Birthday Blog - a personal thank you

No news today except for the fact that the blog is 6 years old today and I am 46. Ouch! As a whole last year was a pretty horrid affair. and I was glad to turn my back it. My father celebrated the end of 2009 by breaking his ankle on New Year's Eve! Says it all really :-).

But in spite of the hours spent in Accident and Emergency in north Wales (an interesting anthropological experience in its own right) we are both feeling that 2010 is already a much better place to be. I am very much enjoying working on the online magazine with Kate, and most of my other projects have come back to life too. Looking ahead, my father and I are booked into one of Jane's apartments in Luxor for two weeks at Christmas this year, which we are both looking forward to SO much! Do get in touch if you're planning to be there at the same time.

I would like to offer serious thanks to all those who emailed and posted comments in September last year when I was going through a seriously bad patch and fell of the face of the planet. I was quite unable to respond at the time but you cannot believe how all your comments motivated me to get off my backside, stop feeling sorry for myself and re-join the real world. I would almost certainly have given up the blog without all of you, and that would have been a bad thing for me. So . . . . . .



Vincent Brown remarked to me a couple of weeks ago that blogging builds communities of people who have never met, and recently Kate Phizackerley posted to her visitors a thank-you message for making her blog a real living community. I too have plenty of experience of having great online conversations with visitors with whom I have never met. A blog seems like such a static thing until people start responding and discussing matters and offering moral support, and then it seems anything but static or abstract. There's nothing abstract about a web community! It is something that continues to surprise and really delight me. I hope that the magazine will build on that and encourage even greater involvement.

I am up in Wales with my father, with a case of Pouilly Fume, another of Rioja and a bottle of pink Champagne. It's promising to be a very good extended birthday!

Is it just me or is 2010 flying past at a staggering rate? I cannot believe we are at the end of March already. Perhaps it's just a sign of getting old!


Huge hugs to all
Andie
xxxxxx

More on the Tutankhamun/ Akhenaten DNA debate

Dylan Bickerstaffe's Exploring Ancient Lands

Thanks to Kate Phizackerly for linking to Dylan Bickerstaff's article. As regular visitors to this blog will know, Kate challenged the identification of the KV55 mummy as Akhenaten. In Kate's words Dylan Bickerstaff has taken a "a less scientific and more accessible approach" than Kate's, and has added a number of observations which add real value to the discussion. It is a really excellent overview of both the context of the DNA research and the current state of knowledge. Here are the introductory paragraphs:

A lot of questions have been raised by the recent announcement by the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) of the results of DNA tests on certain of the royal mummies in the collection of the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Here I outline both developments leading up to the publication of the results, and the discussions that followed. Those wishing to read more detailed discussions of the background evidence on the royal mummies may do so in my book Identifying the Royal Mummies, references to which are provided in the notes.

The Egyptian SCA had always resisted calls for the DNA testing of mummies,1 until it could be performed in Egypt, and in June 2007 a DNA laboratory was attached to the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. As a second laboratory was required to validate the results, another was constructed nearby at Cairo University, opening in June 2009.

The construction of the second lab was partly prompted by the scepticism over the value of DNA tests conducted at the time that one of two female mummies from tomb KV60 was identified as Hatshepsut. The two KV60 females were found laid-out with the left hand on the chest and the right arm straight down by the side – a pose sometimes believed to be associated with queens – and the association with Hatshepsut was made because one of the mummies lay in a coffin base bearing the title and name, ‘Great Royal Nurse, In’, who might be the same In-Sitre, a wet-nurse of Hatshepsut, known from a statue discovered at Deir el Bahari.

For more information about Dylan Bickerstaff see the biography on his website.

Alexander the Great and the legacy of Alexandria

Daily Mail (Bettany Hughes)

There is not, and has never been, another city to match it. It was a glittering metropolis, home to the most sexually charismatic queen of all time, founded by a man whose megalomaniac ambitions knew no bounds.

It was a buzzing hub that boasted one of the seven wonders of the world, where intellectual geniuses from both East and West met to tussle and debate in a library containing all the knowledge on the planet.

