Anyone interested in Egyptology?

Hey! I'm thinking of applying for Egyptology for uni, any tips and advice? Or is anyone else interested...?

Wow that sounds interesting.


Is Egyptology about Ancient Egypt???

Wow that sounds interesting.


Is Egyptology about Ancient Egypt???

I wish I was rich enough to study such an unemployable subject

It is indeed! A BA in Egyptology would cover archaeology, history, religion, material culture, and texts (hieroglyphs and also those in translation, like a literature class), all about ancient Egypt. You can also do more practical archaeology, too, depending on what classes you pick, or even languages such as Akkadian, or classical languages.



It's not unemployable at all. You learn all of the same skills as someone with a history degree, for example, and more. If you want to do it, you should.

Thank you so much!

I'm very interested in Oxford because it is specifically Egyptology and Liverpool, but I'm continuing to look into Swansea just because there are so few places in the UK that actually do it...
I took an online course for 6 weeks in Coursera by Penn State University which I really enjoyed and really helped gain more insight as to what type of things I may be looking at at uni.
I'm definitely more of a language-based person so that's great to hear that there is lots on languages.

Ok...so questions:
1) What kind of skills are unis looking for to apply for the course?
2) How much is archaeology and anthropology based compared with the language side?

No trust me I am too poor to study such a degree haha . I am currently in my second year in university doing English Lit to be an English teacher

Hello there! I graduated from Liverpool with a BA in Egyptology, and now study at Cambridge. I can answer pretty much any question on it, so fire away! Always great to see a wannabe Egyptology student. Where are you interested in applying?

My main tip is more of an insight, really - depending on where you study, it's a much more language-heavy course than some people realise. At Liverpool, for example, half of the course was language based, i.e. hieroglyphs and Coptic. Oxford is also very language heavy. Cambridge, which is an Archaeology course, is less so, but you can still take lots of hieroglyphs, and I think Swansea is about half language as well, depending on what languages you pick.

Some of my friends carried on studying Egyptology, and others got jobs after graduating. Their jobs range from excellent to not very good - and that's not me being snobbish, they'll say that themselves. If you want a job in Egyptology, you probably need to study it at postgraduate level - at least an MA, if not a PhD. But, if you 'just' do the BA, you can do plenty of jobs. I have friends in politics, marketing, teaching etc, so it doesn't really rule much out.

For introductory books, I'd recommend How To Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs, by Collier and Manley, and also Ian Shaw's History of Ancient Egypt, which is a bit dry, but very comprehensive. For a more 'fun' overview, try listening to Dominic Perry's History of Egypt podcast. If you want any more recommendations, or some on specific areas, I can help, too.

Overall, it's a fantastic degree, which is actually very interdisciplinary. I don't feel as though it's limited me at all. But, I'd definitely say you need to go into it knowing what to expect, as so many people think it's basically just archaeology of Egypt - which it's not, unless you do that specific course at UCL.

@oh.ME.DEA is the only other person I've seen interested on here recently (for Classics and Egyptology).