Master of Arts (M.A.) in Ancient Civilization Studies (Altertumswissenschaften); Saarland's Example !

See here how a German an Ancient Civilization Studies MA look like !

Here is a brief description:

Venus of Willendorf, the prince's grave in Gommern, Homer's epics, Martial's epigrams, Greek statues, Pompeian homes, the Greek city-states and the Roman empire are just some of the many facets of early European art, literature and history explored by students on the M.A. programme "Ancient Civilization Studies" at Saarland University. The programme is unique in Germany, offering students a combination of ancient history, classical archaeology, classical philology, prehistory and early history to provide them with insight into the early phases of Europe and its cultures.


The Master's degree programme "Ancient Civilization Studies" follows on from the more broad-based Bachelor's programme and provides students with the specialist skills needed for challenging professional positions. Students select one of the four core subject areas as their main subject. Depending on their choice, they focus on the analysis and interpretation of Greek and Latin texts, or of pictorial and visual sources, or of material culture. Excursions, practical training and archaeological excavations complete the M.A. programme. Students will develop and deepen their understanding of their chosen fields and the associated scientific and academic methodologies. The Master's programme enables them to earn a specialized qualification that reflects their individual interests, while at the same time specifically encouraging interdisciplinary learning and research. In addition to their main subject, students also select a subsidiary subject either from the field of ancient civilization studies or from another subject area.


Students should choose a combination of subjects that reflects the career areas in which they later wish to work. By combining a core subject area with individual areas of specialization, graduates can prepare themselves for museum work, curating exhibitions, working on archiving projects or on the preservation of archaeological sites, or for work in journalism, publishing, adult education, tourism, or cultural and public relations. Graduates with a good Master's degree can of course also go on to study for a doctoral degree and a career in academic

Roger D. Woodard (ed.) The Ancient Languages of Europe, Cambridge 2008.

Roger D. Woodard (ed.) The Ancient Languages of Europe, Cambridge 2008.

This book, derived from the acclaimed Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages, describes the ancient languages of Europe, for the convenience of students and specialists working in that area. Each chapter of the work focuses on an individual language or, in some instances, a set of closely related varieties of a language. Providing a full descriptive presentation, each of these chapters examines the writing system(s), phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon of that language, and places the language within its proper linguistic and historical context. The volume brings together an international array of scholars, each a leading specialist in ancient language study. While designed primarily for scholars and students of linguistics, this work will prove invaluable to all whose studies take them into the realm of ancient language.

Table of Contents

Editor's foreword Roger D. Woodard
1. Language in ancient Europe: an introduction Roger D. Woodard
2. Attic Greek Roger D. Woodard
3. Greek dialects Roger D. Woodard
4. Latin James P. T. Clackson
5. Sabellian languages Rex E. Wallace
6. Venetic Rex E. Wallace
7. Etruscan Helmut Rix
8. Continental Celtic Joseph F. Eska
9. Gothic Jay H. Jasnoff
10. Ancient Nordic Jan Terje Faarlund
Appendix 1. Indo-European Henry M. Hoenigswald, Roger D. Woodard and James P. T. Clackson
Appendix 2. Full table of contents from The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages.

More about this book and a link to buy it from here.

Hungarian Contributions and Arabic Contributions to international scholarship in Classics: A Diagnostic Contrast

I'm not trying here to give a detailed diagnostic contrast between the Hungarian contributions to the international scholarship in the field of classics. My aim is to give a link to an interesting article that I've recently found online, about the Hungarian contributions in this field. The article is Rttook, Zsigmund. (1997) "The contribution of Hungary to international classical scholarship" Hungarian Studies, 12. Archived here.

The Hungarian case is very informative in many ways; first its language, like the Arabic, is not a modern science language. Nevertheless the Hungarian contributions has been recognizing internationally, cf. e.g. and I quote p. 12 of this article "At the centre of Gyula Moravcsik's interests stood the relationship of Byzantium and the Turcic peoples. (Turcic in the broadest sense of the word, more or less as Byzantine historians used the word, so even Hungarians were included.) His  monumental Byzantino-turcica remains an indispensable instrument for all who  deal with Byzantine history and with Turcic languages because the first volume of the work gives a detailed survey with a full bibliography of all Byzantine histo­rians who mention some Turcic people. The second volume contains all refer­ences to Turcic peoples and records of their languages on the basis not only of  printed texts, but also on the examination of the manuscript tradition. It was he,  further, who produced the standard edition of Constantine Porphyrogennetus' work De administrando imperio."

This monumental work appeared first in Hungarian Budapest 1942 & 1943 then in Berlin 1958 as a second edition in German. This in my opinion is a true case in which the genuine work recieves recognition even if it was composed in a language not considered as a science language.  

