Conference

Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG-US) 2010 The Location of Theory
Friday, April 30th to Sunday, May 2nd, 2010
Brown University, Providence, RI

Call for Session Proposals (Due December 1, 2009)

We invite the submission of session proposals for ‘The Location of Theory’, the third annual meeting of the Theoretical Archaeological Group in North America, to be held April 30-May 2, 2010 at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island.

While our choice of topic — ‘The Location of Theory’ — offers many interpretive angles and possibilities for discussion, TAG-US 2010 welcomes sessions on any theoretical subject or controversy. Session organizers will be responsible for selecting speakers, discussants, and organizing abstracts. While various format options are possible and at the discretion of the organizer, we strongly encourage the development of workshops, roundtables, or other innovative styles of engagement that can facilitate discussion and interaction perhaps more effectively than traditional ‘stand-and-deliver’ (individual papers followed by Q&A) sessions. Sessions must be planned to occupy no more than a half day (3 hours).
The closing deadline for session proposals is December 1st, 2009.
We request the following for each submitted session proposal:

1. The name(s) and up-to-date contact information for the organizer(s)
2. The title and proposed length of the session
3. A description (500 words maximum) of the session’s theme and scope, and of its proposed format (round table, workshop, panel, debate, book discussion, media presentation, etc.)
4. A list of definite (or possible) participants in the session with (where appropriate) titles and abstracts (250 words maximum)

Please submit this as a single electronic pdf document to: TAG2010@brown.edu.

For a list of sessions that have been proposed, please visit the Session Proposals page on the TAG-US 2010 website. The deadline for individual papers or other forms of participation (to be submitted directly to specific session organizers) is February 15th, 2010 (please see the Call for Papers page on the website for details).

For more information please consult the TAG-US 2010 website at
http://proteus.brown.edu/tag2010

Taking the day off to move furniture

I'll be back again tomorrow but, unless something truly unmissable breaks later today, I'm moving furniture and its contents from one room to another so that a large carpet cane be taken up today and a new one put down to replace it tomorrow morning. Due to the fact I am a chronic hoarder I anticipate that this activity will take up most of the day!

I've just noticed that my "More Egypt News" widget has started serving Google advertising instead of items about modern Egyptian news. Since I have never wanted advertising on the site and nor am I earning any revenue from it I am somewhat cheesed off that this has happened. So for those of you who used to look at the news widget my apologies but it has now being removed.

Andie xx

Features

Animal Mummies
National Geographic
A.R. Williams
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/11/animal-mummies/williams-text
Extract:

In 1888 an Egyptian farmer digging in the sand near the village of Istabl Antar uncovered a mass grave. The bodies weren't human. They were feline—ancient cats that had been mummified and buried in pits in staggering numbers. "Not one or two here and there," reported the English Illustrated Magazine, "but dozens, hundreds, hundreds of thousands, a layer of them, a stratum thicker than most coal seams, ten to twenty cats deep." Some of the linen-wrapped cats still looked presentable, and a few even had gilded faces. Village children peddled the best specimens to tourists for change; the rest were sold in bulk as fertilizer. One ship hauled about 180,000, weighing some 38,000 pounds, to Liverpool to be spread on the fields of England.

Museums

Neues Museum re-openening
http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/berlin-neues-museum-reopens/story?id=8859496

For the first time since WWII all of the galleries of Berlin's Neues Museum are open to the public, as of 16th October. It has been closed since 1939 and its contents either went on display elsewhere or were put into storage. The star exhibit is the Nefertiti bust, which is the topic of so much dispute between Egypt and Germany, and this dispute takes up a lot of the article.

Also discussed at Spiegel Online. And there's a video on You Tube.

Sneak preview of the Ashmolean Museum's rennovation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/oct/26/ashmolean-museum-architecture

The Ashmolean is generally regarded as Britain's earliest museum. Amongst many other galleries it has a fine Egyptology collection spread over several galleries, with a lot of Amarna material. The building has a fine facade but its interior was crying out for an overhaul and this overhaul is now nearing completion. I very much look forward to hopping on a train and seeing it!

Repatriation

The jolly topic continues to generate reaction.

Politics, nationalism or cultural guilt: What is an archeologist to do?
examiner.com
(With video about Neues Museum reopening)

There's nothing much new here. The article is a response to the reopening of Berlin's Neues Museum and of course addreses the Nefertiti issue. It asks the same questions that others have been asking but doesn't provide any suggestions as to where the answers might be found. And I think that the final line's characterization of archaeologists might be a little insulting for some: "Unnecessarily complicated questions for a group of people who just simply want to dig". Ouch! The questions were apparently too complicated for the article's author too!

Archive Material

Thanks to David Petersen for this great piece of archive footage:

Excavation at the Site of Seneferu's Pyramid (1929)
Available from the University of Pennsylvania website:
http://www.archive.org/details/upenn-f16-4021_1930_Excavation_Seneferu_Pyramid
The first couple of slides and bits of footage in the video are very indistinct but bear with it because it gets much better. And this was 1929!

Book Review extracts

Ptolemy II Philadelphus and his World
Paul McKechnie & Philippe Guillaume (eds.)
Brill
http://www.sehepunkte.de/2009/06/15151.html
Review by Silvia Barbantani

The volume under review originates from an interdisciplinary conference on Ptolemy II Philadelphus held in Auckland, New Zealand, in July 2005. The purpose of this conference was a re-evaluation of the historical significance and of the personality of Ptolemy II, whom W.W. Tarn (Antigonos Gonatas, 1913) once disparagingly described as a weak and "sickly creature", more inclined to pleasures than to war.
His second wife and sister, Arsinoe II, depicted by many modern scholars as his perfect half - a cunning and power-thirsty virago -, underwent a revisionistic assessment already in the 1980s, thanks to works like S.M. Burstein, Arsinoe II Philadelphos: A Revisionist View, in Philip II, Alexander the Great and the Macedonian Heritage, eds.
W.L. Adams, E.N. Borza, Washington 1982, 197-212. Even without taking at face-value encomiastic praise of Ptolemy II such as Theocritus, Idyll XVII or Callimachus, Hymn to Delos, a more balanced picture of the second Lagid king was a long-due task for ancient historians.

Making the most of the available literary, epigraphic, papyrological and archaeological evidence, the contributors offer an updated and original perspective on many aspects of Ptolemy's reign: economic reforms, diplomatic and military initiatives, intercultural relationships, religious and philosophical traditions. Since already dozens of thorough and engaging studies (starting from Fraser's Ptolemaic Alexandria) have been devoted to Alexandrian philology, poetry and literature in Greek - fields where Philadelphus' reign reached the excellence -, it has been a wise choice not to include a specific chapter on this topic, leaving more space to less known aspects of Hellenistic Egypt.

A History of the Hellenistic World 323-30 BC
http://www.classics.ukzn.ac.za/reviews/
(Navigate to isue 18, no.10)

Part 2, "The Hellenistic World in action" (pp. 77-161), looks separately at the affairs of Macedon and Greece, Asia, and Egypt under the Ptolemies down to the 220s. In the case of Iran Errington notes that the level of ‘Hellenizing’ is not known (p. 137), and there was surely a grey area between planned Hellenization and some measure of voluntary or even unconscious assimilation.

Conference

I continue to recommend signing up to EEF if you want to keep tabs on conferences. I only pick up on those which haven't appeared on EEF or which I find of particular interest. This one falls into the latter category

Preliminary Call for Papers.

Disciplinary Measures? Histories of Egyptology in Multi-Disciplinary Context.
June 10-12 2010, London (venue tbc).

A joint conference, to be sponsored by:
The Egypt Exploration Society (EES).
The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), Centre for Cultural, Literary and Postcolonial Studies.
University College London (UCL) Institute of Archaeology, Heritage Studies Research Group.

‘Disciplinary Measures?’ aims to provide a discussion forum for the increasing number of people working on the history (or histories) of the discipline of Egyptology. The conference is not limited to Egyptologists. Rather, it seeks to set the multiple histories of Egyptology in a broader, multi-disciplinary context, concomitant with the manner in which studies of the discipline have emerged in recent years. The conference, therefore, aims to stimulate critique and constructive dialogue, as its title suggests.

