“I have killed Pharaoh! And I do not fear death!” Such was the
statement made by the assassin who, in 1981, took the life of
Anwar Sadat, then president of the Arab Republic of Egypt. With
that in mind it could be argued that Egypt’s Pharaonic history
has maintained some form of presence well into the contemporary
period, whether through religio-political metaphor, cultural
heritage, economic resource or a foil against which to craft new
identities. However, the more than two millennia that intervene
between the collapse of the New Kingdom and the bullet that took
the life Egypt’s second president demonstrate important
transformations in the societies that have occupied the land of
the Nile. This course offers an introduction to the archaeology
and social history of Egypt that spans the period from Late
Antiquity and the development of the Coptic Church through the
Islamic dynasty of the Mamluk Sultans of the 13th-16th
centuries. Some of the key themes that we will examine include
the transformations in the b