Exploration in Egypt
(Course code : O06P412AHS)
Course Venue: Rewley House, 1 Wellington Square, Oxford,Oxford
Starts: Saturday 14 July 2007
Course fee from ?450 - depending on the course, financial assistance or discounts may be available
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With the focus on archaeological fieldwork, we will investigate the exploration of ancient Egypt from the 1890s until the present day; from the excavations of Sir W. M. Flinders Petrie, the father of modern archaeology, onwards. As well as exploring our growth of knowledge through excavations, changing theories and inter-disciplinary research, we will look at the men and women who have been focal in the growth of the discipline of Egyptian archaeology from the nineteenth century through until the twenty-first century. Although the course is primarily focussed on archaeology, there will be chances to explore the language and look at hieroglyphs in addition to getting to know some of the main Egyptian sites and types of artefact. Field trips to the Ashmolean and other collections will complement the lectures and group activities on this course.
Saturday pm Class 1) Introduction: working in Egypt in 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. A look at they key figures we will meet this week, the geographical and chronological placement of sites that will be used as case studies, and some anecdotes from the excavators.
Sunday am Colleagues and competitors: Flinders Petrie and his contemporaries from around the world, including Amelineau, Maspero, Mariette and the de Morgan brothers.
Sunday pm Individual tutorials
Monday am The students and their excavations ? we will look at ?Petrie?s Pups? and other students and colleagues of the eminent Egyptologists and consider their contribution to archaeology in Egypt.
Monday am Women in Egypt: women have played a vital role in the development of the discipline ? and not just recently. We will see how the sometimes forgotten, Hilda Petrie was indispensable to her husband?s excavations and publications and how a myriad of females have successfully taken up the gauntlet against various backdrops of feminine prejudice.
Tuesday am Good excavators should know their hieroglyphs and good philologists should know their archaeology. We examine the changing face of specialists in archaeology and question the divide between Egyptologists and Egyptian archaeologists, and review the race to decipher one of the best-known scripts in the world.
Tuesday am Practical session - we will look at the basic hieroglyphic alphabet, the construction of words and sentences, understand how cartouches work and try translating some basic formulae!
Wednesday am Brief Introduction to the Petrie Museum, our itinerary for the day and departure by minibus from Rewley House to London WC1.
Wednesday am To be spent at the Petrie Museum in University College London (we will take a packed lunch which we can eat in one of the museum?s rooms or in a nearby park if the weather is good). This collection contains unique assemblages of everyday objects including weights and measures and a whole room of ceramics. It is hoped the visited will include a chance to look a little closer at some selected artefacts excavated by Flinders Petrie. Return to Oxford for around 5.00pm where we will have a quick resume of the day?s events and a rest before dinner.
Thursday am A bygone era ? the 1920s to the end of the 1950s ? before the new archaeology and the adoption of increasingly scientific approaches. We will explore some of the great archaeological discoveries of the 20th century: excavations in Upper Egypt (including Howard Carter?s opening of the Tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings) and in Lower Egypt (including W. B. Emery?s excavations at Saqqara).
Thursday am The 1970s onwards. The last 36 years have seen a jump in archaeology both in theoretical approaches and in pure methodology ? with excavations previously unthought of e.g. below the water table being made possible and excavations in some cases now unnecessary because of modern sub-surface survey techniques.
Friday am Practical session ? we look at some of the key sites that have been excavated, with maps for everyone, and debate who worked where and why. In advance of this, the penultimate session, everyone will have prepared to play the role of an archaeologist and we will all have an opportunity to discuss why some individuals favoured certain sites and areas and why others were perhaps in search of something quite different.
Friday am Review of the week and a look at the most prominent archaeologists of the 21st century and the new generation of pups who will take us through the next 25 years.
Friday pm Individual tutorials
Field Trip
After an initial explanatory talk on Wednesday morning, we will depart for a fieldtrip to London to see the collection mainly built up of the artefacts brought from Egypt by Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie and housed today at University College London in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology. This will include an opportunity to see the objects out of the cases and allow students to get a taster of some of the more familiar, and somewhat mysterious objects within the collection.
Reading list :
Adams, B. Excavations in the Locality 6 Cemetery at Hierakonpolis (The Egyptian Studies Association, 2000).
Adams. B. Ancient Nekhen: Garstang in the City of Hierakonpolis, (SIA Publishing, 1995).
Am?lineau, ?. Les Nouvelles Fouilles d'Abydos, (Am?lineau, ?, 1899).
Baines, J. and M?lek, J. The Atlas of Ancient Egypt, (Andromeda, 1980).
Bard, K. A. The Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, (Routledge, 1999).
Butzer, K. W. Early Hydraulic Civilization in Egypt, (University of Chicago Press, 1976).
Collier, M. and Manley. W. How to Read Hieroglyphs.
El-Daly, O. Thesis publication on the decipherment of hieros and transmission of knowledge.
Daressy, G. ?A Travers les Koms du Delta II?, Annales du Services des Antiquit?s de L?Egypte 13, 1-4. Or any ?A Travers ?.? Section to be found in the Annales early editions. 1913.
Drower, M. A. Letters from the Desert. The correspondence of Flinders and Hilda Petrie.
Drower, M. S. Flinders Petrie: A Life in Archaeology, (Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1985).
Emery, W. B. Archaic Egypt, (Pelican, 1961).
Hassan, F. A. ?The Dynamics of a Riverine Civlization: a geoarchaeological perspective on the Nile Valley, Egypt?, in World Archaeology 29(1): 51-74 (1997).
Hoffman, M. Egypt before the Pharaohs, (Dorset Press, 1979).
James, T. G. H. Howard Carter: The Path to Tutankhamun, (Kegan Paul International, 1992).
Janssen, R. 100 years of Egyptology at UCL,
Leclant, J. ?Fouilles et travaux en ?gypte et au Soudan?, in Orientalia. Yearly.
Mariette ? a title
Masperio ? a title
Needler, W. Predynastic and Archaic Egypt in the Brooklyn Museum, (The Brooklyn Museum, 1984).
Petrie, W. M. F. Aims and Methods in Archaeology, (MacMillan & Co., 1904).
- 70 years in Archaeology, (Sampson Low, Marston & Co. Ltd, 1931).
- Ten years Digging in Egypt.
- Tools and Weapons, (B. Quaritch, 1917).
Quibell, J. E. and Green, F. W. 1902. Hierakonpolis II, (B. Quaritch, 1902).
Reeves, N. The Complete Tutankhamun, (Thames & Hudson, 1990).
Saad, Z. Y. The Royal Excavations at Saqqara and Helwan (Cairo, 1941-44), (l'Institut fran?ais d'arch?ologie orientale, 1947).
Shaw, I. The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, (Oxford University Press, 2000).
Smith, H. S. on the sacred animal necropolis at Saqqara.
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