New dams set to wipe out centuries of history

The Independent (Chris Boulding)

On 13 June last year, Sudanese security forces opened fire on a demonstration against the plans. The facts about the incident are hard to obtain because journalists have been prevented from reporting it. But according to eyewitnesses, several thousand largely Nubian protesters set out to march towards the dam company's administrative HQ, and found themselves blocked by soldiers at a narrow ravine.

Video footage shot by a local cameraman shows tear gas being fired and the crowd running through groves of date palm trees towards the Nile. Without warning, local people say the soldiers fired live rounds straight into the crowd. There was panic. By the end of the day, four people had been killed, and more than 20 seriously wounded. And the local Nubian opposition to Khartoum's hydroelectric scheme had hardened into active political resistance. "In the name of God, we will not keep quiet, even for a moment," said Osman Ibrahim, a local leader of the campaign, who witnessed the events. "We will resist and resist until the last drop of blood in our veins."

Kajbar is about 300 miles north of Khartoum in the heart of Nubia, the ancient black African kingdom which at times rivalled the pharoahs for wealth and influence. The Kajbar dam is just one of up to four planned on the stretch of the Nile north of Khartoum, which will become the hub of Sudan's power supply.

The Merowe Dam Archaelogical Salvage Mission's work is detailed on a dedicated page on the British Museum website.

SL Temple of Amun

Second Life News

Article about a Second Life version of an Egyptian temple. Second Life is an online community which aims to create 3-D experiences.

Visitors can step back in time at the newly opened Temple of Amun (http://slurl.com/secondlife/NEW%20YORK%20HARBOR/40/88/22 ).

Tours are being offered every Saturday at 7 a.m. SLT by the Museum Director and real life Egyptologist, Jachmes Masala. The tour takes approximately 1 ½ hours and is packed with information.

A local god of Thebes, Amun rose to prominence during Egypt’s New Kingdom (1539 – 1295 BC). The temple complex at Karnak, located just north of present day Luxor, Egypt, underwent expansion and modification during the reign of Kings Amenophis III (1390-1352 BC) and Ramses II (1279-1213 BC). In the Roman period, the temple was used as a military garrison. The Temple of Amun in SL recreates the temple as it might have been during the time of Ramses II.

Statues of Ramses II stand guard over the entrance gate. A mural shows the battle of Qadesh, where Ramses II fought the Hittites. It is believed that this was the largest chariot battle fought, with over 5,000 chariots in use to support the foot solders.

X International Congress of Egyptologists

X International Congress of Egyptologists

Details for the Congress, which takes place in May, are now available online. Abstracts are now available in PDF format. Programme details, registration instructions and other useful information are also provided. Here are details of the keynote speakers:

Prof. Emer. Jan Assmann (Heidelberg)

Title: The "structure" of ancient Egyptian religion [Abstract]

Prof. Manfred Bietak (Vienna)

Title: The nature of the relationship between Egypt and the Minoan World in the Tuthmoside Period [ABSTRACT]

Prof. Christopher J. Eyre (Liverpool)

Title: Economy and society in Pharaonic Egypt [ABSTRACT]

Mr. Sabry Abdel Aziz (Supreme Council of Antiquities, Egypt; on behalf of Prof. Z. Hawass)

Title: Recent discoveries in Egypt [ABSTRACT]

Prof. Richard Jasnow (Johns Hopkins)

Title: From Alexandria to Rakotis: progress, prospects, and problems in the study of Greco-Egyptian literary interaction [ABSTRACT]

Prof. Emer. Geoffrey T. Martin (Cambridge)

Title: Re-excavating KV 57 (Horemheb) in the Valley of the Kings [ABSTRACT]

Review: Dizionario dei nomi geografici e topografici dell' Egitto greco-romano. Supplemento 4

Bryn Mawr Classical Review (Reviewed by Jean A. Straus)

Sergio Daris, Dizionario dei nomi geografici e topografici dell' Egitto greco-romano. Supplemento 4 (2002-2005). Biblioteca degli "Studi di Egittologia e di Papirologia" - 5. Pisa-Roma: Fabrizio Serra, 2007.

En 1935, Aristide Calderini lance la publication d'un dictionnaire des noms géographiques et topographiques de l'Egypte gréco-romaine. Deux fascicules paraissent sous son seul nom: Volume I. Parte 1: "A - Halikarnasseus" (Le Caire, Società reale di geografia d'Egitto, 1935) et Volume I. Parte 2: "Halikarnassos - Aolph[" (Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1966). Après le décès de Calderini, Sergio Daris s'attelle à la tâche et mène l'entreprise à son terme: de 1973 à 1987, il édite quatre volumes (II-V) en treize fascicules (Milan, Cisalpina-Goliardica). Mais il n'en reste pas là. Dès 1988, il publie un volume de suppléments qui couvre les années 1935-1986 (Milan, Cisalpino-Goliardica). Deux autres volumes de suppléments relatifs aux années 1987-1993 et 1994-2001 suivent (Bonn, Habelt, 1996 et Pise, Giardini, 2003). Tous ces ouvrages portent les noms d'Aristide Calderini et de Sergio Daris. Pour le quatrième volume de suppléments, le nom d'Aristide Calderini disparaît. Il ne s'agit en aucun cas d'une usurpation, mais d'une démarche amplement justifiée. En effet, plus les années passaient, moins l'influence de l'héritage de Calderini se faisait sentir: Sergio Daris portait seul la responsabilité de ce véritable travail de bénédictin.

Le quatrième volume de suppléments est le fruit du dépouillement des publications sorties des presses entre 2002 et 2005. Comme pour les volumes précédents, l'auteur ne s'interdit toutefois pas d'introduire des corrections ou des informations complémentaires glanées dans des publications antérieures et, de temps à autre, postérieures (cf. Narmouthis, Bibl.: Eg. Arch. 28, 2006). Parfois, les modifications apportées sont telles qu'elles ont demandé la réécriture totale ou partielle de l'article concerné.

Online theses and research publications

www.sciencenewsdirect.com

There is never any telling whether sites like this will take off or not, but it is a good idea - one to keep an eye on and see how it develops.

Generally, MSc or PhD theses are read by few people. Sometimes a researcher in another country want to refer your thesis, but due to unavailability of the same, he/she can not read it. Here, I am trying to solve this issue by putting forward a blog exclusively for theses and other research publications.

You can re-publish abstract of your research papers, conference proceedings, or even full text of your thesis for better visibility, easy and FREE access for everybody at http://www.ScienceNewsDirect.com. If you want, I can set up an account for you so that you will be able to upload your publications.
Email: contact@sciencenewsdirect.com

Daily Photo - Coptic frescos from the Nubia Museum

Frescos from Abdalla Nirqi Church, 10th Century A.D., Nubia now housed in the Nubia Museum in Aswan. If you're interested in Nubian church decoration there is an article on the subject on the Arkamani website: Observations on the system of Nubian church-decoration by Karel C. Innemee.

Review: Regime Change in the Ancient Near East and Egypt: From Sargon of Agade to Saddam Hussein

Bryn Mawr Classical Review (Review by Gary Beckman)

Harriet Crawford (ed.), Regime Change in the Ancient Near East and Egypt: From Sargon of Agade to Saddam Hussein. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

One of the tasks of the historian is to elucidate change in past societies. Indeed, unless he or she is concerned with a temporally quite narrow slice of the past, consideration of change lies at the very heart of the historian's work. But, of course, change occurs (or better, may be observed) at different rates in various areas of any particular culture--in political leadership, ideological structures, economics, technologies, etc.

The task set by the organizers of the conference whose presentations form the basis of the volume here under review was to examine the continuities that might persist across political upheavals in states of the Old World. Convened in London in September 2004, the meeting was originally entitled "Steady States," but perhaps in light of the currency that the phrase "regime change" has achieved in the recent rhetorical armory of American foreign policy, it is these words that are featured in the book's ultimate title.

Contemporary concerns undoubtedly also led to the inclusion as an afterword of an essay not presented on the London program, Peter Sluglett's overview of regime change in Iraq. Of the pieces from the original roster, six deal with ancient Mesopotamia, four with pharaonic Egypt, and one each with early Islamic Iran and Egypt.

Lost Egypt exhibition blog

Lost Egypt

A blog charting the work that is going into a traveling exhibition called Lost Egypt: Ancient Secrets, Modern Science.

We’re continuing to film interviews for the Lost Egypt exhibition. Two weeks ago we met with Dr. Tosha Dupras at WOSU@COSI.

Tosha is one of our project advisors, and has been with us since the beginning of Lost Egypt. She’s an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Central Florida, and she teaches human osteology (the study of human bones), and forensic anthropology. She works at a couple of different sites in Egypt: the Dakhleh Oasis Project, and more recently, Dayr al-Barsha. We had a great time interviewing her – it was fascinating to hear her talk about forensics and the bones she uncovers. She left for Egypt last week for another field season.

Desertification: How to stop the shifting sands

CNN

A slow news day so this is a more than a little off-topic but if you're interested in the Sahara it may be of interest.

Rapid population growth has put enormous pressure on agricultural systems that have been pushed towards unsustainable farming practices in order to cope with demand. In China livestock numbers have nearly doubled in the last 30 years, from around 200 million in the early 1970's, to 427 million in 2002.

As a result huge amount of marginal land has been taken in as pasture, overgrazed to the point of exhaustion, and now farmers are being forced to watch the topsoil literally blow away on the spring winds.

In Africa demand for water has shrunk Lake Chad by 95 percent since the 1960s, leaving only sand and scrub.

In Kazakhstan desertification has meant that nearly 50 percent of cropland has been abandoned since 1980.

The Sahara is advancing into Ghana and Nigeria at the rate of 3,510 square kilometers per year.

In Iran, fierce sandstorms are believed to have buried more than 100 villages in 2002.

But this is only expected to get worse. Across the world climate change is set to exacerbate problems where poor land use and population pressure is already putting an immense strain on finely balanced ecologies.

Daily Photo - Biddulph Grange

The gardens at Biddulph Grange (in Cheshire, U.K.) have all sorts of surprises - one of the features is a tiny Egyptian temple with a topiary pyramid on top, guarded by two very smug-looking sphinxes. Great fun.

What was Herodotus trying to tell us?

The New Yorker (Daniel Mendelsohn)

A very enjoyable six-page review of Herodotus. As it is almost impossible to read anything on ancient Egypt without stumbling into Herodotus I feel moderately justified in including this article in the blog. Here's an extract:

In Book 1, there are the exotic Massagetae, who were apparently strangers to the use, and abuse, of wine. (The Persians—like Odysseus with the Cyclops—get them drunk and then trounce them.) In Book 2 come the Egyptians, with their architectural immensities, their crocodiles, and their mummified pets, a nation whose curiosities are so numerous that the entire book is devoted to its history, culture, and monuments. In Book 3, the Persians come up against the Ethiopians, who (Herodotus has heard) are the tallest and most beautiful of all peoples. In Book 4, we get the mysterious, nomadic Scythians, who cannily use their lack of “civilization” to confound their would-be overlords: every time the Persians set up a fortified encampment, the Scythians simply pack up their portable dwellings and leave.

By the time of Darius’ reign, Persia had become something that had never been seen before: a multinational empire covering most of the known world, from India in the east to the Aegean Sea in the west and Egypt in the south. The real hero of Herodotus’ Histories, as grandiose, as admirable yet doomed, as any character you get in Greek tragedy, is Persia itself.

What gives this tale its unforgettable tone and character—what makes the narrative even more leisurely than the subject warrants—are those infamous, looping digressions: the endless asides, ranging in length from one line to an entire book (Egypt), about the flora and fauna, the lands and the customs and cultures, of the various peoples the Persian state tried to absorb. And within these digressions there are further digressions, an infinite regress of fascinating tidbits whose apparent value for “history” may be negligible but whose power to fascinate and charm is as strong today as it so clearly was for the author, whose narrative modus operandi often seems suspiciously like free association.

Neolithic Origin for Y-Chromosomal Variation in North Africa

The American Journal of Human Genetics

A Predominantly Neolithic Origin for Y-Chromosomal DNA Variation in North Africa.
Barbara Arredi, Estella S. Poloni, Silvia Paracchini, Tatiana Zerjal, Dahmani M. Fathallah, Mohamed Makrelouf, Vincenzo L. Pascali, Andrea Novelletto, and Chris Tyler-Smith.

We have typed 275 men from five populations in Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt with a set of 119 binary markers and 15 microsatellites from the Y chromosome, and we have analyzed the results together with published data from Moroccan populations. North African Y-chromosomal diversity is geographically structured and fits the pattern expected under an isolation-by-distance model. Autocorrelation analyses reveal an east-west cline of genetic variation that extends into the Middle East and is compatible with a hypothesis of demic expansion. This expansion must have involved relatively small numbers of Y chromosomes to account for the reduction in gene diversity towards the West that accompanied the frequency increase of Y haplogroup E3b2, but gene flow must have been maintained to explain the observed pattern of isolation-by-distance. Since the estimates of the times to the most recent common ancestor (TMRCAs) of the most common haplogroups are quite recent, we suggest that the North African pattern of Y-chromosomal variation is largely of Neolithic origin. Thus, we propose that the Neolithic transition in this part of the world was accompanied by demic diffusion of Afro-Asiatic–speaking pastoralists from the Middle East.

Egypt to develop ecotourism and medical tourism to increase earnings

Yahoo! News

Egypt hopes to boost its tourism earnings by 26 percent to 12 billion dollars by 2011, the official MENA agency reported on Saturday.

According to a plan launched by Tourism Minister Zuheir Garana, Egypt hopes to welcome some 14 million tourists in 2011, requiring a capacity of 240,000 hotel rooms, compared with 11 million in 2007, MENA reported.

The minister said Egypt wants to attract private investors to fund the ambitious plan which also includes developing eco-tourism and medical tourism, limiting the government's role to supervision and planning.

Ecotourism and medical tourism are very interesting offshoots of the tourism industry. These and other off-shoots were the focus of a special issue of the magazine Third World Resurgence which, if you are interested, I have summarized and provided links to on another blog. I've checked and the articles are still available in MS Word format on the TWN website.

Tourism: Egypt's tops tourist destination in Mideast, North Africa

Egypt State Information Service

Egypt has become the top tourist destination among Middle East and North Africa countries and is the world's 24th most attractive tourist destination, according to a report by Minister of Tourism Zuhir Garana.

The report, which was forwarded to Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, said that the Ministry of Tourism has drawn up an ambitious plan to increase tourist revenues to 12 billion Egyptian pounds by 2011, attract up to 14 million tourists and create some 1.2 million job opportunities.

