Someone is standing up to the anonymous web trolls

The Guardian, UK (Paul Harris)

There's not much Egyptology news around and I know that there are other bloggers reading this blog so I thought that the above story might be of interest to some of you. Malevolent anonymous comments are something that most bloggers have to deal with and I have a couple of really unpleasant anonymous commenters myself, whose vitriol I just delete during moderation.

It is one of the most irritating and ubiquitous annoyances of the Internet age: the anonymous commenter. Hiding behind a made-up moniker, anonymous commenters surface on virtually every blog or news website, posting bile, insults, prejudice and ignorance, often for the sheer hell of it.

In the free for all that has so far marked internet-based publishing, there seems to be no recourse for those targeted by the so-called "trolls". Certainly not of the sort they would have if such comments were published in hard copy on the letters pages of old media newspapers and magazines, where the threat of libel has kept up standards. But, perhaps, no longer.

A law suit filed last week in New York has threatened to hold some of the internet's more unpleasant denizens to account: a rare example of old media rules starting to be applied online.

Photo for Today - Walters Museum

EG-024 Walters Museum

Copyright Rick Menges, with my thanks

Restoring history

The National (Nabil Shawkat)

Immortality is a messy business. If you don’t believe it, ask Ramadan Badry Hussein, the man keeping track of thousands of monuments in Egypt. Only five years ago, cleaning men stole three ancient statues from the basement of the Egyptian Museum. When quizzed by the police, they said that the statues were just lying around unattended. They bundled them up with some construction debris they were removing from the building and walked out. Their deception went unnoticed for days. The basement housed more than 100,000 artefacts, and hadn’t been properly catalogued for decades. The thieves were caught this time, but others may have got away with an ancient treasure or more. When mummies and furniture, statues and votive offerings are stacked in boxes and deposited in dusty corners, anything can happen.

More re discoveries at Qatna

Heritage Key (Ann Wuyts)

The ongoing dig at the ancient royal town of Qatna, Syria, has brought some exciting new discoveries to light.

Among the skeletal remains, archaeologists have found precious gold jewellery, gemstones, alabaster vases, detailed ivory artefacts, tiny figurines.

Since the start of this year's excavation mid-July, a total of 379 artefacts were recorded in the tomb.

The archaeological mission – a Syrian-German cooperation between the University of Tubingen and the Syrian governement – is further excavating the royal sepulchre that was discovered last year under the northwest wing of Qatna's royal palace.

Among the burial gifts, a number of Egyptian object are of particular interest.

Book Review: For the Living and the Dead

Al Masry Al Youm (Review by Sara Elkamel)

In For the Living and the Dead (The American University in Cairo Press, 2010) anthropologist and filmmaker Elizabeth Wickett explores Upper Egyptian funerary laments or idid, in pursuit of a deeper understanding of Egyptian folklore.

Wickett, who has spent 25 years delving into academic research and social development in the Middle East and North Africa, finds that, “lamentation is at the core of social, cultural, and religious customs performed for the dead in Upper Egypt.”

Echoed in the chants of modern-day lamenters is an elaborate history stretching back 5000 years. Through close observation of professional lamenters, Wickett deciphers chants in relation to myth, religion, and ancient Egyptian funerary texts. Evidence of ancient Egyptian lamentation is recorded on tomb walls around the country where paintings depict lamenters in conventional poses on walls, standing, kneeling, or crouched with arms poised overhead. Wickett also inspected ancient Pyramid texts for funerary spells, most of which are reflected in contemporary laments.

But Wickett’s text achieves much more than a mere depiction of surviving funerary laments and the convoluted rapport between life and death; using elaborate diction and sophisticated imagery, the writer provides a unique insight into the intricacies of Upper Egyptian life.

Arabic calligraphy collection found

MSN News

A rare collection of hidden secrets of Arabic calligraphy dating back to the 16th and 19th centuries has been found intact in its storage place after it was reported missing earlier this week.

Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni received a report confirming that the prestigious collection was found in Wakalat el-Ghouri, where it had been initially discovered, said Shawki Ma''rouf of the central administration of museums.

The collection will be stored in the Gezira Art Museum to be displayed at the Alexandria museum for Arabic calligraphy after its construction Ma''rouf said.

Nelson-Atkins and others collaborate to unearth the secrets of a mummy

examiner.com (Paul Proffett Jr)

This summer, The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, a prominent local cardiologist, and an Egyptian anthropologist have all taken part in a unique collaboration to unearth the secrets of the Museum’s 2,500-year-old Egyptian mummy.

The discoveries, the most prominent of which is a sketch of what the man underneath the wrappings actually looked like, will be revealed to the public in a special presentation today at 1:30 p.m. and 3 p.m. in the Museum’s Atkins Auditorium. (The program is free, although tickets must be reserved through the Museum’s website.)

