Last week at Balamun

EES Delta Survey

The EES are continuing to update their blog.

We’re now at the end of our short season of work at Balamun. Excavation of levels earlier than the mud-brick building we’ve been investigating has revealed remains of collapsed bread ovens which are probably of the Third Intermediate Period, maybe late New Kingdom.

In addition to the SCA Antiquities Inspector who is assigned to the mission, we’ve had with us this year some young Inspectors for training in excavation techniques, including use of the EES Topcon total station, which we use for both general surveying and setting out the grid for our Polish colleagues to use for the magnetic mapping..

In a day or so we will be starting the EES survey (and some limited ‘test’ excavation) at Yetwal wa Yuksur. This will mean we have to get up earlier in the morning (about 5.30) to drive to the site which is beyond Bilqeis (about an hour’s drive away).

More re return of Imesy sarcophagus

Art Museum Journal (Stan Parchin)

The two-piece wooden and plastered sarcophagus from Egypt's 21st Dynasty (ca. 1070-945 B.C.) is brightly painted with clear hieroglyphic writing on it. It was created for an elite male named Imesy. The coffin's decoration includes protective religious symbols for Osiris, Isis, Nephthys and the four sons of Horus, gods and goddesses believed to help the deceased travel safely to the afterlife. Texts inscribed along the work's center are requests for funerary offerings, including bread and beer.

Upon its return home, the coffin will be the centerpiece of a new special exhibition at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo opening April 7, 2010. The installation features artifacts and other treasures that were repatriated to Egypt in the last eight years. It will later become part of the permanent collection of a museum in Sharm el-Sheikh.

It will be fascinating to see how successful a museum in Sharm will be.

King Tut blockbuster is New York bound -- but not to the Met

Los Angeles Times

Is New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art suffering from Tut envy?

Since opening at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on June 16, 2005, "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs," the second coming of bling from the boy king's tomb, has played to some 5.5 million people in the United States and 1.1 million in London.

The Met was given first dibs on the show of 130 artifacts from Tut and other more powerful rulers from his lineage. But its leaders declined, back in 2004, to waive the museum's policy of not requiring an admission fee.

Hawara pyramid photo

drhawass.com

The pyramid of Amenemhat III at Hawara, which was once the largest and most elaborate funerary complex built in the Middle Kingdom. To the south of the pyramid was a large temple that was so complex in design it was known by classical authors such as Herodotus as the “labyrinth.” After the outer limestone casing was removed from the pyramid, it fell into disrepair and now appears as a mudbrick structure surrounded by pieces of stone that are the remains of the labyrinth. (Photo: SCA)

Last time I was there a canal which had been created immediately alongside the pyramid was leaking into the burial chamber and flooding it. Although we were allowed to pass through the gate into the burial chamber the flooding made it impassable. Does anyone know if this is still the situation or if measures have been taken to protect the pyramid from the canal?

Photo for Today by Lucia Gahlin

Thanks to everyone who emailed to say that they particularly liked the Amarna photographs generously supplied by Lucia Gahlin. This is the last of them, so enjoy the view!

Amarna plain from north tombs

Copyright Lucial Gahlin
Bloomsbury Summer School
With my sincere thanks for supplying such a great collection.

For the story behind these photographs see the summary of
the BSS summer school in Amarna with Barry Kemp, which includes a link
to the accompanying two-page photo-gallery.

Mastaba of Ty at Saqqara online

OsirisNet

A massive nine web pages dedicated to the tomb of Ty in Saqqara, with photos, illustrations, site maps, and some great descriptions and explanations.

After several months of work, we can finally present to you, on OsirisNet, a complete description of the famous mastaba of Ty, in Saqqara. Besides an exhaustive description (which includes the translation of almost all the texts) you will be able to discover more than 650 photos, illustrations, commented plans and images with an overlay effect of detail information.

http://www.osirisnet.net/mastabas/ty/e_ty_01.htm

We hope that this visit will please you.

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

More re Tutankhamun DNA

ABC News International (Paul Schemm)

Four page story.

Now experts are planning more tests to uncover further details about Akhenaten's royal family. The new attention could also give a push to a planned new Akhenaten museum that will showcase his mummy near Amarna, his capital midway down the Nile in what is now the province of Minya, 135 miles (220 kilometers) south of Cairo.

In one tantalizing discovery, the testing established that another unidentified mummy was Akhenaten's sister, that he fathered Tutankhamun with her and that she appears to have died from violence with blows to her face and head.

Still elusive is Nefertiti, the chief wife of Akhenaten famed for her beauty. Egypt's antiquities chief, Zahi Hawass, has said one of his goals is to track down her mummy.

"The Amarna period is like an unfinished play," Hawass said at the February press conference announcing the new discoveries. "We know its beginning but have never succeeded in discovering its end."

SCA Panel to Inspect Privately Owned Relics

Egypt State Information Service

In accordance with the newly approved antiquities law, Culture Minister Farouq Hosni ordered on 10 March 2010 the formation of a standing committee to inspect and register relics owned by individuals.

The law requires Egyptians who have Jewish, Coptic and Islamic antiquities to report their belongings to the committee, which is affiliated to the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) as of this month.

The law, which forbids trade in antiquities, allows possession of antiquities with some individuals, on condition that they cannot use them to benefit others, or to damage and neglect them, SCA Secretary-General Zahi Hawass said.

"These antiquities can, in future only, be given as a gift with the SCA's authorisation. They may also be passed on as part of an inheritance," Hawass added.

Restoration and study of Ny-Maat-Ra at the Vatican

Catholic News Story (Carol Glatz)

The Vatican Museums had a rare opportunity to unravel some of the secrets inside a 2,000-year-old Egyptian mummy.

Ny-Maat-Re, a female mummy given to Pope Leo XIII in 1894, had been in a serious state of degradation since the 1990s. Poorly embalmed, the linen bandages under her back had rotted away and her spine and ribcage had collapsed.

In 2007 a Vatican expert decided to restore and study her further and the Vatican Mummy Project was born.

Egyptologist, Alessia Amenta, is the curator of the Vatican Museums' Department for the Antiquities of Egypt and the Near East. She told Catholic News Service that she assembled a team of top-notch experts from a variety of fields to come together to save Ny-Maat-Re, who is one of seven adult and two child mummies in the Vatican Museums' collections.

The Anonymous Man at Brooklyn

Talking Pyramids (Vincent Brown)

The re-wrapping of the mummy of the Anonymous Man was carried out in early February by the team from the Brooklyn Museum. We saw some of the live coverage of the re-wrapping here on Talking Pyramids.

Today they’ve released the batch of photos from the fourth day of the re-wrapping and you can see all of the photos from all four days on their Flickr stream.

See Vincent's page above for videos and useful links.

Talk unravels King Tut story

Accent Advocate

A standing room-only crowd joined history professor Manu Ampim in LA-100 Thursday for a W.E.B. Du Bois lecture series event on the inaccuracy with which the media portray the life of King Tutankhamen, popularly known as King Tut.

The seminar focused on his true genealogy and the De Young Museum exhibit by archeologist Zahi Hawass claiming to have newfound DNA.

“This is modern-day fraud,” Ampim said. “People are taking it as far as distorting images to say they know what King Tut looks like. This is all speculation. You cannot present evidence if it has not been proven yet.”

Ampim said that saying they know who King Tut’s parents were is just guesswork.

They release data that says one thing at this moment in time, Ampim said, then release data at another point in time that is completely different information, and as a scholar one just cannot do that.

Caricature: A Pure Egyptian Industry

Asharq Alawsat (Zahi Hawass)

Ancient Egyptian antiquities have preserved images and illustrations for us that reflect the humour of the ancient Egyptians and their tendency of caricaturing their circumstances, whether they represent their political, economic, or social circumstances. Ancient Egyptian artists utilized the walls of tombs to carve silent caricatures and convey highly expressive scenes to the viewer. Examples of this can be seen in the image of an extremely skinny shepherd whose ribs can be seen under his skin herding a group of fat cows, or an image of a guard sleeping outside of the warehouse that he is supposed to be protecting. There is also the image of a monkey attacking a young boy who stole fruit from the market.

In addition to these images and scenes etched on to the walls of tombs, the laborers and artists also carved images and exchanged drawings and caricatures.

More re return of Imesy sarcophagus to Egypt

npr

Thanks to Tony Marson for the above link.