The conference benefits from the involvement of three diverse institutions in London, the combination of whose separate goals embodies its aims. The SOAS Centre for Cultural, Literary and Postcolonial Studies provides a convenient space, for example, to discuss the place of the arguably colonial discipline of Egyptology in the postcolonial world. However, with the involvement of the EES, Britain’s learned society for Egyptology, such discussions can be immeasurably strengthened by the involvement of Egyptologists themselves (and the Society’s membership; Egyptology is significant in its popular appeal, and the third day of the conference will therefore be a study day with guest speakers, sponsored by the EES and open to the public). Meanwhile, the expertise of UCL’s Institute of Archaeology in the field of Heritage Studies (not to mention its links with the Egyptologist Flinders Petrie) adds a further element, allowing for a fuller understanding of Egyptology’s (not
insignificant) place within current heritage discourse.

Abstracts (250 words maximum) are invited for papers that consider the history of Egyptology from outside the perspective of the discipline itself, or which provide a historical perspective from within the discipline on current issues in other fields. The deadline for submission is February 28 2010; abstracts should be e-mailed to William Carruthers at .

Jane's World

More backlog! It is great to see how much news is emanating from Jane Akshar' Luxor News blog. Posts are shown by date in descending order (most recent first). This is just a sample of her posts. Obviously go to her site to stay up to date with all the news from Luxor.

Kick-Off Ceremony for USAID-supported Antiquities Project In Luxor

Jane covers the opening ceremony for a project that will drain potentially harmful groundwater away from around 20 monuments on Luxor's West Bank using a system used successfully at Karnak and Luxor. The project is already underway but this event was organized to publicize and explain it. The event was attended by dignitaries and archaeologists. Accompanied by photographs of the event.


Howard Carter House Restoration in Luxor
Jane has been continuing to help out at the Carter House restoration, due to open on teh 4th November, liaising between Lady Carnarvon and architect Dr Hany el Miniaw. Jane describes some of the features that will be on show and has taken some great photos of the restoration work. Jane has another post about the house at the following URL, which has some great extracts from the archnet.org website:
http://luxor-news.blogspot.com/2009/09/which-one-is-carter-house.html


Tomb of Ramesses III (KV11) reopened
A good year for tomb openings, with that of Horemheb opened earlier in the year. Jane's post gives a really good itinerary for a West Bank visit which focuses on Ramesses III. More details about the tomb are available on the Theban Mapping Project website.


No photos in the Valley of the Kings?
One of Jane's visitors has reported that when she went to the VOK photography was banned, not just in the tombs but in the valley itself. Her visitor checked with the inspectorate and this was confirmed. And various comments in response confirm that cameras were being taken away from visitors at the gate into the VOK.


Dr Hawass in Indianapolis
The most interesting point in this interview with Hawass on the Heritage Key website is that Hawass confirms that he is leaving the SCA next year, when the tenure of the position ends. But there is a lot of other information in the interview including planned openings of sites to the public, and the latest work at the Great Pyramid and the tomb of Seti I. The details are all very brief but well worth a look.

Field Work

El Visir Amen-Hotep, llamado Huy
Tendencias21

El Instituto de Estudios del Antiguo Egipto ha obtenido permisos para excavar una nueva tumba inédita, la Tumba nº 28 de Asasif (Luxor occidental), su dueño parece ser, según todos los indicios un personaje del que no se conoce demasiado actualmente. Su nombre fue Amen-Hotep, familiarmente llamado Huy.

A Spanish institute has obtained permission to excavate a tomb in the Theban necropolis in teh area of Asasif, thought to belong to Amenhopte, more popularly known as Huy. Not much is known about the vizier and these investigations hope to discover more.


University of Jaen to resume excavations in Aswan
ideal.es

El próximo día 28 de octubre parten los primeros investigadores de la Universidad de Jaén (UJA) con destino a Egipto para iniciar la segunda campaña de trabajo en la necrópolis de los nobles de Asuán, conocida como Qubbet el-Hawa.

Este proyecto se enmarca en una acción de colaboración científica y cultural entre la UJA y el Consejo Supremo de Antigüedades de Egipto y como novedad, este año se podrá consultar a diario el avance preliminar de los trabajos en la página oficial del proyecto (http://www.qubbetelhawa.es).

Este año el grupo está compuesto por trece investigadores dirigidos por el profesor del Área de Historia Antigua de la Universidad de Jaén, el doctor Alejandro Jiménez Serrano. Los objetivos de la misión son más ambiciosos que los de la campaña anterior y se centrarán en cuatro puntos. En primer lugar, se terminará de excavar el exterior de la tumba nº 33, iniciada el año pasado, así como su interior. Esta tumba perteneció a un poderoso personaje, aún desconocido, que vivió en torno al 1850 a. C. En el interior de la misma se han detectado varios enterramientos posteriores en los que se utilizaron sarcófagos de diferentes tipos. Además, hay evidencias que permiten aventurar la existencia de cámaras funerarias anteriormente desconocidas.

More re the discovery of a settlement predating Alexander's Alexandria
Yahoo! News

At a mark of 3,000 years ago, Bernhardt's team detected a shift in pollen grains from native grasses and other plants to those from cereal grains, grapes and weeds associated with agriculture. They also found a marked increase in charcoal particles, all of which suggests that a settlement pre-dated the great city of Alexandria. . . .

Whether the early settlement was Greek, Egyptian or affiliated with some other culture isn't known. Nor can scientists say exactly how big the settlement might have been.

"At this point I don't think you can tell much about the people themselves," Bernhardt told LiveScience, adding that archaeologists are interested in learning more about them.

Bernhardt's findings were presented at a recent meeting of the Geological Society of America and will appear in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Coastal Research.

Repatriation

Artefacts as political pawns
New York Times

This is a busy article looking mainly Egypt's claims for repatriation including, inevitably, the Nefertiti bust and it asks whether the failure of Hosni to secure the UNESCO position was directly responsible for Egypt's latest request for the return of Luxor frescoes from the Louvre. It touches on Iraq as well and looks at the the whole issue of repatriation and politics.

Laws are laws, of course, and looting can’t be tolerated, although when decades or centuries have passed, laws have changed, populations shifted, empires come and gone, legal arguments can be dubious. But the larger truth is that all patrimony arguments ultimately live or die in the morally murky realm of global relations, meaning that modern governments like Egypt’s and Iraq’s may win sympathy today by counting on Western guilt about colonialism when asking for the return of art from ancient sites within their current borders. At the same time there’s no international clamor for Russia to return storerooms of treasures it stole from Germany at the end of the war, or, for that matter, for Sweden to fork over the spoils of a war 350 years ago with Denmark. It’s about emotion, not airtight logic and consistent policy.

The vagaries of realpolitik, and a shifting sense of justice, determine these things. That’s not meant to sound cynical. Plenty of good arguments, legal, moral, intellectual, economic and artistic, support returning objects that came from Egypt back to Egypt, or from Greece back to Greece, or from Italy back to Italy. And plenty support the opposite: dispersing these artifacts around the world, where they can act as diplomats, benefiting not least the people who occupy the territories from which the art came.

Conservation

Egyptians conflicted over preserving Jewish past
Associated Press / Google

The warren of slum alleys is called the Jews' Quarter, but no Jews live there. The ancient synagogue still stands, but its roof is gone. The government is renovating it, but is doing so at a moment when anti-Israel feeling is running especially high in Egypt.
The Ben Maimon synagogue exemplifies this country's conflicted relationship with its Jewish past.
The Jewish community that once flourished in the Arab world's most populous nation left behind physical traces ranging from grand temples in central Cairo and Alexandria to a holy man's humble grave in a Nile Delta village. But the modern-day Egyptian view of those relics lies within a narrow spectrum ranging from disinterest to outright hostility.

See the "Planet Hawass" post below for a video of the conservation work being undertaken. In the accompanying text Hawass denies that there is any prejudice against Jewish heritage.

Exhibitions

Lost Kingdoms of the Nile
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
A review of the exhibition of Nubian archaeology with photographs and an audio slideshow.


Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs. Travels to Toronto and Denver
Art Museum Journal
Short but informative summary of the traveling exhibition, with some lovely photos.

