Pharaonic Boat to Be Excavated, Reassembled

Discovery Channel (Rossella Lorenzi)

This story has already been extensively covered both here and elsewhere, but one of the nice things about this article is that it provides a very good round up of all the details scattered throughout the recent stories:

Ancient wood hidden for millennia in an underground chamber beside the Great Pyramid of Khufu in Giza will soon be excavated and reassembled into a unique pharaonic boat, according to Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.

The glorious heap of beams and planks can now be seen for the first time by the public just as it was left by the ancient Egyptians 4,500 years ago -- fully disassembled and carefully stacked. Tourists can view images of the inside of the boat pit from a camera inserted through a hole in the chamber's ceiling.

View a slideshow about the boat here.

"We are currently reviewing a Japanese proposal to fully excavate the wood fragments and rebuild the boat. The project will take five years and will cost $10 million," Hawass told Discovery News in a phone interview.

Archaeologists have long known the existence of a boat buried 10 meters (33 feet) below the last resting place of the 4th dynasty Pharoah Khufu (2589-2566 B.C.), or "Cheops" as the Greeks called him.

Two pits carved into the bedrock came to light in 1954, when a mountain of debris was cleared from the south face of the Great Pyramid.

Almost perfectly preserved, the cedar timbers excavated from the first pit were painstakingly reassembled into an extraordinary boat. About 142 feet long and made of 1,224 components, Khufu's first ship now stands resurrected in a specially built museum near the Great Pyramid.

While evidence of a second pit very near to the first one was noted first in 1954, it took some 31 years before Egyptian authorities investigated the underground chamber by inserting a camera through thick slabs of stone in 1985.

Now a Japanese team from Waseda University, led by Egyptologist Sakuji Yoshimura, has submitted a proposal to excavate, restore, rebuild and transport the boat along with its mate to the Grand Egyptian Museum. Without a prompt intervention, the vessel would be at risk of serious damage, the Japanese team said.

Soane's Museum fundraising given a boost

Bloomberg

Charitable trusts endowed by the late Simon Sainsbury and Paul Getty are giving 1.1 million pounds ($2.2 million) to the Sir John Soane's Museum, bringing the London attraction closer to its 6 million pound fundraising goal after the U.K. Lottery refused a grant request.

The Monument Trust, funded by Sainsbury, has pledged 1 million pounds toward the museum's planned revamp, which would open up rooms and boost visitor access, the museum said in a release issued for a press presentation. The J. Paul Getty Jr. Charitable Trust has given 125,000 pounds for stained-glass refurbishment.

“It may not be large and trendy, but this most British and eccentric of all house museums has a special place in the hearts of all who know it,” the Soane's director, Tim Knox, said in the press release. “We still need help” . . . . .

Soane was architect of the original Bank of England building and of the Dulwich Picture Gallery as well as a Royal Academy architecture professor. The house -- a small maze of rooms with lunettes, concave mirrors and skylights -- has treasures worthy of the Louvre: the engraved sarcophagus of Egyptian Pharaoh Seti I, Hogarth's “A Rake's Progress” series of paintings and pictures by Canaletto.

44 thousand tourists attended sound and light shows in Abu Simbel

Egypt State Information Service

The number of tourists who attended the sound and light shows at the temple of Ramses II and Nefertari in Abu Simbel city during the past six months reached 44 thousands of different nationalities.

Director of the Sound and Light area in Abu Simbel, Ali Mahmoud said that the shows are presented through using the most up-to-date sound technology in 9 universal languages. He noted that shows in Spanish and French occupied the first rank with regards to the number of tourists.

'The land, my lord, will be lost forever'

Haaretz

"To the king my lord and my sun: These are the words of your servant, Belit-nesheti [literally, "mistress of lions/lionesses"]. I fall at the king's feet seven times over. I must tell the king that this country is witnessing [acts of] hostility and that the land of the king, my lord, will be lost forever."

A Canaanite queen from one of the cities in Palestine's lowland sent this desperate request in the 14th century B.C.E. to Pharaoh, king of Egypt. The name of the city ruled by Belit-nesheti is not mentioned in this letter or in others that depict violent acts that aroused in her a justified feeling that she was facing a dire threat.

During that period, the city of Gezer, and the Ajalon and Sorek valleys were the scene of events that seriously challenged the rule of Belit-nesheti and other monarchs.

Students help decipher ancient Egyptian writings

ABC 7 News

Eighteen students from around the world are giving new life to ancient Egyptian documents at Stanford University this summer.

The students are helping to decipher 70 texts from Stanford's collection of several hundred papyri.

At first glance, the ancient Egyptian writings look like scraps of garbage. They were used to plaster over mummies. Now they are clues to everyday life more than 2,000 years ago.

Los dioses aterrizaron Saqqara

La Comunidad on El Pais

Articulo realizado por Manuel José Delgado y publicado en la revista "AÑO CERO" en Junio de 1997.

Fuente: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Thebes/1340/21/21.html

En la necrópolis de Saqqara, inexplicablemente, no se ha encontrado ni un solo cuerpo de faraón. Es la más fascinante de Egipto y la que oculta un mayor número de enigmas. Bien interpretados, los restos allí encontrados pueden arrojar luz sobre algo que hasta ahora sólo es una sospecha bien fundada: los antiguos egipcios aprendieron tecnologías de origen extraterrestre o, cuando menos, de civilizaciones desconocidas para la historia. Hasta tal punto que podrían haber descifrado el genoma humano y habrían sido capaces incluso de construir naves espaciales y misiles, cuarenta siglos antes que nosotros.

Tras el reinado de Menes, legendario fundador de Memphis, las dos siguientes dinastías (la II y la III) continúan su obra. Egipto se reafirma entonces como un país sólido en constante crecimiento. La nación pasa a contar con una capital y con una administración y la institución real se fortalece. Cuando Zóser llega al poder, se inicia el Antiguo Imperio, allá por el siglo XXVII a.C. Zóser (Djoser) significa en lengua egipcia «el prestigioso, el admirable, el sagrado». Manetón le llama Tosorthos y precisa que con él se inicia la III Dinastía. Durante este periodo se le nombra con el patronímico de Neterierjet (que significa más divino que el cuerpo de los dioses).

Se sabe que Zóser reinó en un país unificado dual formado por el Alto y el Bajo Egipto. Debió ser un rey autoritario pero justo, tanto que se le rindió homenaje y dejó fama de hombre sabio y competente. Escribió libros didácticos para indicar a los futuros faraones la actitud justa a seguir ante dioses y hombres.

Oasis in Egypt

The National, UAE (Simon Mars)

Oh alright, so it's not really anything to do with either Egyptology or travel in Egypt, but I found it interesting:

It’s not supposed to be like this. The desert does not give up its grip lightly. Yet some 60 kilometres north-east of Cairo, what should have been (and was 30 years ago) a parched dry scrubland of desert and rock is now a place of vivid green, a patchwork of fields rich in fruits, and vegetables, herbs and spices, all contained within a network of mud brick walls and spotless lanes that lead through avenues of tall trees to the Sekem farm.

