Ptolemaic Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts

4 credits · Graduate

This course introduces the hieroglyphic texts of the temples of the Ptolemaic and Roman periods--a time when an increase in the number of signs, and the values that they could hold, widened the scribal playing field for creating expressions that function on multiple aural, visual, and thematic levels. In addition to studying the language, grammar, content, and purpose of the texts, we will examine individual scribal techniques used to foreground words and phrases singled out for emphasis, showing how they create interconnections between texts, reliefs, and architecture in the three-dimensional space of the temple.