2022 SPRING AND SUMMER COURSES

A TASTE OF HIEROGLYPHS

Course Director: Dr Bill Manley (University of Glasgow)

This course will be delivered online via the video communication platform Zoom (details provided upon enrolment).

For those of you intrigued by learning how to read hieroglyphs and perhaps wondering whether to take the plunge, this 1-day course will show you the basics behind reading ancient Egyptian and also give you a taste of the way we do things at Bloomsbury Summer School.

'A Taste of Hieroglyphs' assumes you have no prior experience in the subject but, through a series of presentations and reading sessions, we will show you how to read some pharaonic monuments on display in world-famous museums by the end of the day.

BEL MASRI: EGYPTIAN ARABIC FOR THE TRAVELLER

Course Director: Dr Heba Abd el Gawad (University College London)

This course will be delivered online via the video communication platform Zoom (details provided upon enrolment).

Have you ever wished you could chat with your Egyptian taxi driver or bargain in the suq in colloquial Egyptian? Have you struggled to get along in Egypt with your Modern Standard Arabic phrasebook or dictionary? If so, this course is for you!

Tailored for those planning travel to Egypt, you will learn common words and key phrases in colloquial Egyptian to help you navigate various practical and social situations. Your Course Director will introduce you to her mother tongue through examples drawn from Egyptian cinema, television, and song lyrics.

The course is suitable for the absolute beginner or those looking to refresh their spoken Egyptian.

GODS, TEMPLES, AND PALACES: AN OVERVIEW OF MESOAMERICAN ARCHITECTURE

Course Director: Dr Elizabeth Baquedano (University College London)

This course will be delivered online via the video communication platform Zoom (details provided upon enrolment).

We are pleased to welcome back Elizabeth Baquedano who will guide you on an exploration of the extraordinary temple and palace architecture of Mesoamerica. Learn about the pantheon of deities worshipped, for example in Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan - the axis mundi of the city - dedicated to the gods of rain (Tlaloc) and war (Huitzilopochtli). You will explore evidence for daily life in royal palace contexts as well as the elaborate art and memorial architecture commissioned by Maya kings and queens.

This course offers the rare opportunity to study religious and residential Mesoamerican architecture alongside important archaeological finds including painting and sculpture ranging from the Formative Period (c.500–350 BCE) to the destruction of the most important temple of the Aztecs, the Templo Mayor in 1521 CE.

200 YEARS OF READING EGYPTIAN ARTEFACTS: INSCRIBED OBJECTS THAT SHAPED EGYPTOLOGY

Course Director: Dr Luigi Prada (Uppsala University)

This course will be delivered online via the video communication platform Zoom (details provided upon enrolment).

In 2022 the world celebrates 200 years since the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs, a discovery conventionally considered to mark the birth of Egyptology. In this course, you will examine objects chosen for the special contribution they made to decipherment, as well as our general knowledge of ancient Egypt.

From the Old Kingdom through to the Coptic period, you will explore a diverse selection of textual artefacts, some of which will be familiar to you, such as the Rosetta Stone, and some less well known. Each case study will be presented in detail, from both textual and material perspectives, highlighting its unique significance and revealing how ancient Egypt's history was written one inscribed object at a time.

No previous knowledge of the Egyptian writing system is required.

INTRODUCTION TO OLD PERSIAN: THE LANGUAGE AND SCRIPT OF THE ACHAEMENIDS

Course Co-Directors: Prof. Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones and Mr Jack Neighbour (both University of Cardiff)

This course will be delivered online via the video communication platform Zoom (details provided upon enrolment).

In 522 BCE, Darius I usurped the Persian throne and enacted a bureaucratic overhaul of his empire that was epitomised in grandiose building projects like those seen at Persepolis and Bisotun. Such extravagancies pertained to the Achaemenid wealth and power, and signified a Persian rebranding of near eastern imperial administration. An empire woven of Persian cloth would need a language to match, and so Darius employed a new monumental script – Old Persian.

Join us in exploring the historical and linguistic context of Old Persian, learning the basics of Old Persian grammar and translation with assisted reading of original Achaemenid texts and more.

This course assumes you have no prior experience in the subject.

READING COPTIC: WORDS OF WORLDLY WISDOM

Course Director: Dr Bill Manley (University of Glasgow)

This course will be delivered online via the video communication platform Zoom (details provided upon enrolment).

Our brand-new course for old friends and newcomers alike is designed to build on your skills in reading Coptic and develop your appreciation of Egyptian culture. As ever, you will be invited to study different aspects of the language and apply them in reading ancient texts using notes specially written for BSS. This time we will concentrate on two collections of texts which may seem like old friends themselves. The sermons of Apa Shenoute and the sayings of the Desert Fathers, written down at the end of Roman rule, are part of the foundations for understanding the history and culture of the early Copts as well as appreciating the standard Sahidic form of their language.

