Ancients interpreted through lions and crocodiles

Hieroglyphs representing Egyptian gods on temple walls show an intimate knowledge of wild animals' behaviour and ecology.

This is according to Christian Leitz, Professor of Egyptology at the University of Tübingen, who has just presented his research to a group of scholars at the Carsten Niebuhr Institute, University of Copenhagen. The inscriptions can unlock secrets about Egyptian mythology, cosmology, and how they perceived the world.

Self-awareness, norms, and emotions, all on video

We all know the feeling. Sitting there, bowl of milk and cornflakes in front of us, throwing ourselves a few fast ones before the start of the day:

»Does the self exist? Is it real or an illusion? What is the relationship between the self and consciousness? What is the relationship between the self and others? Does the self exist when we're alone, or only when we're in company? What is the relationship between the self, experience, self-awareness and self-hood? Or the self and the values we associate with ourselves?«

How insurance created obesity

Consuming bodies. The title of the Dr Ulrike Thoms’ talk, which took place at the Faculty of Humanities on Tuesday 19 January left a lot to the imagination: Cannibalism? Sex workers? The fashion industry?
In fact, Ulrike Thoms has something else in mind: obesity and the human body in the light of science.

She is an expert in modern social history, and focuses primarily on clinical trials, body perception and the nutritional history.

DKK 210 million for research

The Infrastructure Fund, part of the Globalisation Fund, will now award DKK 210 million to help establish a new research infrastructure in Denmark.

See a article 'Deal cut over university billions' here.

According to the press release from the Ministry of Science, the grant has received backing from politicians across the board, and will help secure the best possible facilities for research.

At the University of Copenhagen, three projects have been granted money:

Copenhagen to study ‘new’ India

India sailed through the recent global recession with an annual growth rate of six per cent. It has an advanced space programme, the third largest army in the world, and is in 2010 all set to host the Commonwealth Games. In sum: India is moving up the rankings, and it wishes to be considered a global power.

But according to the World Bank it also has over 450 million people below the poverty line.

All that is great is Egyptian

Some of the texts from the temple libraries that Kim Ryholt of the Carsten Niebuhr department is studying are historical narratives about characters from the past - sometimes pure nationalist propaganda about how superior the Egyptians are to everyone else.

»When they look at their own historical past, they are extremely imaginative in reinforcing their national pride«, he says.

Even foreign conquerors of Egypt, such as the Persian king Cambyses and the Macedonian king Alexander the Great, are falsely portrayed as Egyptians in the Egyptian literature, explains Kim Ryholt.

Temple libraries were for a constant, ongoing ...

The daily operation of the Egyptian temples involved a series of complicated ritual performances - so complicated that the priests developed various ‘handbooks’ in order to carry them out correctly.

This is why the temples gradually developed the large-scale temple libraries, according to Professor Kim Ryholt of the Carsten Niebuhr Institute.

»All temples have a library attached to it. But this is not a library in a modern sense, not a public service. The temples were not open to the public except at festivals, and no one but the priests had access to the libraries« he explains.

Fragments shed new light on the old Egyptians

Take 400 jigsaw puzzles, each of 1000 pieces. Empty all of the pieces into a box, shake the box, and then discard 90 per cent of the pieces into the waste paper basket.

Now empty the remaining pieces onto a big table, and reconstruct the 400 jigsaw puzzles from the remaining pieces.

This is like the job of Egyptologist Kim Ryholt. But only almost, as he explains with a wide grin:

»In our papyrus texts, we don’t have the interlocking joins«.

See picture gallery here.

Priestly writings

For the love of law and Latin

Students are given a chance to take a dip in the holy waters of law history with a voluntary Latin course. The course examines various original landmark Roman texts as an eye-opener to the classic principles of law drafted by a civilization thousands of years old. At the same time it will give an insight into the mother tongue of many languages.

Eleven students have gathered this frozen November day in the Metro Annex. Outside, the clacking of stylish heels can be heard on the frozen tiles of Fiolstræde. Inside, a warm classroom journey 2000 years into the past is about to take place.