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.
Standing on the Shoulders of Cecil M. Firth and Walter B.
Emery at North Saqqara
With Dr Sergio Alarcón Robledo2 Sunday Afternoons 13th and 27th September
Times: 2-5 pm (UK Times) To join live (or catch up via recordings until 27th October)Saqqara was the main elite cemetery of Memphis during much of Egyptian history, and is one of the first Egyptian sites where monumental structures were ever built. In the first of these four lectures the speaker will show the relevance of North Saqqara for our understanding of the Early Dynastic Period, explaining the main archaeological debates associated with this site and their related evidence. In the second lecture, Sergio will focus on the archives of the excavations that Walter B. Emery and Cecil M. Firth led at the site in the 20th century. He will show how a recent topographic survey has enhanced the data found in these archives, and allowed to reconstruct a sizable part of the plan of the site.
The third lecture will analyse the architecture of North Saqqara. We will reflect on the role that this site plays in our understanding of the development of monumental architecture in Egypt. Using evidence found in the archives, Dr Alarcón Robledo will then problematize these paradigms, challenging current understandings of these early buildings. The final lecture will deal with new perspectives, showing the potential of work in progress, including studies of the acoustic properties of the mastabas of North Saqqara.
Dr Sergio Alarcón Robledo
Sergio Alarcón Robledo is a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer in Egyptology at the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations of Yale University. He studied architecture at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, before moving to the University of Cambridge in 2015 for his masters in Egyptology. He also completed an MA in archaeology at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology of UCLA in 2019, and received his PhD from Harvard University in 2025.
Sergio’s main area of research is ancient architecture, with a particular focus on the earliest developments of monumental architecture in Egypt. Sergio is a member of the research group ‘Sound, Space, and the Aesthetics of the Sublime’ of Stanford University. In the field, he has worked with material ranging from the Early Dynastic Period to Ptolemaic times, at sites such as Saqqara, Deir el-Bahari, Zawyet Sultan, and Qubbet el-Hawa.
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