A 3,000-year-old stolen sarcophagus is returning home to Egypt after a trip around the world.

At a ceremony Wednesday at the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C., U.S. authorities returned the sarcophagus, which was confiscated by customs officials at Miami International Airport in 2008.

"We don't know anything about this coffin," Zahi Hawass, the secretary-general of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, told NPR's Michele Norris. "It left Egypt illegally, but we don't have really any list of the stolen artifacts that left Egypt."

The coffin belonged to someone called Imesy who lived almost 3,000 years ago; it is believed to have been taken in 1970 from Egypt to Spain.

My Fox

With video news report

Herbert Kercado, an agricultural specialist for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Miami, came across a rather interesting shipment a couple of years ago.

It came in a wooden crate which he closely inspected for the presence of beetles and other insect pests which could threaten trees and crops in the U.S. The crate was apparently clean, but its listed contents seemed peculiar: a wooden sarcophagus.

Kercado, a history buff who watches documentaries on TV, did some quick research, he says, "...through the internet. And [I] found out that some items were stolen from Egypt in the past." The ag specialist notified his superior, and an investigation was launched.

Special agent Vince Menditto, with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) caught the case. He was suspicious right away because of the casual way the supposedly-ancient artifact was packed.

And a video at Scientific American.

Nefertiti. Again.

Al Masry Al Youm (Andrew Bossone)

Thousands of artifacts are now returning to Egypt from abroad, but one piece continues to elude decades of government calls for its return: the famous bust of Nefertiti.

The bust has become such a contentious symbol that a copy of it is now part of an exhibition at the Ruhr Museum in Germany dubbed "The Great Game: Archaeology and Politics in the Colonial Period," open until 13 June.

The original, unfinished sculpture from Thutmose's workshop in Tel Amarna is internationally recognized for its artistic quality and aesthetic beauty.

The Egyptian government says it was illegally smuggled out of the country some time around 1924. The German government has always refused to repatriate the queen, which remains the centerpiece of the Neues Museum in Berlin.

The Ruhr exhibition also displays the contract between the Egyptian government and the sponsor of the Thutmose's workshop exhibition, James Simon, who was also the founder of the German Oriental Society.

Egypt to pay for restoration of synagogues

Google / AFP

Egypt will shoulder the costs of restoring the country's Jewish houses of worship said the culture minister Tuesday, two days after a historic synagogue in Cairo's ancient Jewish quarter was rededicated in a private ceremony.

Farouk Hosny said in a statement that his ministry views Jewish sites as much a part of Egypt's culture as Muslim mosques or Coptic churches and the restorations would not require any foreign funding.

On Sunday, the Ben Maimon synagogue, named after the 12th century rabbi and intellectual Maimonides, was rededicated in a ceremony that included half a dozen Egyptian Jewish families that long ago fled the country.

Hosny committed his ministry to restoring all 11 synagogues across Egypt, three of which have already been renovated.

Exploring the viritual Valley of the Kings

Heritage Key (Fran Wilde)

Heritage Key's Valley of the Kings is much easier to reach than the real-world Valley - simply register for a Heritage Key account, follow a few easy steps, and you'll find yourself shortly in the Travel Hub, where you can select the teleporter to the Valley of the Kings from among a range of choices.

Experienced travelers may want to extend their visit to the Collections Gallery to see the treasures of Tutankhamun up close. You will enjoy the convenience of traveling virtually to the Valley, without the dust and expense of actual travel!

On entering the Valley of the Kings from the Heritage Key Virtual visitors are greeted immediately by a friendly Egyptologist, who is taking a break from excavating, documenting, and cataloguing the stunning artefacts from the tomb of Tutankhamun in order to help visitors find their way to the activities available. Tapping the Egyptologist's shoulder elicits more information, as well as a map of the area, and a display behind him offers detailed descriptions of the main activities for all in the Valley.

Photo for Today by Lucia Gahlin

Barry Kemp discussing the animal troughs, Amarna

Copyright Lucia Gahlin
Bloomsbury Summer School

With my thanks

Time for the Great Pyramid?

Archaeology Magazine (Mark Rose)

Like any scientific research, the methods, data, and conclusions presented in JAMA can now be evaluated and debated. Right now, for example, I am working on a short piece about the results to go into our May/June issue. There’s something I’m checking about one point of the DNA analysis, and I wish that more of the CT scan-bone interpretation side of the study had been presented here. The implication of malaria as a cause in Tut’s death seems speculative—he might have had it earlier and survived. In places, what’s in the JAMA paper seems to have been overplayed in the media. Tut’s widely reported “cleft palette” is actually a partially cleft palette and within the normal range of variation.

But the point is that Hawass and colleagues have done the science and put the results out there for discussion. That’s how it should work. Interestingly, a week or two back I received in the mail a copy of Khufu’s Pyramid Revealed from architect Jean-Pierre Houdin, whose investigations into the possible use of an internal spiral ramp in the construction of the Great Pyramid were featured in Bob Brier’s article “How to Build a Pyramid” (May/June 2007) and update “Return to the Great Pyramid” (July/August 2009). Though I have only known Houdin for a few years, his passion and boundless energy for this topic strike me as quite similar to Hawass’s.

Tomb of Seti I, the hunt for Cleopatra and the robot in Khufu's pyramid

Heritage Key (Owen Jarus)

An update from Hawass about current research in Egypt.

The biggest piece of discovery news is that researchers appear to have come to the end of the tunnel in the tomb of Seti I. This tomb was discovered in the 19th century, but work clearing the tunnel hasn’t taken place until recently (partly because it’s difficult to do without collapsing the entire tomb).

Dr. Hawass showed a picture of the debris filled tunnel, with a sliver of an opening. They’ve found that there is a stone staircase leading down to it. Near the opening they found a hieroglyphic inscription, it’s nothing fancy - it looks like it had been scribbled on the wall. Unfortunately I don’t have a translation.

Deciphering the Pyramid Texts of Behenu

Talking Pyramids (Vincent Brown)

With photos and diagrams.

Following on from Thursday’s post I’d like to focus a bit more on the Pyramid Texts found in Queen Behenu’s recently discovered burial chamber.

Offering texts on the north wall of the Unas sarcophagus chamber. Photo by Helmut Satzinger.

I’ve been investigating the particular way in which the Pyramid Texts are arranged in Behenu’s pyramid. Confining the analysis to just the one section of the north wall of Behenu’s sarcophagus chamber I began translating the middle section as it is the easiest to see.

As I mentioned in the previous post, the name ‘Behenu’ is the first word that is recognised. She has the title “Osiris Behenu”. Observe that Behenu’s name is not enclosed in a cartouche. This is because Behenu is a Queen. But she still takes the title of Osiris in death as all Kings do.

Answering questions about Tutankhamun DNA

News from the Valley of the Kings (Kate Phizackerley)

Kate has rounded up all the questions about her post concerning the outcomes of the research posted in the JAMA article. It is a comprehensive post, addressing a number of topics.

Book Review: Vernacular Mud Brick Architecture in the Dakhleh Oasis

PalArch’s Journal of Archaeology of Egypt/Egyptology, 7(3) (2010)

Nicholas Warner about Schijns, W. With contributions from O. Kaper & J. Kila. 2008. Vernacular Mud Brick Architecture in the Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt and the Design of the Dakhleh Oasis Training and Archaeological Conservation Centre. – Oxford, Oxbow Books (Dakhleh Oasis Project Monograph 10)

Much has changed in the environment of the Dakhleh Oasis since the research published in this monograph was carried out in 1997, but this does not diminish its value. Rather it emphasizes the need for further thorough documentation of traditional habitats in Egypt before they dissappear entirely, swept away by a tide of structures of concrete, steel, fired brick and cheap limestone blocks.

Restored 19th Century synagogue re-opens

Google / AFP

The 19th-century synagogue of Maimonides in Cairo's ancient Jewish quarter reopened Sunday after a nearly two-year restoration by Egyptian authorities, participants at the opening told AFP.

They said some 150 people attended the opening, including Yitzhak Levanon and Margaret Scobey, the ambassadors of Israel and the United States respectively.

About a dozen rabbis from Israel and abroad also were at the ceremony.

"When I first set foot here only five years ago, the synagogue was in ruins and its roof opened to the sky", said Rabbi Andrew Baker of the American Jewish Committee (AJC).

