HISTORY & ARCHAEOLOGY
Egyptology. Growing Up And Growing Old In Ancient Egypt
5 June 10.30am – 4.30pm & 7 June, 10.30am – 12.30pm Gosling Room, plus visit to the Petrie Museum 6 June 2.30pm – 4.30pm. Fee: £80
This course is designed for everyone; no prior knowledge is required. Focusing on Deir el-Medina, the Village of Pharaoh’s artisans on the West Bank of Luxor, we undertake a journey through birth to death life transitions. Being born and growing up; going to school and potentially becoming a hooligan; undertaking puberty rituals. We then consider marriage, adultery and divorce; retirement, drawing a pension, and getting old; and the final and extensive mummification and burial rituals. Particular attention will be devoted to the axes of gender, ethnicity, and disability. Moreover, students will be encouraged to draw active comparisons throughout the course with similar life transitions as experienced today.
The course is tutor taught by means of richly illustrated Power Point presentations and extensive handouts. Active student participation is encouraged by means of questions and answers, and small group work engaging with ancient texts in translation.
On Day 2 there is a half day guided visit to UCL’s Petrie Museum to view relevant artefacts which will cement knowledge acquired in the classroom.
Day 3 (morning) will be back at the HLSI, continuing the presentation, reflecting on the artefacts and drawing overall conclusions.
The key resource is the tutor’s own co-authored book: Rosalind M. and Jac. J. Janssen, Growing up and Getting old in Ancient Egypt (London: Golden House, 2007). For the best introduction to the Village of Deir el-Medina: Morris Bierbrier, The Tomb-Builders of the Pharaohs (London: British Museum Publications, 1982). For the low down on its inhabitants: John Romer, Ancient Lives. The Story of the Pharaohs’ Tombmakers (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1984). All are currently in print. Take away readings are provided throughout the course.
Tutor Rosalind Janssen was a Curator in UCL’s Petrie Museum, before becoming a Lecturer in Egyptology at UCL’s Institute of Archaeology. She currently teaches Egyptology courses at Oxford University, and at the City Lit. The author of a large number of specialist publications, she has worked on excavations on the West Bank of Luxor as a textile expert.
A June Short Course enrolment form 2019
Samuel Pepys: His Life And World
20 & 21 June, 10.30am – 4.30pm, Gosling Room. Fee: £80
This course is for anyone with an interest in cultural and literary history.
The course will explore the life and world of Samuel Pepys, through his diary and other contemporary sources. It will focus on the key events that he lived through and described: including the plague of 1665, and the Great Fire of London in the year that followed. It will also consider Pepys’s professional career in the administration of the Royal Navy. The sessions will bring all this into the context of the broader aspects of social and cultural life in Restoration London.
The course will be delivered through lectures, readings, and class discussions, supported by PowerPoint slides and audio recordings.
Key Resources.
The following reading is not essential for the class, but simply introduces some of the themes that we will be exploring:
C.S. Knighton 2003, Pepys and the Navy. Sutton.
- Latham & W. Matthews (eds), The Shorter Pepys. Penguin.
M Lincoln & C. Tomalin (eds), Samuel Pepys: Plague, Fire, Revolution. Thames & Hudson.
- Ollard 1984, Pepys: A Biography. Oxford University Press.
- Tomalin 2002, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self. Penguin.
- Willes 2017, The Curious World of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn. Yale University Press.
Tutor Dr Mark Patton is a current tutor at the HLSI, where he has taught the popular history courses for a number of years. He studied at Cambridge, and completed his PhD at University College London. He has taught at the Universities of Leiden, Paris 1, Wales, Greenwich, and Westminster, and currently teaches at the Open University. He is the author of several published books in the fields of archaeology, history, and historical biography; and of three historical novels.
A June Short Course enrolment form 2019