Any information concerning newly published and as yet unpublished texts of this period are both very welcome. More details are to be posted in the future, and a new homepage site, is now under construction . IHAC sponsors up to four distinguished scholars from around the world to teach and participate in ongoing research. We also actively seeking non-Chinese graduate students to enter our MA and PhD degree program of study and to participate in our research projects. There are several excellent reasons to study the ancient Near East, Egypt and Classical worlds in China.
Language is one such area of comparison.
For instance, while Chinese script and calligraphy are vastly different from ancient Egyptian hieratic, the two systems have common elements that contribute to and enrich our understanding of the ancient Egyptian script, because there are no Egyptian scribes left who write in the traditional ways. Traditional Chinese calligraphy is still a living art form and can be compared. In the course of IHAC's short history, both Chinese and Western individuals have raised the question of the need for such an institute in China. The question is, of course, impertinent. It presumes that the West or Japan, which have well-developed programs in these fields, have prerogatives on the study of ancient societies.