NES 1450 - Ancient Egyptian I: Introduction to Middle Egyptian Hieroglyphs

(crosslisted)
(also CLASS 1450)

Spring. 4 credits.

C. Barrett.

For over two thousand years, from the Middle Kingdom (ca. 2100 BCE) into the Roman era, Egyptian monuments were inscribed with hieroglyphs of the Middle Egyptian writing system. In this first of three courses in Ancient Egyptian, students are introduced to the script, phonetics and structure of this classic phase of ancient Egyptian writing. Working with excerpts from actual ancient Egyptian texts, students will learn to use a hieroglyphic sign list and dictionary, and transliterate hieroglyphs into a standardized form that facilitates study of the language’s grammar and syntax. In this first course students will translate nominal, adjectival, and adverbial sentences from Egyptian into English and vice versa, and be introduced to the verbal system, building an Egyptian vocabulary in the process. Having passed this course, students will be prepared for the more advanced verbal forms and more complete texts studied in the second course, Ancient Egyptian II.