Founded more than 2,300 years ago, and in its hey-day one of the most powerful places in the world, this is now a lost city, most of it buried beneath waves off the coast of modern Egypt.
Alexander the Great: The Greek leader made Alexandria a place of knowledge, discovery and sexual intrigues

Alexander the Great: The Greek leader made Alexandria a place of knowledge, discovery and sexual intrigues

This is the city of Alexandria. By rights, Alexandria should be a household name, as famous as Athens or Rome. Make no mistake, this was a metropolis as beautiful as Paris, as creative as London, as hip as New York and more learned than Harvard.

And yet, as I discovered while researching a new documentary, somehow this amazing urban experiment is just a footnote in history.

Luckily for us, the secrets of this wonder of the ancient world are being unearthed, as archaeologists uncover more and more from its lost treasures.

"Egyptological" - online magazine update

Egyptological Magazine Site Status

Kate has posted an update on progress with our online Egyptology magazine. I mentioned the word "hieroglyphs" to her a couple of weeks ago - and then I ducked for cover. I was going through my hieroglyph flashcards one morning and suddenly had the ghastly thought that we would have to find some way of dealing with articles which display and/or discuss hieroglyphs on our magazine website. I really should have thought of this before and cannot think why I didn't. Kate is as usual on the case with her usual and completely impressive can-do attitude. See her update for more on this topic.

Oh, and Kate is not joking about the colour schemes. It is the same as in the days when I used to manage website builds. As a team you present the whizzy new all-singing and all-dancing web presence, representing months and months of work, to the board of directors and wait with baited breath whilst they consider the pros and cons of your presentation and then one of them says firmly "but I don't like that shade of green". Kate and I are really struggling to find colour schemes which work with our content and with which we can both live happily.

Phaoronic Civilization meets art

Al Masry Al Youm (Heba Helmy and Nehal Mostafa)

A symposium was held yesterday at the Egyptian Museum by prominent author Youssef Maati and Engi Fayed, office manager for cultural development of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.

The symposium, which lasted for almost two hours, focused on the relationship between Pharaonic history and Maati's literary works including his movies, plays and books.

Most of Maati's works are influenced by Pharaonic civilization, Maati said, adding, "I used to work as a tour guide for a long time before starting my writing career, which instilled in me a profound appreciation for Pharaonic heritage."

William Flinders Petrie

Heritage Key

This is not an article about Petrie but it is a short biography (excerpt below) with links to relevant articles on Heritage Key about Petrie and about the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London, UK.

Sir William Flinders Petrie was one of the most revered Egyptologists in history, and a pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology. He already had exploration in his blood before his birth in 1853; his grandfather was one of the first men to chart Australia. Whilst a child, his mother introduced him to Hebrew, Latin and Greek - which helped nurture his later obsession with the ancient past. As a young man Petrie developed a taste for geometry and engineering, spurred on by his industrial engineer father.

Later on he would allude the building of Stonehenge with that of the Great Pyramids at Giza, and speculated that pi must have been used in their development. His 1883 book The Pyramids and Temples of Giza still remains a key text on the subject of the structures' construction and measurement. He then carried on his work at Tanis, Sehel and Fayoum - by which time he was already famous for discovering a great number of steles and pottery.

Michael C. Carlos Museum Profile

Art Museum Journal (Stan Parchin)

Stan has posted a profile of the MCC Museum, located on the Emory University Campus in Atlanta, Georgia. Here's a short excerpt, describing the Egyptian, Nubian and Near East collection.

These galleries are especially striking and beautifully showcase an excellent collection of the ancient art from this region, the finest in the American Southeast. Perhaps the most dramatic objects exhibited are 10 magnificently decorated Egyptian wood coffins, displayed to good effect at table height and accessible for close viewing. Additional treasures include a sculpture of Pharaoh Tutankhamun as a child, canopic jars, jewelry, amulets and statuary. Again, side galleries are used to display groupings of smaller artifacts in an appropriate setting.

El polvo de momia fue la aspirina de la Edad Media

La Vanguardia

Thanks to the Amigos de la Egiptologia website for the link to the above interview with José Miguel Parra..

En Egipto, un estudio genético de la momia de Tutankamón acaba de desvelar que era hijo del faraón hereje, Akenatón, y ha desmitificado su imagen juvenil y bella. En Nueva York, el Met exhibe los objetos utilizados para su embasamiento. En Barcelona, el hospital Quirón acaba de reconstruir el rostro de una momia de la época del Fayum y el Museo de Arqueología muestra los rostros de 18 momias abandonadas en Tebas. En Alicante, otra exposición más revela los secretos de los ritos funerarios egipcios. Parece que las momias vuelven a estar de moda, si es que en 5.000 años dejaron alguna vez de estarlo. Y, si no, que se lo digan al arqueólogo José Miguel Parra, que se suma a la tendencia con el libro divulgativo Momias.

