Ancient Egyptian writing, language and culture

The fascination our society has with Ancient Egypt is due in part to the strong attraction felt for its language and writing system, the hieroglyphics. The book Escrituras, lengua y cultura en el antiguo Egipto, by Josep Cervelló, which will be presented on 5 June at the Casa del Llibre, is an approximation to this world.

27/05/2015

The book Escrituras, lengua y cultura en el antiguo Egipto, by UAB lecturer Josep Cervelló Autuori, fills a void in the study of Egyptology in Spain. The book is an accessible, updated and highly documented approximation of the Egyptian language and scripture from a cultural perspective: evolution of the language, its grammatical and phonological description, the main literary and documentary samples, the characteristics of different systems of writing and, especially, hieroglyphics and the process by which they were deciphered, as well as fundamental questions on their origin.

Published by the UAB Servei de Publicacions, this is the eleventh volume of the series "El espejo y la Lámpara", which offers readers works written by members of the university community who wish to delve deeper into a subject. The series was created in 2011 and offers widely disseminated essays for the general public. The volumes of this series can all be found at the main bookshops in Spain.

Josep Cervelló Autuori's book can already be found in paper format and can be ordered through the UAB Servei de Publicacions' website catalogue, as well as through the platform Unebook.es. Given the excellent reviews it is receiving, the publishing house foresees launching an electronic version in October.

The author, Josep Cervelló Autuori (Barcelona, 1961), is lecturer in Egyptology at the UAB and director of the UAB Institute for Ancient Middle Eastern Studies (IEPOA). Since 1992, he teaches Egyptian language and history at the UAB. He is currently the director of the official master's degree in Egyptology. He also has a broad experience in online teaching of ancient history in general and in Egyptology in particular, with the Open University of Catalonia and with massive online courses offered on platforms such as Coursera.

The presentation of the book will take place on Friday 5 June at 7 pm at the bookshop Casa del Llibre (Rambla de Catalunya 37), with the participation of Jordi Cors i Meya, emeritus professor of Greek Studies at the UAB, and Josep Cervelló Autuori, lecturer in Egyptology at the UAB and author of the book.