NMC423H1

Debates in Egyptian Archaeology

The aim of this course is to provide advanced undergraduate and graduate students an introduction to a number of key current debates animating the field of Egyptian archaeology. The course will proceed chronologically, spanning from the Predynastic period to the 1st millennium BCE. The class investigates a variety of different questions that draw on different kinds of archaeological evidence, from paleobotanical remains to ceramics and small finds. The course will examine core questions like the role of violence in Pharaonic state formation during the Predynastic period, the impact of climate change on the collapse of the Old Kingdom, the purpose of the fortifications of the Middle Kingdom in Nubia, the difficulties of evaluating ethnicity in Egypt and Nubia on the basis of archaeological evidence, and the extent to which Pharaonic Egypt was urbanized over the course of the 2nd millennium BCE.