Homer's Iliad into Arabic Prose by Ahmed Etman et alli

Homer's Iliad is translated into Arabic prose by Ahmed Etman and alii. The translation was published by the NTC in 2008.

The Clouds (Νεφέλαι Nephelai) of Aristophanes into Arabic by Ahmed Etman

The clouds of Aristophanes was translated into Arabic by Ahmed Etman in 2011 (2nd Edition). The pdf file is available through the website of the classical department in Mansoura Univeristy from this link.

Œdipe (Oedipus)1931 and Thésée (Theseus) 1946 of André Gide into Arabic by Taha Hussein

Even though it is not an original Greek plays, but there are important to have them in Arabic. Taha Hussein has translated two of the works of André Gide, the famous French author and the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1947, into Arabic. The first is his play Œdipe (Oedipus)1931 and the second is his novel Thésée (Theseus) 1946. The Arabic translation is available as an open source in Hindawi Foundation's website through this link

De Generatione et Corruptione or Περὶ γενέσεως καὶ φθορᾶς into Arabic by Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed

A translation of  De Generatione et Corruptione or Περὶ γενέσεως καὶ φθορᾶς a philosophical treatise by Aristotle is available in Arabic as an open source through Hindawi Foundation. The translation was done by  Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed (15 January 1872 – 5 March 1963), the first director of Cairo University. The translation is done through the French, as the Arabic translator didn't use the original Greek edition, but used the French translation of this treatise; Traité de la production et de la destruction des choses d'Aristote ; suivi du Traité sur Mélissus, Xénophane et Gorgias by J. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire (Paris, 1866). The french translation is to be free of charge found in this link, while the Arabic translation is to be found in Hindawi Foundation's website as usual and again free of charge.

go to this link to have the Arabic translation.

Ἀθηναίων πολιτεία into Arabic by Taha Hussein (1921)

The  Ἀθηναίων πολιτεία or  the Constitution of the Athenians the text which is contained in two leaves of a papyrus codex discovered at Oxyrhynchus, Egypt in 1879, was translated into Arabic by Taha Hussein in 1921. Now the Hindawi Foundation is publishing this book, free of charge, in PDF, Kindle and epub formats.  The book can be downloaded from this link.

The Second International Conference on Christian Egypt Historiography in Christian Egypt 284-641 AD.

This is the announcement arrived to my inbox from Prof. Dr. Tarek M. Muhammad

The Second International Conference on Christian Egypt

Historiography in Christian Egypt 284-641 AD.

Dear colleague(s),

I have the pleasure to invite you to attend the conference “Historiography in Egypt 284-

641 AD.: Historical, Ecclesiastical, Documentary, and Archaeological Evidence " which will 

be held on 5th– 7th May 2015 and will be organized by History Dept., Faculty of Arts, Ain Shams 

University, Cairo, Egypt in collaboration with “The Annual Symposium of Medieval History, Ain 

Shams University”.

You can find more information on this through this  link.

The Qatar Digital Library (QDL) ! WOW !

It is amazing to see something like this in the Arabic World. I didn't believe that this would exist some day in our region, but I was wrong. I think this is a good start in Libraries , manuscripts  and collection management. So, Go ahead QDL !

Naṣīr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭūsī's editions of the Arabic versions of ancient Greek mathematical texts

First part of a collection of Naṣīr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭūsī's (نصير الدين محمد بن محمد الطوسي; d. 1274) editions (تحارير) of the so-called intermediate books (متوسطات), Arabic versions of ancient Greek mathematical texts and responses to them which were meant to be read after Euclid's Elements and in preparation for Ptolemy's Almagest . The second part of this collection is found in manuscript IO Islamic 923.

The script, ornamentation and binding of the volume indicate that it is part of a set comprising also manuscripts IO Islamic 923 and IO Islamic 924. Since the latter was transcribed in 1198/1784, probably for Warren Hastings, Governor-General of Bengal from 1772 to 1785 (see front paper iirecto ), the collation notes in this manuscript dated to the month of Jumādá I without indication of the year probably refer to 1198 (March-April 1784).

Contents:
(1) Euclid (أقليدس), Data (تحرير كتاب المعطيات لإقليدس; ff. 1v-35r);
(2) Euclid (أقليدس), Optica (تحرير المناظر لإقليدس; ff. 36v-56r);
(3) Euclid (أقليدس), Phenomena (كتاب ظاهرات الفلك لأقليدس; ff. 57v-86r);
(4) Autolycus (أوطولوقس), De ortibus et occasibus (كتاب أوطولوقس في الطلوع والغروب; ff. 87v-110r);
(5) Hypsicles (إبسقلاوس), Anaphoricus (كتاب في المطالع; ff. 111v-116r);
(6) Archimedes (أرشميدس), De sphaera et cylindro (كتاب الكرة والأسطوانة; ff. 118v-231v);
(7) Archimedes (أرشميدس), Dimensio circuli (مقالة أرشميدس في تكسير الدائرة; ff. 231v-238r).

