Crafting Knowledge: Learning and Knowing in Ancient Egypt (3000–2000 BCE)

How did ancient Egyptians conceptualize, create, preserve, and transmit knowledge over 4,000 years ago, across a wide geographical space and in a world where communication methods were vastly different from today? This course examines the early Pharaonic history, with a particular focus on the third millennium BCE — a period marked by urbanization, institutional development, the emergence of one of the earliest writing systems, and the rise of complex social hierarchies. Through archaeological evidence and textual sources, we will reflect on notions of knowing and learning, including oral and written practices, from ritual knowledge to crafts, across different domains of society and regions. We will also investigate how knowledge was disseminated and preserved through institutions, technologies, and social structures, while reflecting on how modern scholarship constructs knowledge about the ancient past.