Walking Saqqara: Ancient Egyptian Architecture and the Making of a Landscape

Graduate / Professional

This seminar invites students to discover the archaeological landscape of Saqqara by thinking about how it might be presented to modern visitors. As the students become familiar with the site’s monuments, topography, and long history, they consider what it means to make an ancient landscape legible to the public. Which monuments should be prioritized, and why? How do routes through the site shape perception and understanding? What kinds of narratives emerge when one has one hour, half a day, or several days to encounter Saqqara? Working from archaeological reports, plans, images, and publications, students design historically grounded itineraries and reflect on how the landscape can be shown, explained, and interpreted in ways that are spatially coherent, historically representative, and educationally effective. The course approaches Saqqara in its spatial, monumental, historical, and pedagogical dimensions, combining individual and group assignments that encourage both critical analysis and creative thinking. As part of this process, students also build their own bibliographies in relation to the monuments and routes they choose to develop. T 1:30pm-3:25pm