The book is extremely beautiful ! see from here.

Ancient Greek online Grammar course for Arabic Students

I and my colleauge Ahmed Abdalazem (Menoufia University) have begun an online Ancient Greek grammar Course for the Arabic students. The audio series are posted regularly online on the channel of Ahmed Abdalazem on Youtube. The text book used in this series is Hardy Hansen and Gerald M. Quinn, Greek : An Intensive Course, 1992 Fordham University press.

We hope that a lot of students will find the series useful for them to catch up, revise, or intensive what they already know of this language.

List of Publications of Magda El-Nowieemy

I've to record my admiration of what Prof. Dr. Magda El-Nowieemy are doing in her Academia.edu page. She is very active. Most recently she has put a list of her publications on the website. I do have a problem collecting material concerning academic publications of Egyptian and Arabic scholars of classics, but if all the Arabic scholars inside and outside Egypt followed the example of Magda El-Nowieemy, I would not have any problem at all. So, thanks you !

Her is the link to the file containing her publications: Publications-Magda-El-Nowieemy.  

A Digital Corpus for Graeco-Arabic Studies

Between the 8th and 10th centuries AD, hundreds of Greek philosophical and scientific works were translated into Arabic. These translations exerted immense influence on the development of philosophy and science in the Islamic world and, through a later process of translation and transmission, in the Latin West as well.

The Digital Corpus assembles a wide range of such texts together with their Greek counterparts, where available, but also a number of Arabic commentaries and crucial secondary sources such as Arabic bio-bibliographical works.

Access the database through this link.

© 2014 - Supported by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Harvard University, Tufts University

Seneca's Medea, Phaedra and Agamemnon into Arabic

Dr. Abdel Moaty Shaarawy has translated Three tragedies of  the nine tragedies attributed to Seneca the Younger. He translated Medea, Phadera and Agamemnon directly from Latin into Arabic. The book was published in 2002 by The Anglo-Egypian publishing house.

Sulaiman Al-Bustani's Translation of Homer's Iliad by Magda El-Nowieemy

An article about Sulaiman Al-Bustani's Translation of Homer's Iliad by Magday El-Nowieemy is published by the Greek Academy of Institutions and Cultures Society in its webpage in Academia.edu. The paper is titled:  "Sulaiman Al-Bustani's Translation of Homer's Iliad: A Study of Creation and Trans-Creation", Proceedings of the 12th International Congress on Graeco-Oriental andAfrican Studies , held in Delphi, May 2009, in: Graeco-Arabica , vol. 11 (Heraklion, Crete 2011)pp. 247- 256.

The paper is in English and in a pdf format and could be downloaded free through this link.

Taha Hussein's Book : The Future of Culture in Egypt, a free pdf download

Hendawi Foundation is putting online many important Arabic books in Pdf, Kindle, and ePUB format. One of these books is Taha Hussein's " The Future of  Culture in Egypt". The book in my view is better to be called "The Future of Education in Egypt", since he propose to integrate Greek and Latin not only to the secondary schools, but also in many departments in the Egyptian Universities.  His call is up-till now remains completely unfulfilled. The Egyptian universities are still in the process of the implementation of his Nr. 1 idea i.e. Greek and Latin departments. No secondary school whatsoever in Egypt teach Greek or Latin, neither there are full integration of these languages in the departments of the universities in which they are mostly needed e.g. in The faculties of Law !

The book could be downloaded through this link.

ُExpanding the Arabic content of Wikipedia via educational initiative

Under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Adel Alnahas, the head of Greek and Latin studies department of Cairo University a pilot project was done in Cairo University to translate the English content into Arabic through students in the department. The guardian has put all the details of this initiative in this article.You can access the program description in Arabic through this link also. The whole archive of the project is to be found here as well.

Dr. Sameh Farouk's Blog

Dr. Sameh Fraouk of Cairo University publishes some of his linguistics thoughts in  an Arabic blog titled " Linguistics Studies in the NT". It appears that the blog was inactive since 2012, I hope he will continue to feed it with his ideas in the days to come. Her is the link to this blog.  

The award-winner of Critisism & Literature Studies award 2012/2013 was the late Prof. Dr. Ahmed Etman

It is to be stated that Prof. Dr. Ahmed Etman was the Winner of the Criticism & Literature Studies award in its thirteenth session 2012-2013. The prize is given by Sultan Bin Ali Alowais Foundation. Here is the CV of Ahmed Etman on the website of the foundation.