Certificate of Completion
At the end of this course you will be able to download a personalised certificate of completion from the classroom. A great way to keep track of your learning and celebrate your Egyptological journey.
A Window on a world: The Colourful Tombs of Beni Hassan
5 weeks 21st July - 18th August
Times: 7.30-9pm (UK Times) Monday evenings to join live.
We love to see you for the live lectures, but if you have to miss one, don't worry, you can of course catch up (or watch again) at your leisure via the recordings. You will have access to the recorded lectures for a whole month after the last live lecture. Recordings will be available until 18th September
There are very few sites we can visit in Egypt today dating back to the First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom, but Beni Hasan in Middle Egypt is one of those rare sites. Vibrant painted scenes on the walls of the tombs of nobles here provide a window into the daily lives of the ancient Egyptians 4000 years ago. We will explore the manifold and varied scenes on the walls of the tombs of the provincial governors and mayors Khety, Baqet, Khnumhotep and Amenemhat in order to bring their world to life.
The walls of these tombs are decorated with a fascinating blend of intricacy and organized chaos, like peering into a miniature world bursting with life, where every tiny detail holds a surprise. The artwork is deliberately dense, crammed with characters, objects, and playful visual storytelling. A valuable insight into how the Egyptians enjoyed life. Through these scenes we can glimpse foreign visitors, hunting, feasting, brewing, baking and more sporty pursuits such as dancing, wrestling and acrobatics. Undoubtably, daily life scenes dominate, but these tombs are of course the eternal resting place for the ruling elite, with their courtiers and servants buried on the nearby hillside. The site of Beni Hassan enables us to better understand both life and death at this fascinating moment in Egyptian history.
These monuments date to a less well-known period of Egyptian history and are located in a rarely visited part of Egypt but are of artistic, religious, political and historical importance.
Lecture 1:
Backdrop to Beni Hasan: Egypt’s turbulent First Intermediate Period.
Lecture 2:
The history and importance of a rarely-visited Middle Egyptian site.
Lecture 3:
Those tombs at Beni Hasan open to visitors.
Lecture 4:
Themes in the tomb decoration at Beni Hasan.
Lecture 5:
Flora and Fauna on the walls of the Beni Hasan tombs.
Lucia Gahlin
Lucia Gahlin is an Egyptologist based in the UK, she has been leading archaeological tours to Egypt for 30 years. Her most recent academic position was Honorary Research Fellow at University College London’s Institute of Archaeology, where she continues to work closely with one of the world’s most important collections of Egyptian antiquities, the Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology.
She has worked extensively on the material dating to Akhenaten’s reign in the Petrie Museum and at the archaeological site of Tell el-Amarna, the remains of the pharaoh Akhenaten’s capital city in Middle Egypt, where she has been the Small Finds Registrar. She has been Chair of the Friends of the Petrie Museum, a Trustee of the Egypt Exploration Society, and Director of Bloomsbury Summer School. She has taught Egyptology for the Universities of London (Birkbeck College and UCL), Reading, Surrey, Sussex, Exeter, Warwick and Bristol. She has also taught many successful courses for Kemet Klub both in person and online. Her publications include Egypt: gods, myths and religion.
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