Senet - an ancient Egyptian game of the soul

examiner.com (Diana Gainer)

The ancient Egyptian Senet (snt in hieroglyphs, which means “passing”) is a game for two players, requiring a board with 3 rows of 10 squares each – sort of like a checkerboard cut off short. Each player tries to be the first to send his or her little “men” around all 30 squares and off the board. This is rather like the point of Parcheesi. The second – or last – across and off the board is not just a rotten egg, as we say in English, but doomed! Egyptians took this game very seriously indeed. More on that later.

Players each get 5 “men” (although originally they got 7). To be able to tell them apart, these playing pieces need to be different colors, theoretically black and white. However, the version the Word Geek purchased was made of wood and the “white” ones are not painted at all, which makes them a pale, woody color. The “black” ones are painted green. The Egyptians couldn’t distinguish between blue and green with their ancient language but they definitely had a separate word for “black,” a word they used to describe their own country, kmt, namely, “the black land.” The “great green,” on the other hand, was the Mediterranean Sea, not a land at all.

Anyway, there is a set path for these little “men,” half of which resemble the nondescript pawns of the average chess game and half of which are more like the castles but minus crenelation. They must go from top left, down 10 squares, then up the middle row of 10 squares, and then back down the 3rd row of 10 squares. This sort of back and forth path, when applied to reading or writing ancient texts, is called boustrophedon, from the Greek description of how the ox plows.

These playing pieces (and the human players) hope that they are heading to the Egyptian version of Paradise, unification with the sun, Mr. Ra or Re, because playing Senet is a way of deciding what will happen to the players’ soul (or souls, since people had 2 in those days) in the Land of the Dead. So, stay alert! You wouldn’t want to lose your ka (or ba).

See the above page for the full story.

Don't forget that you can play Senet online at Ben's All About Egypt website.

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Online article: Left-handed Kings?

nicholasreeves.com

Left-handed Kings? Observations on a Fragmentary Egyptian Sculpture, Nicholas Reeves. In Studies on Ancient Egypt in Honour of HS Smith (ed. A Leahy and J Tait) (London, 1999), pp. 249-254

The sculpture

The fragment of an Egyptian statue illustrated in figs. 1-3 was acquired in London over two decades ago and is now in private ownership. The original find-spot is reputed to have been Thebes. Sculpted in white limestone, now discoloured in places, the fragment measures 14.5 cm in height, 11.2 cm across and approximately 7.7 cm from front to back (2). The rear of the figure preserves the remains of a broad dorsal pillar 6 cm or more in width and originally 1.8 cm deep. The surface of the pillar is abraded, and it cannot now be established whether it ever carried an inscription.

The subject is a king, originally shown wearing the nemes-headcloth of which only the left-hand lappet now remains. The surface of this lappet is rather worn: relatively long and rounded, just covering the nipple and with its inner edge evidently running parallel to its (lost) counterpart (3), its stripes are indicated by a close-set series of rounded grooves (4). The lower edge of the fragment preserves the remains of a belt with linear (`Bandmuster`) decoration (5), traces of which are still visible on a small section behind the figure`s surviving (left) arm (fig. 3). A `loop` or `tab` which protrudes to the left of the navel (itself damaged) indicates that the kilt originally worn by the king was of the triangular-fronted variety. Evidently, therefore, the complete figure was represented standing, some 60 cm or more in height, with one foot advanced in the usual manner (6).

Apart from the nemes-lappet and vestiges of the kilt, the torso is naked and without accoutrement. Its surviving portions are sensitively carved, if somewhat restrained in matters of anatomical detail, with prominent pectoral muscles and a taut stomach.

See the above page for the entire article.

Daily Photo by Bob Partridge

. .

Approaching Abu Simbel, Lake Nasser

Copyright Bob Partridge,
Editor of Ancient Egypt Magazine, with my thanks

Hatshepsut in Berlin a fake?

Earth Times

An Egyptian bust acquired at vast expense by a Berlin museum over two decades ago may be a forgery, according to the German news magazine Der Spiegel on Sunday. The bust in brown granite of female Pharaoh Hatshepsut, who ruled Egypt for 22 years, is one of the draws at the German capital's Egyptian Museum, and is only outshone by the limestone bust of exquisite Queen Nefertiti.

The magazine said scientists at the Technical University of Berlin had discovered the Hatshepsut stone was rich in the minerals magnesite and siderite.

