Northern Cal. Egyptology Lecture: Digital Tech at Karnak

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khentiamentiu
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Northern Cal. Egyptology Lecture: Digital Tech at Karnak

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PLEASE NOTE THE CHANGE IN LOCATION, FOR THIS LECTURE ONLY!!

The Northern California Chapter of the American Research Center in Egypt; the Department of Near Eastern Studies, UC Berkeley; and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, UC Berkeley, are sponsoring the following lecture:

21st Century Digital Technologies Meet Pharaonic Information Systems:
Using 3D Modeling and Digital Imaging to Record Ancient Inscriptions
In the Great Hypostyle Hall of Karnak Temple

By Dr. Peter Brand, Dunavant Professor of Ancient History
Department of History, University of Memphis

WHEN: 2:30 p.m. Sunday, January 10, 2016
WHERE: Drawing Room, Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., Berkeley, CA
There is no admission, but donations are welcomed.

ABOUT THE LECTURE

The 134 giant sandstone columns of the Great Hypostyle Hall are a virtual petrified forest, each of them blanketed with thousands of hieroglyphic texts and hundreds of elaborately carved scenes representing kings and gods. This dazzling array of ancient information technology has long daunted visitors and even scholars attempting to decode this complex three-dimensional matrix of pharaonic history and culture. A fourth dimension is the passage of 33 centuries since the pharaohs Seti I and Ramesses II constructed the Great Hypostyle Hall around 1300 BCE. Since then, several pharaohs, High Priests, Medieval squatters and visitors from the Greco-Roman period down to today have literally left their marks with new inscriptions, graffiti and even iconoclastic vandalism of human and animal forms in the scenes and hieroglyphs. Using 3D modeling, digital photography and other high tech methods, the Hypostyle Hall Project is now recording and decoding this titanic ancient "puzzle box," revealing new insights into how the Egyptians created such artistic marvels and the subtle coded language of the hieroglyphic "software" that served as a magical operating system for this vast pharaonic machine.

ABOUT THE LECTURER

Peter Brand is a Canadian Egyptologist from Toronto, Ontario, and a naturalized American citizen. He is the Dunavant Professor of Ancient History at the Department of History, University of Memphis and also the Director of the Karnak Great Hypostyle Hall Project of the University of Memphis, which aims to record and publish all the monumental inscriptions and reliefs from this huge building.

Brand studied at the University of Texas at Arlington and the University of Memphis and completed his PhD in Ancient Egyptian Language and Literature University of Toronto in 1998. His dissertation The Monuments of Seti I: Epigraphic, Historical and Art Historical Analysis, which was published by Brill in 2000 is considered to be one of the most comprehensive studies on the reign of Seti I who is often eclipsed in history by the glorious 66-year reign of his son, Ramesses II. The book contains a catalogue of most of Seti I's monuments and an important discussion of the historical significance and reigns of Ramesses I and Seti I. He is also and co-editor (with Louise Cooper) of Causing His Name to Live: Studies in Egyptian History and Epigraphy in Memory of William J. Murnane (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2009).

MORE INFORMATION

Go to http://home.comcast.net/~hebsed/lectures.htm or send email to Chapter President Al Berens at hebsed@comcast.net.

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Glenn Meyer
Publicity Director
Northern California ARCE
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