Baker praised Egyptian authorities for recognising that Jewish religious sites are also an integral part of Egyptian heritage and Egyptian culture, and for leading the restoration project, the AJC said in a statement.

Egyptian officials were absent from the ceremony, and Culture Minister Faruq Hosni explained that was because Sunday's opening was a purely religious ceremony.

New Book: Tutankhamun's Footwear

drukware.nl

Thanks to Andre Veldmeijer for the following details.

"Tutankhamun's Footwear. Studies of Ancient Egyptian Footwear".
312 pages, 413 illustrations [292 illustrations in full colour, 50 illustrations in black and white and 71 line drawings]
Hard cover
A4 size
High quality paper
Price euro: 77.50, US dollar: 99.50 and UK pound: 65.60. Ordering before 20 April 2010 means 10% discount = 69.75 (only by ordering through publisher's website www.drukware.nl).

Photo - Burial Goods of Na-Sa

drhawass.com

A number of golden artifacts found in the burial chamber of Na-Sa II in Bahariya Oasis, including golden nail stalls, a heart amulet in the shape of one of the names of King Apries, a djed-pillar amulet, bracelets, and other amulets.

Seriously off-topic: World Beach Project

World Beach Project

Sorry about this, but this is the woman who has submitted 83 giraffes to the One Million Giraffes website! I am a chronic doodler and I have a simple love for these sorts of projects which are all-inclusive, independent of age or experience, encourage creativity and produce fascinatingly contrasting and appealing results.

The World Beach Project is a global art project open to anybody, anywhere, of any age. Building on the experience many of us have of making patterns on beaches and shorelines, this project combines the simplicity of making patterns with stones with the complexities of shape, size, colour, tone, composition, similarity and difference.

It is really easy to join in - see the instructions below, or go straight to the map and see what others have been been doing . You can also see Sue Lawty explain how to get involved in the project by watching the World Beach Video .

Sue's idea for this project has always been based around patterns made with stones. That means no seashells, seaweed, driftwood or other flotsam and jetsam commonly found on beaches.

Photo for Today by Lucia Gahlin

House Q44.1 in main city, Amarna

Copyright Lucia Gahlin
Bloomsbury Summer School

With my thanks

Excavations at Balamun

EES Delta Survey (Patricia Spencer)

With photos.

At the end of our first week of work for the British Museum at Balamun. Despite the bad weather just after we arrived here, we did manage to start work as planned on the 27th, though the site was very muddy and wet for the first few days. Usually our first job is to re-erect our wooden site hut, which is the base for our day and night guards and where our site equipment (wheelbarrows, picks, baskets, etc) is stored overnight. This year, because of the state of the surface, it wasn’t possible to erect it before we started work as donkey carts weren’t able to access the site. So, on our second working day, after the breakfast break when everything had dried to some extent, some of our workmen and the site guards moved the hut and re-erected it next to our excavation.

Analysis of the mummy of a teenager

El Periodico

A video which shows both the original mummy (together with the painted mummy portrait) and a sketch of what she may have looked like. It really helps to speak some Spanish with this because the text (instead of a voice-over) is all Spanish. It is a bit of an odd mixture of material but there is some excellent footage of the site of El Hibeh and a lareg number of photographs from the analysis (the process and the outcomes). It is over 8 minutes long.

Tenía entre 15 y 16 años, medía 1,60 de estatura, tenía una estructura esbelta y bellos rasgos faciales de tipo mediterráneo. Mantiene toda la dentadura, aunque con una caries, y no sufría enfermedades ni traumatismos que pudieran causarle la muerte. La causa de esta fue, probablemente, por complicaciones en el parto. Son algunas de las conclusiones de los últimos estudios científicos realizados a la momia conocida como la Dama de Kemet, del siglo II d.C., y que desde hace más de una década se expone en el Museu Egipci de Barcelona.

Hoy, en el Hospital Quirón, los doctores Félix Escalas y Xavier Lucaya, junto al director del museo, Jordi Clos, han presentado los resultados de un TAC Helicoidal con un dispositivo técnico de toma y procesamiento de datos de última generación que confirma los obtenidos en unos análisis anteriores realizados en 1998.

Barcelona Reporter

Quiron Hospital of Barcelona has reconstructed the face of an Egyptian mummy from 2000 years ago

The presentation of the newly reconstructed face was given by Drs Felix Scales, Xavier Perich and Jordi Clos, president of the Egyptian Museum in Barcelona, and showed the technological advances used in the facial reconstruction process that so far had not been used for archaeology, and the visible effect on the mummy.

Scales spoke of the importance of this project, because, thanks to advances in science, it is now possible to probe the internal structure of a mummy without having to open the shroud.

Madrimasd

La presentación del descubrimiento, a cargo de los doctores Félix Escalas y Xavier Perich del Hospital Quirón junto con Jordi Clos, presidente del Museo Egipcio de Barcelona, mostraron los avances tecnológicos que utilizaron en el proceso de reconstrucción facial que hasta ahora no se habían empleado para la arqueología, así como los resultados visibles en la momia.

Esta nueva tecnología no invasiva, que permitirá reconstruir la imagen de las momias y conocer con mayor detalle la estructura ósea de los restos arqueológicos, ha permitido confirmar que la reconstrucción facial que se había hecho de la Dama de Kemet se corresponde con el dibujo que cubre la momia.

La momia de la Dama de Kemet, ha explicado el presidente de la Fundación del Museo Egipcio, Jordi Clos, presenta un vendaje en el que aparecen pintadas imágenes divinas que hacen referencia al ciclo eterno de la vida."Una de sus principales características es la representación en su rostro de uno de los llamados 'retratos de El Fayum', que se sitúan cronológicamente en la época de dominación romana de Egipto", ha añadido Clos.

Europa Press

With a photograph of the mummy and its original portrait

Crocodile mummies scanned at Stanford

Scope (Lia Steakley)

With photos.

Conservators at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum at UC Berkeley are in the midst of reviewing CT images of a pair of crocodile mummies, which were scanned at Stanford last week.

The crocodiles, a wrapped mummy with a painted mask and an unwrapped mummy with a pack of offspring on its back, are part of a larger museum collection of Egyptian objects excavated in the early 1900s that will be on exhibit next month. Below is a photo of the wrapped mummy being prepped for scanning.

The mummies were first scanned at Stanford Medicine Imaging Center and then again at the School of Medicine's Radiological Sciences Laboratory.

5th Symposium on Coptic Studies

Al Ahram Weekly (Jill Kamil)

An excellent overview of the recent symposium.

Coptic history never ceases to enthral. Jill Kamil attends this year's symposium near Aswan.

Clockwise from top: the western corridor to the north of the apse of the Monastery of Deir Al-Hedra; map of Aswan and environs; view of the Nile at Aswan with a sheikh's tomb known as Qubbet Al-Hawa on the west bank of the Nile, and the Monastery of Qubbet Al-Hawa in front of noblemen's tombs to the left; a young student interviews Father Martyros Angelos in English

"Early Christianity and Monasticism in Aswan and Nubia" was the fifth symposium on Coptic Studies to take place at a monastic centre. Organised by Coptologist Gawdat Gabra, Fawzi Estafanous of the St Mark Foundation for Coptic History Studies, Hani Takla, president of the St Shenouda Society, and under the auspices of Pope Shenouda III and Anba Hedra, archbishop of Aswan, it was held in the new Monastery of St Hatre (still under construction), within walking distance of the ruins of the famous Monastery of St Hatre in the Western Desert -- known for some unknown reason by early archaeologists and travellers as the Monastery of St Simeon.

Situated due south-west of the southern tip of Elephantine, the monastery is named after an anchorite who was consecrated by Patriarch Theophilus, bishop of Syene (Aswan), at the beginning of the fifth century.

Before the opening ceremony the participants walked down the rocky incline from the new monastery to the old, where a mass was held. As we made our way back to the conference centre we were left wondering why this large and impressive monastery was in such a sorry state of repair. It was apparently examined and published by Peter Grossman in 1985, and in 1998 the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) removed some debris from the church, but little else appears to have been achieved.

Prehistoric artefacts returned to Egypt

Times of Malta

Britain has sent back to Egypt some 25,000 ancient artifacts, some dating as far back as the stone age, Egypt's culture minister said.

The artifacts, packaged in 85 boxes returned to Cairo aboard an Egyptian flight yesterday, Faruq Hosni said in a statement.