No other bust from the Nile region was made of such rock, suggesting that the 16.5-centimetre-high figure might be a modern fake, according to the magazine.

adn.es

Una de las obras más valiosas del Museo Egipcio de Berlín, la cabeza de la faraona Hatshepsut, podría ser una falsificación, según un informe realizado por la Universidad Técnica de Berlín, que con ello alimenta una sospecha que circula desde hace tiempo entre los círculos de expertos.

Según el citado documento, del que informa el semanario alemán "Der Spiegel" en su edición de mañana, hay muchos indicios que apuntan a que la escultura egipcia no es de "granito pardusco" como se describe en el catálogo sino de un material hasta ahora desconocido en esculturas del Nilo.

En las pruebas realizadas se ha hallado una sustancia que podría caracterizarse de "sintética", algo que en la industria de la construcción se utiliza como argamasa o gres calcáreo.

Hija de Tutmosis I, esposa de Tutmosis II y madrastra de Tutmosis III, Hatshepsut, cuyo nombre significa "la unidad de Amón delante de los nobles", fue la reina-faraón que gobernó durante más tiempo (1502-1482 a.c.) en el Antiguo Egipto.

Su momia fue descubierta hace tan sólo dos años en el tercer piso del Museo de Antigüedades Egipcias de El Cairo, donde fue identificada gracias al análisis de una muela.

Comparada tan sólo con Cleopatra, fue la primer mujer que reinó en el Nilo hace 3.500 años y bajo su reinado se construyeron cuatro de los obeliscos más altos de Egipto o el complejo de templos funerarios Deir-el-Bahari.

IOL

Asked for comment, Dieter Wildung, the recently retired director of the museum, said he had not been aware of the scientific study.

The museum reportedly paid 1 million marks (R5.9 million) to buy the statue in 1986 from Robin Symes of Britain but Wildung declined to confirm its price.

"The purchase was long before my time," said Wildung, who became head of the museum in 1989 and retired two weeks ago. He criticised the media for "sneakily" going public with the report without clearance from the museum.

Hatshepsut died in 1458 BC. The Berlin museum has been criticised by Cairo officials for refusing to give Nefertiti's bust, regarded as a national treasure, back to Egypt. -

See the above pages for more.

Investigations at Amheida

Live Science (Rob Goodier)

A trench that was cut through collapsed mud bricks and the compacted debris of buildings leveled centuries ago is revealing a dusty scene of roof-topped streets in ancient Amheida, a city marooned on an oasis deep in Egypt’s western desert.

The latest in a chain of archaeological discoveries in a site that dates back at least 5,000 years, the covered streets are a glimpse into rural life under the Egyptian sun.

At Amheida, archaeologists led by Roger Bagnall at New York University have sifted through the remains of a settlement far removed from the thoroughfares of the Nile Valley. The site is in the Dakhleh Oasis, 500 miles (800 kilometers) from Cairo and 185 miles (300 kilometers) from Luxor, a religious and political hub of ancient Egypt.

The archaeological work has yielded a treasure trove of art and writing. Through this rural lens, archaeologists are shifting their notions of education in ancient Egypt during the Greek and Roman empires. And they have noticed deep connections between powerful central governments and the outposts in the oases.

Bagnall described the latest discoveries at a conference in Manhattan last month.

See the above page for the full story.

Exhibition: Carnarvon, Highclere Castle, UK

Discovery Channel News (Rossella Lorenzi)

Lord Carnarvon, the man who funded the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun and died five months later in mysterious circumstances before he could actually see the mummy's face, was a superstitious man who wore the same lucky bow tie all his life.

Such anecdotes are part of a unique exhibition at Highclere Castle, home of the Carnarvon family since the architect of London's Houses of Parliament built it in the 1840s.

Rising in the Berkshire countryside south of Newbury, England, the castle kept many secrets on its own. For more than 60 years, its walls concealed an important chapter of the King Tut search: a cache of Egyptian antiquities, excavated by George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon and his colleague and employee, Howard Carter in the years leading up to the discovery of the treasure-filled tomb.

"My grandfather was superstitious and did not want to talk about Egypt, so he took the Egyptian collection out of sight. It remained hidden away in a cupboard between two rooms down below the cellars for some 65 years. We found it after his death in 1987," George, the current earl -- the eighth -- told Discovery News.

See the above page for the full story.

