Handbook

This course explores the origins and evolution of ancient Egyptian and West Asian civilizations from the Neolithic Revolution to the Achaemenid Persian Empire that conquered Egypt in the sixth century BCE. During the course you will range between the pyramids at Giza and the tomb of Cyrus the Great; the invading sea peoples and the Epic of Gilgamesh; Howard Carter, the tomb of Tutankhamun, and the cliff-side monuments of Naqsh-i Rustam. This course is not only a survey of history, but an exploration of the rise and fall of the earliest empires, their interaction with each other and with their subjects, their ideology, their religion, and the wealth of extant evidence available for their study.