The findings were unveiled recently at a Museum press conference attended by ATF deputy director Kenneth Melson, as well as Nelson-Atkins curator of ancient art Robert Cohon and Mid America Heart Institute cardiologist Dr. Randall Thompson. “Today, what we’re celebrating is the marriage of art and science,” new Museum director Julian Zugazagoitia said in his opening remarks, the first to the press since beginning his tenure earlier this month.

Temporary installation of the Tomb of Kha

Museo Egizio

Thanks to Tim Reid's Egyptians blog for pointing to the above page. The Museo Egizio is showing an interactive video of the temporary exhibit of the Tomb of Kha. You can navigate around the exhibit and zoom in to get a better look at individual sections.

Who Really Invented the Alphabet

Biblical Archaeological Review

In a landmark article in the March/April 2010 issue of BAR, Orly Goldwasser, professor of Egyptology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, explained how the very first alphabet, from which all other alphabets developed, was invented by illiterate Canaanite miners in the turquoise mines of Serabit el-Khadem in the Sinai peninsula. Inspired by Egyptian pictorial hieroglyphs and a desire to articulate their own thoughts in writing, these Canaanites created 22 alphabetic acrophonetic signs scratched into the rock that could express their entire language.

But Goldwasser did not convince everyone. Anson Rainey, emeritus professor of Ancient Near Eastern Cultures and Semitic Languages at Tel Aviv University, promptly responded to the article with his doubts that this watershed moment in human culture had been brought about by illiterate miners. In his letter Rainey argues that the alphabet was surely created by “highly sophisticated Northwest Semites” who inscribed countless papyrus sheets that have not survived.

Join us below to read Rainey’s critique and Goldwasser’s thorough rebuttal about who really invented the alphabet.

Pezinok collector opens Egyptian exhibit in Košice

Slovak Spectator

An exhibition called Egypt – the Gift to Nile opened in the Slovak Technological Museum (STM) in Košice in mid August, giving visitors an opportunity to become more acquainted with one of the most significant ancient civilisations. Ján Hertlík of Pezinok, a traveller and collector, is the owner and creator of the exhibit. He told the TASR newswire that he has dedicated most of his leisure time to his biggest hobby – amateur study of Egyptology.

Photo for Today - Walters Museum

Copyright Rick Menges, with my thanks

The Walters Art Museum

(Top) Sculptor's Model: Queen with Vulture Headdress
Artist: Anonymous (Egyptian)
Date (Period): ca. 145-51 BC (Greco-Roman)
Medium: limestone
Measurements: 6 5/16 x 5 7/8 x 9/16 in. (16 x 15 x 1.5 cm)
Item Description:
A queen wears the vulture headdress topped with seven protective uraeus serpents (side A). Head of a man (god?) with a curled wig (side B).

(Bottom) Sculptor's Model of a Vulture Hieroglyph
Artist: Anonymous (Egyptian)
Date (Period): ca. 300-160 BC (Greco-Roman)
Medium: limestone
Measurements: 5 1/2 x 6 5/16 x 7/8 in. (14 x 16 x 2.3 cm);
framed: 7 7/8 x 9 7/16 x 3 1/8 in. (20 x 24 x 8 cm)
Item Description:
Sculptor's models were used in the workshops of craftsmen for training and demonstration purposes. This two-dimensional model, executed in raised relief, displays a vulture. The image represents the hieroglyphic script sign "aleph" (which does not exist in the English alphabet), and was a model for large-scale temple inscriptions.

Do Ancient Egyptians have a right to privacy?

New Scientist (Jo Marchant)

SHOULD we consider the privacy or reputation of the individual when analysing an Egyptian mummy? The assumption that ancient corpses are fair game for science is beginning to be challenged.

Though strict ethical guidelines apply to research on modern tissue samples, up until now there has been little discussion about work on ancient human remains. In a recent paper in the Journal of Medical Ethics (DOI: 10.1136/jme.2010.036608), anatomist Frank Rühli and ethicist Ina Kaufmann of the University of Zurich, Switzerland, argue that this is disturbing because research on mummies is invasive and reveals intimate information such as family history and medical conditions. And, of course, the subjects cannot provide consent.

"The human body, alive or dead, has a moral value," says Rühli, who is himself involved in mummy research. He says that no matter how old a body is, researchers must balance the benefits of their research against the potential rights and desires of the deceased individual.

Modern Science Reveals Secrets of 2,500-year-old Mummy

Digital Journal

A powerful image of the face of a 2,500-year-old Egyptian mummy at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art has been created by special agents/forensic artists from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), as unveiled today at the Museum.

In an unusual collaboration, ATF agents worked with a Kansas City cardiologist and a Nelson-Atkins curator to scientifically analyze the physical characteristics of the mummy, named Ka-i-nefer. The mummy is part of the new Egyptian galleries that opened at the Nelson-Atkins in May.