New Book: Oncology and Infectious Diseases in ancient Egypt

Heartfelt congratulations to Paula on the publication of her first book, which is available from various online suppliers.

Oncology and Infectious Diseases in ancient Egypt: The Ebers Papyrus? Treatise on Tumours 857-877 and the cases found in ancient Egyptian human material by Paula Veiga. Paperback, 100 Pages, published 2009. VDM Verlag Dr. Muller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG. ISBN 9783639166835.

This is the result of previous information and more research done at Manchester in 2007-2008, at the KNH centre.

This work focuses on pathogenic elements found in the Ebers papyrus: a series of prescriptions that are believed to be the remains of a "book of tumours" which deals with what appear to have been benign ganglionic masses, polyps, sebaceous cysts, varicose veins and aneurysms. Discussion of this Treatise on Tumours (paragraphs 857-877) includes the previous probable identification of a disease, the analysis carried out to date by several Egyptologists, and my own interpretation which combines the linguistic approach adopted by these scholars in the past, and the medical observations of scientists in more recent years: in total we have descriptions of neoplasias versus swellings. This work also includes some references to the plants mentioned as treatments for the illnesses described in the 21 paragraphs of the Papyrus? last section on tumours (what it is now thought to be oncological concerns) taking into account the problem of translation, since some plants are still unidentified today.References are made to material evidence found in Egyptian mummies in several sites revealing the presence of a tumour.

About the Author
Researcher of ancient Egypt since 2002 with a 'previous life' on Tourism and Hotel Management.I learned also about ancient writings and peoples around Egypt. This present work on cancer in ancient Egypt acknowledges also the importance of what happens in Egypt today regarding health issues, allowing the possibility for preliminary conclusions.

Egyptian gallery at Putman Museum to be renovated

Quad-City Times

The Putnam Museum's most iconic gallery is about to undergo a renovation, and officials at the Davenport venue want the public's help in giving it a new name to go with the new look.

The Egyptian Gallery has housed two mummies since the 1960s and is slated to reopen Aug. 22 with several updated components, including new flooring, lighting and mummy cases, plus a touch-screen video monitor that features results from the CT scans of the mummies performed at Genesis Medical Center in Davenport two years ago.

Spellbound in Brooklyn

Archaeology Magazine (Morgan Moroney)

Egyptian magic was much more than hocus-pocus

Housed in a small gallery off the Brooklyn Museum's Egyptian wing is "Magic in Ancient Egypt: Image, Word, and Reality," an exhibition on view until October 8, 2009. Highlighting 20 objects from the museum's collection, it emphasizes how magic and religion, magic and science, even magic and health care, were inseparable in ancient Egypt. Despite its small stature and lack of videos or interactive computer displays, which sometimes overwhelm artifacts in exhibitions nowadays, "Magic" was an enjoyable presentation of a fascinating subject.

For the Egyptians magic, known as heqa, was neither scary nor strange, good nor evil, but a force present in nearly every aspect of their lives. For example, the exhibit examines the power of images. In the home, gods were worshiped as protective deities through depictions such as two representations on display here, both of the god Bes, guardian of children and pregnant women. One is an 18th Dynasty relief (1549-1298 B.C.), the other a Third Intermediate Period statue (1064-656 B.C). Magical amulets, such as an Eye of Horus (wadjet eye) on display, were worn for protection against evil and disease. Amulets were also wrapped in mummies to safeguard the deceased and heal incisions made by embalmers during mummification. The exhibit also presents an 18th Dynasty ancestral bust, an example of images of deceased family members kept in the home and in funerary chapels, and appealed to by the living for help in their daily lives.

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

New online articles at Francesco Raffaele's website

Late Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt (Francesco Raffaele)

Thanks to EEF for the information that Francesco has updated his website with some new articles.