Shining a light on the past

The Economist

Not specific to Egyptology but may well be of use here as elsewhere. Having spent part of an afternoon under a black-out sheet with a carved rock, a fellow archaeologist and a high powered torch each to try and work out the patterns carved into the weathered surface I can well appreciate the potential of the technique!!

LOOK at an ancient coin under ordinary light and the chances are that its features, worn down by its passage from hand to hand, will be hard to make out. Point a spotlight at it, though, so that the face of the coin is illuminated from an acute angle, and the resulting shadows will emphasise any minor details.

This is the basic principle behind a novel technique that is helping archaeologists reveal previously invisible clues hidden in the worn or damaged surfaces of any objects they uncover. From wall paintings in Herculaneum to Scandinavian stone tools to rock art in Libya, polynomial texture mapping, as the process is known, is proving an invaluable way to illuminate the past.
The Antikythera in a new light

The lighting method was originally developed by Tom Malzbender, a computer scientist at HP’s laboratory in Palo Alto, California, to generate better 3-D imagery for computer games. In its most basic form, the process involves capturing between 30 and 50 digital photos of an object of interest. The pictures are taken from directly above the object in a darkened room. Though the camera is fixed, the object is lit from a different angle in every shot. The photos are then combined on a computer to create an image that can have a “virtual” light shone from various angles to reveal any hidden surface detail.

Photo for Today - Anubis tours New York

Stan Parchin, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Art Museum Journal, was the only member of the staff of Treasures of Tutankhamun at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1978-79) to attend the arrival of the gigantic statue of Anubis in New York Harbor on March 23, 2010. The sculpture is in New York in anticipation of the expanded version of Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs at Manhattan's Discovery Times Square Exposition (April 23, 2010-January 2, 2011).

Tickets went on sale the same morning. They may be purchased at www.kingtutnyc.com (just click on the "buy tickets" tab). Here are the photographs that Stan has forwarded to me for sharing! With thanks too to Chris Lee.

The statue is very much the figure-head of the exhibition and looked particularly good sailing under Tower Bridge in London, but I think that standing him with the Statue of Liberty is even better. An icon with an icon. Stan was lucky enough to be on the boat which gave Anubis (complete with suitcase) the guided tour of the sights

NY1

News report and video of Anubis on board a boat visiting the key water-side sights of New York including the New York sky-line, the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty, all to mark the first day of ticket sales for Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of Pharaohs at the Discovery Times Square Exposition.


All great publicity for the exhibition, and more than a touch of humour into the bargain!

More re Luxor's controversial development of the Sphinx avenue

Egyptians (Tim Reid)

The avenue of rams is on the fast track to be completed in three years though UNESCO wanted a twenty year restoration. Here we have an article on the rough eviction of a Anglican pastor his wife and small child to demolish their home and the churches property to make way for the avenue.

That's what Mussolini did in his efforts to get down to the imperial remains of Rome as fast as possible leaving everything in the path destroyed simply to achieve his twisted vision of history.

The Arab American News (William Peck)

With photos. Thanks to Jane Akshar's Luxor News Blog for the link (where a comment has already been left in response).

In addition to the swelling number of tourists, another revolution is taking place, one not imaginable by those who have previously visited Luxor. In a move to make the ancient sites more accessible and facilitate the movement of tourists, the main streets have been widened by removing hundreds of buildings, including private houses and shops. Walls have been erected that often shut off the buildings that remain. To make the major temple sites more "attractive," large empty plazas and rows of badly designed shops have been created, again by removing many of the former occupants and their businesses.

The long avenue of sphinxes that connected Luxor and Karnak Temple in the past is being excavated, apparently in great haste, even where it passes under major areas of the city. Many of the sphinxes are so badly damaged they are unrecognizable, raising the question as to the value of the whole operation.

Should the Rosetta Stone go back to Egypt?

Looting Matters (David Gill)

Anyone who managed to miss the flurry of media interest and discussions in December and January about whether or not the Rosetta Stone should be returned to Egypt can find a summary of the situation on the above page. David Gill (Department of Classics, Ancient History and Egyptology at Swansea University, Wales) has a look at whether Egypt has a legal right to the return of the object and explains his personal position on the subject.

