Seminar :Written Sources from the Near East and Egypt [ LGLOR2912 ]

Students may obtain the Power-points and documents of the seminar.

A good knowledge of one or several languages concerned by the textual sources: Akkadian, Hittite, Egyptian.

A scientific approach to the texts which form the basis of our knowledge of precise questions of the history of Egypt and the Near East.

The course deals with a number of themes which require a first-hand work on the sources in their original language. The first themes will be chosen by those invited to attend the seminar (lecturers, researchers and graduates). The following themes will be presented by students who are inscribed for the course, as the results of a personal research.

At the end of this seminar, the student will be familiar with a rigorous scientific approach to the textual and iconographic sources at the base of our knowledge. He will be able to give an oral presentation of a question that he has personally studied.

The students are marked for their participation and on the basis of their presentation of their subject.

The seminars are organised in periods of three hours. The seminars start with the presentation of the original documents which form the basis of the discussion, followed by the previous interpretations. They follow up, by bringing out the arguments which enable the choice of a particular interpretation. At every stage, the active participation of the class is required.

The seminar is made up of three parts:

- in the first term, presentations by the lecturers of dossiers which they have themselves studied, with the intention of giving students a methodology for preparing of exploiting textual sources;
- second term, presentation of their research by Ph.D's., doctorands, and graduates.
- at the end of the second term, presentation by the students of the dossiers they have prepared during the course, and whose subjects will have been decided at the beginning of the year.

The presenters will distribute a bibliography in function of their subject.

The dates of the seminars will be fixed as from the beginning of November.