Jean-Loïc Le Quellec, Dirk Huyge: "Rock art research in Egypt, 2000-2004", in: Paul G. Bahn, Nathalie Franklin, Matthias Strecker (eds), News of the World, Oxbow Books, Oxford, 2008, 89-96. [PDF 600Kb]

Jean-Loïc Le Quellec: "Can one 'read' rock art? An Egyptian Example", in: Paul Taylor (ed.), Iconography without Texts, Warburg Institute (Warburg Institue Colloquia 12), London, 2008, 25-42. [PDF 900Kb]

Bernadette Menu: "La notion de MAÂT dans l'idéologie pharaonique et dans le droit égyptien", in: B. Anagnostou-Canas (ed.), Dire le droit: normes, juges, jurisconsultes. Actes du colloque International de l’Institut d’Histoire du Droit (Paris, 4 et 5 novembre 2004), Ed. Panthéon-Assas, Paris, 2006, 33-43 [PDF 590Kb]

Bernadette Menu: "Réflexions d'une historienne égyptologue", in: Transeuphratène 31, 2006, 95-100 [PDF 290Kb]

Bernadette Menu: "L'expérience historique au service de l'anthropologie du droit. L'exemple de l'égyptologie juridique", in: Cahiers d'anthropologie du droit, 2004/4, 289-94 [PDF 1,1Mb]

Gabor Takacs: "The Law of Belova in Work", in: Rocznik Orientalistyczny 51/2, 1998, 115-128 [PDF 3Mb]

L. Labridy, F. Silpa: "Aegyptio-Graphica V. Un pluriel archaïque sur un vase Decorated du Nagada IIC", in: Cahiers Caribéens d'Egyptologie 10, 2007, 43-47 [PDF 260Kb]

J.P. Gourdine: "Contribution de la biologie moléculaire du gène à l'étude du passé de l'humanité. Cas de l'Afrique ancienne et moderne", in: CCdE 9, 2006, 5-19 [PDF 320 Kb]

Oum Ndigi: "L'expression des cardinaux et des ordinaux en égyptien et en basaa", in: Discussions in Egyptology 33, 1995, 57-72 [PDF 540Kb]

Barbara Adams: "Decorated sherds from renewed excavations at Locality 6, Hierakonpolis", in: CCdE 3/4, 2002, 5-27 [PDF, 1200 Kb]

Alain Anselin: "Réflexions autour des noms égyptiens de l’oeil - à propos de découvertes archéologiques récentes dans le delta",
in: Apuntes de Egiptologia 3, 2007 [PDF, 569Kb]

Alessandro Suzzi Valli: "Chieftaincy oggi. Il caso del Ghana" (unp.) PDF (142Kb): http://www.anse-egypt.com/articles/Suzzi-Valli_Chieftaincy.pdf

Alain Anselin: "Notes pour une lecture des inscriptions des Colosses de Min de Coptos", in: CCdE 2, 2001, 115-136 (PDF)

Stan Hendrickx: "Autruches et flamants - les oiseaux représentés sur la céramique prédynastique de la catégorie Decorated", in: CCdE 1, 2000, 21-52 (PDF)

Dmitry Proussakov: English Summaries of two of his monographies (orig. in russian)

Looking for undiscovered treasures

Earth Times

Excavations in Egypt could reveal numerous valuable treasures, a German expert said on Wednesday, ahead of an Egyptology conference taking place in the German city of Muenster at the weekend. "In Egypt there is a lot more in the ground than people think," said Erhart Graefe, the director of the Egyptology Institute at the University of Muenster.

In recent weeks alone, excavations in the Valley of the Kings revealed new graves, Graefe told the German Press Agency dpa.

The Egyptologist ruled out new discoveries on the scale of Tutankhamun, but said the Mediterranean Sea could hold significant finds.

"In recent years there have been big underwater operations," Graefe said. "There's a lot more to be found," the researcher added, referring in part to the sunken royal city near Alexandria.

See the above page for the full story.

Kent and Susan Weeks - Living on a Dahabiya

New York Times

Kent Weeks and his wife, Susan Weeks, spend most of their waking hours in a 130-room tomb called KV 5 in the legendary Valley of the Kings, the site of many tombs. And at the end of the work day, they come home to a place only slightly less unusual.

The couple lives on a 25-meter-long (85-foot-long) dahabiya, a houseboat moored along the banks of the Nile in this southern Egyptian city of around 400,000, known in ancient times as Thebes. Their closest neighbors are the mummies in the Mummification Museum next door.

“Archaeologists often live on boats because the sites are near the river,” said Dr. Weeks, 67, an Egyptologist. He captured worldwide headlines in 1995 with the announcement that KV 5 had been the burial chamber for the sons of Rameses II and sprawled deeper into the desert hillside than anyone had suspected.

The couple, who have lived in Egypt for much of the last 43 years, first lived on a dahabiya in the 1960s while working with the Unesco team trying to save historic sites after the construction of the Aswan Dam.