Treasures: The World's Cultures from the British Museum
Art Museum Journal

Treasures... begins in mankind's remotest past with Early Stone Age handaxes (1.6-1.4 Million B.C.) from Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. Discovered by Kenyan archaeologist Louis Leakey (1903-1972), the creation of these lava block implements with a stone hammer distinguished humanity from the rest of the Animal Kingdom.
Egyptian civilization is introduced by a scale replica of the Rosetta Stone (196 B.C.), excavated in 1799 by Napoleon's troops. The granodiorite monument's combination of hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek scripts aided in the 1822 decipherment of ancient Egypt's language by French philologist Jean-François Champollion (1790-1832).
Artifacts describe Egyptian history, culture and funerary practices.

The view from Planet Hawass

The following is a summary of the main news items from Zahi Hawass's website over the previous few weeks. The most recent item is at the top of the post. If some of these are duplicates of earlier posts I apologise - these were picked up by Google Reader but it sometimes picks up older items as well as recent ones.


Neb Re statue
A photograph of the sandstone statue now located in the Luxor Museum.

A Night in the White Desert

Hawass talking about visiting the White Desert which is the remarkable area just north of Farafra, famous for its gorgeous white limestone formations. Now a national park it is becoming increasingly popular with tourists, which is a distinctly mixed blessing.


The unfinished pyramid at Saqqara
(With video)
The incomplete pyramid of the 3rd dynasty pharaoh Sekhemkhet was discovered in 1954 by Zakaria Gomein. As a sealed but empty sarcophagus Gomein discovered grave goods, including gold jewellry. There's some good footage of the pyramid on the video.


West Bank of Luxor
The photo store has been updated with some new images. This is a particularly fine aeriel photograph of Deir el-Bahri (the temples of Hatshepsut and Mentuhotep II) and the surrounding Theban hills.


Museums in Alexandria
Hawass goes walkabout in Alexandria, where he was delivering a lecture. He visited the National Museum of Alexandria and the Jewelry Museum. There's a description of the work that took place to restore the early 20th century building which houses the latter museum, and which sounds like a terrific place.


Restoring the Moses Ben Maimon Synagogue in Cairo
(With video)
Hawass uses the example of this synagogue to counter suggestions that the SCA are not concerned with the Jewish heritage of Cairo. It is expected to open to the public in 2010 following restoration work.


Taweret Figure Found at Dra Abu'l Naga
Another photo, and a rather nice one. A bronze figurine of the hippopotamus goddess Taweret found recently in the SCA excavations at Dra Abu’l Naga. Traces of gold can be seen on the head.


Drilling under the Sphinx
(With video)
Drilling to investigate groundwater levels beneath the Sphinx, for conservation purposes, have not revealed any hidden chambers!


Philae Temple
Nice aeriel shot of the Temple of Philae.


Restoring Saqqara
Some odds and ends about restoration work at the Step Pyramid of Djoser, the South Tomb and the Serapeum. Hawass says that they are hoping to re-open the Serapeum to the public in December, which would be great - it is a remarkable place.


Bahariya Oasis
Three houses have been destroyed (the owners apparently moved willingly to new properties ) and a bulldozer that brought them down revealed a burial shaft. Hawass also talke about previous discoveries at the oasis and suggests that there is much more to be revealed in Bahariya.


KV64 to be discovered by an all-Egyptian tomb
(With video)

We discovered a cut in the mountain, followed by stairs ending in a hole in the ground. It looks like the entrance to a tomb, and it is exactly similar to the entrance of KV63. We recorded many inscriptions nearby, some of which were already known and others of which were found for the first time. One tells us that a man named Userhat built a tomb for his father, the vizier Amennakht. Our work among the cliffs was very interesting. We found huge blocks, and it took us a long time to move them. After that, we found a manmade wall, below which was a shaft with stairs going down. This seems to be the entrance to yet another tomb. We also found many workmen’s huts – we know that the workmen used to live in the valley while they were cutting and decorating the tombs of the pharaohs. In one area, we found a round limestone base, with a hole in the middle where food and drink for the workmen would have been placed.

Remember that even if we do not find that one of these two entrances leads to the tomb of Ramesses VIII, we know that many great royals, including Thutmose II and Nefertiti, along with the queens of Dynasty 18, were buried in the valley, but their tombs are also still unknown.

Back to Autumnal London

It was a pretty drive back. Even the motorways were flanked by vistas of Autumnal leaf change. The colours were marvellous in the bright sunshine. My house was still standing patiently where I left it, but I had so much post that I had to fight with the door to get in!

I'm going to update the blog this week with both new stories and older ones, so it will be a bit of a mix for the next few days. I'm going to organize old stories by website rather than date because it's quicker than doing it by date (today, for example, I've started with Hawass's site). and I've bundled more up to date stories by category. I'll get it back up to date before I sit down and work out how to manage it going forward. I have all the suggestions printed off and I shall be adopting many of the ideas that were put forward.

I have switched the comments functionality back on now that I'm reunited with my broadband connection. At the moment I have opted to moderate them so that I can keep an eye on spam, but I'll turn off moderation when things are back to normal.

Informal book review - Egyptian Food and Drink

Egyptian Food and Drink
Hiliary Wilson
Shire 1998
64 pages


This book looks at the production, preparation and consumption of food by the rich and poor of ancient Egypt


Contents:
List of illustrations
Chronology
Introduction
Bread and beer
All growing things
Wine and fruit of all kinds
Meat, fish and fowl
The condiment shelf
The kitchen
Glossary
Museums to visit
Further reading
Index

Introduction
The introduction deals mainly with the types of evidence for available for food and drink in ancient Egypt. Most of the data is concerned with food required for the afterlife and there is little about food preparation, horticulture and cooking methods.

Bread and Beer
Both bread and beer were made from grain – either barley or wheat. Grain was the staple ingredient in Egypt and was subject to taxation. Wilson goes on to describe the sowing, harvesting and post-harvest processing of barley and wheat, and lists some of their uses. Bread was of particular importance and Wilson covers the different types, shapes and production methods. Beer making is described at the end of the chapter. Hops were unknown in Egypt so the beer was unlike anything that would be recognized as beer today.

All growing things
This chapter opens with a look at the type of growing that took place in the form of irrigated fields growing cereals and flax, and garden plots forming small beds with raised mud-brick partitions. This chapter is concerned mainly with legumes and pulses including garlic, onion, lettuce, cucumbers, lupine, broad bean, lentils and yellow peas as well as parts of water lily. In each case Wilson explains both what evidence exists for usage and often provides modern parallels of Egyptian equivalents.

Wine and fruits of all kinds
This chapter is devoted to fruit and products derived from fruit. Fruit were valued in their own right but were also processed to form purees, jams and flavours for other foodstuffs. Grapes were used to make wine, as were pomegranates. Wilson discusses a number of different fruits and their uses.

Meat, fish and fowl
Wilson opens with the observation that the “problems associated with keeping food fresh in a hot climate led to an apparent class distinction in the eating of meat”. She next points out that the lower a person’s class the smaller he was likely to eat, and that only the wealthy could afford to slaughter large animals. Wilson looks at what would have been consumed by both the wealthy and those at village level. She also discusses tabus associated with different meats and fish. Wilson then goes not to look at how fish and fowl were cauth, processed and prepared. A description of butchery and the resulting products follows. Wild game supplemented the diet.

The condiment shelf
Wilson describes products that were used to preserve and to add flavour ingredients and meals. Fats, oils, salts, and herbs were used and would have produced the same sort of flavours, textures and effect familiar to anyone accustomed to modern Egyptian cookery.

The kitchen
The last chapter looks at the kitchen and its contents. Wilson says that most village cooking took place out of doors and that in wealthier households it would take place on upper floors or in open courtyards to enable smoke and cooking smells to escape. She goes on to describe cooking fires, domestic stoves, the variety of pots and pans used, and a number of cooking utensils including knives, paired sticks, spoons, spatulae, ladles, pestles and mortars and mixing bowls. Vermin clearly presented problems and Wilson mentions that pottery rat traps are known from the 12th Dynasty in Kahun.

The book ends with a useful glossary, a list of museums to visit (in the UK, Egypt, France, Italy and the USA – of which the Museum of Agriculture at Dokki in Cairo is a must!), a short Further Reading list and the index.

The book is full of black and white photographs and illustrations, mainly showing representations from tombs, clay models and surviving examples of foodstuffs.

To me there are only two minor omissions. The first is that there is very little discussion of how little Egyptian agriculture evolved over a period of 3000 years and why this might be. The second is that the few innovations and imports were often valuable at different levels, but they are not discussed here. But this is a very small book and there's only so much information that you can stuff into that number of pages without sacrificing clarity, so I'm certainly not grumbling.