The report said that tourist revenues constitute 11.3 percent of Egypt's GDP, 40 percent of Egypt's non-commodity exports and 19.3 percent of Egypt's earnings of foreign currency.

The new strategy is based on increasing Egypt's tourist potentials, honing its competitive edge, taping new markets and diversifying tourist destinations in addition to luring tourists to unconventional markets and improving services.

It showed that Egypt attracts 23 percent of tourists coming to the Middle East region, 1.2 percent of the size of international tourism, one percent of international tourist revenues.

In 2007, 11 million tourists visited Egypt, spending a total of 112 tourist nights and bringing to Egypt 9.5 billion dollars in earnings, the report said.

Requests for information

1) Does anyone have an electronic copy of following article that I could get hold of? Neville Langton, "Bast— The Cat Goddess," Antiquarian Quarterly, vol. I, no. 4, Dec. 1925, pp. 93-4.

2) TT39 - Jane Akshar posted an item a couple of weeks ago on her Luxor News Blog about talking to a member of the TT39 team who said that TT39 (Puimre) would shortly have its own website. Delays to website projects are fairly run of the mill, but it should be up any day now if the original estimates were correct. I've had a hunt around the Web but found nothing that looks as though it belongs to the Mexican mission. If you learn that the website has come to life please let me know and I'll post the address and let Jane know too, if she doesn't find the info first.

Many thanks
Andie

Off-topic request for information - Eritrea

I know that people who visit this blog have many archaeological interests that include a much broader area then Egypt. Does anyone have any information about rock art in Eritrea - in particular Karora. I've done the usual hunting around on the web but haven't found anything very much. A friend is visiting the area and would like to do some research in advance. Any pointers welcome!

New archaeological forum

ArchaeoForum

A new forum for discussion in archaeology has been let loose on the world at the above address by Tony Cagle, who runs ArchaeoBlog. A number of categories have been set up to date, and the site will doubtless evolve as people begin to contribute. Anti-spam filters are in place and working well.

Daily Photo - Gebel el Ingleez, Bahariya

These are really just an excuse to post some pretty sky scenes again. However, the ruined building on the top of a hill in Bahariya was a First World War watchpost. It was manned by Captain Claud Williams and was built to watch for Sanussi activity in the area. Captain Williams also served with the Light Car Patrols which monitored the Western Desert in vehicles which were mind-numbingly primitive for the task that they performed. The Light Car Patrols were the model for the Long Range Desert Group which operated in Egypt, Libya and the Sudan, monitoring the desert, collecting intelligence and comitting acts of military piracy where appropriate.

Egypt's pyramids packed with seashells

Discovery News (Jennifer Viegas)

Many of Egypt's most famous monuments, such as the Sphinx and Cheops, contain hundreds of thousands of marine fossils, most of which are fully intact and preserved in the walls of the structures, according to a new study.

The study's authors suggest that the stones that make up the examined monuments at Giza plateau, Fayum and Abydos must have been carved out of natural stone since they reveal what chunks of the sea floor must have looked like over 4,000 years ago, when the buildings were erected.

"The observed random emplacement and strictly homogenous distribution of the fossil shells within the whole rock is in harmony with their initial in situ setting in a fluidal sea bottom environment," wrote Ioannis Liritzis and his colleagues from the University of the Aegean and the University of Athens.

The researchers analyzed the mineralogy, as well as the chemical makeup and structure, of small material samples chiseled from the Sphinx Temple, the Osirion Shaft, the Valley Temple, Cheops, Khefren, Osirion at Abydos, the Temple of Seti I at Abydos and Qasr el-Sagha at Fayum.

New Regents' Professors Appointed

The University of Arizona News

Professor Richard Wilkinson

Wilkinson, a professor in the departments of classics and Near Eastern Studies, is internationally renowned for his eight popular books on Egyptology, which have been translated into 19 languages.

He also is famous for his leadership of the UA Egyptian Expedition and his excavations in the Valley of the Kings, most notably of the mortuary temple of the 12th century B.C.E. Queen Tausert, one of the few Egyptian queens who ruled Egypt as pharaoh.

Wilkinson's numerous grants from institutions such as the Amarna Foundation, the American Research Center in Egypt and the Petty Foundation, along with his hugely successful books on Egypt, his 33 trend-setting articles and his consultancy to the Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt, have made him one of the 30 most important Egyptologists in the history of his field, according to a recent online survey.

Scholars gather in Seattle to discuss ancient Egypt

The Seattle Times

The patient, a woman, was clearly in distress, with persistent sores and pain so fierce it cut like a knife.

Dr. W. Benson Harer Jr., of Seattle, recognized the symptoms as "a very good indication of genital herpes." And he would have helped, barring one inescapable fact: He was a few thousand years too late.

Harer, an OB/gyn by profession and an amateur Egyptologist by passion, learned about the case from a centuries-old medical text written on papyrus.

His interest in sexually transmitted diseases in a long-ago civilization may be the ultimate proof that no aspect of ancient Egypt has gone unstudied, a fact that will be in evidence this weekend as 300-plus Egypt scholars gather from around the world.

In more than 100 different presentations beginning Friday at the downtown Grand Hyatt Seattle, researchers will present findings on everything Egypt, from customs and clothing to coins, dance, pyramids and more. The event is the 59th annual meeting of The American Research Center in Egypt, a nonprofit formed to facilitate American study in Egypt and to strengthen cultural ties between the countries.

Who owns Antiquity?

The Wall Street Journal (James Cuno)

For years, archaeologists have lobbied for national and international laws, treaties, and conventions to prohibit the international movement in antiquities. For many of these years, U.S. art museums that collect antiquities have opposed these attempts. The differences between archaeologists and U.S. art museums on this matter has spilled over into the public realm by way of reports in newspapers and magazines, public and university symposia, and specialist—even sensationalist —books on the topic.

At the center of the dispute is the question of unprovenanced antiquities. In conventional terms, an unprovenanced antiquity is one with modern gaps in its chain of ownership. As it pertains to the United States, since in most cases we are an importer of this kind of material, this means there is no evidence that the antiquity was exported in compliance with the export laws of its presumed country of origin (these are always modern laws, hence the qualifi cation above, modern gaps). Archaeologists argue that unprovenanced antiquities are almost always looted from archaeological sites or from what would become archaeological sites. But strictly speaking, since provenance is a matter of ownership and not archaeological status, and as some countries allow for the ownership of antiquities but not their export, it is possible to illegally export a legally owned, unprovenanced antiquity. (It would have to be either an excavated antiquity that could be legally owned, or a found or looted antiquity owned by someone, if not by its current owner, before the implementation of anti-looting laws.)

See the above page for the full story.

Daily Photo - More from Wadi el Hitan, Faiyum

More photos today from the Valley of the Whales. The first shows part of the trail with one of the many shelters where you can stand to read the information boards out of the direct heat. In the background the natural sandstone looks terrific. The second photograph shows different layers of geological activity in the different textures and colours. Third, all that remains of the tree trunk are the fossilized burrows of wood-consuming worm shaped molluscs wich preserve the shape of the tree. The penultimate photograph shows the preserved roots of a mangrove swamp. Finally, some of the many wind-sculpted sandstone remnants.

Egypt's sunken treasure moors in Madrid

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El-Aref)

Egypt's ambassador to Spain, Yasser Murad, said that over the summer Matadero Madrid would be the setting of the Spanish stop of the "Egypt's Sunken Treasures" touring exhibition, which displays 489 remarkable artefacts excavated from beneath the Mediterranean coast of Egypt. The exhibition has already seen spectacular success in Germany and France with more than 1.5 million visitors.

"From 16 April to 28 September, the Spanish people can take a virtual dive to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea and explore the lost treasures of ancient Egypt," Murad said, adding that the Matador centre was the most suitable place in Madrid to host such an exhibition since the height of its galleries meant they could house the three towering, red granite colossi of a Ptolemaic king and queen and the Nile deity, Hapi, each of which is five metres tall.

"The aura of the Mediterranean Sea is everywhere apparent," Murad told Al-Ahram Weekly. The ancient towns which lie submerged under the sea are resurrected in the Matadero. With waves echoing on the audio system and the sparkling black floor reflecting the seabed, audio-visual technology and visual effects are used to invoke the ambiance from which the antiquities were retrieved and the stages of the underwater excavation. "Visitors are taken on an imaginary voyage through time and space back to the Ptolemaic, Byzantine, Coptic and early Islamic eras, when those cities were the main commercial centres of Egypt," Murad pointed out.

See the above page for the full story.

Faiyum monastery a prey to time

Egypt Daily Star News (David Stanford)

We are on our bellies now, crawling through silky-fine sand, watching the shadows for vipers and scorpions. Inches above our heads is a huge rock, the roof of a collapsed chamber, supported by walls cut from soft, rather crumbly sandstone.

Ahead of me, my companion switches on his head torch and lights up the chamber, revealing the object of our search. Around the walls, just below the ceiling is a layer of plaster, and on it some painted images, the heads of religious figures, saints or apostles perhaps. One bears a striking resemblance to traditional images of Jesus.

We take photographs until the sand causes my camera to seize up, and then return to the fresh air above.

My companion is Amir Milad, a desert guide of many years experience, and he has brought me to Deir Abu Lifa, an abandoned Coptic monastery in the Western Desert north of Fayoum. Dating back to the early days of Coptic Christianity, the monastery is cut into an outcrop of the Qatrani mountain; a remote place in which monks could lead the contemplative life safe from persecution by the Byzantine Eastern Roman rulers. The name points to the saint assumed to have founded it, Abu Lifa, also known as Abu Banukhm or St. Panoukhius.

See the above page for the full story.

Tourism: Potential for Sinai, post-terrorism

Al Ahram Weekly (Jailan Halawi)

The Sinai Peninsula is a major tourist attraction, generating close to half of the sector's revenues in Egypt. Hit by a spate of terrorist attacks beginning in 2004, the area has since cleared away the rubble and moved from strength to strength. Yet it still, South Sinai Governor Major General Mohamed Hani Metwalli tells Jailan Halawi in a wide-ranging interview, has masses of as yet unrealised potential.

Al Ahram Weekly (Jailan Halawi)

Jailan Halawi looks back at how the southern part of the peninsula evolved into a thriving tourist hub attracting millions of visitors a year

Exhibition: De Montebello Exhibit at The Met

Suite 101 (Stan Parchin)

Thanks to Stan for letting me know that in the above exhibition, for which details are provided on the above page, the Egyptian collection will be well represented:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will present The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions from October 24, 2008 to February 1, 2009 in its second-floor Tisch Galleries.

Stan's page also provides a useful reminder that the tomb of Tutankhamun will be closing on May 1st 2008 for restoration work which is expected to last for a year.

Charting the movements of the Nile

Geoarchaeology

There is an article in the most recent issue of Geoarchaeology which may be of interest. Unfortunately articles are not free to view online, but the abstracts can be viewed and 24 hour access to the articles can be purchased if required.

Stratigraphic landscape analysis: Charting the Holocene movements of the Nile at Karnak through ancient Egyptian time

J. M. Bunbury , A. Graham , M. A. Hunter
Abstract

Exhibitions in Prague

Prague Monitor

This article is mainly talking about the Grand Museum of Egypt in Cairo, but at least gives the title of the Prague exhibition in this piece:

The winning design of the Grand Egyptian Museum was seen by visitors to the Lichtenstejnsky palace in Prague's neighbourhood Kampa within the exhibition Uncovering Old Egypt held on the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Czech Egyptology Institute Wednesday.

I had a quick look around on the Web yesterday but was unable to find out anything else about it. I had another look today and the Prague Heart of Europe website gives the exhibition a slightly different and more plausible name: Uncovering Ancient Egypt. It offers the following information:

The event is organized by the National Museum in cooperation with the Office of the Government of the Czech Republic and the Faculty of Philosophy of Charles University to mark the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the Czech Institute (previously Czechoslovak) of Egyptology of the Faculty of Philosophy of Charles University in Prague and in Cairo. (April 18 - 27, 2008; Lichtenstein Palace, U Sovových mlýnů 4/506, Prague 1-Kampa, open 10.00-17.00)

The same page says that there is another exhibition in Prague at the moment, at the National Museum

THE EGYPTIAN ADVENTURE OF KAREL HÁJEK (March 19 - July 27, 2008)
This exhibition recalls a journey to Egypt made by the prominent Czech photographer Karel Hájek in May 1958. Over 600 photographic negatives and positives have survived from this journey: they document in a unique way the rapid and profound changes which transformed Egypt into a modern state and society.

Daily Photo - Wadi el Hitan, Faiyum

Obedient to Fred's promptings, here's a short explanation of today's photos. Wadi el Hitan, the Valley of Whales, is located within the Faiyum Depression. It contains the fossilized remains of plants and sea creatures which lived here when the area was the shoreline of the ancient Tethys Sea. Plant remains indicated that the area was very much like modern mangroves. The most important of the fossils are the whales, which provide data about the transition of these mammals from land to sea and the evolution of modern whales. The site was made a Protected Area in 1983, and became a World Heritage Site in 2005. It is beautifully laid out and well explained with detailed information boards. The surrounding scenery is very beautiful too.

Mysterious church and palace from the beginning of the 1st millennium A.D. discovered in Sudan

Serwis Nauka w Polsce

At the beginning of this year, archaeologists from Warsaw University, headed by Dr Bogdan Żurawski discovered the remains of an Early Christian church and an even older palace. "During research in the area of Selib, a village located on the right bank of the Nile, between the 4th and 3rd cataract, the remains of a building erected on the plan of a huge rectangle were found. It soon turned out that this was one of the most unique churches found in the area of ancient Nubia, that is modern Sudan" - Dr Zuzanna Wygnańska, editor of "Archewieści Centrum Archeologii Śródziemnomorskiej" (Archaeo-new from the Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology) informed. Thanks to geophysical research and aerial photographs made from a kite, it was possible to establish that a circular building eight metres in diameter made from red brick was adjacent to the main building.

"This is extremely interesting, as the only known buildings in Nubia to be built on the plan of a circle are ovens for baking bread, bricks and lime. All doubts as to whether the building was a church disappeared when a stone reliquary, fragment of altar construction and oil lamps were found" - Wygnańska noted.

See the above page for the full story, with photographs.

Search for tomb of Cleopatra and Mark Antony

adnkronos international

Thanks very much to Pier for sending me this English version of yesterday's Spanish post on the same subject.

Archaeologists have revealed plans to uncover the 2000 year-old tomb of ancient Egypt's most famous lovers, Cleopatra and the Roman general Mark Antony later this year.

