Upcoming Classes and Webinars

I offer remote, live webinars and classes about ancient Egypt. Topics include religion and magic, history, animals, literature, art, and much more. Classes focused on how to read hieroglyphs and hieratic teach you step-by-step the language and writing systems of ancient Egypt.

Upcoming Live Lecture Series:

Tattooed Priestesses in Ancient Egypt

In TATTOOED PRIESTESSES, I will begin with the Predynastic Period, the world’s oldest figural tattoos, and how painted ceramics and rock art allow us to interpret these 5300 year-old images. Next, we will meet Old Kingdom queens, priestesses and songstresses who performed important rituals and animal sacrifices. As we move into the Middle Kingdom, I will cover the worship of the goddess Hathor and the tattooed priestesses who served her, including those from the court of Montuhotep II. The course ends with the New Kingdom, including important discoveries made in the last decade that greatly increased our understanding of tattoos as amuletic body art (particularly useful when performing acrobatic dances).

TATTOOED PRIESTESSES meets Tuesdays, November 4, 11, and 18 from 2-3PM and 8-9PM (US Eastern Time); the two time slots cover the same material each week, but each lecture is unique with a question-and-answer session. The fee is $60, which includes the Zoom link for all three sessions (you can attend either time slot, or even both, each week), a curated freely available reading list, access to the recordings for one month after the end of class, and an invitation to a private Discord server. Purchase with Paypal at the link below, or by Venmo to @vintage-egyptologist (for Venmo, make sure to include the email address where you would like me to send the materials).

Enroll Now

I began my Zoom Egyptology program in January 2021 with a single goal: to make learning about hieroglyphs and ancient Egypt more accessible. Since then, I have taught hundreds of people around the world the basics of the ancient Egyptian writing system--and dozens of those students have continued on to my advanced classes, where they read original texts directly from the walls of tombs, temples, and papyri! When you enroll in one of my live classes, you are not only getting a unique experience and opportunity to ask questions, but you are also joining a community of people around the world (20 countries and counting!) who share your interest in ancient Egypt. 

In my lecture courses, you can explore topics as diverse as daily life, fashion and beauty to creation theology, solar religion, and the Valley of the Kings, to historical fiction, love poetry, and ancient Egypt in film (just to name a few). My teaching and research philosophy rests on one, simple principle: begin with the primary sources. In every class, I show you hieroglyphic and hieratic texts that are the basis of what we know about each topic. I combine this with artistic, architectural, and archaeological evidence to create new and exciting perspectives about ancient Egypt. Every class registration also comes with a curated list of freely available reading resources as well as recommendations for your Egyptological bookshelf, so that you can access the best secondary sources as well (including authors who present opposing viewpoints). Every registration also comes with access to a private Discord server, where you can chat with other students, share news stories, and access reading lists from previous classes. 

I hope you can join me!

Past Hieroglyph Reading & Grammar Courses

Tomb of Nefertari

Hymn to Aten

Story of Sinuhe

Introduction to Coptic

Queen Nefertari being led by Isis

Temple of Nefertari at Abu Simbel

Tomb of Khnumhotep

Ancient Egyptian Papyrus, named for Edwin Smith

Medical Texts

Other past hieroglyph and grammar classes include: Tomb of Djehutyhotep II, Capture of Joppa, Papyrus Westcar, Rock Inscriptions of Elkab, the Temple of Nekhbet at Elkab, and Tomb of Paheri.

Introduction to Hieratic

The Book of the Hidden Chamber

Pseudo-verbal Sentences

Khonsu kneeling with his hands raised in a gesture of prayer or adoration.

Tomb of Sennedjem

Past Lectures

Secrets of the Valley of the Kings

How to Cast a Spell in Ancient Egypt

Deciphering Cartouches

Party Like an Ancient Egyptian

Historical Fiction in Ancient Egypt

Introduction to Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt in Creation Theology

Fashion and Beauty in the
Age of Cleopatra

Ancient Egypt in Film

A New Horizon: The Rise of Akhenaten and Nefertiti

The Life and Times of Hatshepsut

Egyptomania

Other past lecture classes include: The Ancient Egyptian Netherworld Books; Queens of Ancient Egypt and Nubia; Fundamentals of Ancient Egyptian Art; Magic, Alchemy and Hermeticism; Fashion and Beauty in the Age of Cleopatra; Age of the Pyramids; and The Goddess Isis.

Kind Words

  • "Having taken every one of Dr. Colleen’s Zoom classes over the last four years, I find her to be delightful, informative, lovely and brilliant! You will never regret spending time with her and you will always learn something new no matter how well versed in Ancient Egypt you are!”

    Lauren P

  • "The classes bring Ancient Egypt alive! Colleen’s knowledge and expertise in the field is deep. She is engaging and makes everything very user friendly. I can’t recommend the classes enough!"

    Gabrielle F

  • "​​I absolutely recommend Dr. Darnell’s courses on Egyptology. She is so knowledgeable and her insight is brilliant. She goes above and beyond to also provide resources for further studies. She has such passion for the subject and it radiates when she is teaching!"

    Julia V

  • I appreciate both the breadth of the topics she chooses to present — everything from Hermeticism and the Book of Thoth to Pharaoh Hatshepsut and the Queens of Ancient Egypt and Nubia — but also the depth to which she researches each of those topics. I’ve learned about aspects of Ancient Egyptian culture that I might not otherwise have been able to access.

    Elizabeth W.