Overview
Course start date: Tuesday 22nd April 2025
Course end date: Friday 27th June 2025
Early Bird Price: £135 BOOK NOW
Tutor: Dr Bill Manley
Course Code: EGPT050
Level: Non-accredited, non-credit bearing
Assessments/Exams: None. Throughout the course you will be given ideas and questions to respond to in the online discussion area. Participation in online discussion is encouraged, but not compulsory.
Duration: 10 weeks
Estimated Student Study Time: 2 – 5 hours per week are recommended, but time spent is flexible and at your discretion.
Price: £150.00
Pre-Requisites: You should have already completed Learn for Pleasure Course (EGPT009) Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs for Beginners or have an equivalent reading ability in the Middle Egyptian language.
Delivery: Online Distance Learning
Late Entrants: If this course is not full by the start date then late entrants will be accepted for up to two weeks after the start of the course. As a late entrant you can choose to catch up on the material you have missed or you can skip the missed weeks and concentrate on the material at the point where you join the course, but unfortunately we cannot offer fee reductions or course extensions for late entrants.
Required Reading**: The following book is the set text for this course and you will need to acquire it prior to the course start. Note that this is the same book that was required for the course (EGPT009) Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs for Beginners:
How To Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs
M.A. Collier and W.P. Manley ‡
British Museum Press, 2003.
The first edition of this text, published in 1998, is also suitable for the course.
‡ If you buy books using this link, we may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops, and which helps us keep our course costs low.
**Please note: All courses are subject to sufficient numbers of students registering before they are confirmed as running. Therefore, after booking your place you are advised not to purchase any texts until you have received confirmation that the course is running. Remember, however, that the required text is the same book that was required for the course (EGPT009) Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs for Beginners.
Summary
You may be approaching the subject due to a general interest in Egyptology, but this will not be assumed; for example, you may equally be someone with an interest in languages, linguistics, Coptic, art history, religion or philosophy. Anyone wishing to study this subject is very welcome, whatever the reason for your interest.
However, this course assumes you already have a basic reading knowledge of Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions. Specifically, the course is intended for those who have already completed course (EGPT009) Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs for Beginners.
Through a series of short video tutorials and follow-up practical exercises with tutor support, this course will help you progress from the elementary grammar of Middle Egyptian to a more sophisticated level of reading hieroglyphic inscriptions from the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms.
Syllabus Plan
Week 01: Verbs and captions once again
Week 02: The gods speak: I have done something
Week 03: Talking about the past
Week 04: She has not heard … about negation
Week 05: What’s going on (and when?)
Week 06: The word order we find
Week 07: Let’s talk about me and the dedication formula
Week 08: Participles: who does what?
Week 09: The appeal to the living
Week 10: Looking to the future
Course Content in Depth
Week One: Verbs and captions once again
Let’s begin our course by revising two topics: (1) the different classes of verbs; and (2) the use of infinitives in captions. Knowledge of both is going to be fundamental in improving your ability to read Middle Egyptian.
Week Two: The gods speak: I have given you something
We look at the standard formula that introduces the speeches of gods on royal monuments. This will lead us on to discuss the past tense for the first time.
Week Three: Talking about the past
We return to discussing the past tense, paying particular attention to two topics: (1) how auxiliaries help us read sentences; and (2) the uses of pronouns.
Week Four: She has not heard … about negation
We return to discussing how simple past narratives are structured in Middle Egyptian, including: (1) the negative past tense; and (2) how to talk about making someone do something.
Week Five: What’s going on (and when?)
We turn to the present tense and how it interacts with the past tense in narratives. From this, we discuss the crucial topic of aspect in verbs.
Week Six: The word order we find
Time to pull together and summarise some facts we already know about the order of words in Middle Egyptian sentences. We also begin delving into the topic of relative forms (clue, there is one in the title of this class).
Week Seven: Let’s talk about me and the dedication formula
We begin the important topic of characterisation by looking at some words for ‘I am’ and ‘he is’/‘she is’. This will lead us to begin discussing the Egyptian verb forms we call participles. We also look at: (1) the full titularies of kings; and (2) the dedication formula, which specifies who is responsible for commissioning a monument.
Week Eight: Participles: who does what?
Participles are fundamental when going forward in reading, so now is the time to concentrate on their meanings and how they are written. We also remark on the distinction between active and passive participles, in particular the words for ‘beloved’ and ‘praised’.
Week Nine: The appeal to the living
We can talk about the future for the first time in order to discuss the formula known as the appeal to the living. We also talk about a useful group of adjectives that seems similar in English and Middle Egyptian.
Week Ten: Looking to the future
To end our course, we discuss a verb form used to talk about the future in terms of what we may anticipate, expect or even hope for. We also discuss how it is made negative. Finally, we summarise some important points you already know about Middle Egyptian for you to keep in mind in the future.
Learning and Teaching Methods
A unit of course material will be released every week for you to work through. Class discussions on this material will take place in the online discussion forums.
Class discussions are asynchronous – i.e. you do not need to be online at a set time; you can leave and collect messages from the online discussion forums at a time suitable for you.
Learning Outcomes
This course will help you to develop:
- a more sophisticated knowledge of the Middle Egyptian language and the ability to read longer, more complex hieroglyphic inscriptions
- the ability to demonstrate this knowledge through your translation skills
- the ability to recognise and interpret the meaning, use and archaeological context of the monuments studied during the course within the context of ancient Egyptian material culture
- the ability to discuss new cultural topics and language topics relevant to the monuments studied during the course