Today Sekem produces fruits and vegetables; herbs, spices and seedlings; milk; cotton for textiles and clothing and phytopharmaceuticals (natural medicines, medicinal teas and healthcare products). Everything, including the cotton, is organic.

The first impression when you arrive and breathe in the pure scent of herbs, spices and acacia trees is that it shouldn’t be here. It doesn’t make sense, surrounded as it is by a dry country on the edge of Cairo’s suburban sprawl. But then you meet Dr Ibrahim Abouleish, the man whose vision and laughter and unbounded optimism brought Sekem into being in 1977, and you begin to understand: perhaps the land had no alternative but to surrender to his infectious will.

Exhibition: A mummy of a tale

Canada.com

Surrey Museum's current exhibit Egypt: Gift of the Nile, on loan from the Royal Ontario Museum, reveals secrets about at least one mummy.

The exhibit includes a reproduction of a cartonnage -- a shell-like coffin of linen and glue that housed the mummy of a middle-class Egyptian woman named Djedmaatesankh, who died some 500 years after King Tutankhamen's death. It is inscribed with pictures of gods and protective entities and with Djedmaatesankh's image in gold.

These images tell a story of her life.

Djedmaatesankh's cartonnage surfaced at the Royal Ontario Museum sometime in the early 1900s. Recently, secrets about her life and death were revealed using a CT scanner and computer system that turns the scans into three-dimensional pictures. Without disturbing Djedmaatesankh's mummy, technicians peeled away layers, revealing the structure of the cartonnage, then the linens in which the mummy was wrapped, then her skin and bones, and finally the embalmed and packaged internal organs.

Travel: Experiencing Egypt

Kentucky.com (Patti Nickell)

After a four-hour flight from London that landed in Cairo just after midnight, all I wanted to do was fall into bed, but the bellhop who showed me to my room at the Mena House Hotel was in a particularly chatty mood. Drawing back my drapes and indicating the inky blackness, he smiled and whispered conspiratorially, ”You can't see them now, of course, but they're out there.“

It occurred to me that my smiling bellhop was in some kind of Egyptian Witness Protection Program and that ”they“ were coming for him, not me. Taking comfort in that thought, I fell into bed and slept soundly until a blistering ball of sun, pouring through the partly open curtains, served as my wake-up call.

Opening the curtains all the way, I gaped in surprise, realizing just what my bellhop had meant the night before. ”They“ certainly were out there — right beyond my balcony — huge, mysterious and more than a little menacing: the pyramids of Giza, including the Great Pyramid, the last remaining wonder of the ancient world. I gulped, the first of many times I would do this over the next eight days. Egypt has that effect on people.

Ever since the fourth grade, when I wrote a report on Egypt for United Nations Week, I have had an insatiable desire to visit the Land of the Pharaohs. Now, here I was, on Abercrombie & Kent's ­”Highlights of Egypt“ tour. More than once, over the course of those eight days, the concept of trying to cram 5,000 years of history into such a short time frame made me smile. But no one can say I didn't try.

See the above page for more.

Exhibition: Tutankhamun to visit Atlanta

Fayette Front Page

The Michael C. Carlos Museum of Emory University brings Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs to Atlanta this fall in partnership with the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, National Geographic, Arts and Exhibitions International and presenting sponsor Northern Trust. Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great

Pharaohs will be exhibited in Atlanta’s historic Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center from November 15 to May 25. The exhibition, spanning 2,000 years of history, will include more than 130 artifacts from the tomb of Tutankhamun and other ancient Egyptian sites. This is the first time these treasures will be seen in the Southeast. To complement the Tutankhamun exhibition at the Civic Center, the Carlos Museum will showcase at its Emory campus location the photography of Harry Burton, the photographer who documented the Tutankhamun excavation when the tomb was discovered in 1922.

“The Michael C. Carlos Museum of Emory University is honored to bring to Atlanta one of the greatest artistic and cultural legacies of the ancient world. The people of Georgia will be able to experience first-hand the impact and relevance of these extraordinary treasures and we look forward to offering an array of educational programs to further illuminate the life and times of King Tutankhamun and the great pharaohs of Egypt,” said Bonnie Speed, Director of the Carlos Museum.

The Carlos Museum is home to one of the few Egyptian collections in the southeastern United States as well as the only institution in Georgia dedicated to the research and display of ancient Egyptian art and culture. King Tutankhamun, endearingly called the “boy king,” will find a welcoming community in which to reside for a short while. Speaking of the Carlos Museum at the April 2 announcement, Mayor Shirley Franklin said, “Those of us who live in Atlanta have access to the wonders of the world’s civilizations right in our backyard.”

Travel: Temples and hot air balloons

The Mirror (David Walker)

MEN have always been intoxicated by the heady trappings of power and ego.

The proof? Pretend youre Doctor Who and take a trip back in time to Egypt. There you can view some of the worlds most incredible temples and statues dating back over 3,500 years.

Invariably, the biggest and most imposing monuments will be in honour of Ramses II. He was the ruler who did everything on a grand scale including fathering 110 children by eight wives.

Our trip to Egypt was built around a cruise down the Nile on the Viking Premiere. We flew into Luxor to meet the boat and then sailed south to Aswan. There were many memorable moments, but the highlight has to be the sight of Abu Simbel. The great sun temple of you know who, Ramses II.

Ramses was adamant the world should be impressed by his power and glory. To emphasise the point he had four 60ft statues (of himself of course!) hewn from the mountainside in southern Egypt.

The scale is staggering. You're left wondering how did they do it. Then you realise that in the 1960s the awesome temple had to be moved. Yes, man can move mountains.

The Egyptians needed another water supply apart from the Nile, so they built Lake Nasser. Abu Simbel would have been flooded so was cut into 1,041 blocks, moved on to higher ground and a mountain constructed to match the original setting.

Don't think you're short-changed though. Its an epic place and the preserved, interior walls featuring scenes from battles are superb.

Getting to Abu Simbel isn't that easy though. The boat had docked at Aswan and we had a 3.30am start to join a convoy of coaches heading through the desert to reach Abu Simbel by 10am.

Conference: Biodiversity in Agriculture

Harlan II Symposium

Relevant to Egyptology but unlikely to make it onto the usual Egyptology news streams, so here's a quick plug for it. I wish I could go but California is too far and too expensive:

BIODIVERSITY IN AGRICULTURE: Domestication, Evolution, & Sustainability
14 - 18 SEPTEMBER 2008 • UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS

Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the UC Davis Campus —

Agricultural biodiversity is now at the crux of several societal trends and concerns that have gradually surfaced over the last decades. These include an increasing interest in the origin of agriculture as a major milestone in the evolution of humans; concerns about the loss of biodiversity not only of crops and farm animals and their wild relatives, but also natural ecosystems in general; an awareness of the role of agricultural biodiversity in ecosystem function and agricultural sustainability; and the public’s interest in learning more about food, fiber, and feed production, as it relates to the quality and health of agricultural products and the environmental impact of agricultural production.

