Writing for EA

To submit your article or if you have any queries, please contact [email protected]

Egyptian Archaeology style guide

Subject Matter

Recent and current projects of Egyptologists and archaeologists working in the field, in museums and archives, within a date range from the prehistoric to the medieval period.

Overall Style

EA is a ‘popular’ magazine. Contributors can assume a solid general knowledge of the subject among our readers, but our aim is not to publish to academic standard. Your guiding principle should be to tell a story: Why is this find interesting? What is the aim of my research? What is new or unusual about it? Therefore:

  • contextualise research and findings. This will help non‐expert readers to get the most from reading your article
  • use non-technical language (no diacritical marks, except for accents in modern European languages; no transliterations; hieroglyphs only where absolutely necessary)
  • leave out bibliographical references and footnotes

Only articles in English will be considered.

Overall Format

Please send your manuscript as a Word or PDF document. Your article should be between 1,500-2,000 words and no more than 2,500. We reserve the right to edit articles to fit limited space.

Please provide short end credits containing the author’s present position and include essential acknowledgements for academic, financial or practical help.

State clearly any photographic credits. Authors are responsible for obtaining copyright permissions.

Illustrations

Images are a great way to tell your story and to make for an eye-catching article, and we strongly encourage you to provide illustrations (and suitable captions). While the number we can publish is limited, we appreciate a choice of about 10 to 12 images. We accept all common formats such as TIFF, JPEG, BMP, PDF. Please ensure high enough resolution: at least 300 dpi at print size, ideally higher to allow for enlargement. Images can be sent by e‐mail or uploaded to a hosting site.

Proofs

Time to press permitting, we will aim to send a PDF proof for your approval and corrections.

Author Copies

We do not provide printed complimentary copies, but you will receive a PDF of the complete issue and a separate PDF of your article. Authors can purchase up to 10 hard copies at half price through our webshop. Authors may post their PDFs online on academic websites, such as Academia.edu and/or the websites of authors’ institutions, six months after publication.

Deadlines

Article submissions are accepted throughout the year, but the deadline for consideration in future EA issues will be 1 December for the Spring Issue and 1 July for the Autumn Issue. We advise early submissions as the magazine has limited capacity. Papers are evaluated on a first-come-first-serve basis, and late submissions will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

To find out the exact deadline date for our upcoming issue and submit your article, please contact [email protected].

Further Formatting Guidance

Please see below for further formatting guidance that should be followed in your EA article.

Language and Spelling

Your article should be written in English and words spelt using the British style: artefacts, not artifacts; catalogue, not catalog; organise, not organize; Graeco-Roman, not Greco-Roman. US style and other styles should be avoided.

Abbreviations

Abbreviations consisting of upper case initials or acronyms do not need punctuation of their own, e.g. UK, MSA, AGM), nor do personal titles (e.g. Mr, Mrs, Dr).

Capitalisation

EA uses traditional capitalisations, particularly for terms understood as specific designations or names. For example, use ancient Egyptian, Middle Kingdom, and Late Period. Numbered phases or areas of excavation should be capitalised, e.g. Phase 3, Grid Square U-3.

Contractions

Write contractions out in full, e.g. I am, not I’m, unless you are quoting directly.

Dates

Provide Common Era dates for all periods of time, e.g. Middle Kingdom (c. 2055–1650 BCE) and be as specific as possible.

Dates should use the Common Era format of BCE and CE. BCE dates should be retained in full, e.g. 1995–1945 BCE (since 1995–45 BCE is ambiguous).

Dynasties should be written in numerals and capitalised, e.g. 25th Dynasty, not Twenty-fifth dynasty; Dynasty 22, not Dynasty Twenty-two.

Full dates (e.g. in reference to excavations) should use the British style: 15 June 2007, abbreviated as number.month.year or number/month/year: 15.06.2007 or 15/06/2007. US style and other styles should be avoided.

Use the ‘c.’ as the abbreviation for approximated dates.

Headings

Only use one level of headings, not sub-headings.

Naming Conventions

Please ensure all names are spelt consistently throughout your article. We reserve the right to edit names to reflect conventions used previously in the magazine.

Number Styles

Numbers should be written in full from ‘one’ to ‘ten’, then in numerals from ‘11’ upwards. Use commas in larger numbers, e.g. ‘3,000 years’.

The character between dates, page numbers, etc. (dates: 1901–2, page runs: 164–5, 166–210) is an en-dash (use Alt+Fn+mjim as a keyboard shortcut), ­not an ordinary hyphen. In the font used for this manual, this is ‘–’ and not ‘-’.

The style for setting number-runs should print full figures, e.g., 10–11, not 10–1; 16–18, not 16–8; 116–18, not 116–8, 210–11, not 210–1, 314-15, not 314–5 (i.e. for the group 10–19 in each hundred).

Roman numerals should be cited in full.

Quotations

Use double quotation marks when quoting speech. Use single quotation marks to highlight a word or phrase. Note that the titles of publications do not appear in quotation marks, but in italics, e.g. Egyptian Archaeology.

Slashes

Do not put a space either side of a slash, unless the slash separates multi-word terms.

Units of Measure and Decimals

All measurements should be abbreviated. Style for abbreviated units of measure (including time) is: figure space unit. So, for example:

25 cm               125 km             50 m

Decimals should be formatted in British style with point: 3.56 and written to three significant figures.

Ancient Egyptian Texts and Citations

All hieroglyphic texts should be created in Jsesh (the software is free to download online) and embedded into the text as images. All transliterations must be rendered in the Trlit_CG Times font (free to download online) within the text.

Use a comma to separate the designation of text from specific location within the text and a point to distinguish elements of the location within the text. So, for example:

Peas. B1, 16 = Peas. R, 6.2 refers to the B1 variant of the Eloquent Peasant, line 16 and to the R version of the Eloquent Peasant, page/column 6.line 2.

Demotic, Coptic, and Greek texts may be referenced according to subject-specific (particularly papyrological) conventions.  

Footnotes and Bibliographical References

Footnotes and bibliographical references should be avoided. Please include any relevant URLs to your research within the short end credits.

Last modified: 03/04/2023