I very much like that Wilson looks at all levels of Egyptian society and what sort of foods people of different classes would have had access to for consumption, not just what the wealthy would have had access to.

Overall this is a well presented and informative introduction to a vast and fascinating topic.

Informal book review - Egyptian Scarabs

Egyptian Scarabs
Richard H. Wilkinson
Shire 2008
9780747806738
64 pages



The contents are as follows:

- A list of illustrations
- Chronology from the Predynastic to Graeco-Roman periods

1. The scarab in nature and myth
2. Scarab development
3. Types of scarab
4. Heart scarabs
5. Commemorative scarabs
6. Scarabs abroad
- Further reading
- Museums
- Index

1. The scarab in nature and myth
Chapter 1 introduces the scarab to the uninitiated. Over a period of 2000 years from the end of the Old Kingdom, scarab representations were made in a variety of fabrics. The member of the Scarabaeidae family upon which the Egyptian scarab representations is based on the form of dung beetle known as the “roller” due to its practise of rolling dung into their burrows for food or for egg-laying. The second half of the chapter looks at the mythology of the scarab beetle in Egypt, which is based apparently on the rolling of the dung ball which as equated to the movement of the solar orb across the sky. The scarab deity Khepri was one of three major forms of solar deity. Wilkinson goes on to explore the nature of Khepri, the deity who was constantly reborn, just as the sun was reborn each day.

2. Scarab development
Wilkinson opens with the intriguing observation that the development of the scarab in Egypt “followed a somewhat slow and unlikely path”. He goes on to describe how scarab forms evolved. The earliest were amulets. Amulets date to the Predynastic but most early ovoid scarab forms date from the end of the Old Kingdom. They were first used as seals during the First Intermediate period, by the end of which they were more precisely made, showing a more naturalistic form than in the Old Kingdom. Seals, on the base of the amulet beneath the scarab itself, could be maze-like or representational. Wilkinson discusses mass-production in the Middle Kingdom and the expanding range of seal motifs. Stylistic advances were made in the New Kingdom. The chapter concludes with an excellent overview of some of the problems involved with the dating of scarabs.

3. Types of scarab
This chapter looks at different ways of looking at scarabs. Wilkinson discusses them under the following headings:

- Form and function
- Materials of construction.
- Back designs
- Base designs and inscriptions


4. Heart scarabs
This chapter looks at the role of the scarab, from around the 13th Dynasty, in the process by which the dead makes the transition into the afterlife. The “weighing of the heart” is a judgment presided over by certain deities and described in the Book of the Dead. The heart is weighed on scales against a feather which represents the truth and justice of the goddess Ma’at. Scarab amulets were placed in the mummy to assist the heart during the judgement. The rest of the chapter discusses the design and manufacture of these scarabs. The number of variants is considerable. As time went by scarabs, particularly in royal mummies, were incorporated into often elaborate pectorals jewellery. They fell out of use by the Graeco-Roman period.

5. Commemorative scarabs
These are scarabs that were commissioned specially to celebrated specific occasions and which date to the New Kingdom, principally during the reign of Amenhotep III. They are an important source of historical information. Wilkinson gives examples of particular scarabs and classes of commemorative scarab. All consist of scarab amulets with hieroglyphic inscriptions on the bases, some texts quite short, others remarkably long. Wilkinson points out some gaps in knowledge. For example, why only some subjects appear to have been commemorated by Amenhotep III, and why commemorative scarabs do not appear to have been produced after the 11th year of Amenhotep’s reign but were resumed under the reign of Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten). Wilkinson highlights the differences between scarabs of Amenhotep III and IV. None are known after the Amarna period.

6. Scarabs abroad
Egyptian scarabs are by no means exclusive to Egypt. They are found throughout the Mediterranean. Egyptian items were highly valued through the Mediterranean areas and were widely traded. Scarabs were perhaps valued as magical amulets. As well as originals from Egypt copies were also produced, some of which were true to the originals and many of which had their own distinctive character. Wilkinson looks at Mediterranean scarabs area by area: the southern Levant, the Aegean, Etruria and “other cultures”. All have archaeological value. For example, those from the southern Levant have been research with a view to improving an understanding of how the chronologies of Palestine and Egypt relate to each other.

The above chapters are followed by a useful three-page list of further reading, a list of museums to visit (in the UK, Canada, Egypt, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Switzerland and the US). Finally there is an index.

This is an excellent book. The subject matter is ideal for a publication of this size (64 pages) and leaves the reader with the feeling that a great deal of information has been imparted without the sense that there are any huge gaps. Not that scarabs are a simple topic – they are the subject of important research projects using increasingly complex techniques and they are key to understanding both Egyptian concerns and the way in which Egypt was perceived by and was connected with other cultures. Wilkinson touches on those important issues without become side-tracked by them. His writing is clear and articulate and a pleasure to read.

The text is complemented by illustrations, diagrams and photographs in both black and white and colour, all of which illustrate the points made throughout the book. The book is well made and printed on glossy paper which highlights the coloured photographs particularly well.

Informal book review - Egyptian Faience and Glass

I brought a number of Shire Publications books away with me. They can be read in a couple of hours (they average about 64 pages long), are written by some excellent authors and stuff a lot of useful information into a digestible package. Most of them are still in print, others possibly discontinued but online stores like Amazon offer second hand alternatives.

I made some notes about the books as I read them so I thought I'd post those notes here to tide things over until the weekend when I'm back on broadband.

Someone should write a sonnet or ode to broadband.

The first one is Paul T. Nicholson's highly enjoyable book on faience and glass.

Paul T Nicholson
Egyptian Faience and Glass
Shire Egyptology
1993

9780747801955


Contents

Part 1, Faience
1 – The Material
2 – Predynastic
3 – Early Dynastic, Old Kingdom and First Intermediate Period
4 – Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period
5 – New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period
6 – The Late Period and After
Part 2, Glass
7 – The Material and its Technology
8 – The Earliest Glass in Egypt
9 – The New Kingdom
10 – The Third Intermediate and Late Periods
11 – The Graeco-Roman Period
12 – Glossary
13 – Further Reading
14 – Museums

The book is divided into three parts – Faience, Glass and reference material. Faience and Glass each take up around 32 pages. The book has 80 pages which is longer than the usual 64 pages of Shire Egyptology books..

Part 1, Faience

1 – Material
The first chapter very helpfully defines Egyptian Faience, explaining the origins of the term and the reasons why there has been confusion in the past about what faience is. Nicholson describes faience as “an artificial precious stone” and explains the composition of the non-clay ceramic, and the methods of manufacture.

2 - Predynastic
Nicholson looks briefly at the origins of faience production in Egypt in the pre-Pharaonic period, mentioning the relationship between glazed steatite and faience beads, and describing the variation of composition, manufacturing and glazing of faience at this time.

3 – Early Dynastic, Old Kingdom and First Intermediate Period
The development of modelling techniques and the diversification of items made from faience are described – from animal figurines at Hierakonpolis to 36,000 turquoise coloured tiles at the Saqqara Step Pyramid of Djoser. Examples from Abusir included inscriptions and representations in white paste and gold leaf.

4 – Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period
Faience became popular during the Middle Kingdom, with techniques that made objects more durable. Many were found in funerary contexts. Animal figurines, such as the hedgehogs from Beni Hasan, female figurines, scarabs, and food offerings were all popular subject matters. Vessels were made and a new style of vessel was added in the Second Intermediate period. Production also flourished in Nubia at this time.

5 – New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period
This is the richest period of faience production, with thousands of examples known. Both large scale and small scale workshops produced faience. Nicholson describes the moulds that were made and explains how they were used before explaining new techniques, including the addition of glass to faience. The range of items made increases with more varied types of decorative, ornamental and architectural items produced. Nicholson describes these types and picks out some specific examples. From the Nineteenth Dynasty faience was exported to various Mediterranean locations and by the Third Intermediate the techniques required to manufacture faience had also found their way beyond Egypt. A particular product of the Third Intermediate was the ushabti.

6 – The Late Period and After
Under the Saites of the 26th Dynasty faience was better quality and new developments were introduced. Shades of green and black were favoured. Shabti figures continued to be mass produced. Much of the faience produced at this time was exported. Nicholson explains the workings of the Roman faience kilns found at Memphis.


