Course description

Our distance learning programme in biomedical Egyptology is the first course of its kind to offer the opportunity to combine the study of ancient Egypt with modern biomedical techniques in a format you can study at your own pace.

If you have a fascination for ancient peoples and civilisations, wish to understand more about human biology, anatomy, disease and medicine, this course is for you. You will learn how to unravel the enthralling secrets of ancient history using the latest technology

The course is delivered by members of the KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology , an internationally-leading research centre with a long history in applying technologies such as imaging, nucleic acid analysis, proteomics, histology and related techniques to probe the biology of tissues retrieved from Egyptological sites.

The data derived from these studies has led to a transformation in how the ethnography, relationships, culture, diseases and medicine of people from the 30th century BC to the first century of the Common Era are viewed.

Aims

The programme aims include:

• Giving you an overview of the scope and nature of biomedical Egyptology and how it contributes to gaining an understanding of the culture and life of ancient Egypt.
• Allowing you to gain an understanding of human anatomy and human disease and how they might be used to better understand life, illness and death in ancient times. Egypt.
• Allowing you to gain a high level of scientific knowledge of molecular biology and pathology (using its broadest definition) and how it can be explored in human tissue and body fluid in fresh and mummified/preserved tissues. (Diploma and MSc only)
• Enabling you to gain a sound working knowledge of research techniques (Diploma and MSc only)
• Giving you the background knowledge and skills to integrate knowledge from multiple sources with that obtained by biomedical techniques to produce an overview of the drivers of Egyptian societies and societal change (MSc only).
• Enabling you to undertake and complete a significant piece of scientific biomedical research that furthers our knowledge and understanding of one or more of the life, cultures, beliefs afflictions, and medicine of ancient Egypt (MSc only).

Career opportunities

Many of our students take this programme for their own interest.

However, the application of modern pathobiological techniques is a growing area of museum curation, academic endeavour, medical research and medical testing.

Therefore thespecialist knowledge and skills you learn on the course can be utilised in many settings.