Sunday, June 05, 2011

Damage to Amarna stela?

There has been a discussion on EEF at the moment about the possible destruction of a boundary stone from Amarna. The confusion which has given rise to the discussion seems to come partly from the translation of Arabic news stories. A recent stoy in English on the Youm 7 website suggests that one of the 14 reliefs was destroyed by illegal dynamite quarrying some five months ago.

Thanks to EEF's Aayko Eyma for writing to Barry Kemp of the Amarna Project, who has replied to Aayko to say that there are two stelae which have been harmed. He says that Stela S was destroyed in 2004 and that Stela Q, already denuded of most of its decorated surface in the early 20th Century, was further damaged more recently. An undecorated section has been removed and Kemp says that although it is assumed that this was by human agency it is unclear how it was done.



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