Course: Superpowers of the Ancient World: the Near East

Our investigations have shown us how little direct evidence there is for Mitannian culture in the archaeological record, but alternate lines of enquiry can help to put them on the …

This week we have seen how the Mittanians and Egyptians have reached a mutual understanding which is demonstrated by the Armana letters. Glenn tell us that this age of diplomacy …

This interactive map will give you an overview of what happened where this week. It is designed to help you to consolidate your knowledge, so feel free to explore it …

Nahrin, Retenu, Assyria, Babylonia…as ever, we’ll meet some new places in this week’s course content, so let’s start by introducing and defining some of these topographical terms. What do the …

Last week we saw how Egypt successfully waged war against an alliance of Syria-Palestine city states. The city states had the backing of another superpower in the form of Mittani. …

Here Dr Steven Snape takes a closer look at the sword from the Garstang Museum of Archaeology. Compare Steven’s approach to your own. It is interesting to hear Steven speak, …

The Heart of the cult of Osiris at Abydos was the annual festival at which his cult-statue was brought, in a ritual boat carried aloft by priests, in procession from …

In addition to Dr Steven Snape’s analysis of the Khopesh Sword, I gathered a few other scholars to share their thoughts. In this video, Dr Roland Enmarch, Dr Alan Greaves …

The inscription on our soldier’s statue identifies him by name as ‘Sa-Djehuty’, and also mentions the god of the dead, Osiris. In this section, to better understand our soldier’s context, …

Dr Snape says that it is interesting to speculate on the identity of the individual that this statue represents. Let’s try to breathe some life into our Egyptian Soldier. Take …

So we come to the end of the first week which covered Egypt. The ancient Egyptians are looking in good form. Having expelled the Hyksos, they are ready to push …

I have created some interactive exercises through the medium of Quizlet, an on-line educational platform used by millions of students. These exercises give you the hieroglyphic and English versions of …

As you have seen, as well as being ideograms (pictures of the things they represent) hieroglyphs can also be used alphabetically. This Ancient Egyptian Alphabet will help you in the …

Now that we are beginning to understand how hieroglyphs work, I’ll introduce another use of hieroglyphs: ideograms (where hieroglyphs represent the object that they depict). I’ll use the coffin of …

Since we’re talking about the afterlife expectations of our soldier, Sa-Djehuty, all based on that little statue that was discovered at Abydos, we may as well look in more detail …