Our knowledge of the processes that affect agricultural biodiversity, in both plants and animals, has increased considerably in the recent years since an international symposium was held in Aleppo, Syria in May 1997 [“The Origins of Agriculture and the Domestication of Crop Plants in the Near East”, dedicated to Jack R. Harlan, 1917–1998, evolutionary biologist and plant explorer].

Mummies cover-up reversed at Manchester

Manchester Evening News

MANCHESTER Museum has reversed its decision to cover up its Egyptian mummies in response to public opinion.

The museum covered up three unwrapped mummies on display, sparking accusations of political correctness, two months ago.

The cover-up was part of a consultation on how the mummies will be displayed when the museum's ancient Egypt gallery is redeveloped.

Nick Merriman, museum director, has said one of the mummies will now be left partially unwrapped in its original display state, while another will be partially covered, leaving its head, hands and feet exposed.

The decision to reveal more of the mummies came following a meeting of the museum's human remains panel.

Mr Merriman said: "We started the consultation process with a total covering of three of the museum's unwrapped mummies.

The post at the Manchester Website blog, which started all the discussion, can be found at:
http://egyptmanchester.wordpress.com/2008/05/06/covering-the-mummies/

See the above for more. My original posts regarding this subject can be found at:

http://egyptology.blogspot.com/2008/05/more-responses-to-covering-of-mummies.html

http://egyptology.blogspot.com/2008/06/more-re-manchester-museum-decision-to.html

http://egyptology.blogspot.com/2008/05/more-re-decision-to-cover-manchester.html

http://egyptology.blogspot.com/2008/05/more-re-covering-of-manchester-mummies.html

http://egyptology.blogspot.com/2008/05/covering-mummies.html

Rock Art Topographical Survey - Second Edition

Thanks very much to Christopher Coleman for letting me know that the second edition of the Eastern Desert Rock Art Topographical Survey (edited by Maggie and Mike Morrow) has been announced and is due to be published in November 2008. This is a fully revised edition of the original catalouge of over 150 rock art sites, accompanied by a new indexed DVD providing colour images selected from the Desert RATS archives. Over 1000 photographs will be published in the book over 248 pages, 16 of which will be in full colour. Analysis of many of the sites will be revised and additional details and identifications will be included. There will be twelve pages focusing on the important but inadequately published Hammamat Schist Quarry. The accompanying DVD will contain over 2500 photographs and additional supporting material.

It will cost £45.00UKP plus postage and packaging. Full details will be shown on the Bloomsbury Summer School website.

If you want to register an interest to be kept informed of progress you can contact the Desert RATS organizers by email (bloomsbury@egyptology-uk.com) or post (The Director, Bloomsbury Summer School, Department of History, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK. Please provide the following details:

• Name
• Email address (if available)
• Landline telephone number
• Mobile telephone number
• Address
• Zip/Post code
• Country

Theban Mapping Project website updated?

VOA News

Thanks to Rhio Barnhart for pointing me at this item recommending the Theban Mapping Project website:

Time again for our Website of the Week, when we showcase interesting and innovative online destinations. Our web guide is VOA's Art Chimes.

The latest Indiana Jones film is likely to remind people about the thrill of archaeology. Well, maybe not the adventure, romance and bullwhip-cracking thrill of the Harrison Ford version, but the excitement of discovering the past is still there.

The Middle East has always been a rewarding place for excavating the past. It certainly has been for Dr. Kent Weeks, who has spent decades mapping the burial place of Egypt's Pharaohs at Thebes, the capital of ancient Egypt. In 2000, he and his colleagues published an atlas that mapped out the Valley of the Kings.

WEEKS: "And it struck us at that time that it would be especially useful if, instead of just publishing a hard copy of the atlas, we could also put it up online. And so we established a website that put our atlas up, along with elaborately detailed descriptions of all of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings. And, well, as of last count, around 8,500 color photographs of the decorations on their walls."

It is a very long time since I've heard any news about the TMP and its plans for the site, and it is a long time since I've visited it, but it looks to me as though they have a new image database advertised in the What's New section on their home page.

Exhibition: Egipto muestra su relación con el agua a través del arte

La Voz de Asturias

An exhibition focusing on the relationship between ancient Egypt and the importance of water to the civilization:

Entre las pantallas interactivas, los carteles y las maquetas de las intervenciones de la mayoría de los países participantes en la Expo, Egipto ha decidido traer algo más a Ranillas. Su pabellón expone una muestra del arte de los fondos del museo de El Cairo, doce piezas "que demuestran la importante relación entre los egipcios y el agua", según aseguró ayer el embajador egipcio en España, Yasser Morad, durante la celebración del Día Nacional de este país.

Morad se mostró satisfecho de poder presentar el resultado de un largo proceso y de haber conseguido traer las obras a "una tierra tan hospitalaria", ya que nunca antes se habían mostrado en público. "Es una pequeña muestra, por lo cercana y por lo querida, pero muy apreciada por el trabajo que ha supuesto", aseguró el representante egipcio.

En concreto, se trata de cinco maquetas de embarcaciones de madera, procedentes de las excavaciones de Meir y de Saqqara, que ilustran escenas cotidianas del antiguo Egipto como la navegación fluvial, la pesca, la recolección de papiro o la vida militar.

Eastern Desert - renewed gold production

Monday Morning

This may appear to be slightly off-topic, but it is of interest in terms of the potential damage to the Eastern Desert that the mining might inflict on the archaeology. I've written on my Eastern Desert website both about gold exploitation in Pharaonic and Graeco-Roman periods and about the damage that existing quarrying has inflicted on the rock art. Just something to bear in mind.

Egypt, which stopped gold production in 1958, will produce eight tons of the metal from mines in its Eastern Desert in 2009, said Hussein Hammouda, chairman of the Egyptian Geological Survey and Mining Authority.

Egypt, whose people once considered gold to be the skin of the gods, is revisiting ancient gold deposits, some unworked for 2,000 years.

One of the mines which has started production has a reserve of 13 million ounces of gold, Hammouda said, adding, “Once this mine becomes fully operational, it won’t be only one of the biggest in Africa, but one of the biggest worldwide”.

Egypt’s gold production stopped in 1958 because the volume mined was considered too small to be profitable. The country produced 7.4 tons from 1902 to 1958.

“We’re planning to produce eight tons of gold in 2009, which is more than what Egypt produced in a century”, Hammouda explained.

Core drilling reveals Predynastic presence in Delta

Science Daily

A small but significant find made during a geological survey provides evidence of the oldest human presence yet discovered along the northernmost margin of Egypt's Nile delta.

A rock fragment carried by humans to the site was discovered in a sediment core section north of Burullus lagoon near the Mediterranean coast.

Radiocarbon analysis of plant-rich matter in the mud surrounding the object provides a date of 3350 to 3020 B.C., the late Predynastic period.