Part 2, Glass

7 – The Material and its Technology
Nicholson starts off with a description of the composition of glass, and where the components were obtained. He then goes on to discuss the two-stage process of glass making, a complex process particularly given requirements for both clear and coloured glass.

8 – The Earliest Glass in Egypt
The earliest glass manufactured in Egypt dates to the New Kingdom but it was imported and used before this time and Nicholson discusses some of these imports.

9 – The New Kingdom
The longest chapter in the Glass section looks at how glass emerged fully fledged during the reign of Tuthmosis III when it may have been introduced from abroad. Glass workshops have been found at a number of locations in Egypt and the information supplied from these sites is discussed. Nicholson next explains how delicate glass vessels were built around organic cores and gives some examples of core formed vessel types and their decorative motifs. He then describes mould-made vessels and the difficult technique of cold-cutting where glass is worked as though it were stone.

10 – The Third Intermediate and Late Periods
Glass production apparently declined after the Twenty First Century but resumed in the Twenty Sixth Dynasty and became plentiful in the Thirtieth. The same techniques were employed but there are some differences in colour, style, decorative techniques and pattern, which are described. Mosaic glass was apparently introduced in the Thirtieth.

11 – Graeco-Roman Period
Alexandria became a focus for glass production, and new approaches to glass production were developed here. Core forming, moulding and cold-cutting are discussed again and new techniques which appear at this time are also described.

These chapters are followed by a map showing the principal sites mentioned, a three page glossary, a recommended reading list and a list of museums that people can visit to see faience and glass on display in a number of countries.

The text is accompanied by black and white photographs and illustrations. Both topics would have benefited considerably by being illustrated with colour photographs, as in more recent Shire publications, so that the beauty of the artistry could be appreciated.

No attempts are made to summarize the two industries or compare them at the end of the book. Each of the two parts is a standalone work. Although Nicholson does not explain why he has put the two together it is clear that there was an overlap in production skills and in some cases both were produced by the same workshops. In addition, glass was sometimes used in the production of faience. On the whole I would rather have seen this divided into two books with more detail allocated to each topic.

Both parts of the book focus on manufacture and technology rather than on design or aesthetics. The explanations are well written and the technical descriptions are easy to understand.

More news items from the mountain

Here's another update from the mountainside. It's quite short but there are one or two interesting odds and ends in amongst it all. Thanks very much to everyone to has emailed and I will be replying very soon. Andie xx

Museums

The Louvre pieces still under discussion
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/968/fr2.htm

The pieces from Luxor that the Louvre have promised to return are discussed on Al Ahram Weekly. This is, as usual, a good summary from Nevine El-Aref.

The French decision to conform to the legal requirements and return the antiquities was a good one, but it does raise the question of whether the sort of strong-arm tactics will be used by Egypt on cases where the legalities are not so clear and obvious.

The benefits of loaning disputed items
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13900966
Copied at:
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/snatched-from-northern-climes/482598/

There was a good article in the Economist some time ago which looked at the issue of repatriation of artefacts entitled “Snatched from northern climes” and suggests that loans between museums might be the solution. I thought that it might be of interest to some readers in the light of frequent discussions about repatriating items to Egypt from mainly western museums.

The author doesn’t argue the right or wrong of individual ownership disputes but makes the comment that when repatriation of items takes place where circumstances of removal are ambiguous it might set a precedent worrying to museum curators. The Munich declaration, signed by some of the world’s leading museums in 2002 states that today’s ethical values cannot be applied to past purchases but it does acknowledge that more should be done to increase the exposure of disputed items to a wider audience, an agreement which has resulted in an increase of loans between museums, some of them very high profile items. The article does not take a naïve stance and raises the fear that some curators may have of loans not being returned but suggests that loaning important items could be the building of a relationship of trust that could lead to greater commitment to meeting the needs of countries who wish to see their past in their own museums.

On the other hand a recent article about the exhibitions “Secrests of Tomb 10A” (see Exhibitions, below) makes the point that with insurance, transportation and other costs loans can be very expensive to arrange. I suppose it depends on the scale and duration of the loan – whether it is one priceless item or many.


A ushabit returns home to Egypt from America
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/968/he3.htm

Purchased from a New York antiquities shop in 1995 the ushabti (shown in a photo) has been returned to Cairo where it is undergoing restoration.


Rossetta stone to visit Egypt?

The above Economist article mentions in passing that although the British Museum did not sign the Munich declaration it “will soon lend the Rosetta stone, the cornerstone of written language, to Egypt for the opening of the Giza museum”. Has anyone seen news of this anywhere else?


Field Investigation

Still hunting for Cleo
http://en.rian.ru/culture/20090928/156278531.html

The hunt for Cleopatra carries on, with investigations at Taposiris Magna starting up again this month.


Valley of the Kings
http://blogs.usatoday.com/sciencefair/2009/10/fracture-zones-endanger-tombs-in-egypt.html

This is a short article which looks at the apparently deliberate custom of constructing tombs on fractures in the Valley of the Kings, due to the relative ease of excavating them. Investigators have raised concerns that these fractures may act as channels for flash floods, causing damage to the tomb walls and their paintings.

The identification of fractures as an attractive feature to ancient tomb builders is also being used as a guide to the potential location of new tombs.



Interview with Dr. Josef Wegner who discusses Abydos, Senwosret III, and Egyptian Funerary Practices
http://heritage-key.com/egypt/exclusive-interview-dr-josef-wegner-discusses-abydos-senwosret-iii-and-egyptian-funerary-pract

Some of the interviews with Egyptologists that I’ve read over the years are painfully thin on content but this one is infinitely better than average and Dr Wegner imparts some useful information and discusses his opinions about Abydos and about Senwosert III in particular.



Lab work - Conservation and Analysis

DNA analysis of mummy tooth
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2009/10/18/scientists_pull_an_ancient_tooth_for_dna_clues/

The tooth concerned belongs to a mummy found in the tomb of Governor and Lady Djehutynakht, one of the subjects of the Secrets of Tomb 10A exhibition (link to review below). It is not known which gender the mummy is and it is hoped that the DNA sample will help to provide an answer to this question and perhaps reveal information about family connections. The results aren’t back yet. There’s a short but gratifyingly honest assessment of the value of DNA from a body this old.

As with many of these articles this one revels in the difficulty with which the dentist, sweat on his laboured brow, extracted a tooth after failing to remove one which was too firmly connected to its owner.


Simulating the impacts of wind erosion on the Sphinx
http://www.scientificcomputing.com/news-DA-Invisible-Winds-at-Egypts-Great-Sphinx-Revealed-101909.aspx

The poor old sphinx is under the microscope again. This time the damaging effects of the wind are being modelled in a 3-d virtual reality environment where the various ebbs and flows of the wind are shown in colour so that they can be visualized.

There are some good pics accompanying the article.

Just two thoughts – one is that the article doesn’t say how the results of understanding the wind flows over and around the Sphinx are going to be used to protect it and the second, the result of a brewing scepticism about climate models, is just that a computer model is only good as the data fed into it – and there is nothing in the article to say how this data is being harvested.


Discussion / Comment

Egyptian Antiquities Spat Fuels Criticism over Lack of Freedom
http://www.themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=26686

This is a good one (or a bad one depending on your perspective). Zahi Hawass has found himself in the middle of a human rights dispute over his alleged refusal to grant a colleague academic freedom. Ahmad Salih, a researcher, challenged the research views of Hawass (Supreme Council of Antiquities) and says that as a result Hawass has taken legal actions against him and ridiculed him in the media, undermining both his research and his reputation. A human rights organization (Arabic Network for Human Rights Information or ANHRI) is investigating the matter in case there is evidence of academic repression. The view of Hawass is that Salih’s attacks on him are personally motivated, because Hawass refused to take him on his mummy-restoration team a few years ago. It will be interesting to see the outcome of the investigation, if it ever hits the light of day.

The above page quotes Hawass saying “I am a man who has a doctorate degree and 40 years of experience . . . . This guy has no degree, he hasn’t published a single paper, has no credentials and he attacks me on my projects. I never insulted him publicly at all. I just took him to court and the court punished him.”