ATF Special Agents Sharon Whitaker and Robert "Randy" Strode worked more than three months on the project, using a sophisticated computer program known as the Electronic Facial Identification Technique (EFIT) Program. The program is the most realistic and successful composite system available and specializes in facial recognition, identification and training.

"ATF's mission involves investigating many unique and interesting criminal cases around the world," said Kenneth Melson, deputy director of ATF. "Our forensic investigators have put their training and specialized skills together to solve another unique – and unprecedented – mystery to unravel the anonymity of a 2,500-year-old mummy. It's an honor for ATF to be a part of this event that benefits the community and the growth of our society in a way that will have a lasting impact on future generations."

Egypt must wake up to respect and protect its treasures

The National (Hadeel al Shalchi)

Egypt is an open-air museum. Every few months a news release pops up in newsroom inboxes announcing the discovery of an ancient tomb, statue or even complete cities.

The latest was the discovery of a Greco-Roman underwater city discovered in the elite summer playground of Marina. It’s amazing to think about the hundreds of upper- class Egyptians frolicking in their pools and pristine beaches, right on top of one of the oldest human cities.

It reminded me of the ancient Egyptian grave site I was invited to visit a year ago and discovered just an hour outside Cairo. We were led by the head archaeologist on the dig and invited to crouch down inside the graves, inches away from intricately painted sarcophaguses, with pieces of mummy linen escaping from the cracks.

Fallout from the theft of the Poppy Flowers

Egypt Daily News (Hadeel Al-Shalchi)

With the alarms out and few cameras working, the thieves took advantage of the afternoon period when security guards were busy praying during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The thieves used a box cutter to slice the 12-inch-by-12-inch (30-centimer-by-30-centimeter) canvas from its frame and left the museum undetected.

Now, officials in Egypt's culture ministry are under fire.

On Monday, the head of the ministry's fine arts department, Mohsen Shalaan, was arrested for negligence. Shalaan, who was in charge of the Mahmoud Khalil Museum, and a number of other museum heads had asked Culture Minister Farouk Hosni for nearly $7 million to upgrade their security systems, but only $88,000 was approved.

Two days later, Hosni ordered three museums closed because security cameras weren't functioning.

The independent newspaper Al-Shorouk reported the Tourism and Antiquities Police had warned Hosni of lax security at the Mahmoud Khalil Museum, and that 16 of the country's nearly 50 museums have no alarms, cameras or appropriate fire safety systems.

Each year, nearly 9 million people visit Cairo's museums and the haunting tombs of the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, and these tourists are a vital source of revenue.

Still, on a hot Tuesday afternoon at the height of the tourist season, inattentive security was easy to spot at the Egyptian Museum.

Egypt Daily News (Rania Al Malky)

It’s been a turbulent week in Egypt for ministers, dissidents, presidents and their sons.

In fact the turbulence had started last week with the shocking theft of Van Gogh's “Poppy Flowers” from Cairo’s Mahmoud Khalil Museum. But the spill over from the hassle-free heist where the thief used a simple box-cutter to remove the masterpiece from its frame, then simply walked out, has not subsided.

A war of words, accusations and counter accusations ensued between Mohsen Shaalan, deputy minister and head of the Fine Arts section who is now being held in custody pending investigation into charges of negligence, and Culture Minister Farouk Hosni, have been making headlines all week.

While Hosni alleges that he had no idea that only seven of the museum’s 43 surveillance cameras were functioning and that none of the alarms worked, Shaalan cried “conspiracy” as he claimed Hosni has known since 2007 and that he was a scapegoat.

Online: Geoarchaeological Research in Egypt and the Nile Valley

Geoarchaeology

Many thanks, as usual, to Charles Ellwood Jones and his AWOL website for pointing to a special open edition of Geoarchaeology. Here's the introduction and see above for a full list of articles which are available in PDF format. Many of the articles look at the prehistory of Egypt.

Geoarchaeological Research in Egypt and the Nile Valley
Edited by Jamie Woodward

The Nile Valley and desert landscapes of Egypt and Sudan have been key areas of geoarchaeological research for many decades. Geoscientists have worked alongside archaeologists in a wide range of contexts including Palaeolithic sites in desert oases and the magnificent urban centres of Pharaonic Egypt. This interaction has yielded a very rich body of work and has led to the development of new geoarchaeological methods and important theoretical advances. Since its launch in 1986, this journal has regularly published papers on geoarchaeological research in Egypt and the Nile Valley. The 17 papers presented here (and available below as free downloads) were published in Geoarchaeology between 1988 and 2008. They exemplify a range of approaches, settings and timescales whilst highlighting the value of interdisciplinary research in the study of the human past. This special issue includes classic work by some of the most influential archaeologists and geoarchaeologists to have worked in the region. While there is some overlap in approach and themes, the papers are grouped under the following headings:

1. Palaeoclimates, human settlement, and geochronology
2. Contexts, site formation and the analysis of cultural materials
3. Long-term river channel and flood dynamics

This collection was launched to coincide with a major international symposium on Landscape Archaeology, Egypt and the Mediterranean World held in Cairo from September 19th to 21st 2010 under the auspices of the Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale (IFAO). It will be of particular interest to all who are concerned with long-term human-environment interactions in the Nile Valley and the desert landscapes of the Eastern Sahara.

