The course will explore a broad range of archaeological source material, so that the students will learn to recognise and understand ancient Egyptian material culture as well as discern the cross-cultural interactions which have shaped ancient Egyptian society. By focusing on the critical analysis of the production, transformation, uses and roles of material culture and grounded in case studies, students will be able to examine broader questions of cultural heritage, materiality, agency and identity.
Teaching Methods
Overview lectures at Pavia University
Visits to Museo Egizio, Turin, and discussion in front of the objects
Students presentations on specific topics and objects at Museo Egizio
Assessment Methods
Active participation
Critical discussions during class
Oral presentation/discussion of a specific topic or object
Written essay
Texts
Barry J. Kemp, Ancient Egypt. Anatomy of a Civilization (all three eds. 1989, 2006, 2018), London: Routledge.
Willeke Wendrich (ed.) 2010, Egyptian Archeology, Blackwell Studies in Global Archaeology, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
Shaw, Ian (ed.) 2000. The Oxford history of ancient Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
These texts will for the most part be digitally available for the students.
Additional relevant literature will be mentioned during the classes.
Contents
By focusing on the dynamic histories of objects, new research reveals their pivotal role in shaping a wide range of social relations. Over time and across space, the interactions between artefacts and people living in the Nile valley have created complex networks of material and social agency. In a broad and diachronic approach, students will study the transformation, uses and roles of material culture focusing on some critical structures (text culture and writing, visual culture and iconography, territoriality and state formation, religion and funerary beliefs, economic and bureaucratic systems) that shaped ancient Egyptian society. Artefacts displayed in the Museo Egizio, Turin, will be in the centre of the on site discussion and studies.