That quote, if accurate raises a couple of rather large issues. Why, for example, shouldn’t the well informed amateur challenge academic thoughts in public or private? New ideas often come as the result of opposing opinions. As to the suggestion in his statement that Hawass feels that it okay to “punish” anyone who opposes Hawass’s opinions if they don’t have what he thinks of as sufficient qualifications, that does imply that Egyptian amateur researchers do have something to worry about if they publicly disagree with the party line.
There’s lots of “ifs” in all this and there’s the distinct feeling that the full story isn’t quite out there just yet.


Exhibitions

The Secrets of Tomb 10A
http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2009/10/18/tomb_10a_lets_you_look_history_right_in_the_face/

This is a good informative article about the exhibition by Sebastian Smee. It is written with humour, picking out particular objects on display and highlighting aspects of the preparation for the exhibition including conservation. He raises the much-debated topic of the value of technology in exhibitions of this sort. His view is that this is an art exhibition and that the presence of a plasma screen showing CT scans of the head of one of the mummies is out of place and distracting in that context although he does admit that some people will probably be fascinated by it. He concludes “If this is the kind of intelligent, collection-based, curator-driven show we are going to see more of in the future, I for one won’t be complaining.”

I have learned to dread exhibition reviews but I really enjoyed this one.


Journals and magazines

KMT Volume 20, Number 3, Fall 2009
http://www.kmtjournal.com/currentissue.htm

Thanks to John Rauchert for sending these details. I have to confess that an ice-cold finger still touches my spine every time I see the name “Nefertiti” – a legacy of having worked on this blog for over five years! But I very much like the look of the Oakey and Ertman articles and shall try to get hold of KMT which tends to elude me as it is not widely stocked in London.

Includes SIX Feature Articles:
KV63 2009 Season by Otto J. Schaden
Ushabtis of King Taharqa in Boston by Joyce Haynes, Mimi Santini-Ritt & Richard Newman
Were Nefertiti & Tutankhaten Coregents? by Aidan Dodson
Symbolism in the Decoration of King Ay’s Tomb (WV23) by Earl L. Ertman
Egypt Seaside at the Brighton Museum, UK, by Michael Oakey
Ancient Egypt on the Tagus, Lisbon, Portugal, by Lucy Gordan-Rastelli

Plus “Nile Currents” & “For the Record,”
As well as reviews of:
The Spies of Sobek by Paul Doherty;
Alexandria: A Marcus Didius Falco Novel by Lindsey Davis;
Refugees for Eternity Part Four: Identifying the Royal Mummies by Dylan Bickerstaffe;
Abydos: Egypt’s First Pharaohs and the Cult of Osiris by David O’Connor;
& Ancient Egypt and Nubia in the Ashmolean Museum by Helen Whitehouse


Book Reviews

Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2009.10.26
Gilles Gorre, Les relations du clergé égyptien et des lagides d'après des sources privées. Studia Hellenistica; 45. Leuven: Peeters, 2009. Pp. lviii, 641. ISBN 9789042920354. €105.00 (pb).
Reviewed by M. Weiskopf, mnweiskopf@aol.com Word count: 2007 words
http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2009/2009-10-26.html

Well it made me laugh

I have been given a big collection of unwanted National Geographic magazines by a family friend, and I have been wading through them for articles of interest. Not that it's any hardship to go through them - the photography alone is superb.

One of them, dating to September 1998 has an article about the Valley of the Kings by Kent Weeks. I was leafing through it this evening and came across this lovely exerpt from a TV interview. Here it is:

In 1995, six seasons after we began work in KV 5, a European television reporter visited us. When she asked what we were digging at the moment, I described our work in the 3,600-square-foot pillared hall.

"This is one of the largest pillared halls ever found in an Egyptian tomb," I said.

"Did you also find colored balls?"

I did a double take. "I'm sorry?"

"I mean, were billiard halls common in ancient Egypt?

I had trouble keeping a straight face as the camera rolled. When the inverview was done, I suggested we tape it again, but she declined.

Lovely to see how some journalists really do their homework before conducting an interview!

New Publication: Standards of Archaeological Excavation

Another new publication, courtesy of Geoffrey Tassie.

Standards of Archaeological Excavation; A Fieldguide to the Methodology, Recording Techniques and Conventions
by G. J. Tassie and L. S. Owens

Controlled excavation and recovery is the essence of good archaeological practice. Field notes, reports, drawings and photographs are the embodiment of the site; once excavated, many of the contexts are destroyed forever, and the records are the only evidence they ever existed. The graphic and textual reconstruction of the site enables repeatable comparisons to be made, allowing re-evaluation and re-interpretation as necessary. With more than 250 checklists, diagrams, photographs and tables, this fieldguide takes the archaeologist from site evaluation through to grid systems, methods of excavation for different context types, archiving, report writing and post-excavation assessment. All these activities comprise the holistic archaeological practice which is advocated throughout this work. Using the prescribed methodology, the excavator can gather data in an ordered, logical manner, presenting it in layered form to enable further interpretation. This fieldguide is a comprehensive resource for anyone conducting excavation fieldwork anywhere in the world. From Palaeolithic campsites to historic buildings, Standards gives practical advice to guide the archaeologist towards best practice in any excavation context. This book is not designed for use in the library, but to be carried onto the site with the rest of the archaeologist’s tool kit; to be consulted when required. It is thus an invaluable resource for lecturers, students, field directors, excavators, consultants and specialist, in the classroom or on site.

Published by Golden House Publications

ECHO
Making archaeology work to protect Egypt's heritage.
To place orders contact:
UK: Golden House Publications at: http://www.goldenhp.co.uk/

E-Mail: goldenhouse100@aol.com

or Oxbow Books www.oxbowbooks.com

E-Mail: oxbow@oxbowbooks.com

Phone: 01865-241249

USA: David Brown Company at www.oxbowbooks.com

E-Mail: david.brown.bk.co@snet.net

Phone 860-945-9329

Europe: Cybele (in Paris) at www.librairie-cybele.com/index.html

E-Mail: cybele5@wanadoo.fr

Phone: 01-43541626

All other correspondence should be sent to ECHO at: egyptianheritage@yahoo.co.uk

New publication: Managing Egypt’s Cultural Heritage

Thanks to Tass for sending me details of two new publications. Here's the first:

Managing Egypt’s Cultural Heritage: Proceedings of the First Egyptian Cultural Heritage Organisation Conference on: Egyptian Cultural Heritage Management

Executive Series Editor F. A. Hassan
Edited by L. S. Owens & A. De Trafford
Commissioning Editors G. J. Tassie & J. van Wetering

Egypt is rich in a cultural heritage that can be traced from the remote prehistoric past through the various stages of world civilisation. Ancient Egypt's monuments link us to the past and make us aware of past human achievements. It is our duty to protect and preserve this heritage so that we, and future generations, can share in this historical legacy of our predecessors.

The Nile Valley and Delta were the birthplace of one of the first and most resilient great civilizations. In the course of its long and distinguished history, Egypt has bequeathed to us a legacy of spectacular monuments and a dazzling array of artefacts. However, unimposing sites and objects of everyday life also provide an invaluable insight to the various aspects of ancient Egyptian society and are just as important as the more spectacular sites and 'treasures'. Today, such archaeological sites and monuments all over Egypt are threatened by urban sprawl, development projects, agricultural expansion, pollution and looting. ECHO has been founded to help in securing the protection and conservation of Egypt’s threatened heritage.

The archaeological record is a finite resource, which is easily destroyed without proper protection. There are an incredible number of sites and monuments everywhere in Egypt, as well as the countless artefacts in museums and storerooms, requiring constant monitoring, protection and maintenance.

Managing Egypt’s Cultural Heritage is the first volume in a series of Cultural Heritage Management (CHM) discourses; this ground-breaking book is also the first academic collection of papers dedicated to the practice of CHM in Egypt. The papers in this volume are written by specialists in their fields whose expertise cover many areas of cultural heritage management, from the theoretical to the practical, tangible to intangible heritage, from cutting edge technology to simple conservation measures. The periods covered range from the Predynastic to the Coptic and Islamic periods. This volume is an invaluable addition to the library of heritage managers, conservators, archaeologists, lecturers, anyone interested in preserving Egypt’s cultural and natural heritage.



Published by Golden House Publications.

