Giving Egyptology a new Chinese voice

On a sweltering summer day at Shanghai University, 30 students crowded into a classroom, their enthusiasm undimmed by the heat outside. Selected from over 70 applicants worldwide, they had gathered for five intensive days to learn one of humanity's oldest writing systems: ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Professor Guo Dantong, the university's leading Egyptologist, delivered six hours of instruction each day. "Many people mistakenly believe hieroglyphs are just pictorial symbols to be interpreted literally," she explains. "I felt an obligation to clear the air, to teach Egyptology in its authentic form, and build foundational understanding rooted in our own linguistic context."

That workshop reflects a broader mission. This year marks the first anniversary of Shanghai University's Center for Egyptology.

"If I had to use one word to summarize our first year, I would choose 'starting'," says Guo, who directs the center. "Not starting from zero, but starting through exploration, growing through exchange, and accumulating through cooperation."

A fresh perspective

Established with support from a Chinese Academy of History's funding program for obscure yet essential disciplines — niche or endangered fields vital to understanding human civilization — the center pursues three core objectives: compiling and translating ancient Egyptian documents, supporting archaeological work and heritage protection in Egypt, and studying exchanges between Egypt and neighboring civilizations.

For more than two centuries, Western scholarship has dominated Egyptology. "When Chinese scholars translate hieroglyphs directly into Chinese rather than through English or French, we bring our own critical thinking to the text," Guo explains. "This is a crucial step toward building our own academic discourse."

Chinese Egyptology's strength, Guo argues, lies in bringing a distinct comparative perspective to international scholarship. Chinese researchers are well-placed to contextualize Egypt within broader regional networks, examining exchanges with West Asia, the Mediterranean and Africa, while comparing Egyptian civilization with ancient China, Greece and Mesopotamia.

This methodology draws heavily on traditional Chinese historiography, which emphasized rigorous textual verification, historical geography and source cross-validation. Applied to Egyptology, this means systematically synthesizing written records, visual artifacts and geographical data.

"We study Egypt not merely to understand another ancient civilization, but to reconsider fundamental questions about statehood, religion, society and humanity's relationship with nature," Guo reflects. "Chinese scholars are both researchers of Egyptian civilization and observers who bridge different traditions."

This perspective is already yielding results. Li Yang, a center researcher who completed a visiting fellowship at Yale University, illustrates how Chinese insights can enrich international dialogue.

"Western scholars often applied Mesopotamian paradigms to ancient Egyptian cities and questioned whether Egyptian cities even existed," Li recalls of her doctoral research. "Drawing on Chinese historical experiences — Bronze Age cities as political hubs rather than purely economic centers — we found fresh comparative angles that intrigued Western colleagues."

Her American adviser, fascinated by this cross-civilizational approach, frequently asked about Chinese archaeology. "We discussed how the motif of a person looking through a doorway appears in both Egyptian funerary art and Chinese tomb paintings from the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220)," Li says. "It suggests the universal symbolic significance of thresholds."

"Our edge lies in the indigenous academic tradition — analytical methods refined through rigorous training, deliberation and empirical testing," says Zhang Youran, a center lecturer.