NB: You need not have taken the introductory course 'Coptic: A course for beginners' at BSS, but 'Reading Coptic' assumes you do have some experience in reading Coptic texts. As a rule of thumb, you should be able to read a short narrative including the past tense and circumstantial forms. However, do not worry about the intensity: there will be plenty of time for supervised practice and for questions and answers with your tutor.

If you have taken 'Reading Coptic' with us previously, you will find all-new content in this latest course

LIVING EGYPT: UNDERSTANDING CONTEMPORARY CULTURE AND SOCIETY

Course Director: Dr Heba Abd el Gawad (University College London)

This course will be delivered online via the video communication platform Zoom (details provided upon enrolment).

When the non-Egyptian thinks of Egypt, it is often a landscape replete with pyramids, temples, and tombs, yet devoid of people, that is conjured in the mind. This 'eternal Egypt', captured by Victorian travellers and portrayed in modern tourism advertising campaigns, as well as the Egypts imagined in museums, books, cinema, and portrayed in Western coverage of Middle Eastern news, often bear little relationship to Egypt today.

In this new and exciting course taught by a native Egyptian and Egyptologist, you will be introduced to living Egypt as inhabited and experienced by modern Egyptians. You will learn about a multi-layered and multi-ethnic Egypt with diverse perspectives on its own heritage. From traditions of display in high-street shop windows to the cultural code for hanging washing on the line, this course will provide you with unique insight into the fascinating array of local and regional cultural practices that constitute Egypt today.

BEGINNING HIEROGLYPHS

Course Director: Dr Bill Manley (University of Glasgow)

This course will be delivered in person and online via the video communication platform Zoom (details provided upon enrolment).

We are excited to bring back our popular beginning hieroglyphs course this year. Our Course Director has vast experience of the subject and is regarded as one of the best hieroglyphs teachers around. The course itself is a unique introduction to the world of Egyptian hieroglyphs specially written for BSS and requires no prior experience of the subject. Through a series of presentations and practical sessions, you will progress from the basics of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing to learning the language of the ancient Egyptians — and do so from day one by reading ancient monuments available online or on display in world-famous museum collections.

This course is specifically intended for complete beginners but may well appeal to anyone wishing to refresh their knowledge of hieroglyphs, too. It has always proved to be an intense and rewarding experience.

HIERATIC: AN INTRODUCTION TO ANCIENT EGYPT'S CURSIVE SCRIPT

Course Director: Dr Luigi Prada (Uppsala University)

This course will be delivered in person and online via the video communication platform Zoom (details provided upon enrolment).

As surprising as it may seem to us, the scribes of ancient Egypt first learned to write and read their language not in the hieroglyphic script, but in its cursive kindred: hieratic. Knowledge of hieroglyphs would come only at a more advanced stage. However, for the modern student the opposite is true; all of us typically start learning ancient Egyptian through the hieroglyphic script.

This course thus provides you with the unique opportunity to read ancient Egypt's literary masterworks and daily-life documents in their original hieratic version, written on papyri, ostraca, and other materials. Following an introduction to hieratic and its essential elements, a selection of texts will be read in class, offering you an overview of the diachronic evolution of the hieratic script from early Pharaonic to Graeco-Roman times. This course includes sessions taught with original artefacts at the British Museum and the UCL Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology.

NB: Participants will be expected to have knowledge of hieroglyphic Middle Egyptian to the level of the BSS 'Reading Hieroglyphs' course. Should you be uncertain as to your knowledge level, contact the Course Director by email to discuss your case.

20,000 YEARS OF AGRICULTURAL AND CLIMATE CHANGE IN NORTH AFRICA AND THE LEVANT

Course Director: Claire Malleson (American University of Beirut)

This course will be delivered in person and online via the video communication platform Zoom (details provided upon enrolment).

This course will explore the most important aspect of life for the survival of the human species – farming, and its relationship to the environment and climate change. Starting with current ideas about ‘hunter gatherer' lifestyles in northeast Africa and western Asia, we will then examine evidence for the process of the gradual shift to formal farming lifestyles across the region.

The course will also cover specific case studies for the Bronze Age agricultural systems that supported the rise of the 'Great Civilisations' in Egypt and the Levant. You will gain unique insight into this topic through discussions and activities based on traditional sources (art, architecture, and texts), as well as the natural sciences (botany, zoology, climatology, and geology).

STONE TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGIES IN ANCIENT EGYPT

Course Co-Directors: Dr Sarah Doherty (University of Oxford) and Mr Matt Szafran (Independent)

This course will be delivered in person only.

We are thrilled to welcome the ancient technologist double act of Doherty and Szafran! In this course, they will draw on the results of their own experimental archaeological research to demonstrate the different ways in which ancient Egyptians worked stone. You will learn about different stone types, uses, significance, and the tools required to work them – particularly stone tools but also copper and bronze. You will become familiar with the workshops, tools, and trades (and attitudes towards them) of ancient Egypt.

You will also learn how to use your newly acquired knowledge of these processes to find toolmarks and uncover stories on original artefacts through sessions taught at the British Museum and the UCL Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology. This course also features a guest lecture from Dr Campbell Price on the prestige of stone as a material and its applications in sculpture.