Contributors include:
Fekri A. Hassan – The UNESCO Nubian Rescue Project;
N. P. Finneran - Safeguarding the Christian Heritage of Egypt….. and a Wider Northeastern African Context;
G. J. Tassie - Sites and Monuments Records and Cultural Heritage Management;
Saleh Lamei - Safeguarding the Cairene Historical Significance Challenges, Conservation and Rehabilitation,
A De Trafford - Tourists’ Experience of the Pyramids with Texts at Saqqara;
L. S. Owens et al. - Retrieval, Conservation, Archiving and Analysis of Ancient Egyptian Human Remains;
J. Johnstone & G. J. Tassie – Egyptian Dance: Intangible Cultural Heritage;
Stephen Quirke & Okasha el-Daly - Transliteration Traditions;
Hany Hanna - Abu Mena Archaeological Area: an Egyptian World Heritage in Danger, A Primary Investigation;
A. Sutherland - Field Conservation Techniques at Kafr Hassan Dawood;
Darren Glazier & Alistair Jones - Not just Egyptians; not just Europeans: different cultures, working together…’ Examining the Heritage of Quseir, Egypt;
Clifford Price et al. - Conserving the Temple of Abydos;
Salima Ikram - May They Live Forever: the Examination, Care, and Curation of Egyptian Mummies; Alejandro Jiménez Serrano et al. - Primary Efforts to Save the Temple of Horus at Edfu;
Michael Seymour – Cultural Heritage Management and Development in Egypt, and many more papers by leading archaeologists, conservators and heritage managers.


UK: Golden House Publications at: http://www.goldenhp.co.uk/
E-Mail: goldenhouse100@aol.com
or Oxbow Books www.oxbowbooks.com

E-Mail: oxbow@oxbowbooks.com
Phone: 01865-241249

USA: David Brown Company at www.oxbowbooks.com
E-Mail: david.brown.bk.co@snet.net
Phone 860-945-9329

Europe: Cybele (in Paris) at www.librairie-cybele.com/index.html
E-Mail: cybele5@wanadoo.fr
Phone: 01-43541626

All other correspondence should be sent to ECHO at: egyptianheritage@yahoo.co.uk

What's New, Pussycat?

As a sincere thank you to everyone who emailed yesterday here are some odds and ends that I’ve been collecting over the last month. Most of it is old hat but I hope that some of it will provide a useful starting point for the eventual resumption of the blog. I'll do another summary next week.

I haven’t got links for all the articles and I’ve only listed the items that seem to be of most interest. And I haven’t checked all of the links due to the state of my dial-up connection which is wobbly to say the least. This really IS an experiment but it seemed like a good place to start. Apologies for any problems!

GENERAL NEWS


Pharaonic-Era Sacred Lake Unearthed in Egypt
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=8834458
Archaeologists have unearthed the site of a pharaonic-era sacred lake in a temple to the Egyptian goddess Mut in the ruins of ancient Tanis, the Culture Ministry said on Thursday. The ministry said the lake, found 12 meters below ground at the San al-Hagar archaeological site in Egypt's eastern Nile Delta, was 15 meters long and 12 meters wide and built out of limestone blocks. It was in a good condition.


Body Part Mummified With Ancient Egyptian Recipe
Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/10/15/salt-mummification.html
Swiss researchers have succeeded in mummifying a body part using the salty recipe of the ancient Egyptians. The experiment, which has been running for more than four months, takes inspiration from a 1994 study by Ronald Wade, director of Maryland's State Anatomical Board, and Bob Brier, one of the leading experts on mummies and Egyptology.


Louvre agrees to return frescoes to Egypt
There have been numerous reports about the appeal from Cairo to the Paris Louvre for the repatriation of Luxor tomb frescoes. AFP reported on 7th October that Egypt had devided to break ties with the museum and the museum’s interests in Egypt until the matter was resolved. Hawass made a statement to the effect that items purchased by the museum had been stolen from Luxor prior to the sale. The response by the Louvre was positive but as with many national museums the decision had to be escalated to a government office for consideration. The French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterand confirmed that a special commission had been convened to consider the request. Mitterand said that it wasn’t until the rediscovery of the tomb in 2008 that doubts emerged about the legality of the frescoes. On Friday October 9th the decision was taken to return the five fragments.
The discussion was exclusive to the Luxor frescoes and did not address the issue of the Denderah zodiac which Egypt has been trying to repatriate for many years.
http://artmuseumjournal.com/louvre_to_return_stolen_artifacts_to_egypt.aspx


KV63 Update
www.KV-63.com
Otto Schaden relaunches his Dig Diary. Additions to the site include a listing of new KV-63 publications, some new images and a Special Commentary on the Menkheperre Seal by Dr. Otto Schaden.


Update re Grand Egyptian Museum, Cairo
http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090820/FOREIGN/708199898/1185/enewsletter


Neues Museum opening Friday 16th October
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hvoeb4YGM_wAD1Y_zHgp-_e6ZptAD9BBHURG2
Berlin's Neues Museum, boasting ancient treasures such as a famous bust of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti and a magnificent Bronze Age golden hat, is finally reopening to the public after standing for decades as a bomb-damaged shell. The museum is being inaugurated Friday by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and opens its doors to the public Saturday. That will mark the first time since World War II that the whole of Berlin's neoclassical Museum Island complex, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has been open.


Egypt to preserve tombs with closures and replicas
http://artmuseumjournal.com/egypt_to_preserve_pharaonic_tombs.aspx
Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt and Director of Excavations at the Giza Pyramids, Saqqara and Bahariya Oasis, told Agence France-Presse on August 17, 2009 that the wall decorations of his country's pharaonic tombs near Luxor (ancient Thebes) are in danger of disappearing due to environmental and biological factors. His solution is to close many of the tombs to tourists after conservation and construct scale replicas within each site's vicinity near the Nile River's west bank.

Mummy Scan
http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/1728134,stanford-scan-ancient-mummy-082109.article
Scientists trying to unwrap the mysteries of a more than 2,500-year-old mummy believed to be an ancient Egyptian priest conducted computer scans Thursday to help determine how the man died, what was buried with him and what he looked like. In a basement lab at Stanford University Medical School, Iret-net Hor-irw's mummy lay tightly wrapped in tattered linen as a handful of scientists looked on.


Farouq Hosni misses out on UNESCO appointment
Hosni lost his bid to become the new Director General of UNESCO in September. The new Director General is Bulgarian Irina Bokova.

Brooklyn Museum launches new smartphone tours
http://artmuseumjournal.com/brooklyn_museum_launches_new_smart_phone_tours.aspx
Individuals with Web-enabled phones make their initial selections of art. The museum's program then suggests related works to see. Visitors can then create sets of annotated objects and share their customized tours with others on the museum's Web site, which contains images and brief descriptions of more than 11,000 artworks.



EXHIBITIONS

The Secrets of Tomb 10A: Egypt 2000 BC
Sunday, October 18, 2009 - Sunday, May 16, 2010 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/sub.asp?key=15&subkey=7332

World of the Pharaohs: Treasures of Egypt Revealed
An exhibit on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Arkansas Arts Centre
http://www.paragoulddailypress.com/articles/2009/10/04/opinion/doc4ac8edacea60b536445697.txt



BOOKS

The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology
Roger S. Bagnall
http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/ClassicalStudies/?view=usa&ci=9780195178388

The Idea of Writing: Play and Complexity
Edited by Alex de Voogt and Irving Finkel
http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=18&pid=33455
The Idea of Writing is an exploration of the versatility of writing systems. From ancient Egyptian, Cuneiform and Merotic writing to Chinese, Maya and Maldivian script, the authors examine the problems and possibilities of polysemy, representing loanwords and the problems of adapting a writing system to another language. The playful and artistic use of writing, including a contribution on writing dance, further illustrates the intricacies of the systems.

Debating Archaeology
http://lcoastpress.com/book.php?id=248
Lewis R. Binford
1989 (re-released August 2009), 556 pages, $39.95 Paper
In this volume, the founder of processual archaeology, Lewis R. Binford collects and comments on the twenty-eight substantive papers published in the 1980's, the third in his set of collected papers (also Working at Archaeology and An Archaeological Perspective). This ongoing collection of self-edited papers, together with the extensive and very candid interstitial commentaries, provides an invaluable record of the development of "The New Archaeology" and a challenging view into the mind of the man who is certainly the most creative archaeological theorist of our time. A new 2009 foreword by Binford reflects on the importance of these articles to later developments in the field.