This long, thin object, formed of dolomite, had not been deposited by the Nile or the sea, but was collected and transported from an outcrop exposure positioned at least 160 kilometers south of the core site. The fragile object lay buried at a depth of 7.5 meters in dark mud deposited in a brackish lagoon setting close to a marsh.

Stanley et al.'s fortuitous find documents an early human presence in the mid-Holocene wetlands along the delta's paleocoast, a sector where traditional excavation and augering are normally incapable of reaching zones of ancient human activity now at considerable subsurface depths.

Journal reference: Jean-Daniel Stanley et al. August 2008 Geology, Pages 599-602.

BMSAES 9, August 2008

BMSAES

British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan. The British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan (BMSAES) is a peer-reviewed academic journal, dedicated to presenting research on all aspects of ancient Egypt and Sudan. The articles do not need to concern British Museum objects or projects.

This issue features three papers from the Annual Egyptological Colloquium held at the British Museum in summer 2007: The ‘Head of the South’: current research in Upper Egypt, south of Thebes (July 12–13). It is intended that further papers from the colloquium will appear in a future issue of BMSAES.

Visitors to the British Museum website may have noticed that the collection of the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan is now available through the Museum's Collection database online, through which visitors can order images for academic publication, free of charge.

Contents:

Dietrich Raue
Who was who in Elephantine of the third millennium BC?

Luc Limme
Elkab, 1937-2007: seventy years of Belgian archaeological research

Ilona Regulski
The rock inscriptions at el-Hôsh

Rock art at Qurta - INORA 51 2008

International Newsletter on Rock Art (in PDF Format)

Thanks very much to Dr Dirk Huyge for letting me know that an article about his work at Qurta is available on the above website, free of charge. The article is accompanied by a map of the site's location and some lovely images. Here's a short extract:

CÔA IN AFRICA: LATE PLEISTOCENE ROCK ART ALONG THE EGYPTIAN NILE

The recent discovery (2004-2007) of a vast open air complex of Late Palaeolithic rock art in Upper Egypt, announced in the Project Gallery of the British journal Antiquity (Huyge et al. 2007), has aroused worldwide interest making it already well-known among the international
rock art community. The particular circumstances of this find, which is, at least in part, a rediscovery, have been detailed in the above-mentioned Internet publication and will not be repeated here.

Late Palaeolithic naturalistic-style petroglyphs in Egypt are thus far known from two locations: locality 11 at Abu Tanqura Bahari at el-Hosh (henceforth ATB11) and Qurta (Fig. 1). At Qurta three sites have been localized bearing this type of rock art: Qurta I, II and III (henceforth QI, QII and QIII) (Fig. 2-3). In all, slightly less than 200 drawings have been identified: about 35 at ATB11 and about 160 at Qurta. As the recording of the sites progresses, this number will definitely increase. Both at ATB11 and at Qurta, bovids are the major rock art theme (Fig. 4-6). These animals are undoubtedly aurochs or Bos primigenius. No less than 70 percent of the rock drawings represent this species. Other types of fauna include birds (at least 7 examples) (Fig. 7), hippopotami (at least 3 examples), gazelle (at least 3 examples) (Fig. 7), fish (2 examples) and donkey (1 example). In addition, there are also (at least) 9 stylised representations of human figures (mostly shown with pronounced buttocks, but no other bodily features) (Fig. 8).

If you are intersted in rock art you should check out the other articles in the newsletter too - and don't miss other INORA issues.

Sahara Volume 19

Sahara

Thanks to Dirk Huyge for letting me know that the most recent issue of the journal Sahara has now been published. Here are the contents:

Papers:

Savino di Lernia, Lucia Mori and Andrea Zerboni
Geo-archaeological survey in the Kufra Region (Eastern Sahara, SE Libya)
(abstract)

Lamia Messili et François Fröhlich
Figurines néolithiques en argile cuite du Cap Achakar
(Sud Détroit de Gibraltar, Maroc nord-atlantique). Approche analytique
(abstract)

Jean-Loïc Le Quellec
À propos des molettes zoomorphes du Sahara central
(abstract)

Per Storemyr
Prehistoric Geometric Rock Art at Gharb Aswan, Upper Egypt (abstract)

Lotfti Belhouchet
Les gravures sur coquilles d’œufs d'autruche en Afrique du Nord : interprétation des décors géométriques
(abstract)

Martin Williams, Peter Glasby and John Blackwood
A note on an Acheulian biface from Adrar Bous, Ténéré Desert, south central Sahara, Republic of Niger
(abstract)

Mark Milburn
National Heritage: Some Problems & Tragedies in the Sahara and North-West Europe including Britain
(abstract)

Mohssine El Graoui, Mohamed Alifriqui, Högne Jungner, Abderrazzak Nahid et Susan Searight-Martinet
Recherche d’indices chronologiques sur le passage des graveurs de rochers de l’Oukaïmeden (Haut Atlas, Maroc)
(abstract)

Alessandro Menardi Noguera and Michele Soffiantini
The rock art sites of the upper Wadi Waddan (Jebel Uweinat, Libya)
(abstract)

Sections:

Amenti / Ament / Amentet

Joseph Clayton, Aloisia De Trafford and Mark Borda
A Hieroglyphic Inscription found at Jebel Uweinat mentioning Yam and Tekhebet

Documenti rupestri / Documents of rock art / Documents rupestres

Fabio Maestrucci e Gianna Giannelli
Rappresentazione del territorio: alcune ipotetiche mappe nel Tadrart Acacus (Libia)

Geoffrey Kolbe
A possible Neolithic sandstone rock map (eastern Uweinat)

Hardy Böckli and Mahmoud Marai
Rock art and vertical transhumance at Jebel Uweinat

Mark Borda
A remarkable rock art shelter between Gilf Kebir and Uweinat

András Zboray
Some further rock art finds at Jebel Uweinat and the Gilf Kebir

Per Storemyr, Adel Kelany, Mohamed Ahmed Negm and Adel Tohami
More‘Lascaux along the Nile’? Possible Late Palaeolithic rock art in Wadi Abu Subeira, Upper Egypt

Adriana Scarpa Falce
Enneri Borou (Tibesti Orientale, conca di Ouri, Ciad)

Bernard Fouilleux
Couloir «Tête ronde» dans le secteur de Ouan Bender (Tassili-n-Ajjer, Algérie)

Guido Faleschini
Oued Sirik (Tadrart, Algeria)

Scritture / Writings / Écritures:

Jean-Loïc Le Quellec
Du neuf avec de l’ancien : à propos des gravures et inscriptions du monument d’Abalessa

Werner Pichler
The Libyco-Berber inscriptions of Foum Chenna (Morocco) II

Dibattiti / Debates / Débats

François Soleilhavoup
De la fidélité dans le relevé graphique des images rupestres. Exemples au Tassili-n-Ajjer (Algérie). Nouvelles questions sur les «Têtes rondes»

Susan Searight-Martinet
Confusion au sujet des sites rupestres d’Ain Semaiera
et d’Ain Enbeibiga (Sud marocain)?