READING HIEROGLYPHS: SONGS FOR ALL TIME

Course Co-Directors: Dr José-Ramón Pérez-Accino (Complutense University of Madrid) and Dr Bill Manley (University of Glasgow)

This course will be delivered in person and online via the video communication platform Zoom (details provided upon enrolment).

As usual we have set aside a course for those of you who love to experience the culture of pharaonic Egypt up close — by reading the ancient texts. Once again, we are delighted to offer a brand-new course, this time exploring the language of various songs and lyrics. In particular, we will look at the celebrated collection of love songs found among the Chester Beatty archive from Deir el-Medina, as well as hymns and lyrics from other archaeological contexts, including the 'Songs of the Harper'.

NB: In response to ever-increasing demand for our 'Reading Hieroglyphs' courses, 'Songs for all time' will run in two parallel groups to allow for smaller class sizes. One group will run online but we hope the other group can run in person in our London classrooms. Nevertheless, the content of the course will be the same for each group.

Our 'Reading Hieroglyphs' courses assume you already have a good reading knowledge of Egyptian hieroglyphic texts. Normally we expect you to have taken both of the BSS courses 'Hieroglyphs for Beginners' (first stage) and 'Hieroglyphs: The next step' (second stage) beforehand. As a rule of thumb, before you come along you should be comfortable reading all the texts in How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs (see Recommended reading). However, do not worry about the intensity of this course: throughout the week there will be plenty of time for your own work and for questions and answers with your tutors.

TUTANKHAMUN: HIS LIFE AND AFTERLIVES

Course Director: Prof. Aidan Dodson (University of Bristol)

This course will be delivered in person and online via the video communication platform Zoom (details provided upon enrolment).

Despite its short duration, Tutankhamun's life witnessed key parts of one of the most momentous events in ancient Egyptian history: the religious and artistic revolution of Akhenaten, and the onset of the counter-reformation that brought it to an end. Then, after millennia of oblivion, his existence was once again noticed at the end of the 1820s and ideas developed as to his role in history – before bursting forth onto the international scene through the discovery of his tomb in 1922. This course will explore all these aspects of his career(s).

PROPHETS AND PROPHECY IN THE HEBREW BIBLE AND THE NEAR EAST

Course Director: Prof. Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones (University of Cardiff)

This course will be delivered in person and online via the video communication platform Zoom (details provided upon enrolment).

Prophecy was a widespread phenomenon, not only in ancient Israel but throughout the ancient Near East as a whole. This fascinating and lively course explores ancient Near Eastern and biblical notions of prophets, prophetic words, and prophetic activities. The oracles and prophets from ancient Mesopotamia, the Levant, and the Iranian world from the second and first millennia BCE will be our focus, although special attention will be given to the prophecies of Isaiah — one of the most remarkable books of the Hebrew Bible, covering a period of around 300 years and dealing with three successive empires: Assyria, Babylon, and Persia.

All texts are studied in English translation.

GREATER NUBIA: EXPLORING THE LAND AND ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE MIDDLE NILE VALLEY

Course Co-Directors: Dr Robert Morkot (Friends of the Petrie Museum) and Dr Iwona Kozieradzka-Ogunmakin (University of Manchester)

This course will be delivered in person and online via the video communication platform Zoom (details provided upon enrolment).

Nubia – the land stretching between the southern part of Egypt and the confluence of the White and Blue Niles in central Sudan – encompasses environmentally-diverse and culturally-rich regions. In the past and despite being a birthplace to one of the greatest African civilisations – Kerma culture and Kush – Nubia was seen by archaeologists merely as a conduit, a ‘corridor' connecting Egypt to ‘sub-Saharan' Africa.

This course will present new research that re-evaluates previous ideas concerning Nubia, its role and importance in antiquity, with the focus on the extent of its cultural connections (north-south and east-west) and changing landscapes that impacted on the animals, peoples, and cultures.

KING TUT AND HIS 'WONDERFUL THINGS': 100 YEARS OF EGYPTOMANIA IN THE WEST, 1922–2022

Course Co-Directors: Prof. Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones (University of Cardiff) and Mr. John J. Johnston (Independent)

This course will be delivered in person and online via the video communication platform Zoom (details provided upon enrolment).

Ancient Egypt had long been a place of fascination in the western mind, but when, in 1922, Howard Carter looked into the tiny, but unpilfered, tomb of the boy-king Tutankhamun and its many 'wonderful things', Egyptomania was truly born. An explosion of Tut-inspired art, music, drama, and consumables flooded Europe and America and the passion for all things Egyptian – from the exquisite to the camp and the kitsch – has remained a staple of both high culture and pop culture.

This fascinating, colourful, and lively course, led by two experts on ancient reception, explores pharaonic Egypt of the western imagination. It will cover, amongst other things, theatre, film, music, literature, architecture, and fashion. The use and abuse of Egyptian antiquity will be studied and questions will be asked as to how Egypt has been put into service to endorse western notions of imperialism, orientalism, and colonialism.