On Horapollon’s Treatise on Hieroglyphs : Hellenism and Egyptomania

Introduction

This year’s course by Jean-Luc Fournet is devoted to one of the figures of Late Antiquity in Egypt, the philosopher and grammarian Horapollo (5^th century), under whose name a treatise on hieroglyphs has come down to us. Why would a Greek take an interest in Egyptian writing? Is he truly the author of this treatise? These are the questions that will be addressed in this course, which will take a broader look at Egyptophilia—or even Egyptomania—in antiquity.