Zahi Hawass, prominent archaeologist and director of Egypt's superior council for antiquities announced a proposal to test the theory that the couple were buried together.

He discussed the project in Cairo at a media conference about the ancient pharaohs.

Hawass said that the remains of the legendary Egyptian queen and her Roman lover, Mark Antony, were inside a temple called Tabusiris Magna, 30 kilometres from the port city of Alexandria in northern Egypt.

Until recently access to the tomb has been hindered because it is under water, but archaeologists plan to drain the site so they can begin excavation in November.

Among the clues to suggest that the temple may contain Cleopatra's remains is the discovery of numerous coins with the face of the queen.

According to Hawas, Egyptologists have also uncovered a 120-metre-long underground tunnel with many rooms, some of which could contain more details about Cleopatra.

The case of the Merowe Dam in Sudan

BN Village (Prof. Manu Ampim)

Two-part posting which shows exerpts from a report which is available for purchase.

In August 2007, I visited the Sudan for two weeks to conduct field research near the Merowe Dam area in the country’s northern region. My mission was a mini-research survey to record and document the archaeological sites and villages that will be flooded when the dam is completed in the upcoming months. The Merowe Dam is being constructed near the Fourth Cataract and, once completed in 2008, will inundate one of the most significant archaeological regions in the world. This area was an extension of one of the important political centers of the powerful ancient African civilization of Kush, and it was part of an extensive trading network and centralized kingship 4,500 years ago. My other goal of this Sudanese tour was to visit the major temple and pyramid sites, from the capital area of Khartoum down to the northern region of Merowe.

Tourism: Chinese tourism market is promising

Egypt State Information Service

Minister of Tourism Zoheir Garana met on Wednesday 23/4/2008 with visiting director of the China National Tourism Administration Shao Qiwei.

The meeting took up means to promote cooperation in the field of tourism and to increase the number of Chinese tourists visiting Egypt.

In statements following the meeting, Garana said the Chinese tourism market is promising, adding that the number of Chinese tourists increased remarkably in 2007.

The Chinese official, for his part, hailed as distinguished Egyptian tourist destinations.

Tourism in Egypt has become multifaceted including new kinds such as therapeutic, safari, conference, diving and golf tourism, Shao said.

The Egyptian Tourism Ministry seeks to attract more Chinese tourists, Shao added.

Exhibition: Czech Egyptology exhibition in Prague

Prague Daily Monitor

A new exhibition at the Liechtenstein Palace presents the most precious ancient Egyptian artifacts discovered by Czech Egyptologists. Arranged by the Czech Egyptology Institute, the exhibition showcases various pieces that were found more than 20 years ago, when it was legal to take discovered artifacts out of Egypt, as well as color photographs and films depicting the atmosphere from excavation sites in Abusir, Egypt.

Travel: Daylight saving in Egypt 2008

Egypt State Information Service

Egypt will switch to daylight saving time at 12 a.m. Friday April 25.

Clocks will be adjusted forward one hour.

Daily Photo - More snapshots of modern Siwa

Ancient grain borer reveals biblical pest control: study

Scopical/AU

An Israeli academic team says it has resolved the Biblical riddle of how Joseph the Dreamer preserved Egypt's vast, but unsealed grain stores against invading pests during the seven year drought and saved the country's inhabitants from mass starvation.

The secret lies in the burnt corpse of a 3,500 year old beetle found in a grain of wheat claim researchers (Kislev, Simhoni and Melamed) from the laboratory for archaeological botany in the Life Sciences Department at Bar Ilan University, Haaretz reported on Monday.

The beetle belongs to the highly destructive Rhyzopetha dominica species, commonly known as the Lesser Grain Borer, which invades wheat and barley stored in silos after it has been harvested in the field.

Each female Lesser Grain Borer lays between 300 and 500 eggs a month giving birth to thousands of insect larvae a year which bore into wheat or barley. The pest can eat up a silo within a very short time.

The insect originated in India where its larvae had once bored into trees. But several thousand years ago at the time of Joseph when the insect began its westward migration to Egypt and the Middle East, it changed its taste to wheat and barley.

12 Egyptian artifacts on display at Expo Zaragoza 2008

Egypt State Information Service

The Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) has approved the display of 12 Egyptian artifacts at the Expo Zaragoza 2008 due in Spain June 14 for three months.

Minister of Industry and Trade Rasheed Mohamed Rasheed and the Egyptian Embassy in Madrid have asked the SCA to approve the display of the 12 antiques in the exhibition which will be inaugurated by the Spanish King and Queen.

Expo Zaragoza is an International Exposition organized by the B.I.E., the French abbreviation for the International Expositions Bureau (Bureau International des Expositions).

The Exposition has 140 pavilions.

The Expo Zaragoza 2008 site will host 4,529 different shows in 13 different venues during the 93 days of the event.

Added to this figure are more than 1,000 performances that comprise the participating countries' cultural programs.

Egyptian mummy on display at Mdina

Times of Malta

Heritage Malta this weekend will be exhibiting an Egyptian mummy at the National Museum of Natural History in Mdina. The mummy was brought to Malta, together with several other Egyptian artefacts, by Lord Grenfell who was Governor of Malta from 1899 to 1903. The artefacts form part of what is now known as the Grenfell Egyptian Collection.

The items in the collection were first displayed in Malta in 1901 in the newly set up Valletta Museum. The exhibition was organised to coincide with the royal visit of the Duke and Duchess of York to Malta. The Egyptian artefacts were exhibited in one of the inner rooms of the building which was reserved for exhibits that do not form part of the history of the islands.

The exhibition was so successful that it developed into a permanent display, and in 1903 Grenfell was also instrumental in establishing a Committee of Management of the Museum, to manage the new museum, which was housed in the Industrial Hall of the headquarters of the Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce in Valletta, located at Palazzo Xara, just opposite St John's Co-Cathedral.

The Egyptian mummy and its wooden sarcophagus are of late 26th Dynasty.

Egipto buscará mediante un radar las tumbas de Cleopatra y Marco Antonio

terraeantiqvae

If anyone needs a rough summary of the following let me know and I'll do it, but I'm a bit rushed right now.

Los arqueólogos utilizarán a partir de noviembre un radar para buscar, cerca de Alejandría, las tumbas de los amantes más famosos de la historia del Antiguo Egipto: la reina Cleopatra y el general romano Marco Antonio.

El secretario general del Consejo Superior de Antigüedades (CSA), Zahi Hawas, hizo el anuncio en una conferencia sobre los últimos descubrimientos arqueológicos en Egipto ante miembros del Rotary Club en El Cairo. La búsqueda de estas tumbas tiene lugar en la zona de Borg Al Arab, a unos 50 kilómetros al oeste de Alejandría (norte de Egipto), "ya que creemos que Cleopatra y Marco Antonio fueron enterrados en un templo allí", dijo Hawas.

En esa misma área, los arqueólogos han descubierto en los últimos meses un busto de Cleopatra, una estatua real sin cabeza, y 22 monedas con dibujos de la reina, que muestran su belleza. Además, han hallado un túnel subterráneo de 120 metros de largo que da acceso a varias habitaciones que "pueden esconder más secretos de Cleopatra", explicó Hawas.

A new angle on pyramids

The Boston Globe (Colin Nickerson)

It's a theory that gives indigestion to mainstream archeologists. Namely, that some of the immense blocks of Egypt's Great Pyramids might have been cast from synthetic material - the world's first concrete - not just carved whole from quarries and lugged into place by armies of toilers.

Such an innovation would have saved millions of man-hours of grunting and heaving in construction of the enigmatic edifices on the Giza Plateau.

"It could be they used less sweat and more smarts," said Linn W. Hobbs, professor of materials science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Maybe the ancient Egyptians didn't just leave us mysterious monuments and mummies. Maybe they invented concrete 2,000 years before the Romans started using it in their structures."

That's a notion that would dramatically change engineering history. It's long been believed that the Romans were the first to employ structural concrete in a big way, although the technology may have come from the Greeks.

A handful of determined materials scientists are carrying out experiments with crushed limestone and natural binding chemicals - stuff that would have been readily available to ancient Egyptians - designed to show that blocks on the upper reaches of the pyramids may have been cast in place from a slurry poured into wooden molds.

See the above for more.

Journal of Near Eastern Studies April 2008

Chicago Journals

There are a number of Egyptology book reviews in the current JNES. The Table of Contents is on the above page.

Standardized taxi rates from airport to Luxor hotels

Luxor News (Jane Akshar)

Jane has posted about taxi charges officially recommended when going from Luxor airport to various Luxor hotels. Have a look at the above page for details. Obviously these may change over time.

Back online

Well it's not the same experience as driving a Ferrari 360 Spider (no fabulous roaring sound, no breeze blowing through my hair, no raw terror), but having the broadband back is very much like the difference between driving a moped and a seriously fast car. Thanks to BT Internet's support guys for helping me out in my hour of broadband need. Mucho, mucho happiness.

And sorry about the radically off-topic Ferrari reference - it was such a seriously fun car to get my paws on! I've always been a bit silly about fast cars :-) It looks tiny in photographs but it is a serious monster.

Still technically challenged

Apparently it's not a problem with my ISP (or so I'm told by a call centre operator who read from a script, almost incomprehensibly). I've changed broadband routers, and that's not the problem either. Next it's a matter of changing over all the cables and filters. No blogging today.

On the upside, I was given the opportunity of driving a Ferrari 360 Spider this morning - the biggest adrenalin rush in a long time! It's more like driving a fighter plane than a car.

Right, back to my cables.

Andie

Daily Photo - Snapshots of modern Siwa

Blog Update

My broadband connection is down today (I feel as though I've lost a limb). Blogging by dial-up is not a practical proposition, so hopefully the "technical difficulties" that my ISP is experiencing will be resolved by tomorrow. I can't complain - my broadband service only fails about once a year, and it has never gone down for this long before.

Cheers
Andie

CSUSB museum secures future

San Bernardino Sun (Michael Sorba)

The home of the largest display of Egyptian artifacts west of the Mississippi River was recently awarded the American Association of Museums' highest recognition - accreditation.

The Robert V. Fullerton Art Museum at Cal State San Bernardino was awarded the distinction in March, which makes it one of only five museums in the Inland Empire and 775 in the nation to receive such recognition.

"The university's art museum displays a world-class collection long deserving of high recognition," said Eri Yasuhara, dean of the university's College of Arts and Letters. "Through the hard work and dedication of its staff and volunteers, the ... museum has risen to new heights as an invaluable cultural asset to our community."

The association is an organization that represents museum professionals and volunteers who work for and with museums. It also represents more than 3,000 museums nationwide.

Accreditation is an extensive process that examines all aspects of a museum's operations, a statement from Cal State said.

To earn accreditation, museums conduct a year of self-study and then undergo a three-day site visit by a team of peer reviewers. It typically takes three years for a museum to complete the process, the statement said.

Travel: Khawaja kwais

canada.com (Anne Wood)

It is a slow news day so here's something a bit different. Even though this isn't strictly speaking Egyptology, it is certainly travel of a somewhat unconventional sort and it is very engaging. Over five pages Ann Wood describes her journey by barge from the source of the Nile in Uganda to the Mediterranean sea.

At the end of the day, I figured it was just as well that nobody had really understood.

After the umpteenth person had commented on my upcoming Nile cruise and the archaeological wonders I would see between Luxor and Aswan, it dawned on me that my actual plan, to follow the 6,000-kilometre length of the Nile River -- from its source in Uganda to its mouth at the Mediterranean Sea -- had not really registered.

Yes, I explained, I was intending to visit the Valley of the Kings and stop for high tea at the legendary Old Cataract Hotel in Aswan. But to get there, I would first have to cross the vast African wetlands known as the Sudd by river barge.

Attempts to clarify my itinerary, which inevitably drew attention to the fact that most of my journey would be through Sudan where President Omar al-Bashir's regime has inflicted untold suffering and death on the indigenous tribes in Darfur (not to mention the 21-year war with the South that only ended in 2005), met with horrified expressions. Best, I thought, to reserve until my return mention of the fact that I would be one of the first tourists to ride a barge down the Nile River since the end (goodness, probably since the start) of the North-South civil war.

Travel: Cruising the Nile by felucca

The Star Online (Revathi Murugappan)

Instead of taking a five-star cruise on the Nile, try the felucca.

For a long time in the past, travelling in Egypt meant sailing the Nile since the world’s longest river was the main transport corridor. The river was the lifeblood of the country and the quickest way to move about.

Fast forward to the 21st century, and any holiday to Egypt is incomplete without a cruise on the Nile. Almost all cruise lines travel between Luxor and Aswan, stopping along the way at various temples to show tourists the archaeological richness of the country.

While there are many all-inclusive, five-star ships clamouring for passengers, this is not the only sailing option. If you’re game for an alternative river journey (read: budget travel), then jump into a felucca (sailboat).

Cheaper and more popular among independent travellers, the felucca sails as the wind dictates. The simple wooden boat uses one main sail made of cotton and allows you to be close to the water.

A fortnight ago, my cousin and I signed up for a 4D/3N felucca adventure beginning in Aswan and ending in Luxor, followed by a 10-hour train ride back to Cairo.

Exhibition: One Man's Egypt

Borough of Broxbourne

Broxbourne is in Hertfordshire, UK.

Amateur Archaeologist Lew Blake will be exhibiting his collection of Egyptian objects both ancient and modern. The exhibition will be opened by The Mayor of Broxbourne at Lowewood Museum on Saturday 3 May at 2.30pm. Lew has spent most of his life interested in ancient Egypt.

He has assisted on many archaeological excavations in Egypt. This exhibition features a variety of pieces from the modern tourist trinket, to the genuine ancient sacred artefact dating back thousands of years.

Lew has been fascinated by how the past of Egypt has been reproduced and presented for sale and display in our commercial world. This exhibition attempts to explore the contradiction of style between the two, the sacred past and the consumer present.

The exhibition continues until 31 May 2008, and admission is free; the museum is open Wednesday to Saturday from 10am to 4pm. For more information please contact Lowewood Museum on 01992 445596.

Lowewood Museum also has its own website.

Tourism: Egypt seeks to double tourist intake from India

Daily India (Sanjay Kumar)

Two ancient civilizations seeking new moorings and contact in the modern context.

How many people and what was the volume of trade between ancient Egypt and the Harrapan civilization is not certain, but what is certain is the number of Indian tourists visiting Egypt every year is almost 100,000.

If a plan presented by Egyptian Tourism Counsellor in India, Samy Mahmoud, is anything to go by, then Egypt is planning to double its tourist intake from India by 2010.

Exhibition: Tutankhamun back in the US

USA Today

Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs.