Dr Zahi Hawass has been mounting a case for the return of the Rosetta Stone along with other significant Egyptological pieces such as the head of Nefertiti in Berlin.

Is there a legal case to return the Rosetta Stone? The benchmark international agreement is the 1970 UNESCO Convention on on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. The United Kingdom became a signatory in 2002.

Why some treasures should be in the British Museum

Heritage Key (Sean Williams)

Sean Williams argues that given the involvement of Lord Carnarvon, Howard Carter and other British team members some of Tutankhamun's tomb discoveries ought to have found their way into the British Museum on long term loan.

When I'm strolling through the British Museum's Egyptian Sculpture Gallery taking in its ancient statues, stelae and scriptures, it's hard not to think something's missing. For among its rows of exotic artefacts, nothing on display relates to Egypt's most famous king in modern times, Tutankhamun. And I think Britain deserves to have kept hold of at least some of the ancient world's greatest pieces.

If you're interested in this topic keep an eye on the above page because the suggestion is almost bound to result in a discussion of the pros and cons.

Anubis becomes ticket tout in New York

Heritage Key (Helen Atkinson)

With slideshow.

You live long enough in this city and you'll see things you couldn't even imagine - like a 25-foot tall Anubis statue being towed around New York harbour, which is what happened on yesterday morning. Anubis's arrival heralds the one-month countdown point for the exhibition, Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs, which opens April 23 at the Discovery Times Square Exposition in Manhattan, on the final leg of its journey round North America. Tickets for the show went on sale the same day.

Photo for Today - Temple of Kalabsha

Column capitals, Temple of Kalabsha, New Kalabsha Island

New Method Could Revolutionize Dating of Ancient Treasures

Science Daily

Scientists have developed a new method to determine the age of ancient mummies, old artwork, and other relics without causing damage to these treasures of global cultural heritage. Reporting at the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), they said it could allow scientific analysis of hundreds of artifacts that until now were off limits because museums and private collectors did not want the objects damaged.

"This technique stands to revolutionize radiocarbon dating," said Marvin Rowe, Ph.D., who led the research team. "It expands the possibility for analyzing extensive museum collections that have previously been off limits because of their rarity or intrinsic value and the destructive nature of the current method of radiocarbon dating. In theory, it could even be used to date the Shroud of Turin." . . . .

Rowe and his colleagues used the technique to analyze the ages of about 20 different organic substances, including wood, charcoal, leather, rabbit hair, a bone with mummified flesh attached, and a 1,350-year-old Egyptian weaving. The results match those of conventional carbon dating techniques, they say.

Story of the Deir el Bahri Cache

drhawass.com (Zahi Hawass)

I recently visited the Deir el-Bahari cache, which is a very difficult tomb to enter. It is down a 15-meter deep shaft, and you must be lowered down by rope into the shaft. From the vertical shaft is the entrance into the tomb: a few stairs down into a roughly cut passage through the rock, which leads to more stairs and ends in a large room where the royal mummies were hidden by priests in the 21st Dynasty. Now we close up the entrance to the tomb so that no one may enter, although there is nothing left inside. The reason for this is to show the importance of this tomb, because inside was found one of the most important discoveries, which is, in my opinion, even more important than the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922.

The story of the discovery of this cache is amazing. A young man named Ahmed, a member of the famous Abdel Rassul family was leading his goats in the hills near the temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari, when one of them escaped.

Lecture: TT184 Zoltan Fabian

Luxor News Blog (Jane Akshar)

The main thrust of the lecture was the difficulty of presenting epigraphic work and used a lot of computer drawn slides to illustrate his points. This makes it a bit tricky to record on the blog. I will limit myself to the non technical aspects of the lecture which unfortunately make it a bit sparse. The computer bits were quite clever basically by colouring in the epigraphic work in different colours then the software can remove a coloured layer. So you can remove the damage, or the text or the line or the drawings in order to concentrate on the aspect of most interest to you.

Nefermenu was the Mayor of Thebes in the second part of XIX dynasty. His wife was Meryt. This tomb shows the change in the cultic practice around the naos.