Alain Rodrigue
La station rupestre du Glab es Sghrir (Maroc)

Tomb reveals ancient trade network

ANSA

The tomb of a woman who died around 2,600 years ago on the eastern Italian coast is helping archaeologists piece together the vast trade network that once linked this area with the Middle East, North Africa and Greece.

Experts working on a tomb near the port of Ancona say the site contains over 650 artefacts from the 7th century BC, including numerous items made in other parts of the world.

''This tomb is of extraordinary importance, as it contains the only known funerary finds in the area of Conero dating from this time,'' said the Archaeology Superintendent for the Marche region, Giuliano de Marinis. The pieces demonstrate that an extensive network of contact and trade once linked this section of the Adriatic coast not only to Sicily and southern and central Italy, but also much further afield. The tomb contains artefacts manufactured in sites as far away as modern-day Egypt, Rhodes, mainland Greece, the Palestinian Territories and Anatolia. ''This discovery fills in a big gap in our knowledge and helps define the role this area played in past centuries,'' continued De Marinis. ''For example, it shows that items from Greece and the eastern Mediterranean passed through here en route to other parts of the Italian peninsula''. Of particular value are five glazed pottery pendants, which were made in Egypt. Probably used as amulets, they are each six centimetres in length and are shaped like seashells. Also of special interest are a bowl and lid, intricately decorated with horses, and a cowry disc from the Indian Ocean. This latter was considered a fertility symbol and was reproduced in Ancient Egyptians tombs.

See the above page for the full story.

Exhibition: Conservation in Focus

Suite 101 (Stan Parchin)

Visitors to "Conservation in Focus" at London's British Museum are able to watch how experts prepare works of art before they are exhibited.

Conservation in Focus (September 11-October 26, 2008) at the British Museum permits visitors to observe and interact with conservators whose actual work is largely unseen by the public until it's completed. Experts demonstrate the procedures, techniques and instruments they use on objects from the museum's permanent collection.

See the above page for more.

Travel: In pharaohs’ steps

The National (Katherine Darcy)

Holidaymakers with a passion for the historical will be in their element in Luxor. The city, often nicknamed the “world’s greatest open-air museum”, is home to two thirds of the world’s historical monuments. Located on the banks of the Nile in southern Egypt, this mesmerising city is often overlooked in favour of Egypt’s capital, Cairo. Nevertheless, Luxor is the perfect place for those who wish to experience the magnificent culture of ancient Egypt.

As you’d expect from a city that has been influenced by some of history’s most legendary characters, including Ramses, Tutankhamen and Alexander the Great, Luxor is abuzz with mystical charm and ancient culture. Boasting a remarkably rich legacy of temples, monuments and tombs, many of Luxor’s most renowned archaeological sites are located on the West Bank. High-end hotels take the stress out of exploring by organising one-day trips there, but if you really want to savour the sites and take in their magnitude, tackle the West Bank over a few days.

The Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens are both must-sees. Likewise, no trip to Luxor would be complete without a visit to Queen Hatshepsut’s temple. The female pharaoh is widely recognised as one of Egypt’s most successful rulers. The temple of Karnak is also a box to tick. Undoubtedly one of the world’s greatest architectural achievements, Karnak was built over a period of 1,300 years and is the biggest temple complex in the world, covering an area of 100 hectares.

See the above page for more.

Against Theoretical Archaeology

Aardvarchaeology (Martin Rundkvist)

Yes, another departure from the strictly Egyptological news theme, but this post has huge relevance to current approaches and discussions in Egyptology. As usual, try not to shoot the messenger. I don't actually support this view but I thought it worth highlighting. Don't miss the comments that respond to it.

A Trondheim colleague has kindly invited me to head a session at the Nordic TAG conference next May. T.A.G. means "Theoretical Archaeology Group", and denotes a series of annual conferences rather than a defined group of people. The invitation hinted that I might perhaps want to contribute something provocative. After a moment's thought, I realised that my attitude to TAG (Nordic or otherwise) goes beyond provocative: I am simply hostile to it. Archaeological theory, in my opinion, belongs within the context of real specific archaeological research and is useless in an abstract form, which goes against TAG's basic premise. So I declined the invitation, explaining that my message to the conference-goers would be a brief deal-killer: "Go home everybody and do archaeology".

Outsiders often find the term "theoretical archaeology" humorous, evoking an image of scholars building ancient castles in the air, without contact with the gritty grimy reality of the archaeological record. The truth is that theoretical archaeology is indeed pretty risible, but not in that exact sense. The whole endeavour started in the 1960s with attempts to formalise a body of abstract interpretive theory for the discipline. This coincided with a brief spell in the history of archaeology when scholars dreamed of finding out general cultural constants, "Laws of Culture" as it were. In this perspective, theoretical archaeology would be a lot like theoretical physics, striving to formulate universal laws and ultimately achieve a Theory of Everything.

These attempts fizzled. Most archaeologists abandoned all hope of finding cultural constants around 1980 and returned to our standard business of finding out the unique kaleidoscopic non-generalisable details of individual (pre-) historical situations. But theoretical archaeology somehow survived, it even thrived, as an end unto itself. (Thus TAG, whose first conference took place in 1979.) No longer did it in the main aim at making archaeology better: it splintered into a myriad philosophical sects, abandoned the concept of "better", and set out on a trend-driven random walk, existing to produce not better, but more new theory, mainly in the form of buzzwords. The 1980s reaction against the technocratic natural determinism of the 60s and 70s also opened the door wide to all manner of post-modernist philosophisering from the weird fringe of lit-crit and sociology. And thus, today, we have a few Swedish university archaeologists writing about Heidegger and fake ruins in theme parks.

Instead of going to TAG, I'll just set out a few brief points on what I think archaeology should be and do.

More re TAG:
http://antiquity.ac.uk/tag/index.html

TAG 2008:
http://www.tagconference.org/2008

TAG 2009:
http://www.allconferences.com/conferences/20080505150827/

Saqqara - a history hidden in stones

Nauka w Polsce

The titles of functions performed in the state, facts of everyday life, descriptions of ceremonies - this is the type of information that can be found on the stones used by ancient Egyptians to decorate their tombs and estates. Such inscriptions are one of the basic sources of knowledge in research. Dr Kamil Omar Kuraszkiewicz from Warsaw University Institute of Archaeology discussed the finds of the Polish archaeological mission in recent years during a conference "Poles on the Nile".

Sakkara is located south of Cairo and west of Memphis. It is the oldest part of the ancient cemetery in Memphis, the capital of Egypt in the times of the Old Kingdom. The best known object in Sakkara is the pyramid of Djosser, the founder of the 3rd Dynasty (27th century B.C.). Polish archaeologists are working in the western part of the complex.

