2025 WINTER / SPRING AND SUMMER COURSES

A TASTE OF DEMOTIC

Course Director: Dr Luigi Prada (Uppsala University)

This is a 1-day course to be held online, and will also be available on video recording afterwards.

For a third of Egyptian antiquity, from the 7th century BCE to at least the 3rd century CE, demotic was the go-to, daily script for the ancient Egyptian language. Yet, curiously enough, it is hardly taught nowadays. This is mostly due to the misguided impression that this cursive script is “too hard” to learn. Well – this course will prove to you that this is not the case! Through this 1-day taster, you will be introduced to the main features of demotic, including its most common signs (starting from its so-called “alphabet”), as well as the basics of its grammar. By the end of the day, you will be able to identify independently a number of words and several signs or group-writings from a variety of original texts, including priestly decrees (the Rosetta Stone), literary texts, and documents from daily life, and you will also be able to date different demotic scribal hands.

NB: This course can be attended by complete beginners, though note that you will gain even more from it if you are already familiar with Egyptian hieroglyphs. You may therefore wish to take our A TASTE OF HIEROGLYPHS course available on video.

DEMOTIC: A BEGINNERS’ COURSE

Course Director: Dr Luigi Prada (Uppsala University)

This is a 4-day course to be held online across two weekends, and will also be available on video recording afterwards.

Demotic is both the name for the script and for the phase of the ancient Egyptian language used between the 7th century BCE and the 3rd century CE in Egypt (with some sporadic use as late as the 5th century). Its script is known for being highly cursive, much more so than hieratic, and for being supposedly impenetrable. In this 4-day course, Luigi – an Egyptologist who specialises in demotic – will prove to you this is not the case! You will be introduced gradually to the features of the demotic script and grammar, and will learn how to recognise common signs and words. By the end of the course you will be able to read sentences from original texts. We will focus on Ptolemaic demotic, with particular attention to one famous demotic literary text, known as ‘The Instructions of ‘Onchsheshonqy’.

NB: This course can be attended by complete beginners, though do note that you will gain even more from it if you are already familiar with Egyptian hieroglyphs. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the BSS Director at kathryn@bloomsburysummerschool.co.uk.

BETWEEN EGYPT AND KUSH: THE HISTORY, ARCHAEOLOGY, AND MONUMENTS OF LOWER NUBIA

Course Co-Directors: Dr Robert Morkot (Friends of the Petrie Museum) and Dr Henry Bishop-Wright (Cardiff University)

This is a 2-day course to be held online, and will also be available on video recording afterwards.

The construction of the new High Dam at Aswan and the creation of the reservoir, referred to as Lake Nasser or Lake Nubia, was one of the major projects of the late 1950s and 1960s. The resulting UNESCO campaign to record the archaeology and preserve the ancient monuments of Nubia is now best remembered for the relocation of the temples of Abu Simbel. The archaeology and history of Lower Nubia revealed by the UNESCO campaign and the two surveys preceding it, attest to a complex history of interactions between the people of Lower Nubia and Egypt from the Predynastic to the Byzantine Period. This short weekend course traces that history and archaeology, highlighting the preserved monuments and the array of material that can be found in museum collections.

A TASTE OF HIEROGLYPHS 2025

Course Director: Mr Kit Devine (Independent)

This is a 1-day course to be held online, and will also be available on video recording afterwards.

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.

EXPLORING ANCIENT EGYPT AT TURIN’S MUSEO EGIZIO

Course Director: Dr Luigi Prada (Uppsala University)

This course will be held in person in Turin, Italy. To register your interest, email: kathryn@bloomsburysummerschool.co.uk

Due to its success last year, we are pleased to bring this course to you once again! The Museo Egizio (Egyptian Museum) in Turin, Italy, is one of only two large institutions in the world — alongside those in Cairo — to be exclusively dedicated to the antiquities of ancient Egypt. Founded in 1824, it is also the oldest such institution, and celebrates its 200th anniversary in 2024. Following the success of “BSS in Egypt”, this course is BSS’ first field course in Europe. Through a combination of lectures and visits to the museum, you will discover the history of the Museo Egizio, admire its masterpieces, and familiarise yourself with the entire collection, as well as with a number of selected artefacts of particular historical significance.

Provisional itinerary

Day 1: Flight direct from London Gatwick to Turin. Transfer by coach to our hotel and check in for three nights;

Day 2: Morning lecture after breakfast (2 hours); Visit to the Museo Egizio (late morning and afternoon, with free time for a lunch break); Welcome dinner at a local restaurant;

Day 3: Morning lecture after breakfast (2 hours); Visit to the Museo Egizio (late morning and afternoon, with free time for a lunch break);

Day 4: Free day for sightseeing before transfer by coach to the airport for the return flight to London.

How to book

Booking details TBC

PERSEPOLIS, PALMYRA, AND PARIS: DISCOVERING THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST AT THE MUSÉE DU LOUVRE

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

This course will be held in person in Paris, France. To register your interest, email: kathryn@bloomsburysummerschool.co.uk

The Musée Du Louvre (Louvre Museum) in Paris is a treasure-trove of Near Eastern antiquities. The Department of Near Eastern Antiquities is divided into three collections: Mesopotamia, Persia, and the Levant (Syria, Phoenicia, Canaan, and Cyprus). We will explore each of these collections in turn. In addition, the Louvre is hosting 10 major works from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, whose Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art is currently closed for renovation. In some cases, a pair of objects has been reunited for the first time, whilst in others, pieces complement each other by virtue of specific historical features of their respective collections. Following the success of BSS’ first field course in Europe (at the Museo Egizio, Turin), this Paris-based course is an opportunity for you to discover one of the world’s greatest collection of antiquities. Through a combination of lectures and visits to the Louvre, you will discover its many masterpieces, and focus in on a number of selected artefacts of particular significance.