The boats, which resemble traditional Arab sailing vessels, became popular more than a century ago when as many as 450 were used for the tourist trade. Only four or five remain from the period and “this handful survived because they had metal hulls,” Dr. Weeks said. “The rest were sunk to get rid of vermin.”

See the above page for the full story.

Archaeologists or anthropologists wanted

Past Preservers

A new television series for the History Channel is seeking an Archaeology or Anthropology Expert/Professor AND several student Archaeology or Anthropology majors or recent graduates! (Please do NOT submit if you are only an enthusiast.)

This expert and the students will be a part of a small team that will travel to several digs in Egypt with the legendary Dr. Zahi Hawass. (If the expert and/or the students have experience in Egyptology even better, but this is not a requirement.)

This series will be the adventure of a lifetime! There is also pay to be negotiated. And the time commitment is roughly October 2009 through February 2010. We understand this may seem like a long time frame for some professionals and students, but it is an opportunity unlike any other!

If this sounds like you, please email Nigel Hetherington for the auditioning instructions and if you are not currently on the Past Preservers talent database, please send a current CV, including your date of birth, nationality, and mention of any previous experience working in the media, along with a photograph of you, to nigel@pastpreservers.com

Please note if you have applied previously to this appeal, you can reapply and your application will be considered again


Nigel J. Hetherington M.A
Owner & Founder

Past Preservers
UK Mobile: +44 (0) 798 250 4194
Egyptian Mobile: +20 (0) 10 346 1169
Belgium Mobile +32 470 561572
US Mobile: +1 347 334 9938

Skype ID: pastpreservers
www.pastpreservers.com

Past Preservers Blog
http://pastpreservers.blogspot.com

Early photographs of Egypt

Don McCullin Selects

Thanks to David Petersen for this link, which shows some excellent early photographs of Egypt and elsewhere. The one on the right is a Francis Frith photograph of Kom Ombo.

On a recent visit to the National Media Museum, to coincide with the opening of a major exhibition of his work, Don made a personal selection of photographs from the museum's collection . . . revealing how these sites were recorded by earlier photographers such as Francis Frith and Maxime Du Camp.

New Book: Abusir XIII

Czech Institute of Egyptology

Abusir XIII. Abusir South 2: tomb complex of the vizier Qar, his sons Qar Junior and Senedjemib, and Iykai Hardbound, 364p. with many illus and b/w photos, 43 col pls. (Czech Institute of Egyptology 2009)
ISBN-13: 978-80-87025-21-5
ISBN-10: 80-87025-21-0

List of authors: Miroslav Barta, Ales Bezdek, Viktor Cerny, Salima Ikram, Petr Kocar, Roman Krivanek, Martina Kujanova, Petr Pokorny, Colin Reader, Zdenka Suvova, Petra Vlckova.


The current volume is the first of three planned publications dedicated to the 1995-2002 discovery of the Sixth Dynasty complex of the vizier Qar and his sons, officials who lived during the reigns of Teti - Pepy II. The report provides a full record of the tombs of the vizier Qar, his sons Qar Junior, Senedjemib and Tjenti, and Iykai. In addition, there are chapters on the geology and geophysical survey of Abusir South as well as the faunal, floral, and human remains discovered in the tombs.

The second volume will contain the full publication of the tomb complex of Inti with chapters on faunal remains and on the restoration of individual tombs belonging to the family. The final volume is to document numerous unique finds discovered during the excavation of the tombs, which together provide a great deal of information about the cemetery's development down to the First Intermediate Period.

This tomb complex provides a vast array of evidence with respect to architecture, decoration, tomb equipment, administrative titles and personal names. The fully preserved and decorated cult chapel of the vizier, his decorated burial chamber, and several groups of finds from individual burial chambers-among them hundreds of copper implements, imitations of foreign vessels, cult tools, copper vessels, etc. stand out as particularly important.

The current publication illuminates the lives of the ancient Egyptian administrative elite in Memphis at the end of the Old Kingdom. Their richly decorated tombs and lavish burial equipment demonstrate the care with which they approached the afterlife as well as their bold attempts to emulate the tomb complexes of even higher status elites. At the same time, faunal and floral remains provide new evidence on the depredation of the natural environment that contributed to the ultimate demise of the Old Kingdom state.