The Michael C. Carlos Museum of Emory University announced it will open the exhibit at the Atlanta Civic Center from November through May 22, 2009. The exhibit will then move to the Indianapolis Children's Museum from June to October 2009.

Yesterday's Daily Photo - Temple of the Oracle

I have been asked to explain yesterday's set of photographs, so here's a short summary. The photos show Aghurmi and the Temple of the Oracle in Siwa Oasis.

The first photo (and the one on this post) shows Aghurmi, the ruined medieval town which grew up around the temple. The town was abandoned in the mid 1920s - the main surviving feature is the tower of a mosque which was in use until recently.

The temple, shown in the second photo, was built during the 26th Dynasty and was dedicated to Amun. The temple and its oracle (a physical representation of the god, which could be consulted) were famous throughout the Mediterranean during Greek and Roman times. An early visitor was Croesus of Lydia who consulted the Oracle at Siwa before his attack on Cyrus of Persia in 546BC. Herodotus tells a story of how the Persian pharaoh Cambyses II lost an entire army in the Western Desert, which he sent to destroy the Oracle. It was later visited by Alexander the Great from 332 to 323BC - which accounts for the fame of the site today. The second AD Greek writer Arrian claims that Alexander visited the Oracle in order to confirm that he was descended from the god Amun. Perhaps he felt, like Hatshepsut centuries before him, that being able to claim descent from a powerful Egyptian deity would reinforce his position as the leader of Egypt. His divine origins were apparently confirmed by a priest of the temple.

As you can see from the second photo, the walls of the temple survive, but the internal decoration has been damaged. If you click on the last three photos you will be able to make out some of the decoration that remains in the sanctuary. The first of the three shows the twin plumes of the god Amun. The main feature of the second image is the goddess Mut facing to the right and in the final photograph a lion-headed deity, perhaps Mahes, faces to the left.

Daily Photo - Cloudy sunset at Fatnas Island, Siwa

There's no good reason for these photos - they're just quite pretty!

Rising Sea Levels Threaten Egypt's Ancient Cities

npr (Liane Hansen)

In Egypt's ancient city of Alexandria, waves from the Mediterranean Sea send foam crashing over the sea wall and onto hundreds of concrete barriers built to protect the city from the rising waters.

The crumbling barriers of Alexandria's Eastern Harbor, however, are no match for a sea that scientists say will rise between one and three feet by the end of this century. They predict that rural towns and urban areas along Egypt's northern coast will be flooded, turning millions of people into environmental refugees and threatening some of the country's ancient landmarks. . . .

Alexandria's residents might not notice the change, but rural farmers say they're already living with the consequences as salty water from the rising Mediterranean pushes into the fertile Nile Delta and contaminates the groundwater used to irrigate crops. Just a few miles from the city's port, Khamiesa Abdelsalam Tuto says the sand that covers the trunks of her family's date palms and tomato plants is quickly being replaced by salt.

Heritage Conservation Think Tank

Egypt Today (Nadine el Sayed)

He who has a back can’t be hit in his stomach,” is the adage behind the new student-run Heritage Conservation Think Tank (HCTT). And if more Egyptians both remembered and honored their 7,000 years of ‘back,’ then a better and stronger future for the country would no doubt be in store.

That’s the credo of the project’s co-founders, Hassan Shehawy, 21, and Sherif Abo Al-Hadeed, 23. Disillusioned with the population’s lack of knowledge about the nation’s rich history and tired of waiting for the government to take action, they decided to take matters into their own hands, launching the think tank in an attempt to strengthen the sense of cultural identity among Egyptians.

“We have 7,000 years of history but we forget them,” Shehawy says, “and so we forgot we have a back and now we’re being hit in the stomach. If we remember our long ‘back’, our history, we will feel a responsibility towards [it] and work not only to conserve it, but to complete it and move forward.”

Neither founder has a professional or even academic interest in history: Shehawy is an engineering student at Cairo University, while Abo Al-Hadeed holds a masters in microbiology. Abo Al-Hadeed says that a person’s education or specialization shouldn’t prevent him from caring about his country’s heritage.

Ministerial decree to consider "Tal el-Masharba" as a monumental place

Egypt State Information Service

Egypt's Prime Minister Dr. Ahmed Nazif issued a ministerial decree to consider Tal el-Masharba area in Dahab as an archeological area and to be subject to the Monument Protection Law.

The area includes Dahab's harbor in Anbat era in the 1st and 2nd century to serve trade between East and West. Zahi Hawas Secretary-General of the Supreme Council for Antiquities said that the harbor was discovered by South Sinai Islamic and Coptic Monumental Authority in their excavations from 1989 to January 2008.

Abd el-Reheem Rehan, head of Dahab Antiques area said that the monumental excavations in Sinai emphasize its Egyptian, Arab and Islamic identity.

He added that the excavations include a lighthouse, good storages and trade service offices.

Web based Wiki-style hieroglyph dictionary

Eglyptionary

Thanks to Vincent's Talking Pyramids blog and his post regarding a web-based Middle Egyptian hieroglyph dictionary, constructed along Wikipedia lines. Have a look at the Eglyptionary site to see how it works and what is already available, but here's an extract from the introduction:

Wikis have the philosophy that a page editable by all is more accurate than a page editable by no-one. Think of the Wörterbuch. After the book is published, nobody at all can change it - whether to make corrections or additions. Not even the authors can change it unless they bring out an entirely new edition. But with a wiki, the pages constantly evolve. If someone sees an entry is wrong, they can correct it. If someone sees an entry is missing, they can add it.

Using a Wiki solves all the problems of the other available resources. A wiki is subject to the peer review of everyone who uses it. There is no need to worry about space. There is no limit on the size a website can be, and no matter how large the Eglyptionary grows there will always be more room.

Features

Eglyptionary...

• displays both the glyphs and the transliteration for each word.
• lists all meanings and variant writings.
• has a separate Reference page for each word where all documented ocurrances are listed.
• involves no complicated programming. Simply fill in the gaps - the formatting and graphics are done for you.
• has NO logins. Editing is free and unrestricted, though changes may be rolled back if they are inappropriate.

• 
  

Travel: Luxor and Aswan

Egypt Today (Megan Detrie)

Sites that don’t get nearly as much tourist traffic include the tombs of the nobles, which have stunning wall paintings; Deir El-Medina (the Valley of Artisans), home to the artists, craftsman and workers employed by the Pharaohs; and the Ramesseum, with its colossal bust of Ramses the Great.

Luxor is also home to some of the nation’s best museums. Both the Luxor Museum (6am-8pm in summer; 6am-7pm in winter) and the Mummification Museum (9am-1pm and 4pm-9pm) are artfully arranged with well-labeled exhibits. The Luxor Museum also includes two royal mummies of Ramses I and Ahmes I; unlike in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, you don’t have to buy a special ticket to see them.

Travel: Nile cruise

The Sydney Morning Herald (Ian McKinnon)

About 40 Australian tourists have just disembarked a Nile River cruise ship and are standing on the concourse of the magnificent Temple of Horus at Edfu, completed in 57BC to honour the falcon-headed god Horus, patron of the living pharaoh. It is much the same view Cleopatra would have enjoyed on one of her many journeys down the Nile to oversee her realm 2000 years ago.

The temple is Egypt's best preserved, but it wasn't always so. Over recent centuries dirt, sand and rubbish were allowed to pile up until it reached only a few metres from the ceiling.

In those years the people of Edfu were poor and uneducated with little concept of historical treasures, but they were smart enough to observe that the draft created there was excellent for incinerating rubbish. So they lit up and kept at it until the 1920s, when excavation began in a bid to restore the temple, by which time the compacted space was about only a metre deep.

Now the temple is buzzing with life, faded char marks on the ceiling the only sign of desecration.

See the above page for the complete account.

Book Review: Archaeology - The Conceptual Challenge

The Prehistoric Society (Review by David Mullin)

Of potential interest to anyone interested in prehistory:

This short book asks a series of timely questions about the nature of archaeological enquiry; the place of humans in the natural world; the nature of culture and the language used in archaeological writing. At the core of the book is a call for a reconsideration of the implicit assumptions and concepts we engage as archaeologists and the ways in which our experience of the modern(-ist) world affects our reading of the archaeological materials we encounter. Does mass access to quick and easy international travel, for example, have implications for how we understand concepts of ‘the local’ and does a shrinking world mean that we place less stress on place, distance and the concept of the journey? Can the products of a society which is dependent on the written word really understand what it is to be pre-literate? Does the rise of an ‘on demand’ culture which is less dependent on face-to-face interaction have implications for understandings of tradition, history and socialisation?

Call to rebuild Lighthouse of Alexandria

Egypt Daily Star News

The tour guide mentioned in the above article is the same one who, in March, called for the return of mummies to their tombs (also reported in the Daily Star).

A tour guide is calling for rebuilding the Lighthouse of Alexandria, once identified as the Seven Wonders of the World and was severely damaged following a series of earthquakes that hit the Alexandrian coast over the past centuries.

Bassam El Shammaa is appealing to the concerned authorities and the people of Egypt to start a campaign to restore an ancient landmark.

“If we speak of the Lighthouse of Alexandria, we should shed the light on the Seven Wonders of the World, two of which were built by Egyptians,” noted El Shammaa.

“True the ancient tower was set up by the ancient Greeks who ruled Egypt at that time, but why didn’t they build it in Greece? This was simply because Egypt was the only country with the required expertise capable of constructing such an edifice,” argued El Shammaa.

However, El Shammaa added that it is not known that a lot of other lighthouses were built by Egyptian artisans, namely the lighthouse in Abu Sir in west of Alexandria — a large part of which still stands today.

Daily Photo: Temple of the Oracle, Siwa

Travel: 12 days in Egypt

Sunday Tasmanian (Mike Bingham)

A NILE boatman able to recite slabs of Shakespeare in between mimicking tourists' accents was just one of the surprises which Egypt holds for visitors.

For another, add the attendant at the main mosque in old Cairo who put my shoes in a rack and slapped down a numbered disc in front of me. "Okay," he smiled, "now you're a member."

And how about the security man at my hotel late one night as I returned from dinner carrying a bag. I offered it to him for inspection, and he jokingly responded: "Have you got a bomb in there?"

Not tonight, I replied. He laughed and waved me through.

Then there was the small cafe beside a mosque near the pyramids in Cairo. The fact that tourists like me were sitting back under sun umbrellas enjoying a thirst-quenching beer as the call to Friday lunchtime prayers echoed around the area, caused no offence.

Egypt -- 94 per cent Muslim -- is like that. Enthusiastic about tourism, welcoming, and quite laid back. True, the souvenir sellers have to be survived, but most of them will accept a polite "no, thank you". However, touch the goods and you are set for a long haggle, mixed with mock protests and anguish.

Fiction Review: Pharaoh - the boy who conquered the Nile

Lowly's Book Blog

Pharaoh - the boy who conquered the Nile, by Jackie French.

The book is set long before the pyramids were built. In fact the Pharaoh of the title actually ruled before the first Egyptian dynasty. Wikipedia referrs to Narmer as pharaoh, successor to the Scorpion King. And in keeping with Jackie French’s recent writings this story begins with Narmer as a boy approaching adolescence.

See the above page for more.

Jackie French's own website is at:
http://www.jackiefrench.com/

Daily Photo - Temple of Amun, Siwa

Some drowned, some buried

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El-Aref)

On several occasions Zahi Hawass has announced that underwater investigations were planned for the Nile Valley. In this article Nevine El-Aref describes the recovery of artefacts from the riverbed at Aswan.

It is surely in the quiet and relaxing city of Aswan that the Nile is at its most beautiful. The river flows through an amber desert, past granite rocks and round emerald islands smothered in palm groves and tropical plants. This peaceful scene, however, was disturbed last week by archaeologists shouting and yelling at one another from their moored yacht while they carried out the delicate task of hoisting a decorative object from the bed of the river where it had lain for more than 2,500 years.

It was one of several newly-found artefacts that sank beneath the ripples of the shifting Nile off the shore beside the Old Cataract Hotel, across the river from the legendary Elephantine Island where relics remain of stone temples dating from various eras in the history of ancient Egypt, along with the Roman Nilometre.

Crocodile Museum opens in Aswan

ANSAmed

A total forty mummified crocodiles will be exhibited for the first time in a museum dedicated to them, which will open doors next week in Aswan, in Upper Egypt. The news was announced today by Secretary General of the Egyptian Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass. Settled in front of the temple of Kom Ombo, the museum will host 40 specimens of various sizes: from the smallest, 1.5 metres long, to the real giants of almost five metres of length.

See the above for more.

Berkshire Museum puts a face on its mummy

Berkshire Eagle (Jenn Smith)

The mummy has returned. And he has new tales to tell.

One of the county's most beloved relics — the nearly 2,300-year-old corpse of the ancient priest Pahat — is back on view at the Berkshire Museum's recently reopened Ancient Civilizations gallery.

But now, thanks to modern forensic science and technology, specialists have been able to put flesh to his bones, creating a three-dimensional reconstruction of Pahat's head.

Further research has also revealed that Pahat had a son, who now rests less than two hours away.

"I can't even begin to tell you how many kids come up to me and ask if it's a real mummy. Adults too," said Leanne Hayden, collections manager for the museum. She said the new findings help add a living dimension to the exhibit.

"A lot of people have a hard time imagining being alive that long ago. So this is just great. I'm thrilled," she said.

The facial reconstruction of the mummy reveals an older, clean- shaven male who actually, according to Hayden, "looks very Caucasian."

See the above page for more.

Xenia Nikolskaya's photographs

Al Ahram Weekly (Rania Khallaf)

Nikolskaya first came to Egypt in 2003 as part of a Russian archaeological mission to Memphis, a joint project between the Supreme Council of Antiquities and the Russian Academy of Science. Three years later she returned, this time with the avowed aim of exploring the country.

"I found Egypt a very peculiar place inasmuch as so many cultures intersect yet each retains its own beauty and character," she says. "There is no place like it. The country is huge and the photographer cannot just come for a short time and take some pictures and leave. It takes much more time and effort to assimilate the traces of the past and modern civilisations that co-exist beneath one sky. I always try to capture these different spirits in a single frame."

She discovered a particular synthesis for divergent architectural styles in Cairo, and her most recent project about Egypt, Dust, focuses largely on the Serageddin villa in Garden City. . . .

Nikolskaya is planning an exhibition in Alexandria next December, together with Egyptian photographer Sherif Sonbol. The exhibition will feature images of Coptic Egypt alongside photographs taken when she was working with the conservation department of St Petersburg Academy of Art as part of the Extension of Landscape project that featured characters specific to the Russian icon tradition. But her ambition is to produce a book of photographs showcasing contemporary Egypt.