Retrieving the items came after "long negotiations" with the University of London, antiquities chief Zahi Hawass told AFP.

The artifacts include a stone axe that dates back 200,000 years as well as pottery from the seventh millennium BC which bears the finger prints of its producers, the ministry said.

Middle East Online

Retrieving the items came after "long negotiations" with the University of London, antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said.

The artifacts include a stone axe that dates back 200,000 years as well as pottery from the seventh millennium BC which bears the finger prints of its producers, the ministry said.

The artifacts "will constitute the foundation for a collection from the (pre-dynastic) Naqada period," named after a village in southern Egypt which represented "one of the oldest centres of civilisation in the world," Hawass said.

They will be displayed at the Ahmed Fakhri Museum, currently under construction in Dakhla, an oasis in Egypt's western desert.

Hieroglyphs from the tomb of Queen Behenu

Discovery News (Rossella Lorenzi)

One loaf of bread and one jug of beer: that's what Egypt's Queen Behenu was offered during her funeral, according to a translation of hieroglyphics engraved on white stone found in her 4,000-year-old burial chamber this week.

Known as the "Pyramid Texts," these hieroglyphics represent the oldest body of Egyptian religious writings and were widely in use in royal tombs during the 5th and 6th Dynasties of the Old Kingdom.

Discovery News asked one of the top scholars of the Pyramid Texts, James P. Allen, a Wilbour Professor of Egyptology and Chair of Egyptology and Ancient Western Asian Studies at Brown University, to translate part of the newly discovered hieroglyphs.

More re the dangers of kohl

Al-Masry Al-Youm (Andrew Bossone)

There were several reports on this topic a few weeks ago. Here's another one for anyone who missed them.

Dark, black kohl surrounded the eyes of ancient Egyptians for beauty and protection, but were they using toxic lead in their make-up?

A recent study in France says it's likely ancient Egyptians used lead-based make-up for the kohl that decorated their eyes. A local maker of natural beauty products, however, disagrees.

"We have analyzed more than 70 samples from makeup containers preserved in the Louvre museum and about 80 percent of them are lead-based compounds," said Philippe Walter, one of the authors of the study that is published in the journal Analytical Chemistry.

The study was carried out after excavations of women’s tombs yielded ancient cosmetic bags, along with with mirrors, hairpins, eyeliner applicators and makeup receptacles.

Walter said, however, that they only examined jars of coloring, not make-up that is known for certain to have been used on humans.

The original article is only available to subscribers or for purchase.

Finding Out Egyptian Gods’ Secret Using Analytical Chemistry: Biomedical Properties of Egyptian Black Makeup Revealed by Amperometry at Single Cells
Issa Tapsoba, Stphane Arbault, Philippe Walter and Christian Amatore
Anal. Chem., 2010, 82 (2), pp 457–460
Publication Date (Web): December 23, 2009 (Letter)
DOI: 10.1021/ac902348g

Here's the abstract:

Lead-based compounds were used during antiquity as both pigments and medicines in the formulation of makeup materials. Chemical analysis of cosmetics samples found in Egyptians tombs and the reconstitution of ancient recipes as reported by Greco-Roman authors have shown that two non-natural lead chlorides (laurionite Pb(OH)Cl and phosgenite Pb2Cl2CO3) were purposely synthesized and were used as fine powders in makeup and eye lotions. According to ancient Egyptian manuscripts, these were essential remedies for treating eye illness and skin ailments. This conclusion seems amazing because today we focus only on the well-recognized toxicity of lead salts. Here, using ultramicroelectrodes, we obtain new insights into the biochemical interactions between lead(II) ions and cells, which support the ancient medical use of sparingly soluble lead compounds. Submicromolar concentrations of Pb2+ ions are shown to be sufficient for eliciting specific oxidative stress responses of keratinocytes. These consist essentially of an overproduction of nitrogen monoxide (NO°). Owing to the biological role of NO° in stimulating nonspecific immunological defenses, one may argue that these lead compounds were deliberately manufactured and used in ancient Egyptian formulations to prevent and treat eye illnesses by promoting the action of immune cells.

Exhibition: The secrets of 18 mummies

El Periodico (Anna Abella)

With photos.

Descansaban, olvidadas y anónimas, en el suelo de una tumba utilizada como almacén –la cachette–, en Luxor. Eran 18 momias y hoy los egiptólogos las han bautizado como Princesa Blava, Indiscreta o Pulseras. No se sabe con certeza cuándo ni cómo llegaron hasta allí. Algunos de sus secretos, como su identidad, siguen ocultos, pero otros, como las enfermedades que sufrieron o que fueron 12 mujeres y 6 hombres, probablemente de origen noble, que vivieron en el Tercer Periodo Intermedio (1069-525 a.C.), acaban de salir a la luz. Es gracias a los estudios antropológicos y radiológicos realizados por el equipo del Proyecto Monthemhat, misión arqueológica que trabaja en la tumba de este importante gobernador egipcio del siglo VII a.C., dirigida por el alemán de origen egipcio Farouk Gomaà y en la que participan miembros del Museu d’Arqueologia de Catalunya (MAC).

Rough summary of some of the main details: 18 mummies from the Third Intermediate Period from the Luxor Cachette have been studied with a view to learning details about their lives. 12 women and 6 men, probably of noble birth, have been analysed by the Monthemhat Project. The results were presented at a conference which preceded the opening of a photographic exhibition, Projecte Monthemhat. Les mòmies oblidades. As well as the photos of the mummies, the exhibition has a recreation of the cachette, features an audiovisual explanation of the process mummification, and has both replicas of the New Kingdom surgical instruments and original pieces, like a glass of holy oil and several amulets. Among the study's findings, which have surprised some of the researchers is the lack of disease, fractures and dental infections, apart from some dental decay. They found no infections or tumors, both of which were common causes of death at the time. One traumas is a case of Dupuytren's contraction. There is very little sign of arthritis, perhaps because most of the 18 died young and, as they were of the nobility, were carrying out tasks which were physically undemanding. Another surprise was that only two mummies had had the brain removed through the nose and just one had had the abdominal organs removed. The exhibition is open until 5th September at the Museu d’Arqueologia de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain.

I have a close friend who has Dupuytren's in both hands and it's no picnic.

Seeing in a new way

Living In Egypt (Maryanne Stroud Gabbani)

With photos of the museum visit.

Laurie and I have been friends on email for over 15 years and friends face to face for almost 10 years. We got to know each other on Equine-L so it was only natural that, having recently retired from her work, she should decide to come and visit me in Egypt and go riding. What might not seem so completely natural is the fact that she brought a friend along to "see" Egypt who is blind. I was a bit taken aback at the idea of Gail wandering around our stretch of the Sahara with only someone calling out directions, but all went well and will be in a Sarcophagus post soon. When we were planning activities for Laurie and Gail the seeing issue was an interesting parameter. We talked about museums, but as Gail said "Once you've felt one glass case, you've felt them all". So true.

BUT...I'd read that the Egyptian Museum was instituting special tours for the blind so I called them. Mona, the assistant to the director Dr. Wafaa el-Saddik, told me that so far the tours had been done for school children and not for adults but she would see what they could do.

Momentous new finds

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El-Aref)

A good round up of the two most recent discoveries.

A colossal head of Tutankhamun's grandfather in Luxor and the burial chamber of Queen Behenu of the Sixth Dynasty in Saqqara are the latest antiquities discovered in Egypt, reports Nevine El-Aref

Book Review: Traversing Eternity

Bryn Mawr Classical Review (Reviewed by T. G. Wilfong)

Mark Smith, Traversing Eternity: Texts for the Afterlife from Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Egyptian funerary texts of the Graeco-Roman period are less well known than their Pharaonic predecessors. This relative obscurity is partly due to their "lateness" in Egyptological terms, but also because of their diversity and complexity. Modern scholars have tended to group the earlier funerary texts into large corpora (e.g., Pyramid Texts, Coffin Texts, etc.), but the later texts defy such broad categorization. Many later compositions were used in a variety of configurations, and the boundaries between individual "books" could be fluid. The complexity of these later funerary texts has made their study as a whole difficult, but the volume under review here will significantly change this situation. In Traversing Eternity, Mark Smith provides an authoritative overview of the funerary literature of Graeco-Roman Egypt, with translations of some sixty texts, extensive introductory material for each and a general introduction for the corpus as a whole. For the first time, the majority of this diverse body of texts is gathered together in a single volume that is an essential resource for anyone interested in Egyptian funerary beliefs and practices of the later periods.

