Introduction

Egyptology at Yale University, a discipline within the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, provides instruction in the philology and cultures of ancient Egypt and Nubia. Egyptology courses at Yale present the history and archaeology of ancient Egypt and her neighboring regions from the earliest predynastic through the Coptic period, and students receive instruction in all phases of the Egyptian language, from the texts of the Proto-dynastic period through the literature of Coptic Egypt. Lectures, seminars, and reading courses cover topics such as art history, administration and society, burial practices, ceramic technology, military history, and others.

Photos: Left, Image of Ahmose from the Rock Shrine of Pahu. Right, detail from a hieratic papyrus at the Beinecke Library.

Much of the course work emphasizes the study of the Egyptian language and textual material, and all courses stress the importance of examining philological material in conjunction with archaeological evidence, including material in Yale collections. Beyond the introductory Middle Egyptian level, students participate in text-based seminars in which a variety of text corpora are read. Text courses at Yale often focus on corpora in which students must acquire and utilize a diachronic understanding of the Egyptian language and text genres. Because of the wealth of epigraphic material discovered by Yale expeditions in the field, students routinely have the opportunity to read newly discovered and unedited inscriptions, often in difficult forms of the cursive scripts. In addition to courses on Old, Middle, and Late Egyptian, Yale also provides instruction in the Demotic and Coptic phases of the Egyptian language. Through its association with the Council for Archaeological Studies and with other departments, the Egyptology program also offers students the ability to acquire a broad grounding in the archaeology of the Nile Valley and surrounding regions. Courses are often team-taught with other members of the Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations department as well as other departments within the university. Visiting scholars, often from outside the United States, augment the range of course offerings. As with instruction at the university, so in field-work, Yale Egyptology spans the full range of Egyptian civilization. Yale-sponsored expeditions now work in two large areas of the Egyptian Western Desert and at Coptic monastic sites in Middle Egypt and the Wadi Natrun.

The Yale Egyptological Institute in Egypt, including its archaeological expeditions and affiliated expedtions, is funded by the William K. and Marilyn M. Simpson Endowment for Egyptology.