Provisional itinerary

Day 1: Eurostar from London to Paris. Transfer by coach to our hotel and check in for three nights;

Day 2: Morning lecture after breakfast (2 hours); Visit to the Louvre (late morning and afternoon, with free time for a lunch break); Welcome dinner at a local restaurant;

Day 3: Morning lecture after breakfast (2 hours); Visit to the Louvre (late morning and afternoon, with free time for a lunch break);

Day 4: Free day for sightseeing before transfer by coach to the train station for the return journey to London.

How to book

Booking details TBC

DISCOVERING THE HITTITES: THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF A VANISHED CIVILISATION

Course Director: Dr Christoph Bachhuber (University of Oxford)

This is a 5-day course to be held in person at UCL and livestreamed; also available on video recording afterwards.

The aim of this course is to introduce you to the culture, history, and civilisation of the Hittites, through a close examination of the archaeology, and overview of relevant scripts, texts, and languages. For reasons related to both ancient and modern historiography, the Hittites have been overshadowed by the civilisations of their contemporaries in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. This course will examine the origins of the Hittites, their cities in central Anatolia / modern Türkiye, and their expansion into an empire contemporary with, and in conflict with, New Kingdom Egypt and the Mycenaeans in the Aegean. We will journey through the cultic landscapes of the Hittites in the mountains of central Anatolia, and delve into the remarkable and diverse pantheon that bound them ideologically to both the landscapes of their home, and to the territories and people that they conquered. Finally, we will examine why the civilisation of the Hittites vanished so totally, such that Homer and Herodotus were not even aware of them.

READING HIEROGLYPHS: PHARAOH AND HIS FOLLOWERS

Course Director: Dr Luigi Prada (Uppsala University)

This is a 5-day course to be held in person at UCL (for our online Reading Hieroglyphs class, see below.

Once again, we have prepared a new course for lovers of ancient Egyptian textual culture! This year’s readings will focus on a chronologically-varied selection of hieroglyphic texts related to the central figure of the Egyptian state: Pharaoh. We will delve into royal ideology thought writings about being pharaoh, serving pharaoh -- and even competing with pharaoh. From the kings of the Fifth Dynasty to a First Intermediate Period nomarch, we will meet well-known figures from Egyptian history, as well as more obscure ones, including banished temple priests and courtly officials overly eager to please their sovereign.

Readings texts will include the funerary inscription of Rewer, a royal letter from the late Old Kingdom, the Koptos decree of King Nubkheperre Intef, a tract known as the ‘King as Sun Priest’, and the inscription of Somtutefnakht, amongst others (the selection can be fine-tuned based on the classroom’s interest).

NB: This is an advanced reading class for students with good experience of hieroglyphic Middle Egyptian. A couple of the texts that we will read pre-date the Middle Kingdom, but their language is largely identical to standard Middle Egyptian (and any unusual grammatical features will be highlighted and explained by your tutor).

EGYPT: LAND OF THE PHARAOHS -- AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT EGYPT

Course Director: Ms Lucia Gahlin (Independent)

This is a 5-day course to be held in person at UCL and livestreamed; also available on video recording afterwards.

This introductory course will introduce you to the long and glorious history of ancient Egypt through sites we can visit in Egypt today – temples, towns, and tombs. Through beautifully illustrated lectures and museum visits, we will explore the reigns of household names – Tutankhamun, Khufu, Ramesses – but also of many lesser-known pharaohs. Tracing the highs and lows of this fascinating civilisation, we will explore art, architecture and literature accessible today in the unique landscape of Egypt and in the museums of the world. Your understanding of ancient Egyptian history and archaeology will be further enhanced by a practical session exploring UCL’s 19th Century facsimiles of the Book of the Dead, an introduction to reading the hieroglyphic cartouches of pharaohs, a visit to the British Museum’s fabulous Egyptian galleries, and a very special opportunity to handle ancient objects in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology. This will be a rich and varied course introducing you to the extraordinary history of ancient Egypt.

PEOPLE, MATERIALS, AND TECHNOLOGY IN ANCIENT EGYPT: RESEARCH FROM URBAN AND DESERT LANDSCAPES

Course Co-Directors: Dr Elizabeth Bloxam (Northeast Normal University), Prof. Emeritus Paul Nicholson (Cardiff University), and Prof. Ian Shaw (University of Liverpool)

This is a 5-day course to be held in person at UCL and livestreamed; also available on video recording afterwards.

This course explores the interaction of the people of ancient Egypt with the materials and technologies that were central to life in the Nile Valley, and which enabled the production of some of the world’s greatest monuments and artefacts. Your tutors bring a wide range of archaeological perspectives on the procurement, production, and social contexts of material culture during the pharaonic period. Their very distinct viewpoints derive from decades of archaeological research across a diversity of cultural landscapes, from the densely populated urban sites in the Nile Valley to the remotest desert locations. Through fascinating case studies deriving from your tutors’ own research and fieldwork, and object-handling sessions, you will delve into the detailed analysis of Egyptian workshops producing ceramics and glass; processes of social and political change and technological innovations in New Kingdom cities; and the impact of social mobility and power on craft specialisation, using evidence from remote outposts of Egypt.