught by Dr Anna Stevens, Assistant Director of excavations at the site of Amarna and Lecturer in Archaeology and Ancient History, Centre for Ancient Cultures, Monash University. In 2024, Dr Bill Manley will be reprising his popular reading hieroglyphs course in Luxor, AN EXPEDITION TO READ HIEROGLYPHS, with new content.
We also enjoy staging at least one Study Day each year. In 2024, we will be offering two study days, one in June and one in September. We are looking forward to a very special double study day led by Dr Elizabeth Baquedano (University College London) on 440 YEARS OF THE HISTORY OF THE AZTEC PEOPLE: THE CODEX AUBIN AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM. We are also thrilled to welcome back Dr Campbell Price who will lead fascinating study day on FACING THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS: FACTS AND FANTASIES.
Director
Kathryn E. Piquette received her PhD in Egyptology from University College London (UCL), specialising in early Egyptian writing and art. She is a lecturer at the UCL Institute of Archaeology and is a Senior Researcher at the UCL Centre for Digital Humanities, where she teaches digital approaches to cultural heritage and works as an imaging specialist for UCL Advanced Imaging Consultants. Kathryn took over directorship of BSS in 2019, having directed and coordinated several BSS courses over the past two decades. A longstanding member of the Friends of the Petrie Museum, Kathryn has served as Student Representative and Membership Officer, and is now a member of the Board of Trustees. She is also a member of the Egypt Exploration Society. Her archaeological fieldwork includes excavation in Jordan (Petra) and Egypt (Wadi Natrun, Hierakonpolis, Giza), and work as advanced digital imaging specialist at Qubbet el-Hawa, Deir Anba Hadra, Philae Temple, the C2 Project: Royal Cache Wadi survey, and several other projects in Egypt. Among her publications is the Open Access monograph An Archaeology of Art and Writing: Early Egyptian labels in context (2018) with supporting online database, and the freely available co-edited volume Writing as Material Practice: Substance, surface and medium (2013). She is also working on co-edited volumes on the Narmer Palette, Palermo Stone, and the Shabaqo Stone.
Outreach Coordinators for East Asia
Chenqing An (安宸庆) first joined Bloomsbury Summer School in 2021 and continues to volunteer as a Course Coordinator and now also serves as BSS Outreach Coordinator for East Asia. He earned his MA in Ancient History from University College London and is currently pursuing an MPhil in Egyptology at the University of Oxford. With a primary research focus on Ptolemaic Egypt, he is particularly interested in its economic history and interactions with the wider Mediterranean world, with additional interests including environmental history and comparative studies between Egypt / Greece and China.You can find him on WeChat: anchenqing1998
Yu-chun Kan (甘聿群) has served as a Course Coordinator for Bloomsbury Summer School (BSS) since 2022, and has now also joined the BSS team as a Outreach Coordinator for East Asia. She is a PhD student at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. She received a double-major BA in Anthropology and History from the National Taiwan University and her MA in Archaeology from Peking University. Her main research focus is the archaeology of food, investigating past daily lives, and sensorial experiences through archaeobotanical, experimental, and ethnoarchaeological approaches. Yu-chun has participated in several field projects in Taiwan, China, as well as Croatia. She is also a member of a joint excavation project at Philadelphia in Fayum, Egypt.
You can find her on Facebook: YC Kan
Former Co-Director
Lucia Gahlin directed BSS from 2009 to 2019, having also directed numerous highly successful courses of her own and played a role in its organisation since 1994. She lectures widely on ancient Egypt and her most recent academic position was Honorary Research Associate at the UCL Institute of Archaeology. She leads regular archaeological tours to Egypt (including for Andante Travels), and tours of museums with Egyptian collections around the world. She has a long-standing association with the UCL Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, and has worked particularly on its material from Amarna. She was for many years Chair of the Friends of the Petrie Museum, and has been a Trustee of the Egypt Exploration Society. She has worked as Small Finds Registrar at the archaeological site of Tell el-Amarna in Middle Egypt. Her publications include Egypt: Gods, myths and religion (2001), and chapters in Wilkinson, T. (ed.) The Egyptian World (2007).
Founder
Christopher Coleman founded Bloomsbury Summer School in 1990 and it soon became the most successful organisation of its kind in the United Kingdom. He was a Lecturer in History at University College London and was subsequently appointed Honorary Research Fellow of the UCL History Department. He was involved in research on the career of Sir Robert Mond and the related work of several of his associates, especially that of Oliver Myers and Hans Winkler at Armant and in Egypt’s Eastern and Western Deserts. Through BSS he made significant financial (and other) contributions to a wide range of research projects in Egyptian archaeology and related subjects: expeditions to Hierakonpolis, Zawiyet Sultan, Saqqara, Mo’alla, Abydos, the Abu Tartur Plateau, Mendes, the royal tombs KV5 and KV39 in the Valley of the Kings; the Centre for Alexandrian Studies; the Amarna Royal Tombs Project; the Amarna Trust; the Theban Mapping Project; the Manchester Egyptian Mummy Project; the Western Sahara Geo-Archaeological Survey; the University of Oxford’s Griffith Institute; UCL’s Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology; the Rock Art Topographical Survey; the Palestine Exploration Fund; the Egypt Exploration Society; the German Archaeological Institute (DAI); the Gebel el-Silsila Project; the Colossi of Memnon and Temple Conservation Project at Kom el Hettan; and The Holt Festival 2014: Egypt through the Artist’s Eye Exhibition and Lecture Programme.
Summer School and Study Day location
UCL Institute of Archaeology 31-34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY
Gordon Square is within walking distance of three mainline train stations (Euston, St. Pancras and King’s Cross), and of several Underground stations. Please note that there is no car park at UCL nor is there free parking nearby.
Study Day venue
UCL Institute of Archaeology, 31 - 34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY
Our 'Discover Bloomsbury' map is available to download here
