Pyramids of Giza: Ancient Egyptian Art and Archaeology–a Free Online Course from Harvard

From Har­vard’s Peter Der Manuelian comes Pyra­mids of Giza: Ancient Egypt­ian Art and Archae­ol­o­gy offered on the edX plat­form.

Explore the archae­ol­o­gy, his­to­ry, art, and hiero­glyphs sur­round­ing the famous Egypt­ian Pyra­mids at Giza. Learn about Old King­dom pharaohs and elites, tombs, tem­ples, the Sphinx, and how new tech­nol­o­gy is unlock­ing their secrets.

Where is Giza? How were the Pyra­mids built? How did the ceme­ter­ies and hun­dreds of dec­o­rat­ed tombs around them devel­op? What was Giza’s con­tri­bu­tion to this first great age of ancient Egypt­ian civ­i­liza­tion, the Old King­dom?

The Giza Plateau and its ceme­ter­ies — includ­ing the majes­tic Pyra­mids and the Great Sphinx — are stir­ring exam­ples of ancient Egypt­ian archi­tec­ture and cul­ture. They pro­vide win­dows into ancient Egypt­ian soci­ety, but also con­tain mys­ter­ies wait­ing to be solved. The Egypt­ian Pyra­mids at Giza pro­vide an oppor­tu­ni­ty to explore the his­to­ry of archae­ol­o­gy and to learn about some of the mod­ern meth­ods shap­ing the dis­ci­pline today.

This intro­duc­to­ry course will explore the art, archae­ol­o­gy, and his­to­ry sur­round­ing the Giza Pyra­mids. We will learn about Egypt­ian pharaohs and high offi­cials of the Pyra­mid Age, fol­low in the foot­steps of the great 20th-cen­tu­ry expe­di­tions, and dis­cov­er how cut­ting-edge dig­i­tal tools like 3D-mod­el­ing are reshap­ing the dis­ci­pline of Egyp­tol­ogy.

Join us on this online jour­ney to ancient Egypt’s most famous archae­o­log­i­cal site as we uncov­er the his­to­ry and sig­nif­i­cance of Giza, and use new dig­i­tal tech­niques to unrav­el the mys­ter­ies of its ancient tombs and tem­ples.

You can take the course for free by select­ing the audit option upon enroll­ment, or take it for cred­it for a feel. Enroll here.

Find more cours­es on our list, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Harvard’s Dig­i­tal Giza Project Lets You Access the Largest Online Archive on the Egypt­ian Pyra­mids (Includ­ing a 3D Giza Tour)

Who Built the Egypt­ian Pyra­mids & How Did They Do It?: New Arche­o­log­i­cal Evi­dence Busts Ancient Myths

A 3,000-Year-Old Painter’s Palette from Ancient Egypt, with Traces of the Orig­i­nal Col­ors Still In It

What Ancient Egypt­ian Sound­ed Like & How We Know It