"In our part of the metropolis in Sakkara, we are dealing with graves from two periods - the Old Kingdom (Lower Cemetery) and the 2,000 years younger burials in the Upper Cemetery. All this in the shadow of Djosser's pyramid" - Dr Kamil Kuraszkiewicz explained. The Lower Cemetery consists of mastabas and rock tombs belonging to officials who lived at the close of the Old Kingdom, including Merefnebef and Nianchnefertum.

Dr Kuraszkiewicz noted that the archaeologists are constantly reminded of the presence of Djosser, as they frequently find tiles from the interior of his tomb complex. In 1999 and last year, archaeologists found stone steles with his name inscribed in them. Their function is still unknown - maybe they marked the boundaries of the complex. Kuraszkiewicz noted that one thing was certain - that at one point they stopped being needed and were re-used as building material.

The archaeologist explained that approximately 400 years after Djosser's death, a private cemetery operated on the western wall of the complex. It was the burial site of middle-ranking officials. They are mainly brick mastabas decorated with lime architectural elements, primarily blind gates as well as sacrificial tables and pools. Most of the tomb constructions above surface are preserved poorly or not at all. This has meant that many of the lime elements of the tombs have been moved, which affects the identification of the tomb's owner.

See the above page for the full story.

Stanford Papyri

What's New in Papyrology

They're torn and faded and have the woven texture of a flattened Triscuit. At first glance, the ancient Egyptian texts look like scraps of garbage. And more than 2,000 years ago, that's exactly what they were—discarded documents, useless contracts and unwanted letters that were recycled into material needed to plaster over mummies, like some precursor to papier-mâché.

Now they are priceless clues to everyday life in the Ptolemaic Era, bits of history recently cleaned and sandwiched between pieces of glass so researchers at Stanford could begin translating the Greek writing and Egyptian script while studying the worn papyrus it is scribbled on.

See the above page for a link to the full article.

Egypt to retrieve 19th-dynasty statue from Netherlands

Egypt State Information Service

Discovered in Saqara in 1985, stolen then auctioned, Ushabti - an ancient funerary statue - could finally go home to Egypt where it belongs.

Dating back to the 19th Dynasty, Ushabti was identified when a collector - who had bought the statue, having no background about the heist - showed it to experts at a Lyden museum in 2006.

It was only then that the amateur collector knew what he had had in possession; an 8.8cm statue of a woman made of pottery that was unearthed some 27 years ago, except that it has never been on display at any museum. All parties concerned agreed that they should return the piece to Egypt.

Dutch authorities have delivered Ushabti to representatives of the Egyptian government in order to take it back home, an Egyptian Embassy statement said Tuesday 22/7/2008.

Book review: Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft im spätantiken Ägypten

Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Itzhak F. Fikhman, Andrea Jördens, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft im spätantiken Ägypten. Kleine Schriften. Historia Einzelschriften 192. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2006.

Reviewed by Karl Strobel, Alpen Adria Universität

This volume presents a series of important contributions by I. F. Fikhman which are focussed on the history of economy and society in late antique and early Byzantine Egypt until the middle 7th c. AD. A. Joerdens and G. Becht-Joerdens provide an introduction with a sketch of the life and the work of Fikhman under the difficult conditions of the communist Regime in the Soviet Union.1 Fikhman, who became a well-known papyrologist also in the West, left post-communist Russia in 1990 for Israel because of the omnipresent anti-Semitism. Born in a Jewish family in Kishinew in 1921, he lost most of his library when leaving Russia. A bibliography of Fikhmans's work (184 titles) is given on pp. 369-380. In this volume eight contributions are published for the first time in a western language, i.e. German, without any changes or annotations. The other articles were already published in Western languages in different collections and papyrological journals. They are often based on earlier contributions in Russian. All the articles in this book are published or reprinted without corrections or additions. It is a great pity that many of Fikhman's important contributions in Russian were not known in the West, especially his books on craftsmen and the conditions of their professions in late antique and early Byzantine Egypt and on Oxyrhynchos.2 The city of Oxyrhynchos, municipal offices, decuriones, great landownership, professional corporations and the conditions of crafts are the focus of his research based on the papyrological evidence and not on communist theory. Today, several new publications complementary to Fikhman's studies are still important for the current research.3 Fikhman's contributions are first of all devoted to the flourishing period of the early Byzantine cities and economy in the eastern Mediterranean during the 5th and early 6th c. AD. Infrastructure and far-reaching transport and exchange were still maintained, as well as the high standard of agriculture. Enormous building activities may be seen in the churches and monasteries of the 5th and 6th c. AD. Private trade and commerce on the local, regional, interregional and international level were still of great importance, the commercialization of agricultural production reached a new climax in the early 6th c. AD. The monetary system and the system of taxes were fixed conditions of everyday life and of the economy.

See the above page for the complete review

Lecture notes: John Wyatt's "Animal Worlds"

A few days ago I posted a set of notes that I made about Dirk Huyge's lecture on Egyptian petroglpyhs. Continuing along those lines, today I am posting my notes from John Wyatt's lecture, entitled Animal Worlds. This was part of Dr Kathryn Piquette's Egypt Before The Pyramids course at Bloomsbury last week.

Unfortunately my notes weren’t as comprehensive as those that I took at Dirk Huyge’s lecture because I was operating the slide changer on the slide projector. It turned out that my abilities didn’t stretch to watching for the sign that the slide needed changing and writing notes at the same time. Multi-taskers would be ashamed of me. It was a truly fascinating lecture, from which I learned an enormous amount, and I can only apologise for not doing full justice to it.

John’s professional background is as an ornithologist specializing in floodplains, and he also spent six years doing field research on the black rhino (and was gored twice, which really is getting up close and personal with one’s research subject!). His knowledge is encyclopaedic but he was able to break down a vast corpus of data into an easily digestible and very enjoyable presentation.

John’s approach was to match up the data on artefacts and rock art, where representations of animals are shown, with the fossil data - the actual remains of animals found at archaeological sites in Egypt.

John opened with the idea that African animals may have played a greater role in Egypt’s past than previously thought. The impact of migratory behaviour in both birds and grazing animals may have been of greater importance than usually recognized, especially in post-glacial Egypt when the climate was wetter than it is today and the environment was comparable to modern Sahelian conditions. John explained that by “migration” he means any species which move over distances in order to feed but then return. The example given to illustrate this point was the movement of aquatic birds who make use of floodplain regimes, which in Africa occur at different times in different places. The birds follow floodplain regimes north throughout northern Africa. The antelope, indigenous to Mesopotamia and shown on the Gebel el Tarif knife and in some rock art may have migrated into the area as far as southern Egypt and the Sudan, and was probably found in Egypt until the Early Dynastic period. He suggested that emigration, where species move on a permanent basis, may also have taken place at some points.

However, John also pointed out that just because certain species are represented on artefacts or in rock art found in Egypt this does not mean that the animals themselves were necessarily present in Egypt. Human movements could have led to outsiders bringing in artefacts with representations of animals, or Egyptians visiting other areas and bringing their experiences home with them.