"Most of the picture books on Egypt are classical and focus only on ancient, Coptic or Islamic scenes. There is a lot to tell about Cairo as a cosmopolitan city, much more than you think."

See the above page for the full story. To see a small selection of photos by Nikolskaya click on the photograph of Nikolskaya on the above page.

In addition, she showcases some of her Dust photographs on her own website. "Dust" is the seventh folder. The site is entirely Flash driven.

Mamluk castle discovered in northern Sinai

Egypt State Information Service

Egyptian archaeological mission unearthed a new military castle for Sultan Qounsoa Al Ghouri in El Tina Plain, Northern Sinai, dating back to the reign of 'Mamluks' . This came after just two weeks of unearthing the first castle in Qantara area, East Ismailia.

The Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosni, stated that the first castle is situated in East Qantara, being the first castle built in Egypt. It contains military industry city and glass factories, while the second one is situated in El Tina Plain, Northern Sinai, dating back to the same reign of ' Mamluks'.

Dr. Zahi Hawwas, the Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities cited that the castle built on an area of 300metters, adding the two castles were of top military and history importance to the cities in which they have been unearthed.

More re 50 years of Czech Egyptology

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El-Aref)

Last week Nevine El-Aref joined dozens of Czech and Egyptian archaeologists and officials attending the function held to mark the institute's 50th anniversary in the Egyptian Museum garden, where the strains of classical music played by the Egyptian Philharmonic Orchestra filled the air. Among the guests gathered beside the white marble mausoleum of the French Director of Antiquities Auguste Mariette were the minister of culture, Farouk Hosni, and the Czech president, Vààclav Klaus, who inaugurated a special exhibition displaying 114 artefacts unearthed at the various archaeological sites excavated by Czech missions.

Klaus told the assembled guests he was happy to be able to take time in his busy schedule during his three- day official visit to Egypt to attend the event, which he described as "significant". The Czech president said the two nations shared a long-lasting friendship on all levels, whether political, economic, foreign relations or culture.

Prague Daily Monitor

Uncovering Ancient Egypt is the name of an exhibition that maps the decades of Czech archaeologists' work and that will be inaugurated in Prague on Friday within Year of Czech Archaeology marking the 50th anniversary of the Czech Egyptological Institute.

The exhibition features items from the collections of the Prague-based Naprstek Museum and from the finds of Czech archaeological expeditions.

The work of Czech archaeologists over the past 20 years is only photo documented because Egypt has quit the practice where it shared the finds with the home countries of the exploration teams.

Statue forger ordered to pay thousands to museum

The Bolton News (Paul Keaveny)

A MASTER forger and his elderly parents have been ordered to pay £363,000 to Bolton Museum after conning bosses into buying a fake statue.

Shaun Greenhalgh along with his mum and dad, George and Olive, duped experts into spending £440,000 on the Amarna Princess in 2003.

The statue was said to be 3,300 years old and was authenticated by experts at Christie's and the British Museum.

But in early 2006 it was revealed as a fake, and a subsequent investigation by the Metropolitan Police unmasked the Greenhalghs as a family of con artists.

It was later revealed the three had conspired to dupe numerous art institutions over the course of 17 years, selling many fake pieces of art.

The family was estimated to have made £850,000 from their dealings, but yesterday Bolton Crown Court heard that between them, they only had assets of £404,250, which were confiscated by the court.

See the above page for the full story.

Exhibitions: Dierenmummies (Leiden, Netherlands)

Dierenmummies exhibition site (Dutch)
National Museum of Antiquities home page (English language version)
National Museum Dierenmummies page (Dutch)

Thanks to Helen Strudwick for pointing out that one of the URLs I provided in the previous post about the Dierenmummies exhibition was wrong. I've corrected the URL in the original post, but here again are the links for the exhibition, which focuses on animal mummification in Egypt.

Daily Photo - More from Balad el Rum

More on work at Seti I tomb

National Geographic (Andrew Bossone)

Two-page summary of the latest discoveries, with photograph:

Egyptian archaeologists have discovered that the tomb of the powerful pharaoh Seti I—the largest tomb in the Valley of the Kings—is bigger than originally believed.

During a recent excavation, the team found that the crypt is actually 446 feet (136 meters) in length. Giovanni Battista Belzoni, who discovered the tomb in 1817, had noted the tomb at 328 feet (100 meters).

"[This is] the largest tomb and this is longest tunnel that's ever found in any place in the Valley of the Kings," said Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA).

"And we still did not find its end until now," said Hawass, who is also a National Geographic Explorer-In-Residence. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.)

Egypt's Colossi of Memnon to be reunited with their twins

AFP

Towering like sentries above the necropolis of Ancient Thebes in southern Egypt, the world-famous Colossi of Memnon will see their number double from two to four from next year.

The painstaking work of 12 archaeologists and hundreds of workers is about to redefine the way visitors see and understand this mysterious site that has cast its spell over travellers for more than 2,000 years.

"It will be sensational, that's for sure!" Hourig Sourouzian, the project's enthusiastic director, enthused to AFP.

Next year two giant statues of the pharaoh Amenhotep III will begin to rise again, just a hundred metres (328 feet) behind his two existing colossi that mark the entrance to the temple.

Another two statues, still half-buried, will also be returned to their former upright position in the years to come.

Rising from green fields, the two 18-metre- (59-feet-) high stone giants seem to be watching over roads leading to the temples and pharaonic tombs built in the valleys and ochre mountains of Luxor's west bank.

Also on the Daily Star News.

Review: Proceedings of the 24th International Congress of Papyrology Helsinki

Bryn Mawr Classical Review (Reviewed by Rodney Ast, Columbia University )

Jaakko Frösén, Tiina Purola, Erja Salmenkivi, Proceedings of the 24th International Congress of Papyrology Helsinki, 1-7 August, 2004. 2 vols. Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum, 122. Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 2007.

Of all ancillary disciplines that fall under the general rubric of Ancient Studies, papyrology probably exhibits the widest reach, contributing to literary and religious studies; economic, political and social history; linguistics; the histories of medicine and science, etc. Perhaps no other event highlights this extraordinary breadth more clearly than the triennial International Congress of Papyrology. The 24th Congress, which took place in Helsinki in the summer of 2004, was no exception, and the two-volume collection of proceedings that forms the subject of this review goes a long way in reflecting the broad interests of papyrologists, even if the great success of the event is muted to an extent by the quality of some contributions. These are Congress proceedings, and some pieces bear the hallmark of the genre: brief reports and announcements that might not otherwise have warranted publication and partially developed topics or editions destined for full treatment in proper journal articles.

Despite the shortcomings of some articles, a large number of the ca. 85 pieces contribute in important and varied ways to our understanding of both Greco-Roman Egypt and of the classical world in general. Here are a few examples illustrating the range of topics encountered in the two volumes. M. Mirkovic (pp. 743-755) offers interesting insight into the economic realities in place prior to Diocletian's reforms, suggesting that we view the reforms not so much as a dramatic departure from earlier practice but as the natural consequence of changes that were afoot centuries earlier. J. Dalrymple (pp. 205-213) provides a fascinating discussion of the real threat, as documented by papyrological sources, that scorpions and snakes posed inhabitants of Egypt. From Th. Kruse we get detailed analysis of Roman management in Egypt of the production of alum (alumen, stuptêria) (pp. 523-547), a class of sulfates used in medicine and in the production of gold, silver and gems, as well as for dyeing and tanning. In a contribution to the history of early Christianity (pp. 341-352), H. Förster reasonably questions the rather simplistic distinction occasionally drawn between religion and magic, taking as his starting point a recent edition of a codex page from Psalms that was thought by the original editors to have been "re-used" as an amulet for the purpose of magic. Förster argues that use as an amulet does not necessarily entail employment as an instrument of magic.

See the above page for the full review.

Environment: Climate Change Threatens Cradle of Civilization

Spiegel Online International (Volker Mrasek)

The traditional definition of the "Fertile Crescent" is expanded to include Egypt in this article (which has a map showing the area under discussion).

The Middle East's famous Fertile Crescent was the birthplace of agriculture, the first settlements and civilization. But a new study shows that climate change will dry up the area's rivers and destroy its agriculture -- with devasting effects for the region.

The region known as the Fertile Crescent forms a 3,000- kilometer (1,900-mile), sickle-shaped corridor at the northern end of the Arabian Peninsula. Embedded in desert and barren mountains, it extends in a giant arc from the Nile valley in Egypt to the east coast of the Mediterranean and up to the Persian Gulf. It runs right through Israel, Lebanon and western Syria, touches southern Anatolia, then Iran and finally descends into the area between the Euphrates and Tigris, in modern-day Iraq. . . .

But the area known as the cradle of civilization is now under serious threat. Before the end of this century, the Middle East's legendary bread basket could dry up as a result of global warming, to the extent that it is no longer suitable for traditional rain-fed agriculture -- destroying its existence as an agrarian landscape.

"Ancient rain-fed agriculture enabled the civilizations to thrive in the Fertile Crescent region," Pinhas Alpert, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Tel Aviv University, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "But this blessing is soon to disappear due to human-induced climate change."

See above for the full story.

Upcoming publication: The Archaeology of Water

This is an early alert for an upcoming publication "The Archaeology of Water" (edited by Marco Madella and J. Shaw) in the World Archaeology series. It is due in March 2009 but the editors are still interested in receiving as many contributions as possible on water management and its relationship to state and state organization. They have announced that work for peer review can be submitted until the end of May 2008 (marco.madella@ICREA.ES). The relevance to Egypt seems fairly clear. Here's the summary of what the volume wishes to achieve:

The study of water-management and its relationship to the state has undergone significant changes over the last few decades. Semi-arid environments have received particular attention in response to traditional models that have singled out state controlled irrigation (and the concomitant agricultural surplus) as one of the key factors in the development of complex societies in these areas. These have drawn heavily on Wittfogel’s idea that Asia's predominantly semi-arid environment, watered by several large river systems, created a situation whereby agricultural surplus was dependent on large scale, centrally-administered irrigation systems. Recent research, however, has put greater emphasis on the role of devolved systems of water management, often with significant input from religious institutions or village-based organisations. Others have highlighted the level of diversity in the design and function of water-resource structures within a single region, as well as in the administration systems behind their construction, management and upkeep.

Archaeologically-orientated papers which introduce new light on these debates are invited here. Although the semi-arid regions covered by Wittfogelian models of ‘Asiatic hydraulic civilisations’ are of major interest, other relevant case-studies from non-Asian regions are welcomed. This volume will focus as much on the cultural, economic, ritual and symbolic aspects of water-harvesting, water-control, and irrigation systems, as on more practical considerations such as hydrology and engineering.

New Book: Spätantike Bibliotheken. Leben und Lesen in den frühen Klöstern Ägyptens

What's New in Papyrology

The above site provides a Table of Contents for the volume of papers which accompany the exhibition catalogue. Articles are in English, German and French.

"Spätantike Bibliotheken. Leben und Lesen in den frühen Klöstern Ägyptens" eröffnet. An exhibition at the Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek.

Daily Photo - Balad El Rum (Town of the Romans), Siwa

To the north of Shali and overlooking the salt lake there is a cliff with dozens of small tombs dug into the rock. There are two distinct tiers of rock cut chamber - the smaller and simpler ones higher up in the cliff, and the larger more complex ones at the foot of the hill. Only one of the more elaborate tombs has any paintwork remaining, but it is a tiny patch. An isolated piece of mudbrick wall at the base of a tomb-filled scarp has never been excavated but this has not prevented speculation that it was a basilica.

I've had a hunt around for more information about the site. I have all the usual Western Desert and Oases publications but nothing is very forthcoming about this site. The one that I don't have is Ahmed Fakhry's Siwa, which may be more informative. A visit to the library may be necessary but I'm going to be stuck at home for the next few weeks - in the meantime does anyone have any useful information about this site?

UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology

The first five articles have been published in the UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology (open version). The UEE, published by the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at UCLA, is a world-wide cooperation of Egyptologists, archaeologists, linguists, art historians, geologists and all other disciplines that are involved in research in Egypt. The UEE has been endorsed by the International Association of Egyptologists. More project information can be found at http://www.uee.ucla.edu.
The articles themselves are currently stored at http://repositories.cdlib.org/nelc/uee/. They are:

Martin Stadler (April 16, 2008) Judgment after Death (Negative Confession)

Elizabeth Waraksa (April 13, 2008) Female Figurines (Pharaonic Period)

Roland Enmarch (April 13, 2008) Theodicy

Richard H. Wilkinson (April 13, 2008) Anthropomorphic Deities

Kerry Muhlestein (April 3, 2008) Execration Ritual

Interview: Peter Lacovara

ajc.com (Catherine Fox)

This is a sadly short interview, which doesn't flow particuarly well. Lacovara has some interesting things to say, and I would have liked to have read more about the upcoming survey and mapping work planned at Malqata, which he says in the interview will be a ten year project.

Thanks to Lacovara's relationship with Egypt's antiquities czar, Zahi Hawass, the Carlos Museum this fall will host the debut of "Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs," the newest tour of Boy King artifacts.

Despite his 53 years, Lacovara still looks a bit boyish himself, particularly when he cracks his impish grin. Only an archaeologist could find a thing in his office, stuffed with seemingly centuries worth of books, papers and Egypt-themed souvenirs. So he repairs to a courtyard on the Emory campus to discuss his field, his projects and his hopes for Atlanta.

Q: How has archaeology changed since Howard Carter discovered Tut's tomb in 1922?

A: We used to dig up only temples and tombs, so we know how Egyptians died. Now we want to find out how they lived. The old school was more art historical and object-oriented. Modern archaeology is interested in the social aspects. It's more anthropological.

Town planning is one of my specialties. It's hard because while tombs were made of stone, towns were constructed of mud-brick, and they have disappeared. Since the sites are not tourist attractions, the Egyptian government can't afford to maintain them as well. It's easier for development and farming to encroach on these sites.

Exhibitions: Dierenmummies and Beneath the Sands of Time (Leiden)

Dierenmummies exhibition site (Dutch)
National Museum of Antiquities home page (English language version)
National Museum Dierenmummies page (Dutch)

Thanks to Huib van Verseveld for forwarding me the official release concerning the Dierenmummies exhibition, which runs until March 2009 in at the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden, Netherlands. This official release is a bit beyond me but I've added it below for those of you who speak Dutch. There's a rather good interactive game for children (click on "start het spel" to begin) - an animal mummy is shown vanishing into a CT Scanner. The player than has to choose from a list of three tick boxes what might be inside the mummy - a moment later the result of the scan appears on the screen.