Floods in the Valley of the Kings in 1994

Luxor News Blog (Jane Akshar)

Jane has posted some photographs sent to her by one of her visitors, showing flood damage in the Valley of the Kings and elsewhere. I've never seen rain in Luxor and Jane says that in the seven years that she has been living there have only been two storms but both were huge.

Photo for Today - Naqada I ceramics, MFA

Copyright Rick Menges, with my thanks

Showing a wonderful Naqada I vessel with animals modeled on the rim,
a bowl with hippopotamus decoration,
and double libation cups.

All links go to descriptions on the MFA website

The MFA has a marvellous Predynastic collection.
Go to their online collection search engine and type in "predynastic" for
a wonderful collection of ceramics, palettes, and lithics.

Nubian antibiotic beer

Wired (Jess McNally)

Chemical analysis of the bones of ancient Sudanese Nubians who lived nearly 2000 years ago shows they were ingesting the antibiotic tetracycline on a regular basis, likely from a special brew of beer. The find is the strongest yet that antibiotics were previously discovered by humans before Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928.

“I’m going to ask Alexander Fleming to hand back his Nobel Prize,” joked chemist Mark Nelson, who works on developing new tetracyclines at Paratek Pharmaceuticals and is lead author of the paper published June in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

Nelson found large amounts of tetracycline in the bones tested from the ancient population, which lived in the Nubian kingdom (present day Sudan) between 250 A.D. and 550 A.D. and left no written record.

“The bones of these ancient people were saturated with tetracycline, showing that they had been taking it for a long time,” Nelson said in a press release August 30. “I’m convinced that they had the science of fermentation under control and were purposely producing the drug.”

“This discovery will provide a whole new framework for understanding the relationship between microbes and antibiotics,” said anthropologist Dennis Van Gerven of University of Colorado at Boulder. “There might have been other populations that were also doing the same thing, anywhere that there were these microbes. This is going to drive other scientists to start this search, and that is incredibly important.”

Discovery News (Emily Sohn)

People have been using antibiotics for nearly 2,000 years, suggests a new study, which found large doses of tetracycline embedded in the bones of ancient African mummies.

What's more, they probably got it through beer, and just about everyone appears to have drank it consistently throughout their lifetimes, beginning early in childhood.

While the modern age of antibiotics began in 1928 with the discovery of penicillin, the new findings suggest that people knew how to fight infections much earlier than that -- even if they didn't actually know what bacteria were.

Some of the first people to use antibiotics, according to the research, may have lived along the shores of the Nile in Sudanese Nubia, which spans the border of modern Egypt and Sudan.

"Given the amount of tetracycline there, they had to know what they were doing," said co-author George Armelagos, a biological anthropologist at Emory University in Atlanta. "They may not have known what tetracycline was, but they certainly knew something was making them feel better."

Osirisnet needs your help!

Here's the letter from Osirisnet's Thierry and Jon about an important project to create a virtual restoration of two Theban Valley tombs and the building of a database of Theban Tomb fragments. If anyone can help, it would be very much appreciated:

Whilst working on TT38, Djeserkareseneb, and also TT181 Nebamon-Ipuky, we were shocked to see that so many scenes have been cut away, and that some walls are disfigured, that is "in a lamentable state" as remarked on by the late Arpag Mekhitarian dozens of years ago.

We have decided that the "virtual restoration" of these walls (i.e. inclusion and discussion of the stolen pieces within their original context) would now become one of our major goals on OsirisNet for each tomb we publish - whenever possible.

Our first "virtual restauration" has been made on the recently published Djeserkareseneb's TT 38 ; alas so far we have only found old b&w photographs, and the result is far from what we want.
http://www.osirisnet.net/tombes/nobles/djeserkareseneb38/e_djeserkareseneb_04.htm#stolen_images

We would also like to build an online database on fragments of Theban Tombs

Thus, we are calling through your good will to send to us colour photographs of the fragments currently in Museums or private collections, with all the relevant information, and first of all, those of TT 38 and TT 181.

Many thanks in advance for your precious help, because without you, we can achieve nothing useful.

Thierry BENDERITTER & Jon HIRST
www.osirisnet.net
Tombs of Egypt