The documents translated in this volume come from the Ptolemaic Period (332-30 BCE) and the first two centuries of the Roman Period (30 BCE-c. 200 CE), a time when Egypt was under foreign rule and the Greek language dominated written documents in Egypt, but also a time when indigenous language and religion were still active and vital forces.

Update on Grand Egyptian Museum

EMR.com (Peter Reina)

Six years after design began and one year after it was completed, Egypt’s Ministry of Culture is almost ready to start construction of the $550-million main building of the Grand Egyptian Museum, near Cairo.

Having secured a $390-million soft loan from Japan, the ministry last month appointed a team of Hill International Inc., Marlton, N.J., and EHAF Consulting Engineer, Cairo, to manage construction of the main building’s core, shell and fit out.

“We are hoping to get to the tender stage in the next 90-120 days,” and expect international contractors to bid, says Raouf S. Ghali, president of Hill’s Project Management Group (International). “The ministry is looking for the highest caliber,” he adds.

The project’s lengthy gestation is nothing compared to the antiquity of the ancient artifacts to be housed in the 500-hectare complex with 24-meter-high ceilings, partially buried in desert sand at the great pyramids of Giza. Already, the 12.5-m-tall statue of Rameses the Great, who ruled over 3,000 years ago, has been moved from Cairo for temporary storage near the museum site.

To prevent the sprawling complex from competing with the pyramids, two kilometer away, the 100,000-sq-m main building has been sited at the toe of an escarpment rising from the River Nile delta.

Photo for Today by Lucia Gahlin

Replastered bathroom in North Palace, Amarna

Copyright Lucia Gahlin
Bloomsbury Summer School

With my thanks

More re discovery of tomb of Queen Behenu

Reuters

The well-known necropolis of Saqqara, 30 km (20 miles) south of Cairo, served the nearby city of Memphis and was scoured in ancient times by thieves.

The 5th Dynasty is generally understood to have lasted from 2465 to 2323 BC, while the 6th Dynasty ran from 2323 to 2150 BC. The Old Kingdom collapsed soon after, amid famine and social upheaval and a breakdown in centralized power.

Philippe Collombert, who headed the French mission that excavated Behenu's remains, said the team found her sarcophagus within the sprawling necropolis of Pepi I at Saqqara.

"It is a well-preserved granite sarcophagus engraved with the queen's different titles, but says nothing about the identity of her husband," Collombert said.

Archaeologists are unsure whether Behenu was the wife of Pepi I or Pepi II, both 6th Dynasty rulers.

Behenu's 25-meter-long pyramid was discovered in 2007 along with seven queen pyramids belonging to Inenek, Nubunet, Meretites II, Ankhespepy III, Miha, and an unidentified queen.

Google / AFP

French mission head Philippe Collombert said the mummy of Queen Behenu was destroyed, but the chamber contained green hieroglyphics picked out on white stone known as the "Pyramid Texts."

"We are excited because the texts are well conserved," he told The Associated Press, adding that the queen's titles were written on the walls of the 33 by 16 foot (10 meter by 5 meter) burial chamber inside her small pyramid.

The text is primarily concerned with protecting the queen's remains and her transition to afterlife.

Collombert called the queen "mysterious," and said it was not clear whether she was the wife of King Pepi I or II, two long-ruling pharaohs of the Sixth Dynasty.

Al-Masry Al-Youm (Andrew Bossone)

The 4,200-year-old burial chamber of Queen Behenu has been discovered in Saqqara in Giza.

French archaeologists digging in the necropolis of Pepi I discovered the tomb with an intact sarcophagus and a set of Pyramid Texts belonging to the queen, who had likely been a second wife of 6th dynasty Pharaoh Pepi II.

"This necropolis was quite an important place; a sacred place, even after the time of Pepi I," said Philippe Collombert, who leads the mission sponsored by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "He was an important king, so probably queens from later times wanted to be buried in the same place."

Archaeologists are not 100-percent certain that the queen was in fact the wife of Pepi II, as her tomb contains no specific references to her husband. Collombert, who is also a professor at the University of Geneva, said it was uncommon during Pepi I's time to find Pyramid Texts in the tombs of queens.

The mysterious kingdoms of the Nile

Light Mediation

Thanks to Mark Stott for the above link (in PDF format). The photos of the Meroe sites by Cyril le Tourneur d'Ison are absolutely gorgeous. Do have a look!

In the words of French writer, Olivier Rolin, "More truly and mysteriously than Egypt, Sudan is the realm of this fabled river". The magnetic beauty of North Sudan bears a resemblance to what Egypt was a century ago, before industrialisation and tourism took over.

A country whose people are exceptionally open and warm. There are few roads leading northwards from Khartoum following the path of the Nile, and conditions are
tough. The region is extraordinarily rich in archaeological heritage: on 11 January 2003 seven monumental statues of kings of the 25th dynasty were discovered in Kerma by members of the Swiss mission led by Charles Bonnet.

But the 20 years of conflict between Muslims in the north and Christians in the south, and the current massacre in the Darfur region, have sadly done nothing to develop the country's heritage. The building of a dam on the 4th cataract is now threatening to destroy some exceptional and still little-known sites.

Sudan's land of 'black pharaohs' a trove for archaeologists

expatica.com

There is not a tourist in sight as the sun sets over sand-swept pyramids at Meroe, but archaeologists say the Nubian Desert of northern Sudan holds mysteries to rival ancient Egypt.

"There is a magic beauty about these sites that is heightened by the privilege of being able to admire them alone, with the pyramids, the dunes and the sun," says Guillemette Andreu, head of antiquities at Paris' Louvre museum.

"It really sets them apart from the Egyptian pyramids, whose beauty is slightly overshadowed by the tourist crowds."

Meroe lies around 200 kilometres (120 miles) northeast of Sudan's capital Khartoum and was the last capital of Kush, also called Nubia, an ancient kingdom centered on the confluence of the Blue Nile, the White Nile and the River Atbara.

Kush was one of the earliest civilisations in the Nile valley and, at first, was dominated by Egypt. The Nubians eventually gained their independence and, at the height of their power, they turned the table on Egypt and conquered it in the 8th century BC.

They occupied the entire Nile valley for a century before being forced back into what is now Sudan.

At the end of March, the Louvre will host its first exhibition on the Meroe dynasty, the last in a line of "black pharaohs" that ruled Kush for more than 1,000 years until the kingdom's demise in 350 AD.

Former Swiss wine grower uncovers Sudan's ancient roots

Google / AFP

Charles Bonnet, the 76-year-old doyen of Sudan archaeologists who helped rewrite an ancient chapter of Africa's largest country, has come a long way from the Swiss vineyards he harvested as a youth.

"As a young person, I was a wine grower. I jumped off my tractor and quickly went to university," he recalled, eyes lighting up, as he sat with an AFP correspondent on the terrace of the Acropole hotel in the Sudanese capital Khartoum.

He still gives some credit to his roots as a vine grower. "One learns how to see the ground, the vegetation, the colours of the ground," he said, things he could not pick up at university.

Bonnet helped show that Sudan was not merely a satellite to Egypt's wealth of ancient relics. He unearthed statues of Sudan's "black pharaohs", the overlords of the Kingdom of Kush, and showing Sudan was a trove itself.

After university, he drifted to South America, but ended up setting his sights on Egypt. "I was interested in Egypt, but more in Africa. I realised it was wrong to seek Sudan in Egypt. It was necessary to seek Sudan in Sudan," he said.

A law to punish the plunderers

Egypt Today (Nadine El Sayed)

Egypt owns two thirds of the world’s monuments.” So says the government’s state information service. It doesn’t go into detail. But when you consider the abundance of national icons — the Pyramids, the Sphinx, Abu Simbel, the Valley of the Kings — that draw thousands of visitors every year, the richness of the country’s past can be overwhelming.

It is precisely this illustrious history, in the form of exquisite relics, excavated ruins and secrets yet to be unearthed beneath the sands, that is the subject of a new amendment to the antiquities law that has caused much debate in the People’s Assembly (PA).

Approved early last month after a year of discussion in Parliament, law 117/1983 is being amended in a bid to preserve the nation’s documented archeological heritage and prevent the expatriation of any future discoveries.