JOURNAL UPDATES

The British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan (BMSAES), Issue 12
http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/online_journals/bmsaes/issue_12.aspx
Contents
- Constructing word similarities in Meroitic as an aid to decipherment
Reginald Smith
- Early Kushite Tombs of South Asasif
Elena Pischikova
- Edfu under the Twelfth–Seventeenth Dynasties: The monuments in the National Museum of Warsaw
Marcel Marée
- On Publication
Jeffrey Spencer


Journal of the Serbian Archaeological Society
[Glasnik Srpskog arheoloskog drustva]
http://scindeks.nb.rs/issue.aspx?issue=6970&lang=en
Free download of all the papers/reviews in pdf format


Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, Vol. 28, Iss. 3, 2009
Shifting social networks along the Nile: Middle Holocene ceramic assemblages from Sai Island, Sudan
Elena A.A. Garcea, Elisabeth A. Hildebrand


PalArch
http://www.palarch.nl
Journal of Archeaology of Egypt/Egyptology 6 (5) 2009
BOOK REVIEWS:
P. Davoli about Peacock, D. & L. Blue. Eds. 2006. Myos Hormos – Quseir al-Qadim. Roman and Islamic Ports on the Red Sea. Survey and Excavations 1999-2003. - Oxford, Oxbow Books
J. Moje about Sederholm, V.H. 2006. Papyrus British Museum 10808 and its Cultural and Religious Setting. – Leiden, Brill (Probleme der Ägyptologie 24)



NEW WEBSITES AND WEB LINKS

Taa-oewie
www.taa-oewie.nl
Live date November 2009

The Gazelle in Ancient Egyptian Art - Image and Meaning
By Åsa Strandberg
http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-107642
(Uppsala Studies in Egyptology 6, 2009) is now available for downloading.
Thanks for John Wyatt for this link

Jsesh 2.12
http://jsesh.qenherkhopeshef.org/node/1402
Thanks to Serge Rosmorduc for the link to the latest version of JSesh, his free hieroglyph editor.

Oxyrhynchus Hymn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLYfLEZW3bc
Video/audio of the The Oxyrhynchus Hymn.

Video on the cave paintings in Gilf Kebir, and the blogpost that goes with it (thanks to Ann Wyts)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCUdOhG__d4&feature=player_embedded
http://heritage-key.com/blogs/malcolmj/archaeovideo-prehistoric-paintings-swimmers-and-beast-gilf-kebir


MAGAZINES


Ancient Egypt
The October/November 2009 issue of “Ancient Egypt” magazine (published in the U.K.) is now available.
This issue is also available as an electronic version which can be found at the web site www.ancientegyptmagazine.com This may be useful for anyone with a broadband connection who may have difficulty in getting hold of a paper copy of the magazine, or who might want to see a copy before subscribing.
Contents of this issue include;
- News from Egypt and the World of Egyptology: A bumper ‘From our Egypt Correspondent’ brings the latest news and information including reports on new work at Tell Dafna in the Delta, at Saqqara, Luxor and a special exhibition in the Egyptian Museum on Japanese work in Egypt.
- The Re-sealing of KV62: The Tomb of Tutankhamun was sealed by priests and officials at the time of his burial and again after robberies. One of the reasons this tomb (and possibly others) lay undiscovered was that it was then further sealed by natural forces when there was a flood in the Valley of the Kings, as Steve Cross reveals.

- Bits and Pieces: Most of us are familiar with museums displaying ancient Egyptian objects, but what happens to the pieces we don’t see, the damaged, incomplete, modest pieces? Earl L. Ertman investigates.
- Nabta Play Saved: Nabta Playa is a place that few people have heard about, yet it is hugely important to the history of Egypt. Raymond Betz explains where and what it is and how it is an interesting example of Archaeoastronomy.
- The Mortuary temple of Merenptah: AE explores the little-visited temple of Merenptah and its small site museum and finds that it is well worth a visit, especially for anyone interested in the reign of Amenhotep III.
- An unexpected Turkish Delight: Mark Walker, visiting Turkey, discovers temples to the ancient Egyptian gods and explains how and why they came to be built.
- Egyptian Masterpieces: AE looks at a statue of a scribe in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
- The Sycomore and Fig: The sycomore fig was a special plant to the ancient Egyptians. Not only did it provide an edible fruit, but it became associated with funerary beliefs as Hilary Wilson shows.
- The Work of the Egypt Exploration Society: in the fifth of a series of articles, in this issue, Joost Hagen writes about his findings and experiences when studying some Coptic texts, found at the site of Qasr Ibrim in Nubia.
- How old is that mummy in the coffin: Aidan Dodson investigates and questions the current aging techniques.
- PerMesut: in our regular feature for younger readers, Hilary Wilson looks at ancient Egyptians life in and on the river in an article entitled “Sink or Swim”.
- Net Fishing: our regular look at Egyptology on the Web, tracing the history of ancient Egypt. This issue Victor Blunden looks at the last Ramesside kings.

New Books featured in the October issue
Abydos: Egypt’s first Pharaohs and the Cult of Osiris, by David O’Connor.
The Encyclopedia of the Egyptian Pharaohs: Vol 1 – Predynastic through 20th Dynasty, by Darrell D. Baker.
Ancient Egypt and Nubia, by Helen Whitehouse.
The Life of Meresamun: A temple singer in ancient Egypt, Edited by Emily Teeter and Janet Johnson.
The Curse of the Mummy and other Mysteries of Ancient Egypt, by Charlotte Booth.
The Illustrated guide to the Coptic Museum and Churches of Old Cairo, by Gawdat Gabra and Marianne Eaton-Krauss.
Tutankhamun Uncovered: The adventure behind the Curse, a novel by Michael J. Marfleet.
The Murder of King Tut, by James Patterson and Martin Dugard.


BOOK REVIEWS

Scholia Reviews ns 18 (2009) 26.
Neville Morley, Antiquity and Modernity. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.
http://www.classics.ukzn.ac.za/reviews/09-26mor.htm

PalArch
http://www.palarch.nl
Journal of Archeaology of Egypt/Egyptology 6 (5) 2009
P. Davoli about Peacock, D. & L. Blue. Eds. 2006. Myos Hormos – Quseir al-Qadim. Roman and Islamic Ports on the Red Sea. Survey and Excavations 1999-2003. - Oxford, Oxbow Books
J. Moje about Sederholm, V.H. 2006. Papyrus British Museum 10808 and its Cultural and Religious Setting. – Leiden, Brill (Probleme der Ägyptologie 24)



CONFERENCE REPORT

The International Egyptological Conference in Moscow 2009
http://heritage-key.com/blogs/dasha/international-egyptological-conference-moscow-2009-day-four

The view from the mountain

A week ago I had a phone line put in at a tiny house half way up a mountain. I now have dial-up and can pick up my easynet emails. A major advance! I have been confined to a mobile phone for the last couple of months.

I have disabled comments on the blog for the time being to prevent spam and because, quite frankly, the comments from "Anonymous" are as unhelpful as they are spiteful and cowardly.

Tim, I'm not dead so the RIP comment was uncalled for.

I am, however, emerging from a seriously unhappy period of my life. I have been struggling hard to get my act together, put on my research back on track, and have been trying to reorganize parts of my life so that I don't get flattened by it again. Thanks most of all to Jane Akshar, David Petersen, Cheryll Agg and Francis Lankester for hauling me through it. Thanks also to all of you who sent supportive messages.

I should have updated the blog with a temporary shut-down notice and would have done if I'd realized that I as going to get myself into such a mess and be away for so long. Apologies that I didn't post something to that effect. To be perfectly honest I hadn't realized that it was as long as eight week since I had last posted.

I will be back in London, for my sins, on 24th October if not before. I have now started tracking a lot of the recent news and should have a good update ready. I don't promise to leap straight onto my keyboard and start updating the moment I get out of the car, but I will start to update the blog again and will take up some of the great suggestions that so many of you made for improvements.

I notice that in the comments there were lots of links to other blogs dealing with Egypt, and I thought that was a great idea so when I get back I will go through all the comments and assemble a list of all those blogs and bloggers.

Cheers to everyone and I hope that you are all really well.

99.9% of you are absolutely marvellous and worth getting my act together for!

Even though I've disabled comments you can still get hold of me by email as usual

andie @ easynet.co.uk

Love

Andie

xx