Het Rijksmuseum van Oudheden presenteert vanaf 24 april a.s. de nieuwe familietentoonstelling ‘Dierenmummies’. In een spannend decor maakt jong en oud spelenderwijs kennis met de oude Egyptenaren en hun dieren. Tweeduizend jaar oude mummies van katten, slangen en krokodillen staan samen met röntgenbeelden, CT-scans, spellen en films garant voor een avontuurlijk en leerzaam dagje uit. De tentoonstelling is te zien tot en met 1 maart 2009.

‘Dierenmummies’ is een tentoonstelling waar kinderen, ouders, opa’s en oma’s veel over de Egyptische dierenwereld en de rol van dieren in religie en rituelen kan ontdekken. Bezoekers kunnen raden welke dieren de Egyptenaren zoal kenden door dierenhuiden te voelen en met een scanspel onderzoeken wat er in de mummies zit. Egyptische dierenbeeldjes, afbeeldingen op reliëfs en papyri, opgezette dieren en skeletten geven een beeld van hoe de dieren er in de tijd van de farao’s uit zagen. Te zien zijn onder andere mummies van een baviaan, katten, slangen, vissen en krokodillen. Ook is er een kijkje in een gereconstrueerd massagraf van katten- en ibismummies en kan met een computerspel virtueel een kat gemummificeerd worden.

In een ‘mummificatietent’ wordt uitgelegd waarom welke diersoorten in het oude Egypte gemummificeerd werden en hoe. De wijze van mummificeren verschilde per dier. Een stier werd vaak uitgebreid gebalsemd en ontdaan van organen. Vogels werden daarentegen gewoon in een vat met hars of pek gedoopt. Enkele van de gemummificeerde dieren waren heilige dieren of huisdieren die voor de eeuwigheid bewaard moesten blijven, maar in de meeste gevallen waren de mummies een offer aan de goden.

In 1999-2003 zijn van alle 73 dierenmummies van het museum in het Academisch Medisch Centrum (Amsterdam) röntgenopnamen gemaakt. Speciaal voor de tentoonstelling zijn onlangs zeven mummies ook met een CT-scanner onderzocht. Een kijkje in de binnenkant van de mummies levert vaak leuke en wonderlijke verrassingen op. Zo blijken sommige mummies enkele botjes of slechts zand te bevatten, en andere juist meerdere dieren. In de tentoonstelling kan de bezoeker met een druk op de knop overschakelen van de mummie naar het bijhorende scanbeeld of skelet.

Pootling round the English language pages on the Rijksmuseum's website I found that there is also an exhibition about the Dutch excavation and survey work in Egypt, with special reference to Saqqara. It is open until May 2008:

‘Beneath the Sands of Time’ presents a picture of the motivations, methods and discoveries of the Dutch who trekked into the desert in search of cultural treasures from ancient Egypt. Attention is also devoted to the museum’s own excavations, which started 50 years ago , and the research in Saqqara (near Cairo), where museum curators still make special discoveries every year.

The exhibition leads visitors via a time line along four centuries of Dutch research. From the adventurers, collectors and merchants who trekked to Egypt from the 17th century on, the first Dutch who worked at sites as draughtsmen or photographers in the 19th century, to the latest discoveries by the museum’s Egyptologists. Drawn from personal notes, diary entries, drawings, paintings, photos, sound and film clips. Among the over 300 objects on display, largely excavated by Dutch archaeologists, are tomb sculptures, the mummy of a falcon, reliefs, necklaces and pottery bowls and pitchers.

Special attention is devoted to the museum’s excavations and the museum’s current research in Saqqara.

Book Review: Egypt Rediscovered

Egypt Daily Star News

I posted a review of this by Rehab Saad on Al Ahram Weekly back in November 2007, and here's another one, this time by Farah el Alfy:

Away from Sharm El-Sheikh, El-Gouna and other similar places, “Egypt Rediscovered” provides an intriguing guide to places around the country you may have never known existed. The must-have book sums up Egypt’s natural heritage and gives an array of choices that are not only spectacular, but so close to home.

With camera in hand, talented writer/photographer Mohamed El-Hebeishy embarked on a two-year adventure, taking stunning pictures of scenery, monuments and animals found at the nation’s rich landscapes. Instead of relying on words to tell his story, he let his photos do the job. They say a picture is worth a thousands words, and it’s never been more true.

The journey starts in El Gilf El Kibir —“a gigantic plateau the size of Switzerland,” as he describes it — located in the much ignored southwestern side of the country. The area is filled with prehistoric carvings and wall drawings in valleys and caves, of cattle and human figures performing various activities. The area also stands witness to modern times, with remains of World War II trucks and carcasses of Barbary sheep.

In the Great Sand Sea, another fascinating location, El-Hebeishy’s pictures capture sand dunes, palm trees and the unique rare silica glass.

If you want to get a direct flavour of Mohamed El-Hebeishy's work, see his article Into the heart of a mystery, written about his travels in the Gilf Kebir (on Al Ahram Weekly).

Eastern Desert Conference

Archbase

If you are interested in the Eastern Desert, you may be intersted in an update from Hans Barnard who syas that the first abstracts for the conference on "The History of the Peoples of the Eastern Desert" are now on-line at the above address:

Your questions and comments are welcome, as are additional contributions. The perspective of this conference aims to be from the desert outward, with emphasis on the history of the native inhabitants of the region, rather than the usual prespective from the Nile Valley or beyond.

Musical CD: Ancient Egypt, a Tribute

Artist Direct

I didn't know whether to classify this as trivia, Egyptomania or what!

This musical tribute to ancient Egypt was originally composed in 1978 for the King Tutankhamun exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum. It was inspired by the artistry of the ancient treasures and the religious symbolism of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which suggested titles of the compositions. Only traditional Near Eastern instruments were used in making this recording, like the nay, salamiyyah, buzuq, mijwiz, mizmar and others.

All performed by Ali Jihad Racy. A review on amazon.co.uk (where it the CD is only available second hand) says that the music was played throughout the 1978 exhibition.

Daily Photo - Gebel al-Mawta (the Hill of the Dead), Siwa

Gebel al-Mawta is a necropolis from the 26th Dynasty. The tombs honeycomb a natural roughly cone-shaped hill on the edge of Shali. The tombs here are mainly undecorated, but some have tiny doorways with architectural features. It is absolutely vital to watch where you step because it would be easy to fall down a hole into a tomb entrance.

In the decorated tombs the damage to the paintwork is blamed variously on Roman settlers who are said to have disposed of tomb contents to use the chambers for storage, on the Siwan King Radwan at the time of the Arab inviasion (who is said to have raided mummies to poison enemy springs) or, finally, on tomb robbers. No photography is permitted in the tombs - my photograph of the ceiling from the tomb of Si-Amun below is the scan of a postcard.

The sky in the first picture looks a little ominous - and later in the day a few rain drops did fall.

Blog Updates

Hi to all

You will find that the blog has been backdated for the last five days. All backdates are this side of the photographs of the rock art of Vulture Rock at El Kab, so they should be easy to find.

Thanks to everyone who emailed asking where I'd gone. I apologize for vanishing off the face of the planet without any prior warning.

I had meant to post a notice that I had gone away, but it went out of my head. I am back in London now.

All the best Andie

Greek temple discovered in Alexandria

Egypt State Information Service

A team of archaeologists have unearthed a Greek temple in the Egyptian coastal city of Alexandria, showing that the Greeks worshipped Pharaonic deities more than 2,500 years ago.

An official of the expedition said that the temple was found during the renovation of an area of Alexandria with the relics of the temple unearthed evidence that Greeks were influenced by the ancient Egyptian civilization.

He added that the Greeks believed in the holy trinity of Isis, Osiris and the child Horus, developing these gods after Alexander the great conquered the city in 332 BC.

News from the tomb of Seti I, Valley of the Kings

Egypt State Information Service

Egypt announced Thursday 10/4/2008 the discovery of a quartzite Ushabti figure and the cartouche of King Seti I, second king of the 19th Dynasty (1314-1304 BC).They were found inside the corridor of the tomb of Seti I (KV 17) in the Valley of the Kings on Luxor's west bank.

The discovery was made by the first ever Egyptian mission working in the Valley of the Kings, after being monopolized for the past two centuries by foreigners, said Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA).

A number of clay vessels were also unearthed along with fragments of the tomb's wall paintings which may have fallen after its discovery. During the process of cleaning the tomb, it was also revealed that the length of the corridor measures 136 meters, and not 100 meters as the tomb's discoverer, Giovanni Battista Belzoni, originally mentioned in his report, Hawass said.

Egypt asks US to return 80 stolen artifacts

Egypt State Information Service

A follow up to the story about the Predynastic vessels from Maadi which were smuggled out of the country by a U.S. pilot. Zahi Hawass is due to meet with U.S. officials to discuss matters further, but it seems extremely unlikely that the vessels won't be returned if matters are as clear cut as they have been reported.

Egypt has demanded the US to return 80 artifacts dating back to the pre-dynastic era, which were stolen by a US pilot during a visit to the country, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Zahi Hawwas said after he returned from the United States where he delivered his testimony in a case brought by Egypt against a US pilot accused of smuggling the artifacts from the country.

Hawwas said the antiques were smuggled to the US after they were stolen in 2002 from a university storehouse in Cairo's southern district of Maadi.

An American pilot who was visiting Egypt at the time bought the stolen monuments from an Egyptian, said Hawwas.

The pilot was planning to sell the antiques off to a dealer from Texas, he added.

Hawwas said American investigators are due in Egypt next week in their follow-up of the case.

Exhibition: 'Egypt's Sunken Treasures' show comes to Madrid

AFP

Some 500 treasures of ancient Egypt retrieved by divers from under the sea are to go on display in Madrid from Wednesday, in a special space in the city's former slaughterhouse, the organisers announced.

"Egypt's Sunken Treasures" exhibition has already been shown in Berlin, Paris and Bonn.

"It retraces 15 centuries of history, from the eight century B.C. to the eighth century A.D., and testifies to the mix of civilizations," French marine archaeologist Franck Goddio, who led the team that recovered the artefacts, told a news conference in Madrid.

The treasures will be on display in a special 4,000-square-metre (43,000-square-foot) area in the city's former slaughterhouse, said Alicia Moreno, in charge of culture in Madrid's city hall.

Art Daily

With photograph.

The Antiguo Matadero de Legazpi will open the exhibit The Sunken Treasures of Egypt through September 28. In the last twelve years, marine archaeologist Franck Goddio has discovered unique testimonials to Egyptian history dating from the 7th century BC to the 8th century AD off the coast of the modern city of Alexandria and in the Bay of Aboukir. These artefacts were lost to the sea more than one thousand years ago as the result of natural disasters. Monumental statues as well as coins, jewellery and cult objects have been located on the seabed of the Mediterranean by means of state-of-the-art technology and recovered in years of painstaking work. Names shrouded in legend such as the ancient harbour of Alexandria and parts of the royal quarters, the long-lost city of Heracleion and parts of the city of Canopus have been re-discovered.

Two fourth century coins found in Sinai

Egypt Daily Star News

Egyptian archaeologists have discovered two fourth-century gold coins dating back to the reign of Roman emperor Valens, the first such find in Egypt, the Supreme Council of Antiquities said on Sunday.

The two coins were discovered by a team of archaeologists led by antiquities supremo Zahi Hawass near the St. Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai Peninsula.

"This is the first time that we discover gold coins which date back to this emperor who ruled Rome from Egypt, while similar coins have been discovered around (Syria and Lebanon)," Hawass said in a statement.

The coins bear the face of the emperor on one side wearing a laurel crown while the other side depicts the emperor in military attire, said Tarek El-Naggar, the head of Coptic and Islamic archaeology at the council.

World News - with photograph

In 378 AD a battle was to be fought which will decisively change roman history. Near the town of Adrianople, now Edirne, Valens organized his forces in battle formations. He wanted a quick victory against the unprepared Goths. He had received word of a huge gothic army walking the fields of his Empire, but when scouts returned they reported a far smaller number, thus giving the Romans numerical superiority. Valens couldn't wait, he wanted a victory, a quick success would give him eternal glory. Following his probably egoistic reason he ignored messages from the Western Emperor Gratian, who urged him not to attack but wait for his reinforcements. All in vain, he saw an opportunity and was keen to use it.

As shields began to clash and swords rage, the Gothic cavalry returned from food gathering. They were sent earlier the day to bring supplies back to the half starved Goths. The battle was intense at their arrival, so by performing a decisive maneuver they were able to storm the roman left flank. The consequences were disastrous; panic overtook the Romans who were now trying to save their skin.

Tomb of Ramesses VI currently open

It is always difficult to keep tabs from a distance on which tombs are open and closed in the Valley of the Kings, but I understand that the tomb of Ramesses IV (KV9) is currently open with a separate ticket which can be purchased from the main ticket office. If you are due to visit Egypt shortly and want to see whether or not is worth the additional purchase price have a look at the KV9 pages on the Theban Mapping Project website.

Aquatic elephant in the Faiyum

National Geographic

Anyone who has visited Wadi Al Hitan (Valley of the Whales) in Egypt's Faiyum Depression will know how rich the fossil past of this former shoreline actually is. Remains of Moeritherium have now been found in the area, which date to 37 million years ago (the late Eocene).

The family tree of the largest living land animal may have its roots deep in the water, a new study suggests.

Chemical signatures from fossil teeth reveal that at least one species of proboscidean, an ancient elephant relative, lived in an aquatic environment.

The teeth of the ancient animal, which belonged to a genus called Moeritherium, suggest that it ate freshwater plants and dwelled in swamps or river systems, said Alexander Liu of Oxford University's department of earth sciences.

"Essentially it's a hippo-like mode of life. That's the closest animal that we can think of today," said Liu, lead author of recent research on the teeth.

See the above page for the full story, which is accompanied by an artist's impression of the appearence of the animal.

MSNBC

"I think it’s the first real evidence that there is a semi-aquatic lineage to the elephants," said Alexander Liu, a graduate student in paleobiology at Oxford University. "It's something that people have expected but not been able to actually show."

Moeritherium had a large body, small eyes set high on its long snout, and the very beginnings of what would become a trunk.

Liu, along with Erik Seiffert of Stony Brook University and Elwyn Simons of Duke University, analyzed the teeth enamel of moeritherium, which lived in the Eocene epoch, more than 37 million years ago. By measuring chemical signatures in the enamel, the researchers were able to learn what the animal ate and whether its food came primarily from land or water.

