Title: Remembering Egypt: Historical Perspectives on the Social Construction of the Image of Egypt (original) (raw)
Related papers
all the subdisciplines into which Egyptology is divided, history (and history writing) has long had to suffer the status of poor cousin. While other Egyptologists bring to the field of enquiry up-to-date interests and techniques from such trendy pursuits as economics, linguistics, anthropology, literary theory, art history, or even the applied sciences, the historian has seldom updated his attempts by examining and learning from the ongoing debate among so-called "professional" historians. It may be too late in any case: if the post-modern endists' are correct, and history is at an end1 after the "down-and-up" of the last 250 years,2 Egyptological historians may find themselves left to chew over yesterday's irrelevancies, using a mode of discourse which is obsolete and even dangerous. 3 We also labor in a vineyard in a part of the world which is under a cloud in some quarters. Since the 1960s sub-Mediterranean or 'African' history has suffered the indignity of a condescending, if not downright demeaning, attitude on the part of European historians. H. R. Trevor-Roper in 1965 characterized the history of Africa as nothing more than "the unrewarding gyrations of barbarous tribes in picturesque but irrelevant quarters of the globe."4 Others have pointed to the lack of a "sense" of history-in an Hellenic tradition, of course-among African communities, or to the paucity of written sources. The oral nature of historical tradition and transmission,5 it is argued, undermine attempts to write serious history, thus leaving the breach to be filled by more suitable investigators, say, anthropologists.
Ancient Egypt 2017: perspectives of research
VIIIth European Conference of Egyptologists: CECE8, 2020
The publication provides an overview of current research and its perspectives covering various spheres of interest in present-day Egyptology and a scholarly discussion on various approaches to studies of ancient Egypt in all its aspects and forms. The reader may find 26 papers, including those on pottery, sculpture, language, history, architecture, religion and religious texts, views on empire creation, loyalism and more detailed pieces on amulets, museum collections, household religion and the concept of sin, children’s magical protection, religion mirrored in twenty-first dynasty personal correspondence, Esna, the group-statue of Pendua and Nefertari Kushite architectural programmes, the settlement at Tell Nabasha, the Saite-Persian cemetery at Abusir, project presentation and aegyptiaca in Portugal. Many of the issues were discussed during the Eighth European Conference of Egyptologists. Egypt 2017: Research Perspectives that was hosted by the New University of Lisbon and collaborator institutions in Portugal. The series of European meetings of Egyptologists was initiated in Warsaw in 1999. The Second and Third symposia were also held in Warsaw in 2001 and 2004, and the Fourth conference was organised in Budapest in 2006. The Fifth Conference was organised in Pułtusk in 2009, and the Sixth in Cracow, and the Seventh in Zagreb. The book is edited in co-operation by M.H. Trindade Lopes, J. Popielska-Grzybowska, J. Iwaszczuk and R.G. Gurgel Pereira.
Introduction: Thinking about Histories of Egyptology
Histories of Egyptology: Interdisciplinary Measures (edited by William Carruthers), 2014
This book is the start of a conversation. It brings together a disparate group of people who, while working alone, have also begun to ask questions that are of relevance to each other. These people research the history of Egyptology: the disciplined study of ancient Egypt. Yet, this "fi eld" of historical research does not currently coalesce around shared aims or methods, and it is uncertain whether the people working within it would perceive the need for this amalgamation to occur. This volume, then, is an attempt to address this issue. It attempts to ask what a dialogue about the history of Egyptology that is informed by and crosses a variety of disciplinary perspectives can achieve and also attempts to work out how that dialogue might take place. What, in the second decade of the twenty-fi rst century, constitutes the history (or histories) of Egyptology? What does this history consist of, and what (or who) should it be for? How can Interdisciplinary Measures suggest the direction the writing of that history (or those histories) might take?
WKU - HIST404 History of Ancient Egypt (E.J.Kondratieff Spring 2024)
2024
In HIST 404 we will survey the broad sweep of ancient Egyptian history, from the first agricultural settlements on the Nile down to the Roman period (ca. 5,000 BCE to the 4 th c. CE). Our main textbook focuses on ancient Egypt's main phases and major themes, and so will we. We will look at how Egyptian society organized its macro-systems-governmental, legal, economic, military, and religious systems and institutions-and examine micro-systems, i.e., agrarian and urban families and households, as well as the variety of skills and ocupations that formed the building blocks of Egypt's economy (supplementing where needed with chapters and articles from other authors). We will also look at the development of Egyptian cultural ideas and practices, including language, writing, literature (another one of your assigned books), arts and entertainments and, along the way, the cultural influences of Egypt on other societies and vice-versa through colonization and conquest, and through peaceful cultural exchanges in social and commercial contexts.
2023
This volume challenges assumptions about—and highlights new approaches to—the study of ancient Egyptian society by tackling various thematic social issues through structured individual case studies. The reader will be presented with questions about the relevance of the past in the present. The chapters encourage an understanding of Egypt in its own terms through the lens of power, people, and place, offering a more nuanced understanding of the way Egyptian society was organized and illustrating the benefits of new approaches to topics in need of a critical re-examination. By re-evaluating traditional, long-held beliefs about a monolithic, unchanging ancient Egyptian society, this volume writes a new narrative—one unchecked assumption at a time. Ancient Egyptian Society: Challenging Assumptions, Exploring Approaches is intended for anyone studying ancient Egypt or ancient societies more broadly, including undergraduate and graduate students, Egyptologists, and scholars in adjacent fields.
Science in the Study of Ancient Egypt
Egyptology has been dominated by the large quantity of written and pictorial material available. This amazing archaeology has opened up a wonderful view of the ancient Egyptian world. The importance of hieroglyphics and texts, and their interpretation, has led to other areas of archaeology playing much less prominence in the study of Egypt. Perhaps most notable in this is relative lack of the application of analytical science to answer Egyptian questions. This problem has been compounded by difficulties in accessing the material itself. In recent years, however, new research by a range of international groups has overturned this historic pattern, and science is now being incorporated into studies of the history and archaeology of Egypt. Science in the Study of Ancient Egypt demonstrates how to integrate scientific methodologies into Egyptology broadly, and in Egyptian archaeology in particular, in order to maximise the amount of information that might be obtained within a study of ancient Egypt, be it field, museum, or laboratory-based. The authors illustrate the inclusive but varied nature of the scientific archaeology being undertaken, revealing that it all falls under the aegis of Egyptology, and demonstrating its potential for the elucidation of problems within traditional Egyptology.