Scienceאורלי גולדווסר

Orly Goldwasser

Orly Goldwasser is an Israeli Egyptologist and professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, known for her research on hieroglyphic writing and the origin of the alphabet.

born 1951Research on the alphabet's originClassification system in hieroglyphic scriptEgyptology at the Hebrew University

Occupation: Egyptologist, university teacher
Education: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University

Orly Goldwasser was born in 1951

Orly Goldwasser was born in Tel Aviv in 1951. Her parents are Shulamit and Dr. Aryeh Hillel, one of the pioneers of military aviation in Israel.

She earned her B.A. at Tel Aviv University. She then studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she received her M.A. and PhD.

Goldwasser holds the chair of Egyptology at the Hebrew University and is an honorary professor at the University of Göttingen. She has been a guest professor at Göttingen, Harvard University and the Collège de France.

Her research covers the semiotics of hieroglyphic writing, ties between Egypt and the Levant, and images in ancient Egyptian literature. She identified the classification system in hieroglyphic script. Based mainly on evidence from Serabit el-Khadim, she argues that the alphabet arose in the mid 19th century BCE, when Canaanite miners who could not read or write met Egyptians writing in hieroglyphs.