Hieratic is the name given to a cursive writing system of Hieroglyphs used for the ancient Egyptian and the principal script used to write that language; hieratic was used for ritual and religious texts until the Roman period, but was replaced as administrative and documentary script by the Demotic. Being a script rather than a language, hieratic can’t be taught, practicing the constant reading of hieratic texts creates the knowledge.
The course aims to analyze aspects of hieratic writing and ancient Egyptian culture through the reading and examination of textual sources from the old Kingdom to the Roman Period. The student will be able to acquire methodologies and skills suitable for the analysis and reading of hieratic texts. Being able to read, translate, and comment on a hieroglyphic texts in Middle Egyptian in all its graphic, grammatical and syntactic aspects as well as knowledge of the Neo-Egyptian is an advantage but not mandatory for the course.
Most of the books about hieratic paleography and ancient Egyptian dictionaries are written in German. The knowledge of that language is not required since the material is easy to follow and understand.
