200 years of Egyptology

Event

GOLDEN YEARS – Montreal celebrates 200 years of Egyptology aims to commemorate, in 2022, the bicentenary of the decipherment of the hieroglyphs by Jean-François Champollion (1822) and the centenary of the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun by Howard Carter (1922). The first event marks the birth of Egyptology: the pharaonic monuments, which have been silent for almost two thousand years, start to unveil their secrets thanks to the decoding of writing. The second event offers a glimpse into a 3000-year-old time frame. Thanks to the 5400 objects discovered in the tomb, the interdisciplinary horizon of Egyptology expands exponentially.

Three study days are devoted to celebrating these events, on June 17^th, 18^th and 19^th, 2022. In order for parents to enjoy our programme, educative workshops for kids will be held in parallel with the symposium, in a room nearby the Amphitheater. The detail of all our outreach activities —which will run until the end of 2022— can be found below. We look forward to seeing you there!

Full programme of the symposium

GOLDEN YEARS-Program_EN.pdf

GOLDEN YEARS is a polyvalent scientific event that caters for adults and children alike; for both specialists and amateurs. The symposium, to which you can register from this site, is but a part of the Egyptological activities celebrating this particular anniversary, which include the following:

1. Golden Years symposium: A three-day symposium will be held from June 17 to 19, 2022 at UQAM Cœur des Sciences, in the two national languages, French and English. Prestigious specialists have been invited to give lectures on their most recent research and the archives relating to these discoveries, preserved in their institutions; the screening of a BBC documentary is scheduled as part of the opening evening; a panel of experts will discuss a current Egyptological hot question during the closing day: Who was the queen-pharaoh to whom the treasure of Tutankhamun originally belonged?; UQAM students will host poster sessions during the week-end; educational workshops on Egyptian culture and hieroglyphic writing will be organized for children on June 18 and 19; the COOP will hold a book signing session for the attending authors.

The three study days will take place at UQAM Cœur des Sciences campus in Montreal, Sherbrooke Pavillon (200 Sherbrooke O), in Amphitheater SH-2800. The children's workshops will be held in the adjacent room SH-2620.

The symposium will also be broadcast live online to the international public, on UQAM's Zoom platform. The connection links will be made available to you upon registering on this website (“Registration” tab). To extend the reach of the event, each lecture will also be progressively archived here for replay (“Videos” tab), with one video posted every three days, between June 20 and July 20. The released documents will remain online until the end of December 2022.

ADMISSION IS FREE, BUT REGISTRATION IS MANDATORY, as places, both at UQAM and via Zoom, are limited.

To highlight these two major Egyptological discoveries, other outreach activities will take place in Montreal between June and December 2022.

2. Lecture-tour: Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales du Québec (BAnQ) is organizing, with Professor Valérie Angenot (UQAM), a lecture-tour entitled “L’Égypte dans la collection de livres anciens“ as part of its series Mémoire de papier. During this activity, several volumes of the Description de l'Égypte will be presented, a magnificent work resulting from Napoleon Bonaparte's expedition, which was marked by the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, the key to the decipherment of hieroglyphs by Champollion.

This lecture-tour will take place on Wednesday, June 22, 2022 at 6 PM, and will be held in the Bibliothèque nationale building, Rosemont site (2275, Holt street, Montreal). Reservations are required and places are limited.

3. Additional lectures with our associations:

Lectures for the Society for the Study of Egyptian antiquities

• Marc GABOLDE (U. Montpellier III), “Toutankhamon, quoi de neuf ?”.

Thursday 16 June at 7PM – UQAM, N-M210

• Aidan DODSON (U. Bristol), ”The Resurrection of the First Pharaohs”.

Monday 20 June at 12:30PM – UQAM, A-1720

Information: https://www.sseamtl.org/. Contact : info@sseamtl.org

Lecture for the Association des études du Proche-Orient ancien

• Marc GABOLDE (U. Montpellier III), “Affaires étranges, affaires étrangères”.

Monday 20 June at 7PM – UQAM, A-2835

Contact and information : aepoa@courrier.uqam.ca

4. Special courses: Various UQAM programs will put Egypt in the spotlight during the fall 2022 and winter 2023 sessions. Special courses will be given by the two Egyptologists of UQAM's academic staff: Professor Valérie Angenot (Department of Art History, Faculty of Arts, Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Semiotic Studies) and Professor Jean Revez (Department of History, Faculty of Human Sciences) (see “Courses” tab).

Fall session 2022

• Valérie Angenot, HAR 453C – Art et architecture de l’Égypte et du Proche-Orient anciens, Département d'Histoire de l'art.

• Valérie Angenot (Histoire de l’art) et Camille Alloing (Communication), SEM 9600 – Enjeux sémiotiques contemporains et interdisciplinaires. Sémiotique visuelle scripturale : des hiéroglyphes aux émojis, Doctorat interdisciplinaire en études sémiotiques.

• Jean Revez, HIS 8040 – L’Antiquité. L’historiographie ancienne et récente de l’Égypte pharaonique, Département d'Histoire.

• Jean Revez, SHM 5031 – Initiation à l’égyptien hiéroglyphique I, Département d'Histoire.

Winter session 2023

• Jean Revez, HIS 4110 – Égypte pharaonique : Histoire et civilisation, Département d'Histoire.

• Jean Revez, SHM 5032 – Initiation à l’égyptien hiéroglyphique II, Département d'Histoire.

5. Commercial showcase and signing sessions: COOP UQAM – Librairie Jasmin display books about Egypt in its showcases for three weeks, from June 13 to July 1^st, including books related to the themes of the symposium and books written by our speakers. Signature sessions will be organized on the site of the event, at the Cœur des sciences.

GOLDEN YEARS is an initiative of Professor Valérie Angenot, Egyptologist in the Department of Art History at UQAM. This initiative is under the aegis of the Consulate General of Egypt in Montreal. The project was funded by a Connection grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. It is supported, at the institutional level of UQAM, by the Faculty of Arts, the Faculty of Human Sciences, the Heritage Institute, the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Semiotic Studies and COOP. Extra muros, it receives effective support from the Redpath Museum, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Pointe-à-Callière Museum and the Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales du Québec. Lastly, the project has two learned societies as partners: the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities and the Association for Ancient Near Eastern Studies.