John looked at the record for wildlife in Egypt specie by specie - everything from squirrels and desert hares to lions and elephants. As well as describing the evidence available for their physical presence in Egypt, he looked at their environmental requirements - particularly their water requirements. This was fascinating because it gave a good idea of what sort of environmental conditions were being experienced when these species were in the given areas. Certain species were concentrated in very specific areas depending on water availability. An example given was the Nile lechwe - an antelope with high water consumption requirements, the only evidence for which comes from the Faiyum Depression and the Nile Delta where water was readily available.

The giraffe is another interesting character. In rock art it appears in the Eastern Desert, Nile Valley and Gebel Uweinat (and elsewhere in the Sahara). Dirk Huyge had mentioned the ones at El Kab in the previous lecture. John’s analysis of the requirements of the giraffe make it clear that the giraffe needs trees or tall shrubs in order to survive. Acacia is one of the trees that it uses habitually for food and hydration. Acacia is a staple Sahelian tree and as John says it survives today in limited desert areas. Before the mid Holocene drying the giraffe might well have been resident in southern areas of Egypt before being forced out by aridification.

Another specie that is a useful climatic indicator is the striped ground squirrel which was found in the Western Desert and Dakhleh, but is now extinct in Egypt. There has been extensive debate about the maximum levels of rainfall experienced in the eastern Sahara at different times in the post-glacial period. Looking at all the data the most plausible estimates for maximum annual rainfall put it at between 100 and 200mm in the Western Desert. To put that into context, 400mm is required for cultivation and today’s Western Desert receives less than 4mm maximum annual rainfall. This squirrel requires some sort of moisture but only needs direct intake of water itself rarely, sustaining itself instead on the moisture it finds in plants. Its habitat was a burrow under the ground. These facts combined indicate that it requires sufficient plant life around it in order to keep itself hydrated but needs very low levels of rainfall to ensure that its burrow does not fill with water. Again, Sahelian conditions would be a good match for this rodent.

There were some real surprises in the fossil record - for example white rhino at Dakhleh oasis. As it was a grazing animal this indicates that in the general Dakhleh area there was sufficient grazing vegetation available to support the white rhino. Dakhleh produced some more surprising results, and I wonder if this wasn’t because it is thought that it is the only one of the oases which is thought to have experienced a dual climatic system in the early Holocene - tropical (with summer rains) and temperate (with winter rains).

Many of the species were a particularly good match with Dirk Huyge’s lectures, where the vexed subject of identification of different species was raised. The horned ungulates were very interesting from this point of view - the different shapes and sizes of horns are very diagnostic for determining which specie is which in a depiction.

On a similar level John was also able to shed some very useful light on the subject of tall leggy birds (of the feathered variety, obviously!). These are frequently shown on Naqada II vessels and in rock art. He distinguished between birds with legs towards the back of their bodies, which can only be ostriches, and those with legs clearly positioned of the bird. The best candidate for the latter is the great flamingo. Fossil remains of the specie survives from the Egypt desert and oases, and it can still be found in Egypt today.

Needless to say, I enjoyed the lecture enormously. John is a very fluent speaker, knows his subject backwards and had excellent slides to support his lecture, with both illustrations and photographs which really brought the subject to life. The handouts which accompanied the lecture were absolutely super and I will be keeping mine in one of my desktop folders for ease of reference. Both are several pages long. The first is an enormous list of the mammals of ancient Egypt, including English, Latin and Arabic names and their current status in Egypt together with lovely coloured illustrations of the most important of them. The second is listing of many of the artefacts discussed with identifications of each of the species shown on the items.

Many thanks to John Wyatt, who is a super person and who I believe (and hope) will be presenting again next year at Bloomsbury.

Video: Entombed ship revealed by video camera

National Geographic

The National Geographic have posted a video of the video camera footage which was taken recently of the still-buried wooden boat at the Great Pyramid of Giza, which is 4600 years old. It was shown to visitors was shown on a screen at the existing solar boat museum. Zahi Hawass is shown talking the press through the images.

Be warned that the video starts to play, with music, as soon as you load the page.

Archaeological discoveries in Matariya, Damietta and Kom Abou-Billou

Egypt State Information Service

"Important cemeteries dating back to the Roman age along with nine statues were unearthed this year among other key discoveries," Culture Minister Farouq Hosni said Monday 21/7/2008.

The burial ground found in Giza's Kom Abou-Billou district housed a number of statutes of some gods, topped by Aphrodite, and several engravings of the Roman age, the Minister told reporters.

An archaeological mission has also found in Cairo's district of Matariya a huge number of granite chunks representing parts of a giant statute of Ramses II, third ruler of the 19th Dynasty, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA)'s Secretary General Zahi Hawwas said.

A cemetery dating back to the Sixth Dynasty was also unearthed in Matariya, he said.

In Damietta, a number of limestone sarcophaguses were also found, he added.

Beyond Babylon: Art, Trade, Diplomacy

Huliq News

Four thousand years ago, trade by sea and land linked distant civilizations to one another to an astonishing degree. From Syria, Mesopotamia, and Egypt in the south to Thrace, Anatolia, and the Caucasus in the north and from regions as far west as mainland Greece all the way east to Iran, the great royal houses forged intense international relationships through the exchange of traded raw materials and goods as well as letters and diplomatic gifts.

This unprecedented movement of precious materials, luxury goods, and people resulted in a total transformation of the visual arts throughout a vast territory that spanned the ancient Near East and the eastern Mediterranean.

Opening November 18 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the landmark exhibition Beyond Babylon: Art, Trade, and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C. will focus on the extraordinary art created as a result of a sophisticated network of interaction that developed among kings, diplomats, and merchants in the Near East during the second millennium B.C. Approximately 350 objects of the highest artistry from royal palaces, temples, and tombs – as well as from a unique shipwreck – will provide the visitor with an overview of artistic exchange and international connections throughout the period.

See the above page for more.

Sweeping Aside the Living at Luxor

Middle East Times

One of Egypt's most famous ancient cities, Luxor, is in the process of getting a makeover, and not everyone is pleased with the government's actions. The plan is to create an open-air museum on the city's west bank, home to such renowned monuments as Queen Hatshepsut's Temple and the Valley of the Kings.

It will be a haven for tourists who will be alone with the ancient structures.

The catch, however, is that thousands of Egyptians living on the west bank of Luxor will detract from the atmosphere the government wants to nurture.

No worries, the Supreme Council of Luxor told the Middle East Times: the process of moving people living among the ancient sites will be "smooth and without problems."

In fact, one official said that some people have already been moved from the west bank "and have begun to live normal lives without problems on the east bank."

In a statement to the Middle East Times, the Supreme Council of Luxor, said that the relocation of residents from the west bank will make Luxor "become the first and largest open air museum in the world."

