The Egyptian Mind: Cosmos, Myth, and Meaning
The one thing the ancient Egyptians priests hated most about foreigners visiting their temples was empty periergia: simple, surface-level curiosity that fixated on the strange and the exotic, while ignoring the underlying principles, the cultural significance of their language, and the importance of myth and ritual as their foundational belief system. Ancient Egypt was always more than its odd customs, its monuments, and its mummies; yet approaching it from the outside often yields an image of Egypt as a civilization of curiosities rather than one of thought. This course begins from the opposite premise: that ancient Egyptian culture must be approached through its own categories, its own language, its own sacred architecture, and its own literary imagination. The goal of this course is to explore the Mind and Metaphysics of Egypt through their writing system, their myths, mortuary texts, and philosophical concepts of meaning and purpose.
Course•By Carla Berenice Groh
