Near Eastern Studies 24, Section 1
Ancient Egypt at Berkeley: Egyptian Archaeology in the Hearst Museum (1 unit, LG)
Professor Carol Redmount
Tuesday 1:00-2:00, 252 Barrows Hall (first meeting) and Exhibit Gallery in Hearst Museum, CCN: 61415

The first seminar meeting will be in 252 Barrows Hall. Future seminar meeting locations will be announced in the first class.

The Hearst Museum has one of the most important collections of ancient Egyptian artifacts in the United States and the best west of Chicago. Most of the almost 19,000 ancient Egyptian objects in the museum came from excavations undertaken in the early 1900s by George Reisner, with funding provided by Phoebe Apperson Hearst. Only a very tiny fraction of this collection is ever displayed in the museum, due to space constraints. In this seminar, we will examine the background and history of the collection, its housing and treatment in the museum, and various objects from the collection. Students will learn to use various resources of the museum and have the opportunity to work with ancient objects. First year students with no background in the field are encourage to enroll. This is a Beyond the Classroom Theme seminar.

Carol Redmount is an Associate Professor in the Near Eastern Studies Department. She specializes in the archaeology of Egypt and directs the UC Berkeley excavations at El-Hibeh, a three-thousand-year-old provincial town and cemetery site in Middle Egypt. She began her archaeological fieldwork the summer of her freshman year in college and hasn't stopped excavating since. She has worked in the Middle East for some thirty years and lived for extended periods of time in Egypt, Israel and Jordan. Her archaeological experience also includes fieldwork in Cyprus, Tunisia and the United States.