The project to make the west bank an open-air museum is part of an overall endeavor to make Luxor a modern tourist site. It will cost the Egyptian government 1.2 billion Egyptian pounds ($200 million) for all renovations, including restructuring famed temples Karnak and Luxor as well as creating a new bazaar for shopping opportunities.

This project, the council argues, will only help "to increase tourism" in what they argued was "a manner that respects Egyptian heritage and its past" without infringing on the residents of Luxor.

See the above page for the full story.

What it means to be listed as a Unesco World Heritage Site

The Star Online (Bhag Singh)

I always feel a little guilty about sneaking these somewhat global articles into an Egyptology blog, but in my own defence there is a chunk in the article about salvaging Abu Simbel from the advancing waters of Lake Nasser following the building of the Aswan High Dam.

THERE is much excitement over the listing of George Town and Malacca as Unesco World Heritage Sites. Going by reports, there will be a three-day celebration by Penangites, while Malacca will celebrate the event next month and perhaps on a grander scale.

While Malaysians have every reason to rejoice, a reader wants to know what the significance is as these two sites are based in our country and have been ours all this while.

In order to appreciate the subject of World Heritage Sites, it is necessary to refer to the Convention Concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage. The seeds for this were perhaps laid towards the end of World War I which saw the emergence of an international movement to protect heritage.

People saw the damage and destruction caused by the war. But the idea to protect heritage did not attract sufficient attention until some 40 years later.

Malacca’s famed Jonker Street with its Dutch era buildings are amongst the locations within the state’s Heritage Zone.

The pursuit of heritage protection was triggered following the decision to build the Aswan High Dam in Egypt, which would have flooded the valley containing the Abu Simbel temples, a treasure of ancient Egyptian civilisation.

In 1959, after an appeal from the governments of Egypt and Sudan, Unesco launched an international safeguarding campaign. Archaeological research in the areas to be flooded was accelerated. The Abu Simbel and Philae temples were dismantled, moved to dry ground and reassembled.

The campaign cost about US$80mil, half of which was donated by some 50 countries, showing the importance of solidarity and shared responsibility in conserving outstanding cultural sites. Its success led to other campaigns to save Venice and its Lagoon (Italy), the archaeological ruins at Moenjodaro in Pakistan, and the restoration of the Borobodur temple compounds in Indonesia.

This in turn led to Unesco initiating, with the help of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), the preparation of a draft convention for the protection of cultural heritage.

See the above page for the full story.

4th Century bible online

Egypt Daily Star News

Thanks to Mark Morgan for pointing out that the above link was pointing to the wrong place entirely! I have now corrected it and it goes straight to the article.

One of the world's oldest Bibles, the Codex Sinaiticus, discovered in Egypt in the 19th century, is to be made available online this week, the Leipzig University library said Monday.

The Codex Sinaiticus, which dates from the fourth century, is one of the two most ancient copies of the entire Bible in Greek. The other is the Codex Vaticanus.

The manuscript was uncovered by a German scholar in St Catherine's monastery in the Sinai desert. Much of it, written on some 350 pages of vellum, ended up in St. Petersburg.

In the 1930s, most of this treasure trove was then sold by Stalin to the British Museum in London.

Some 40 pages also ended up going to Leipzig University, while yet more pages were found in the 1970s in a walled-up room at St Catherine's monastery.

Lost and threatened languages

The Guardian, UK (Andrew Dalby)

Another post which has a lot more irrelevant than relevant stuff, but I thought that it might be of interest. Andrew Dalby is an expert on linguistics and has recently published a book looking at the death of languages today (apparently a language is dying every two weeks). In this piece he lists 10 languages which are dying or have already died, of which ancient Egyptian is one. Others include Cherokee and Cornish - and, most surprisingly, French!

Tourism: Developing Rashid (Rosetta)

Egypt Daily Star News (Ahmed Maged)

Although it lies a mere 65 km east of Alexandria, few tourists venture out to its neighboring city of Rosetta, known in Egypt as Rashid.

As the historic city makes the transition from a mostly agricultural society to a tourist destination, Rashid’s residents are skeptical about how tourism will shape their future, especially as the slow progress in the LE 140 million development plan which kicked off a year and a half ago, complicated by dire social and economic factors, promises little in the short term.

The plan would have the city’s infrastructure rebuilt and its Islamic monuments restored between 2007-11, all as part of a nationwide scheme to revamp 222 Egyptian cities by 2027.

Anyone familiar with Rashid would immediately see the signs of change. Besides the creation of a sea-front promenade on the southern part of the city, the Rashid Fort in the north and several traditional houses have also undergone massive restoration.

One of the two cities located on the Nile’s estuary at the Mediterranean (the other being Damietta 300 km away) the city with a meager population of 70,000 has a historical significance that outstrips is small size.

Home to the Rosetta Stone, which French scholar Jean-Francoise Champollion used to decipher Ancient hieroglyphics, Rashid was the scene of the first encounter between East and West in modern times. Napoleon Bonaparte made Rashid one of his main fortifications when he invaded Egypt in 1798.

The Rashid estuary, known as the Bughaz, is much wider than its counterpart in Damietta and stretches for several kilometers along the coast.

The city is home to 22 old Arabic houses, 12 mosques and a traditional Turkish bath, and according to archaeologists, it houses the second largest number of Islamic antiquities in Egypt after Cairo.

Bit of a blog update

I thought that a couple of bits of information for regular visitors might be in order.

As Bloomsbury starts early on some days and finishes late on others so the blog is being updated on a "when I have a moment" basis - which turns out to be every other day.

Kat has been the reason that I've been able to keep up with it at all. Which brings me to the main piece of off-topic news of the week - FABULOUS news.

KAT HAS A NEW JOB - FOR WHICH MANY, MANY CONGRATULATIONS

Obviously Kat nees to sink her energies into her new career so I'm going to have to blog without her (sob!). This will inevitably mean that things will be very patchy around the edges for the next couple of weeks because it will take me longer to gather the news stories without her - and as you know, right now I don't have a lot of time on my hands.

By way of temporary compensation for this lapse on my part I've decided to intersperse the news items of the next two weeks with the occasional special feature, the first of which you've already seen - the notes from the Dirk Huyge lecture. More notes will be updated tomorrow - the lecture notes from John Wyatt's super Bloomsbury lecture. One of Kathryn Piquette's lectures raised some interesting queries re the dating of the Predynastic so I'll be posting a two-parter on how dating is handled in that period. My last feature is a piece about the Petrie's online database, what it offers you and how to get the most out of it. Those are the ones that I know I can deliver as promised because they are already written. Hopefully that will be enough to fill in the gaps betweeen the news posts until the end of Bloomsbury.

Finally, to ITALIAN SPEAKERS a request for help from Kat. She has a 25+ page paper written in Italian which she needs help with translating into English. It concerns the goddess Bastet, so if this is something that you might like to work on with her, please can you let me know? andie@easynet.co.uk

New Egyptian Finds 1892

New York Times

On July 22nd 1892 this article was published on the New York Times.