Karanis and Dime Database online at Kelsey Museum

What's New in Papyrology

This Db includes information from the Record of Objects, with valuable details on the circumstances of each find.

See the above page for details.

Lynx exhibits, neither gallery nor museum

El Paso Times (Diana Washington Valdez)

The Lynx Exhibits center made a splashy debut a year ago in El Paso with its bold "Bodies Human: Anatomy in Motion" exhibit.

It followed with a short presentation of the "Shroud of Turin" for the Easter season, and continued with the current "Tut's Treasure" exhibit.

The King Tutankhamen exhibit features an exciting 25-seat simulated ride that appeals to people's "Indiana Jones" spirit of adventure.

"Lynx was created to be a family entertainment center," said Mike Churchman, a successful businessman who decided to invest in improving the quality of life in Downtown El Paso by sinking a quarter of a million dollars (so far) into the gallery. "Although these exhibits have an educational aspect to them, they are also intended to provide a fun experience."

New Book: Cairo of the Mamluks

Egypt Daily Star News (Michaela Singer)

Cairo of the Mamluks by Doris Behrens-Abouseif, American University in Cairo Press

The trajectory of Cairo’s history has always resembled a struggle for self-immortalization. Lest their memory became a muffled gulp from the depths of the mighty Nile, sultans and presidents, invested, immured and consecrated themselves in brick and stone, as if these architectural regalities might transcend the limits of their own brief existence.

In the case of the Mamluks, as manifested in the prolific and most admirable work of scholar Doris Behrens-Abouseif’s latest book “Cairo of the Mamluks,” the compulsion for ‘legacy building’ was perhaps, alongside their historic defeat of the crusaders, the most distinguishing domestic feature of their rule.

As Behrens-Abouseif explains, the architectural monuments of the Mamluks were not fueled by some misled roman-esque urge for self-deification, but rather for a more rooted and time-based function: legitimization.

A unique anchor discovered

Turkish Daily News

Professional diver Tevfik Camgöz discovers an ancient stone anchor bearing hieroglyphic inscriptions off the shores of Kyrenia, a major port city in northern Cyprus. The anchor was sent to the British Museum, where it was discovered to be 3,000 years old. Camgöz notes that his research is on going and does not give information about the coordinates of the spot. . . .

Last year, a stone anchor bearing hieroglyphic inscriptions was discovered, by chance, off the shores of Kyrenia, a significant port city in northern Cyprus. Examined by professional diver Tevfik Camgöz, the historic artifact was sent by authorities in northern Cyprus to the British Museum's Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan. After a number of examinations, experts found the anchor to be 3,000 years old and that it has no equal in the world.

New Book: haraonic Inscriptions from the Southern Eastern Desert of Egypt

Eisenbrauns (temporary link)
Eisenbrauns (permanent link)

Back in February I posted that this book was due for publication in April 2008, and here it is! Full details can be seen at the above address, where the book is available on special offer at the moment. Thanks to James Spinti for letting me know.

Pharaonic Inscriptions from the Southern Eastern Desert of Egypt by Russell D. Rothe, William K. Miller, and George (Rip) Rapp
EIS - Eisenbrauns

The University of Minnesota Eastern Desert Expedition had its beginnings in 1975, when co-authors George (Rip) Rapp, T. H. Wertime, and J. D. Muhly visited cassiterite (tin ore) mines in the southern Eastern Desert of Egypt. Near the farthest west of these mines, they were shown a group of pharaonic inscriptions by M. F. el-Ramly of the Egyptian Geological Survey and Mining Authority. The inscriptions were photographed, and the photos were given to an Egyptologist to translate. Much later, in 1991, senior author Russell D. Rothe read about the photos in a footnote in an unrelated article. After obtaining copies of the photos from Rapp, he translated the inscriptions with the help of co-author William K. Miller and others. Over the next decade, Rothe, Rapp, and Miller traversed the 60,000-sq.-km area between the Nile and the Red Sea, mostly on foot, photographing inscriptions and systematically surveying the entire region. The results of their investigations of the inscriptional remains found in this vast, mountainous desert are here published for the first time; the corpus will be an important addition to our knowledge of the range and scope of the activities of the ancient Egyptians, especially outside the Nile Valley.

Exhibition: Three day exhibition in Hurghada

Egypt State Information Service

Egyptian civilization will come under the spotlight on Tuesday for three days in an exhibition hosted by the Red Sea city of Hurghada.

The exhibition will provide an overview in Arabic, English and French of Egypt's ancient and contemporary civilization.

The exhibition coincides with the International Squash Tournment hosted by the city.

Egypt's Ancient Glass

Current World Archaeology

Current World Archaeology Magazine has posted a table of contents for its current issue, which includes a paragraph describing an article on ancient Egyptian glass at Amarna:

Egyptian glass is among the finest of the ancient world. Yet how did the ancient Egyptians make it? New work, at the world’s earliest-excavated glass making factory in Tell el-Amarna, is unravelling the mysteries. Here Paul Nicholson delves into the archives of the late great Egyptologist, Flinders Petrie, who excavated at Tell el-Amarna in the 1890s; and then takes us to his own excavations, a century later, as field director of the Egypt Exploration Society’s Amarna Glass Project. Here he tells of his excavations, how he undertook a host of fiery experiments, and why his team has shattered a raft of old interpretations.

If you are interested you will need to purchase a print copy of the edition (number 218).

More from Vulture Rock at El Kab

Czech Egyptology – from humble beginnings to international renown

Radio Praha (Rosie Johnston)

Audio and text.

Czech Egyptologists have an impressive international reputation, so much so that a new exhibition opened in Cairo this week charting the work Czechs have been doing in the field over the past five decades. The opening, which has received plenty of coverage here in the Czech press, was even attended by President Václav Klaus. Away from the pyramids and back in Prague, I paid a visit to the Czech Institute of Egyptology to meet research fellow Hana Navrátilová. She told me about the history of Czech Egyptology and its main proponents.

See the above page for the interview.

Pyramid expert will visit Cal Poly

SanLuisObispo.com (Patrick S. Pemberton)

In “The Histories,” Greek historian Herodotus speculated that it took 100,000 slaves to build the Great Pyramid at Giza.

While that theory held for centuries, Craig B. Smith had his doubts.

“Those numbers seemed out of reason to me, so I decided to take a look at it using the modern tools we use today on large public works projects to develop a detailed breakdown of the labor involved in each step of the construction and put that all together and from that figure out what the work force was and how long it took.”

His estimates suggest Herodotus was way off the mark.

Yet, they don’t diminish the astonishing achievement of the Great Pyramid, which, he argues, took 30,000 workers—including 5,000 skilled workers—to build about 3,800 years ago.

See the above page for the full story.

Exhibition: Macpherson paintings of Tutankhamun discovery

Strathspey and Badenoch Herald

Douglas Macpherson was the only artist invited to depict the breathtaking sights the team uncovered in 1922 on their treasure-hunting expedition to the Valley of the Kings in Egypt.

This year the little-known part played by Macpherson in the world-famous expedition will be commemorated at Newtonmore's Clan Macpherson Museum, in a new exhibition featuring images from the original paintings destroyed by the Luftwaffe.

Museum spokesman Ewen MacPherson said: "When Lord Caernarvon and Howard Carter team went to Luxor and excavated the tomb of King Tutankhamen, Douglas Macpherson was the only artist sent to make watercolour drawings at the opening of the tomb and the sarcophagus.

"Copies of his work form part of this exhibition. Unfortunately, the original paintings stored in the archives of The Sphere in London were destroyed during the blitz in World War II."

Artefacts stolen from local museum

Champion News

A "PRICELESS" coin collection and other precious artifacts in the trust of Sefton Council are feared to have been stolen from the public.

Council bosses admit they have no idea what has become of the Dethick-Brown collection of rare Roman coins, which was housed at the Botanic Gardens Museum, and have reported the loss to the police.

A host of other items including rare Victorian and early American coins, Egyptian antiquities, oil paintings and birds' eggs are said to be missing or damaged.

For those of you who have never heard of Sefton it is in the Merseyside (U.K.) area.

See the above page for the full story.

Daily Photo - Vulture Rock at El Kab

CT scan yields secrets of Vassar College's mummy

Times Herald-Record (Jeremiah Horrigan)

I'm not quite sure how poor Shem-en-Min would have responded to being referred to as "the guy", or whether or not the Akhmim Mummy Studies Consortium will enjoy being referred to as CSI Egypt, but here's an extract from an upbeat piece re the CT scan of another mummy:

The guy's name was Shem. He's a mummy from ancient Egypt and, boy, was he quiet — all wrapped up in himself.

Down beneath those linen sheets — nothing but skin and bone.

An Egyptologist was going to send him through a CT scanner to see what he could see.

Call it CSI: Egypt.

Budda boom, said the hills.

Though he had nothing directly to say about his strange predicament, Shem-en-Min, priest of the fertility god Min, who's resided for a sliver of his existence in a wooden coffin at Vassar College, held the rapt attention of a roomful of reporters, academics and medical staff — modern supplicants — eager to see and hear the evidence of his life, as filtered through 21st century technology.

In a perfect mixture of modern and ancient ways, Egyptologist Jonathan Elias used a Somaton Sensation 4 CT scanner to read the bones of the ancient body.

Elias is the director of the Akhmim Mummy Studies Consortium.

Here's a less colourful version on the Poughkeepsie Journal site (Jenny Lee):

The patient in the sarcophagus was gently lifted onto a stretcher outside Vassar Brothers Medical Mall.

The mummy named Shep-(en)-min, a male priest who might have died around 300 B.C., went in Tuesday for a CT scan so the Akhmim Mummy Studies Consortium staff could study its skeleton, age, birth defects, funeral preparation patterns and other characteristics.

Vassar Brothers medical staff buzzed around the scanned images of the mummy's skeleton because it was the first time staff had conducted a CT scan of a mummy.

It was also the first time in this country an X-ray had been done of a mummy related to another mummy, according to Jonathan Elias, the consortium's director.

Last year, the consortium did a CT scan done of Shep-(en)-min's father, Pahat, in Massachusetts. Researchers knew the two were related by reading the hieroglyphics on each mummy's coffin, Elias said.

Does Egypt's Indiana Jones Have a Hidden Agenda?

Newsvine - Part 1
Newsvine - Part 2

New finds are being generated more prolifically than at any time since 1997 when more than 60 people, mostly Japanese and Swiss tourists, along with Egyptian police and guides, were killed by an attack on the archaelogical hotbed of Luxor, perpretrated by extremists from the outlawed Islamist Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiya, a terror group with links to Ayman al Zawahiri and Al Qaeda. That attack not only made ensuring the safety of tourists in the country more problematic, but it made archaeology much more challenging and risky as well.

So, both the volume and importance of new finds coming from Egypt are remarkable, particularly considering the continuing extreme unrest elsewhere in the Middle East. Thanks for this are due, according to many, to the stewardship of the man sometimes referred to as the Egyptian Indiana Jones, the head of the Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, the singular Dr. Zahi Hawass

Exhibition: Ancient Egypt's City in the Sun Exhibition at Penn Museum

Suite101 (Stan Parchin)

Stan Parchin introduces the exhibition, offers background history to the Amarna period, and details about its organization and contents. The review is accompanied by photographs.

More than 100 works of art and objects from the capital city of the "heretic" pharaoh Akhenaten are expertly described in Amarna: Ancient Egypt's Place in the Sun. This long-term exhibition, on view at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia, is superbly organized by David P. Silverman, Jennifer Wegner and Joseph Wegner. Dr. Silverman is the national curator of the touring exhibition Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs.

In an attempt to break with polytheism, the visionary and enigmatic Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (r. 1353-1336 B.C.) shifted Egypt's capital and his court from Thebes to an uninhabited region in Middle Egypt.

Exhibition: King Tut, meet Emory. Emory, meet King Tut.

emorywheel (Editorial)

Emory’s Michael C. Carlos Museum is announcing a new exhibit, Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs. Set to start Nov. 15, the exhibit spans some of the most fascinating eras of Egyptian history — from the Old Kingdom to the Late Period between 2,600 to 660 B.C. On display will not only be the reign of Tutankhamun, but also treasures from the most significant pharaohs who ruled the Nile throughout the 2,000-year span that makes up the history of Ancient Egypt. In total, more than 130 unique objects will be on display, and the exhibit aims to give visitors an idea of how Egyptian culture evolved throughout the course of the empire.

This is, of course, a major deal, both with regards to the recognition and prestige it adds to the University, and with the opportunity it will provide next semester’s crop of Emory students and Atlanta residents to experience a special exhibit. Perhaps even more important, however, is the level of trust that apparently exists between Emory and the Middle Eastern governments that own important antiquities (the Carlos Museum recently featured an exhibit that included parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls, an exhibit which required the cooperation of the Israeli government).

emorywheel (Lauren Woods)

Though the exhibit will not be featured physically at the Carlos, Emory’s involvement will likely still have an impact, University President James W. Wagner said in a University press release.

“Emory’s dedication to courageous inquiry and the spirit of global partnerships are qualities we want to foster,” Wagner said in the press release. “The Carlos Museum of Emory University has helped to create a superb opportunity to reflect on and honor the ancient legacies of the world, their profound impact on our lives and the importance of continued dialogue. We trust that King Tutankhamun’s visit will open many doors.”

The Carlos Museum will feature an accompanying exhibit, “Wonderful Things: The Harry Burton Photographs and the Discovery of the Tombs of Tutankhamun,” as well as its ongoing presentation of its permanent collection of ancient Egyptian art.

See the above pages for more details.

How the pyramids were built

Talking Pyramids Blog (Vincent Brown)

Vincent's blog has been running some interesting features recently. As well as a weekly photograph (this week featuring the Olympic Torch at the pyramids of Giza), he has been posting the main theories about how the pyramids were built, and it is interesting to see them all in one place.

Tourism: American Tourism Society selects Cairo for conference

ForImmediateRelease.net

The New York-based American Tourism Society (ATS), a professional travel industry organization, announced that its Annual Fall Conference will take place for the first time in Cairo, Egypt, Oct. 27-30, 2008. . . .

“Egyptian Tourism is booming with new hotel developments in Alexandria, Sharm el Sheikh and other resorts in the Sinai,’ said Sayed Khalifa. “Our product, much more diversified than it was five years ago, now has much more to offer the varied interests of the American traveler. For this reason, we are especially pleased to have this wonderful opportunity to showcase Egypt, its ancient past and vibrant present, to this highly qualified group of American tour operators, travel agents and media.”

Daily Photo - More from tomb of Renni, El Kab

The Tassili n’Ajjer [Algeria] : birthplace of ancient Egypt ?

