The first part of the second day of the School was devoted to Egyptology. Professor Jean-Guillaume Olette-Pelletier (Catholic Institute of Paris) gave a presentation titled "Des contes égyptiens aux récits bibliques: vérité historique ou poésie religieuse" ("From Egyptian stories to biblical accounts: historical truth or religious poetry?"), which eruditely explored the way in which biblical accounts took up Egyptian historical reality and adapted it according to context, with the aim of converting people to the newly-emerging religions.
Dr. Cristian Crăciun (Freie Universitat Berlin) presented the history of various Egyptian artifacts preserved in different places in Romania, such as the Franz Binder Museum in Sibiu, the former Simu Museum, the Romanian Academy collections, etc., as well as modern forgeries, proposing a comprehensive cataloguing project in his paper, "A Catalogue of all the Egyptian and Egyptian-like objects from the museums of Romania".
The second part of the day was devoted to practical Greek language classes, taught by Associate Professor Maria-Luiza Oancea (University of Bucharest) and by Dr. Andreea Ștefan (National Museum of Romanian History, University of Bucharest). The Romanian students of Classical Studies at the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy in Potsdam read, translated and interpreted passages from Plato's work "Gorgias," which questions the role of rhetorics in society, its moral authority in terms of education and the formation of true or false beliefs, as well as a page from Nicolae Mavrocordat's treatise "On Duties," which discusses beneficence and generosity. Various linguistic and stylistic aspects were also analyzed in an atmosphere of intellectual emulation that sparked productive and jovial dialogues, contributing to a better understanding of the ancient spirit.