A synagogue in Cairo

New York Times (Andrew Baker)

One of Cairo’s most historic synagogues and a yeshiva, restored by the Egyptian government, is to be rededicated next week. Known colloquially as “Rav Moshe,” the yeshiva was the original study of Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, or Maimonides, the renowned physician, rabbinic scholar and leader of the Egyptian Jewish community in the 12th century. Accessible only by foot along narrow commercial streets, visitors today enter his yeshiva through the foyer of a 19th century synagogue built in his honor.

The 18-month project of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities involved a team of Egyptian experts ranging from art restorers to mechanical engineers at a cost of nearly $2 million.

Book Review: The Development of Accounting in an International Context

Desicritics.com (Review by Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta)

The Development of Accounting in an International Context: A Festschrift in Honour of R. H. Parker (Routledge International Studies in Business History)
T.E. Cooke (Editor), C.W. Nobes (Editor) 1997

Accountants are actually High Priests, drawing order out of chaos.

When I read a paper by Mahmoud Ezzamel on how accounting was performed in Ancient Egypt, I could not suppress a chuckle. Once that was done, it made sense to me. So what is Dr. Ezzamel’s argument? In effect, he is saying that the ancient Egyptians in the New Kingdom (1552-1080BC) had a world view which was defined by the Gods, the Pharaohs, the living and the dead. As long as the relationship between these four parties was established and on track, everything was fine and dandy. It was the scribes (read accountants in modern parlance) who were responsible for making sure that the right numbers of wheat ounces, gold weights, cattle etc. were offered to the Gods by the Pharaohs, and were mentioned in the tombs, etc.

Where does accounting come in? Well, accounting as formally defined is a practise of entering in a visible format, a record of items and actions. There is a value attached to these accounts and a way of capturing them and the definition of these values. In Ancient Egypt, this was inextricably linked with religion.

Website looks at pyramid building solutions

PRWeb

A new web page was created to reveal the secret of the pyramid builders. For centuries nobody knew how the Egyptians could lift blocs of several tons before steel was ever invented. The idea was simple but it took centuries to find it. The mystery may be solved by the combination of a rope and 3 pulleys. Drawings and all the details are available at www.pyramind.biz.

The Great Pyramid of Giza used more than 2 million blocs of 2.5 tons each and that was done in 23 years. That means that every few minutes another bloc was cut out of the quarry, transported to the site, lifted and put into place. How could the Egyptians have done it?

Most egyptologists agree that the ramp is not a satisfactory solution. Hollywood's version with slaves and whips is even worse. Ramps may be justified for small buildings but becomes rapidly unpractical as the height of the pyramid increases. Slaves and whips were never used. It is well established today that the work was done by Egyptians who were well fed by Pharaoh and compensated for their labor.

www.pyramind.biz let's visitors choose the weight of the stone, the height of the pyramid and how hard somebody can pull on a rope.... The '3Wheel Device' will figure out how many men will be needed and how long it will take.

Photo for Today by Lucia Gahlin

Thutmose's house, Amarna
The site where the Nefertitis bust was found by Borchardt,
and from where the ongoing controversy began

Queen Behenu's burial chamber discovered at Saqqara

Heritage Key (Ann Wuyts)

With photos.

A French archaeological team digging at Saqqara has discovered the burial chamber of 6th Dynasty Queen Behenu, wife of either Pepi I or Pepi II. The burial chamber was revealed while the team was cleaning the sand from Behenu's pyramid in the area of el-Shawaf in South Saqqara, west of the pyramid of King Pepi I.

The burial chamber uncovered by the French mission is badly damaged, apart from two inner walls which contain engraved Pyramid Texts. Those texts were widely used in royal tombs – carved on walls as well as sarcophagi - during the 5th and 6th Dynasties (circa 2465-2150BC).

More re avenue of sphinxes, Luxor

Earth Times

With a good b&w photograph of what the avenue of sphinxes looked before building started to buiilt around it.

An ancient sphinx-lined avenue that once connected two of Egypt's grandest temples will open to the public this month - but the project's implementation has drawn criticism from displaced residents. Archaeologists are working to restore a processional path between the Luxor and Karnak temples that lay buried for centuries beneath soil and urban sprawl.

But many locals, especially low-income families, claim the scheme is a form of slum-clearance in disguise, aimed at freeing land for lucrative, upmarket hotel development.

The 2.7-kilometre "Avenue of Sphinxes" was built by Pharaoh Amenhotep III nearly 3,500 years ago, and took its final form under Nectanebo I in the fourth century BC. More than 1,300 stone sphinxes lined the paved road, but it fell into disuse in the late Roman era.

Nearly half of the sphinxes have been recovered since excavations began three years ago.

Harvard To Acquire First Egyptology Professor in Decades

The Harvard Crimson (James K. Mcauley and Julia Ryan)

Thanks to David Petersen for the above link.

After years dedicated to shedding light on the work of the late Harvard Egyptology Professor George A. Reisner, Class of 1889, Peter D. Manuelian ’81 will become the first egyptology professor at Harvard since his predecessor’s death 68 years ago.

Manuelian, currently an egyptology lecturer at Tufts, will be the first person to fill the Philip J. King Professorship, which was established in the fall of 2006 to support the study of ancient civilizations.

The professorship’s search committee specifically sought an egyptology scholar to fill the position, according to Classics Professor Christopher P. Jones, who headed the search.

Ancient Egypt is an important academic area due to its ties to Biblical, Mediterranean, and particularly African histories, Jones said.

“It is very important that Africa should be a part of what everyone thinks about the modern world,” Jones said. “And Egypt is a major African civilization—probably the best known.”

Though Harvard offers the occasional course related to ancient Egyptian history, it has not had an egyptology professor since 1942, when Reisner died during an excavation in Giza, Egypt.

Egyptologists revisit a founding father

Manchester University

The University of Manchester and the Natural History Museum in London are to revisit the work of anthropologist Sir Grafton Elliot Smith and set up a publicly available website on his excellent but as yet overlooked work.

The team, which includes researchers at Manchester’s KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology, has won a £160,000 Wellcome Trust grant to re-examine Smith’s evidence from 20,000 bodies buried at Nubia, in research that never received the recognition it deserved.

Smith, an academic at the Universities of Cairo and Manchester and UCL in the early twentieth century, originated the study of disease in large populations and gathered extensive data just before Nubia was flooded by the building of the low dam of Aswan. The area is now southern Egypt/northern Sudan.

KNH Director Professor Rosalie David, of Manchester’s Faculty of Life Sciences, said: “Elliot Smith was one of the great pioneers of palaeopathology and was the first to study disease patterns of given archaeological populations on an extensive scale. However, his work has never been properly recognised or acknowledged, largely because of the diversity of projects he worked on and because the surviving related archival material and human remains are now held in scattered institutions. It is important to investigate his research legacy because it provides an unequalled picture of patterns of disease, diet and living conditions over many centuries.”

How the alphabet was born of hieroglyphs

Biblical Archaeology Review (Orly Goldwasser)

To the Asiatics, as they were called, the lush Nile Delta, with its open marshlands rich with fish and fowl, was a veritable Garden of Eden. From earliest times, Canaanites and other Asiatics would come and settle here. Indeed, this is the background of the Biblical story of the famine in Canaan that led to Jacob’s descent into Egypt (Genesis 46:1–7).

By the beginning of the Egyptian Middle Kingdom (a few years after 2000 B.C.E.), the pressure of immigrants on the eastern Delta was so strong that the Egyptian authorities built a series of forts at strategic points to “repel the Asiatics,” as the story of Sinuhe tells us.1

More than a century later, however, Egyptian policy toward the Asiatics changed. Instead of trying to prevent them from coming in, the Egyptians cultivated close relations with strong Canaanite city-states on the Mediterranean coast and allowed select Asiatic populations to settle in the eastern Delta. The last of the great pharaohs of the XIIth Dynasty, Amenemhet III (c. 1853–1808 B.C.E.) and Amenemhet IV (c. 1808–1799 B.C.E.), even established a new town for them.

Hidden treasures at the Royal Ontario Museum

Toronto Sun (Kevin Connor)

With video.

Some curators at the Royal Ontario Museum seem introverted and not keen on sharing their artifacts — and then there is Egyptology educator Gayle Gibson.

Her personality is as large as a pyramid and she was delighted to share her treasures.