Sample, don't trample

The Scientist (Bob Grant)

Historical, archaeological, and paleontological artifacts are precious. And often preciously small: a 500-millimeter fossil fragment, 2 milligrams of charcoal from a prehistoric fire. Decoding the chemical composition of a material—especially things like bone, shell and teeth—can yield a wealth of information about the organism and time to which it belonged. But often studying something means dismantling it, and the thought of grinding some part of these tiny treasures into a fine powder for analysis makes museum curators cringe.

In a lab at the Smithsonian Institution's Museum Conservation Institute in early spring, scientist Odile Madden fingers tortoise shell hair combs and samples of elephant tusks. She explains that one technique can differentiate between an object made out of ivory from an engendered elephant species and one made from cow horn, for example.

Raman spectroscopy can peer into the molecular interstices of many materials, fingerprinting their composition and the nature of their chemical bonds in great detail without harming the object it's probing. Other nondestructive techniques, such as infrared spectroscopy, analyze molecular structure with less resolution. "Infrared spectroscopy can tell you that you have a protein. It can't tell you if you have keratin, which is the protein of horns and hair and turtle shells," Madden says.

See the above page for the full story.

More re Birmingham mummy

Newspost Online

The murder mystery of a 1,700-year-old Graeco-Roman mummy has deepened, with CT scans revealing that a ‘metallic’ object stuck in its neck is in fact one of three or four fragments lodged in the base of the skull.

According to a report by Sky News, the 1,700-year-old mummy was scanned along with two other Egyptian mummies from Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, in a quest for more information on the circumstances surrounding their deaths.

The scans were arranged by Bob Loynes, previously an orthopaedic consultant at Mid-Staffs Hospital, UK, and a keen Egyptologist.

In the past, it has been necessary to unwrap mummies to carry out investigations, but this risky process can now be avoided.

“The opportunity to help with the further investigation of these mummies was a very exciting one for me,” Loynes said.

“The CT Scans have shown amazing details, which have produced as many questions as they have given answers,” he added.

Scans of the second mummy, that of Padimut, priest of the goddess Mut and probably of the 21st Dynasty (1085-935 BC), showed evidence of high quality mummification, including removal of the brain and plates in front of the eyes.

See the above page for the full story.

Tutankhamun's "other" name

examiner.com (Diana Gainer)

The Word Geek managed to see King Tut at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco this past weekend, thanks to her very generous sisters. A previous column discussed this former pharaoh’s main name, namely Tutankhamun (or Tutankhamen, if one prefers that spelling), and how it used to be Tutankhaten. This time around, the discussion will focus on his other name, the one he took when he ascended to the throne of Upper and Lower Egypt. This is the one which is written with a circle, a scarab beetle, three little prongs, and a large half circle with the flat part on top. Having been to the exhibit, the Word Geek is puzzled by this no longer and got to see it many times really big, so her bad eyesight is no longer a problem. Neither is her lack of access to her good Egyptian dictionary, which had previously caused her to read the last sign incorrectly.

This second name or throne name of Tut’s is Nebkheperure. The neb tidbit is that big half-circle which is written last due to its total lack of prestige. The kheper or hpr (and the “h” really ought to have a scoop beneath it) is the name of the dung beetle. That is to say, the scarab! He was a minion of the sun disk or else an avatar, depending on who is telling the story. The three little prongs are the “u” (or “w” if one wishes to be slightly more accurate), sometimes a sign of a plural, but perhaps not in this case, since there’s only one Tut. The circle at the beginning of this name was not supposed to have lines across it as depicted in an earlier version seen by the Word Geek, in which case it would be the same sound that the beetle’s name started with. No, it’s the sun god, Ra (or actually just the first letter with a superfluous vowel so it’s pronounceable, Re). It should ideally be a red circle with a dot in the middle, sort of a belly button. Since it’s a deity’s name, it gets to go first. And since the beetle is a deity’s minion, he gets to go in second place. But poor, old nb is nothing but perhaps an old basket and is thrown in last, even though it’s actually pronounced first. So it goes with the irregularity of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

See the above page for the full story.

Zerzura Club

Zerzura Club

Thanks to Giancarlo Negro for letting me know that the new website for the "Zerzura Club" is now online at the above address in Italian and English. Work is still in progress.

Daily Photo by Bob Partridge

There are lots more posts to come, from the last couple of weeks, but I thought that that was probably enough for one day!

Facade of the temple of Nefertari and Ramesses II
Abu Simbel, Lake Nasser


Copyright Bob Partridge,
Editor of Ancient Egypt Magazine, with my thanks