Journal 3 (Philip Coppens)

In spite of its somewhat sensationalist title, this piece is a good summary of the speculation that has followed research into the rock art of Tassili n'Ajjer, and its connection with other areas - particularly Egypt. There are photos accompanying the article too.

The Tassili n’Ajjer of Southern Algiers is described as the “largest storehouse of rock paintings in the world”. But could it also be the origins of the ancient Egypt culture ? . . . .

Despite the fact that the rock paintings of the Tassili can be visited, the few people who have written about these rock paintings in popular accounts have largely relied on the pioneering work of Henri Lhote and his team.

Lhote stated that the Tassilli was the richest storehouse of prehistoric art in the whole world. He wrote a series of books, the best known of which is “The Search for the Tassili Frescoes. The Rock paintings of the Sahara.” It is a popular account of the hardships he encountered in trying to discover and make drawings of the rock paintings that were scattered on the rock faces in the various corners of the Tassili. Lhote himself built on the work of Lieutenant Brenans, who was one of the first to venture deep into the canyons of the Tassili during a police operation in the 1930s. As the first European to enter that area, he noticed strange figures that were drawn on the cliffs. He saw elephants walking along with their trunks raised, rhinoceros with ugly looking horns on their snouts, giraffes with necks stretched out as if they were eating at the tops of the bushes. Today, the area is a desolate desert. What these paintings depicted was an era long gone, when the Sahara was a fertile savannah, teeming with wildlife… and humans.

See the above page for the full story.

Lecture: Beloved Beasts: Ancient Egyptian Animal Mummies, Salima Ikram

Daily Beacon (Elizabeth Storey)

This page reports on a lecture delivered by Salima Ikram in Cairo, about animal mummification in ancient Egypt.

Animal mummies, long overshadowed by human mummies, hold much more useful information about ancient Egypt than has previously been thought.

Salima Ikram, professor of Egyptology at the American University of Cairo, discussed the increase in research on animal mummies in her lecture, “Beloved Beasts: Ancient Egyptian Animal Mummies,” Thursday.

“For a long time people would regard animal mummies with curiosity, tuck them under their arm and take them home,” Ikram said. “Animals were of great importance and significance in ancient Egypt as in many other cultures. On one level, they were important for their gods, part human, part animals. On another level, animals are of crucial significance because they give you food.”

Ikram referred to four different types of animal mummies, their uses in ancient Egypt, how they were mummified, and what they meant to humans.

River Nile survey for submerged antiquities

Egypt State Information Service

Not the first time that this has been announced, but here it is again for newer visitors:

Culture Minister Farouk Hosni said that the first survey for sunken treasures at the River Nile will take place within the coming few months.

Hosni said the survey will be conducted in the area between Aswan and Luxor.

“We will use state-of-the-art equipment in searching for artifacts like Pharaonic statues and obelisks that probably fell into the water during the establishment of the temples of Karnak, Luxor and others,” the Minister said.

He said that an Egyptian team of young archeologists will be assigned for the job to enlist their experience in surveys they had conducted under the Red Sea and the Mediterranean to recover Roman or Coptic monuments.

Exhibition: New York Museum Explores Mystery Of Orient

Huliq.com

Through paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, decorative arts, costume, ancient relics and modern souvenirs-drawn almost entirely from the New-York Historical Society's extensive collections-Allure of the East: Orientalism in New York, 1850-1930 explores Gotham's enduring fascination with the distant lands of the Middle East.

The exhibition provides historical context for Woven Splendor from Timbuktu to Tibet: Exotic Rugs and Textiles from New York Collectors, which is showing concurrently at the Historical Society. Both exhibits open April 11 and run through August 17.

Derived from the Latin word for East, the term Orient was long used in Western Europe (the Occident) to refer to the lands of the Ottoman Empire, specifically those of the Middle East and North Africa. Orientalism began to take hold of the American imagination, as it did in Europe, following Napoleon's 1798 invasion of Egypt. But its ascendancy in popular culture really coincided with the opening of steamship routes across the Mediterranean during the mid-1800s.

See the above page for the full story.

Exhibition: Tut's mixture of kitsch and class draws crowds in London

The Dallas Morning News (Michael Granberry)

Tickets for the Golden Age exhibition, at The O2 (London) until the end of August 2008, will go on sale on Monday for the Dallas leg of the tour, which runs from October 3rd 2008 to May 17th 2009 at the Dallas Museum of Art. Here's an American take on the show at its current venue in London:

Tut's one-man extravaganza, which many love but others dismiss with a mere "tut-tut," is "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs," which will show here through August. Tut minders will then pack it up and bring it to the Dallas Museum of Art for a seven-month run.

Make no mistake, Tut is one highly coveted dude. Cities who land him revel in the millions they make by showcasing his 130 glimmering artifacts and sharing his epic story. And London is no exception.

Tut has been holding court here since November in the exhibition hall of a sprawling sports venue known as the O2, which in recent days welcomed the Eagles, whose co-founders include North Dallas resident Don Henley. Mr. Henley isn't the only Dallas chap seen about. Owen Wilson pops up all over town, or at least his likeness does, in ads for Drillbit Taylor. He shares signage in the Tube, or subway, with the boy king himself.

Tut continues to notch Eagles-like numbers at the box office and will do so until he arrives at the DMA next fall. Tickets for DMA members go on sale Monday.

See the above page for the full review.

Tourism: Lanka, Egypt sign tourism pact

Sri Lanka News

The second day of the bilateral visit of Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama to Egypt began with the signing of an MOU between the two Governments on Tourism Cooperation, the Foreign Ministry said. The signing ceremony was preceded by a meeting between the Foreign Minister and Zoheir Garranah, the Minister of Tourism of Egypt.

The two Ministers agreed that there was a need to develop new tourism products and diversify the existing product base, including the construction of facilities to host international conferences, events, seminars and workshops.

Catering to the needs of tourists and providing a higher quality service was seen by the two Ministers as being of importance for the future development of the tourism industry.

In order to increase connectivity among Asia, Middle East and Africa improving the enhancement of air links was seen as crucial.

The two Ministers also discussed the threat posed by terrorism which could impact on the tourism sector. The Ministers agreed that there was a compelling need to arrest such threat factors in order to protect this vital industry.

See the above page for the full story.

Daily Photo - Tomb of Renni, El Kab

The Sphinx - dammed but not drowning

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El-Aref)

Following three months of comprehensive ecological and geophysical studies carried out by experts of the Archaeological Engineering Centre of Cairo and Ain Shams universities, the Sphinx and its bedrock have been pronounced safe, reports Nevine El-Aref. However, the poor drainage system in the suburb of Nazlet Al-Semman and the area surrounding it is the main cause of the rising water table and the accumulation of salt on the surface of the ground facing the Sphinx's Valley Temple. The area known as Abu Al-Holl Club, located outside the archaeological site, is also affected.

Culture Minister Farouk Hosni told a press conference held this week at the Ministry of Culture premises in Zamalek that the scientific team had found that filling up a section of the Al-Mansouriya canal was another cause of the raised water level. "The irrigation technique used in cultivating neighbouring areas, such as the public gardens and greeneries in the Hadaaq Al-Ahram residential area and the golf courses of the Mena House Hotel has led to the leakage of water into the Giza Plateau, especially the Valley Temple as it is located on a lower level," Hosni said.

See the above page for the full story.

Valley of the Kings closures

Luxor News (Jane Akshar)

Thanks to Jane's recent post on the Luxor News blog for the information that the tombs of Merenptah (KV8) and Ramesses IX (KV6) are both closed for restoration. Both are available for virtual viewing on the Theban Mapping Project website.

Arsinoe honours Rome with a visit

The Roman Forum

For the first time since the nineteenth century, Arsinoe exchanges her home in the Museo Civico del Palazzo Te di Mantova, Lombardia for the Capitoline museums of Rome where she will remain until 6 July. The loan of the serene bronze head of Queen Arsinoe III of Egypt is a welcome acquisition for the museums of Rome, which are lacking in works of the Hellenistic period.

Charismatic and fascinating, Arsinoe was queen of Egypt from 220-204, and was a famous political personality in her time.

See the above page for more details.

Video: City of the Dead

National Geographic

Egypt's City of the Dead is one of the country's largest cemeteries, dating back to the 14th century. As Cairo's population swells, the graveyard provides cheap and even free housing.

Hawass Dig Days - When Seth won

Al Ahram Weekly (Zahi Hawass)

I believe that we have great people in Egypt who can achieve remarkable things. They are intelligent, talented and have vision, but they are continually fighting the followers of the god Seth, the ancient Egyptian "devil" god. The followers of Seth are the enemies of success. They try to destroy these magnificent people.

One of these great people is the artist Mahmoud Mabrouk, who is one of the most talented of sculptors. Mabrouk is a modest man whose creativity knows no bounds; he is polite and dignified and has a wonderful personality. During a tour of the Egyptian Museum with former First Lady Mrs Barbara Bush and Mrs Suzanne Mubarak, I showed them King Tut's beautiful golden coffin, which weighs about 116 kilogrammes. While I was explaining it, Mrs Mubarak remarked that no one could do this today. I said: "Only one person can do this type of craftsmanship today -- Mabrouk!"

In 1987 a chunk of the Sphinx's left shoulder fell off. The entire world was shocked and astonished, and we knew that it was imperative that we restore the Sphinx. When we began our campaign scientifically to restore the monument we formed a team, which included the best archaeologists and architects with Mabrouk and Adam Henein as the sculptors.

Daily Photo - Tomb of Setau at El Kab

UNESCO places Gebel Qattrani on the Natural Heritage list

Egypt State Information Service

Today is a good day - here's another post about an area close to my heart:

Minister of Environment Maged George said that a comprehensive file about Qatarani Mountain in el-Fayyoum was prepared to be presented to UNESCO to be placed on the International Natural Heritage list.

The minister said that the Qatarani Mountain is a rocky area which contains many marine and river excavations which goes back to more than 40 million years. The area also includes the oldest monkey excavation called "Egyptopetex" and also the old Fayyoum animal which resembles the rhinoceros in its shape but have 4 horns.

He said that the mountain also includes a unique types of sea horses, dolphins, sharks and birds in addition to the historical and scientific geological formations.

The international community would be committed to providing technical and finanical support to preserve this area , the minister said , adding that the UNESCO will make advertising campaigns for this area as it is considered an international natural heritage area and it will be put on the international environment tourism map.

It is expected that Qatarani Mountain in el-Fayyoum will be placed on the International Natural Heritage list in August 2008 to become the 2nd Egyptian area after the Whales' Valley.

The insects of Gilf Kebir

Egypt Today (Richard Hoath)

Richard Hoath has been to the Gilf and has some wonderful things to say about the insect life and the lack of bird song:

I have just returned from the almost lunar barrenness of the Gilf Kebir and, as predicted in last month’s column, saw very little there in terms of natural life. I relished the complete peace and quiet of the desert — and I emphasize complete. There was no cacophonous traffic, no blaring music, no yelling and shouting, no dousha and disturbance. But somewhat eerily, there was no birdsong. I wasn’t expecting an orchestra of Nightingales, but heard not even the croo of a Palm Dove or the otherwise ubiquitous cheep of a House Sparrow.

There were birds, but all were dead in the Gilf itself. A House Martin here, a Willow Warbler there, all grim testimony to a failed migration, and the aridity of the desert preserves its victims for years. We found a dead Lanner Falcon that would have preyed on those very migrants and, most bizarrely, the corpse of a Little Egret seen and photographed near Wadi Sura, some 700 kilometers of barren desert away from its natural waterside habitat along the Nile Valley.

See the above page for the full story.

Does anyone have an email address for Richard Hoath? If so, please forward my email address to him - I would dearly love to have a conversation with him about his trip to the Gilf Kebir (a.byrnes@ucl.ac.uk).

Building an Egyptian boat

Tallahassee.com

A filmmaker is re-creating a treasure-gathering voyage of Egypt's greatest female pharaoh, and a Florida State archaeology professor is designing the boat.

FSU's Cheryl Ward spent last week in Egypt as boat-builders laid the keel for a ship she and a documentary crew will sail 1,000 miles on the Red Sea in December. The trip will trace a journey made 4,000 years ago by Egyptians under Queen Hatshepsut to Punt (modern-day Ethiopia), to bring back gold, ivory, exotic animals, myrrh and live frankincense trees.

The project is the work of French documentary producer Valerie Abita, whose "Hatshepsut and the Land of Punt" is scheduled for broadcast next spring.

"(The queen) might have been the first feminist of ancient history," Abita wrote in an e-mail.

Ward is designing the boat with two other archaeologists, a naval engineer and a naval architect. Egyptian builders will construct a boat 70 feet long and 18 feet wide.

"We're doing our best as modern people to imitate something the Egyptians commonly did for 1,000 years," Ward said. "It's a great adventure and a huge challenge."

Ward, 47, has spent 25 years studying ancient ships and was hired at FSU in 2000.

See the above page for more.

Exhibition: More re Tutankhamun in Austria and the U.S.

Suite 101 (Stan Parchin)

Tutankhamun and the World of the Pharaohs, presently at Vienna, Austria's Ethnological Museum (March 9-September 28, 2008), is indeed coming to the United States.

Under the title Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs, the ticketed exhibition, organized by the Michael C. Carlos Museum of Emory University, will first appear at the Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center in Georgia from November 15, 2008 to May 22, 2009. It will then take up residence at the Indianapolis Children's Museum from June to October 2009.

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El-Aref)

Over the past five years, Hawass told Al-Ahram Weekly, the SCA has earned almost $350 million from 23 exhibitions sent abroad. This falls within the framework of the policy developed by the SCA to sending archaeological exhibitions abroad and at the same time give Egypt added worldwide publicity.

Culture Minister Farouk Hosni stated that the money earned from these exhibitions went towards the restoration and preservation of Egypt's monuments as well as building new museums to protect its heritage. He added that the income had also provided a great opportunity to show the many faces of Egypt -- past, present and future.

Hawass pointed out that Egypt was not alone in profiting from the travelling exhibitions; so were the host countries and museums. Egypt will receive about $35 million for the Tutankhamun tour of the United Sates and England, which will share in the huge budget allocated to construct the Grand Egyptian Museum overlooking the Pyramids of Giza.

He pointed out that the Tutankhamun exhibition had also visited Basel in Switzerland and Bonn in Germany, where it earned $6 million, before embarking on its two-year tour of four American states, from each of which it earned $9 million.

"This money is not even a drop of water in the bucket of cash needed to build this museum," Hawass said. "It is costing billions of dollars."

See the above pages for more.