Although her expertise is Egypt and not lions, she bears a good resemblance to the actress who starred in the movie Born Free.

One of her favourite treasures is a 3,000-year-old mummy coffin beautifully decorated with art work and prayers.

“A (mummy) coffin would cost as much as a car, so this is a low-end coffin, but she would of had some connection with the ruling class because it was decorated by experts,” Gibson said.

It is a mystery as to what happened to the mummified woman for whom the coffin was made.

Gibson also brought out a mummified Roman baby who died 2,000 years ago. Tests have not concluded the sex of the child.

“This baby was wrapped in a painted cloth. It is a nice meaningful scene with a priest showing the child is now safe in the arms of God,” Gibson said while lovingly looking at the baby.

“It is a lovely image. They did the best they could, but you can tell this wasn’t a wealthy family.”

Dorman-led expedition produces reference study

American University of Beirut (Maha Al-Azar)

For the average person, a 300-square meter area may merely bring to mind a large apartment, but for historians and archeologists, such a space could contain a wealth of information, puzzles, and insights into a world long forgotten.

These forgotten narratives are exactly what an expedition led by AUB President Peter Dorman, who is also an acclaimed Egyptologist, set out to uncover when it headed to Luxor (ancient Thebes) to study the inner sanctuary of a modest temple that lies within the great Medinet Habu complex, whose history spans several millennia, from the Eighteenth Dynasty and up to the Christian era.

The Medinet Habu complex is an impressive architectural mortuary temple precinct that covers about 60,000 square meters. It is probably best known for the 7000 square meters of inscribed reliefs that adorn the vast funeral temple of Ramesses III, of the Nineteenth Dynasty. But now an earlier, more modest temple precinct dedicated to the god Amun has been studied by the Epigraphic Survey of the University of Chicago, where Dorman spent close to nine years leading the Survey and five years chairing the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations.

Exhibition: Méroé, un empire sur le Nil

Archaeogate - Egittologia
Méroé, un empire sur le Nil
Musée du Louvre, Paris
26 mars - 06 septembre 2010

À l'occasion de cette première exposition consacrée à Méroé, capitale d'un empire puissant installé sur les rives du Nil, deux cents oeuvres illustrent la majesté de cette civilisation antique où se mêlent des influences africaines, égyptiennes et gréco-romaines

Située au Soudan, à deux cents kilomètres au nord de l'actuelle Khartoum, la ville de Méroé, capitale du royaume, est connue pour ses pyramides destinées aux rois et aux reines qui ont dominé la région entre 270 avant J.-C. et 350 après J.-C.

Constituée essentiellement de prêts du musée de Khartoum – dont la célèbre statue en bronze doré d'un roi archer, du British Museum, du World Museum et du Garstang Museum de Liverpool, des musées de Munich, de Berlin ou de Leyde, cette exposition réunit près de deux cents œuvres qui évoquent l'originalité et la puissance de l'empire de Méroé.

Les principaux thèmes abordés sont la vie quotidienne, l'artisanat, les systèmes sociaux, les rois et leurs insignes du pouvoir, le rôle des reines, connues sous le nom de candaces, les cultes, où cohabitent Amon l'Egyptien et Dionysos le Grec, l'au-delà tel que le concevait le peuple de Méroé.

Armchair guide to early Predynastic Egypt

Armchair Prehistory (Edward Pegler)

An ultra swift guide to the early Predynastic of Egypt.

The Nile valley is a fine thing. A narrow corridor straddling the great Sahara desert it is, strangely, a perfect place to farm. Until the construction of the Aswan Dam the annual flood’s timing, unlike Iraq’s, made it relatively easy to grow crops on its riverbanks without irrigation.

In history the Nile valley was also (ignoring the relatively minor oases) the major overland lifeline between the Mediterranean and Sub-Saharan Africa. As such it was not just an avenue for communication. It was also a bottleneck along which almost all trade passed between the two areas. Admittedly, much of the good stuff, ivory, gold and slaves, went north. There is little evidence of what went south.

The ancient kingdoms of Egypt and, to the south, Kush controlled much of this trade until the end of the first millennium BC. At this time Arabian and Greek sailors, travelling down the Red Sea into the Indian Ocean and down the East African coast, broke their monopoly. Kush did not last much longer after this although the cities of the Nile delta, Alexandria, Cairo and Fustat, sitting at the head of the Red Sea trade routes to Europe, survived very well indeed.

Bizarrely, although there’s limited evidence of agriculture around the Nile delta around 5000 BC, there is little evidence for agriculture or settlement anywhere along the Nile valley before around 4000 BC (the “Naqada” culture). Compare this with the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East, where agriculture started around 8500 BC, four thousand years earlier. Now consider that the two are less than 300 miles apart at their closest points across the Sinai Desert.

New Book: Beyond the Horizon

American University in Cairo Press

In yesterday's post which linked to an article from Beyond the Horizon I forgot to link to the book itself! Sorry about that. It is available from the AUC, but doesn't appear to have found itself onto Amazon yet.

Beyond the Horizon. Studies in Egyptian Art, Archaeology and History in Honour of Barry J. Kemp
Edited by Salima Ikram and Aidan Dodson
Foreword by Zahi Hawass
2009

Amarna Project and Trust newsletters

Amarna Project

Thanks to AWOL for the link to the above page where the Amarna Project and Amarna Trust newsletters ("Horizon") are available to view online.

Ten more volumes of Egyptology from the Oriental Institute

Ancient World Online

Thanks yet again to AWOL for the link to the latest publications available online from the Oriental Institute. Ten more have been published. The OI resource is exceptional. See the above page for the list of the latest releases.

Rundle Foundation for Egyptology Newsletters

Rundle Foundation for Egyptology Newsletter

Thanks to AWOL for linking to this resource.

Beginning in 1981, newsletters have been sent to Rundle Foundation /ACE members. They provide information on social and educational activities, and also brief records of archaeological work. The newsletters sometimes contain articles of academic interest and some of these (from early issues) are listed on this page.

Kerma - Mission archéologique suisse au Soudan

Kerma.ch

Thanks again to AWOL for the link above for updates to the Kerma.ch project. In the list of publications on the site many are in PDF format. Here's the site's summary of the project.

Still today, Nubia is synonymous with a mysterious and faraway land through which the River Nile runs, a land that leads the way into Sub-Saharan Africa, its riches and its exoticism. While without writing for millennia, Nubian civilisation displays remarkable dynamism and originality, culturally as well as economically.

Kerma is one of the most important sites of the Nile Valley. Under excavation by a Swiss team for more than thirty years, it has revealed exceptional archaeological remains, monumental temples and vast necropoleis buried in the ruins of ancient cities. Kerma is the capital city of the first kingdom of Nubia. The region, which includes the oldest cemeteries of the African continent, also boasts the discovery of statues of the Black Pharaohs.

Book Review: In the Valley of the Kings

Decatur Daily (Review by John Davis)

In the Valley of the Kings.
By Daniel Meyerson.
Ballantine, 230 pages

Daniel Meyerson, Ellis Fellow at Columbia University, is a professor of writing. I can only envy his students. This is doubtless the most readable account of that long ago series of de­cades that began the last century. What could well be dry going, as was Egyptian archaeology at that time, is brought to vivid life by Meyerson, whose mastery of the well-chosen bon mot, anecdote and insight is a wonder in itself. Character sketches are not to be forgotten.

We meet Carter as the skilled draftsman who comes under the wing of that recognized founder of modern archaeology, the charmingly named W. Flin­ders Petrie. Petrie came to the attention of European scholars because of his scientific appreciation of simple pottery shards to tell a story of developments in pottery but also, by inference, civilization.

Photo for Today by Lucia Gahlin

I only have a couple of Lucia's photos of Amarna left, so enjoy them while they last! The print catalogue of the Bloomsbury Summer School is now out so if you are interested in signing up for any of the courses either look at the details on the website or order your prospectus.

Small Aten temple, Amarna

Copyright Lucia Gahlin
With my thanks

Massive head discovered at mortuary temple of Amenhotep III

npr

With two photos

Archaeologists have unearthed a massive red granite head of one Egypt's most famous pharaohs who ruled nearly 3,400 years ago, the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities announced Sunday.

The head of Amenhotep III, which alone is about the height of a person, was dug out of the ruins of the pharaoh's mortuary temple in the southern city of Luxor.

The leader of the expedition that discovered the head described it as the best preserved sculpture of Amenhotep III's face found to date.

"Other statues have always had something broken: the tip of the nose, the face is eroded," said Dr. Hourig Sourouzian, who has led the led the Egyptian-European expedition at the site since 1999. "But here, from the tip of the crown to the chin, it is so beautifully carved and polished, nothing is broken."

France24.com

The red granite head of King Amenhotep III, part of a larger 3,000 year-old statue, was discovered at the site of the pharaoh's funerary temple in Luxor, Egypt's culture ministry said in a statement.

"The newly discovered head is intact and measures 2.5 metres (8.2 foot) high," antiquities chief Zahi Hawass was quoted as saying.

"It is a masterpiece of highly artistic quality and shows a portrait of the king with very fine youthful sculptured features," Hawass said, adding there were still traces of red paint on the head.

The artefact belongs to a large statue of the king standing with his hands crossed over his chest and holding the royal insignia, said Hourig Sourouzian who headed the team of archaeologists that made the find.

DNA Shows that KV55 Mummy Probably Not Akhenaten

News from the Valley of the Kings (Kate Phizackerley)

Kate has reviewed the JAMA article and has come to a different view of the KV55 mummy than that proposed by the authors. Here's the abstract, but the complete article is available at the above address.

The paper Ancestry and Pathology in King Tutankhamun's Family by Hawass al. (Journal of American Medicine, 2010 - JAMA. 2010;303(7):638-647), states that the mummy in KV55 is “probably” Akhenaten – hereafter “the JAMA paper”. The media has accepted the attribution as affirmed fact, although the attribution has attracted considerable comment and debate with a number of writers questioning the forensic data. I believe, however, that the correct focus of dissent to the attribution should be the STR analysis which shows that the KV55 mummy is highly unlikely to be Akhenaten and that an alternative family tree is a better fit to the genetic findings of the Hawass study.

Commentary on the recent Tutankhamun research

Shoveling Ferret

Justine, whose wonderful handle is "shoveling ferrret" has posted a lay-person's four-part guide to the Tutankhamun DNA discussions on her Shoveling Ferret blog. Justine is an archaeologist (with a UChicago MA) specializing in ancient Egypt.

The posts are at the following addresses

Part 1:
http://shovelingferret.blogspot.com/2010/02/commentary-on-recent-tutankhamun.html
Part 2:
http://shovelingferret.blogspot.com/2010/02/commentary-on-recent-tutankhamun_18.html
Part 3:
http://shovelingferret.blogspot.com/2010/02/commentary-on-recent-tutankhamun_19.html
Part 4:
http://shovelingferret.blogspot.com/2010/02/commentary-on-recent-tutankhamun_8728.html

Egyptian Museum (Cairo) Newsletter

The Newsletter is available online on the EEF website.
http://www.egyptologyforum.org/EMC/EMC_Newsletter_6_Sept-Dec_2009_English.pdf
http://www.egyptologyforum.org/EMC/EMC_Newsletter_6_Sept-Dec_2009_Arabic.pdf

Previous editions can be found here:
http://www.oddthing.co.uk/html/cairo_news.html

Environment, Insects and the Archaeology Of Egypt

geos.ed.ac.uk

The following extract is from the newly published book by A. Dodson & S. Ikram (eds.) 2009
Beyond the Horizon. Studies in Egyptian Art, Archaeology and History in Honour of Barry J. Kemp (Publications of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Cairo: 347-61).

Environment, Insects and the Archaeology Of Egypt*
Eva Panagiotakopulu
University of Edinburgh
Paul Buckland
University of Bristol

Introduction

Egypt lies in the overlap zone between two biogeographic realms, the Ethiopian (Afro-Tropical), which also includes the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula, and the Palaearctic, represented by the warm temperate zone of the Mediterranean. Apparent in its now much depleted vertebrate fauna (cf. Manlius 2000; Manlius and Gautier 1999) and in its flora, where Mediterranean elements extend down into Middle Egypt (Zahran and Willis 1992), the overlap is also evident in its less well-studied insect faunas. Intuitively the Nile provides a natural pathway for African elements to reach the Mediterranean and this would have been more so during the early Holocene when stronger monsoonal circulation made much of the present desert savannah (e.g. Haynes et al. 1989). Yet there are surprisingly few southern species in Egypt’s invertebrate fauna, which is overwhelmingly circum-Mediterranean in its affinities. Egypt has approximately 2,700 recorded species of beetle (Coleoptera). Using the ground beetles, Carabidae, as an example, of the ~200 species recorded from Egypt, >95% are also found in Europe and the Near East, and a similar calculation for the water beetle families Dytiscidae and Haliplidae shows ~42 species of which 64% also occur in Europe. The scale of this overlap declines as distance from the Mediterranean coast increases, but Upper Egypt still shows affinities with the Palaearctic as well as the Ethiopian Realm. Two major factors influence this pattern. One is the complex history of the Nile and its floodplain, with periods during the Quaternary when its flow appears to have failed completely (Said 1993; Butzer 1998). The other is the scale of destruction and
redistribution of biota by human activity.

Exhibition: Tutankhmun's Funeral

Art Musum Journal (Stan Parchin)

New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art presents the special exhibition Tutankhamun's Funeral from March 16 to September 6, 2010. The installation features 60 objects used in the mummification and religious rituals associated with the boy-king's burial. Most of the artifacts are derived from the museum's permanent collection.

Exhibition: Cleopatra at the Franklin Institute

Art Daily

With a lovely photo of a diver and a sphinx face to face.

The world of Cleopatra, which has been lost to the sea and sand for nearly 2,000 years, will surface in a new exhibition, “Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt,” making its world premiere in June 2010 at The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Organized by National Geographic and Arts and Exhibitions International, with cooperation from the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities and the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology (IEASM), the exhibition will feature more than 250 artifacts, and take visitors inside the present-day search for Cleopatra, which extends from the sands of Egypt to the depths of the Bay of Aboukir near Alexandria.

The exhibition about the legendary queen, who remains one of history’s greatest enigmas, debuting at The Franklin Institute from June 5, 2010 – January 2, 2011, will travel to five North American cities. The Franklin Institute hosted “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs,” developed by the same organizers, which became the most attended touring museum exhibition in the world in 2007 after drawing more than 1.3 million visitors.

New blog - The archaeology of Egypt's deserts

I've put together a new blog which will focus on the archaeology of Egypt's deserts. Unlike this blog it will include relevant lecture and conference news. Visitors to this blog will know that I am a bit of a desert nut.

I've been copying over some older articles to create something of an archive, and there is more to be added. If you're interested you'll find it at the following address:
http://egyptiandeserts.wordpress.com/

Here's the introduction:

I set up this blog to bring together all the latest news about the archaeology of the beautiful deserts of Egypt.

The Egyptian deserts are home to a rich resource of prehistoric archeaology from the post glacial period when the whether was warmer and wetter and the eastern Sahara was much greener. Even after the climate began to dry in the Predynastic period the oases of the Western Desert continued to be occupied throughout the Pharaonic periods. The Eastern Desert, which has produced extensive evidence for pre-Pharaonic occupation including the earliest evidence for sheep in Egypt, was used extensively for the mining and quarrying of its rock and mineral resources up until the end of the Roman/Byzantine period. In both Eastern and Western Deserts a vast collection rock art has survived.

The geology of the Eastern Desert is one of its most remarkable features. Geology in the Western Desert is more dispersed but is the only place in Egypt where the earliest layers can be seen at the surface.

Sadly, the deserts are under increasing threat from badly managed tourism and unofficial "expeditions".

Child sarcophagus donated to Bass Museum

Miami Herald

An ancient Egyptian child's sarcophagus, a mummy and two Greek urns have been donated to the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach by the estate of celebrated First Amendment lawyer Dan Paul, who died in January at 85.

The donation joins another Egyptian artifact in the museum's collection: Egyptian Painted Sycamore Fig Wood Sarcophagus and Mummy from Dynasty 25 or early Dynasty 26 (760-600 B.C.E.).

The antiquities will be housed in the museum's Egyptian Gallery, which opens in April. Along with Paul's donations, the gallery will showcase 12 objects on long-term loan from the Brooklyn Museum, Lowe Art Museum and private collections.

Photo for Today: Beit el Wali

Anuket suckling the young Ramesses II
Probably the best known image from Beit el Wali