Egyptian objects before Egyptology

Brooklyn Museum (Tom Hardwick)

My work in the Wilbour Library involves keeping an eye out for books the Library needs, and carrying out archival research into the history of the Egyptian collections in support of the Library’s educational mission. In the Library’s Special Collections I’ve been particularly intrigued by a small group of eighteenth century drawings of Egyptian objects. These were probably made by the German artist Johann Justin Preissler (1698-1771), and provide a rare glimpse into early studies of Egyptian objects.

At the time Preissler made his drawings, Egypt was an inaccessible, mysterious land. Few objects were held in Western museums or collections, and hieroglyphic inscriptions could not be read. Preissler’s drawings are of interest not only because they record objects that may now be lost or damaged, but also because they show how these Egyptian objects appeared to an eighteenth century eye.

The Double Crown - Secret Writings of the Female Pharaoh

Mail and Guardian Online

South African author Marié Heese won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Africa Region Best Book for The Double Crown: Secret Writings of the Female Pharaoh (Human & Rousseau). It is the story of Hatshepsut, as told by the pharaoh herself. This is an extract.

I am the chosen of the gods. I have always known that. This knowledge has been the source of my strength and my power, and it is the reason why I know that those who now seek my death and desire to usurp my throne shall not succeed.

Yet I have decided that I must make a secret record with details about those whom I do not trust. I shall give the scrolls that I produce into the keeping of my scribe, the faithful Mahu. If I die a wrongful death, he must hand them to someone in power who will avenge me. Mahu will have to decide who the right person might be. I shall ensure that there will be sufficient evidence to see to it that the guilty, if such there are, suffer the just punishment of the gods and do not reap great benefits from treason.

Who Built the Pyramids?

Em Hotep

I missed this back in February but better late than never! First of a three part look at the question of who built the pyramids (next two parts yet to be posted). With photographs. Here's the introduction:

In the first part of January the media began breaking the news that the old yarn about slaves having built the pyramids had finally been dispelled. Dr. Zahi Hawass of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities announced that three large tombs had been newly discovered very close to the pyramid itself. As the final resting place of some of the overseers of the workforce, both the structure and location of the tombs made it clear that these were no slaves.

Dr. Hawass’ statement that “These tombs were built beside the king’s pyramid, which indicates that these people were not by any means slaves” (source) was widely repeated in the press under headlines announcing that the belief that slaves had built the pyramids could now be retired. But Egyptologists have long known that the Slave Hypothesis was pure Hollywood.

Along with Hawass, Egyptologist Mark Lehner began uncovering the truth of the pyramid builders more than 20 years ago. Lehner was consumed with the question of where such a large workforce could have lived. After conducting the first detailed “to scale” survey of the Giza Plateau, he narrowed his focus to the area around the enigmatic Wall of the Crow, a colossal wall with no apparent related structures.

Lehner hit pay dirt, and his dogged pursuit of these ancient builders led to the excavation of the very city where they lived and worked—a large complex of barracks and permanent housing, distribution centers, industrial sites, and scribal workshops. The recently discovered tombs tell us something of the status of the workers, but the Lost City of the Pyramid Builders gives us the everyday details of their lives.

Most of Em Hotep’s readers will be familiar with Dr. Lehner and his work. But if you are not, then his total absence from the recent news stories may have left you with an incomplete picture of just how strong the case against the Slavery Hypothesis really is. In this three-part series we will take a look at what Lehner discovered about the pyramid builders. We will examine the evidence that the workforce had a surprisingly modern division of labor, followed by a tour of the city itself.

Letter - Assessment of Atherosclerosis in Egyptian Mummies

Journal of the American Medical Association

The full text is not available online without subscription, purchase or institutional access.

To the Editor: In their Research Letter, Dr Allam and colleagues described the presence of calcium hydroxyapatite in vessel walls in 15 of 22 ancient Egyptian mummies examined with whole-body 6-slice computed tomographic (CT) imaging. The authors stated that "[c]alcification in the wall of a clearly identifiable artery was considered diagnostic of atherosclerosis, and calcification along an artery's expected course was considered probable atherosclerosis." We believe that this criterion was incorrect.

When observing a vascular calcification on a CT (particularly 6-slice), it is not possible to distinguish lesions of atherosclerosis and mediacalcosis. Mediacalcosis is a thickening and loss of elasticity of the walls of arteries (particularly but not exclusively muscular ones) due to a calcification of the tunica media, the concentric layers of helically arranged smooth muscle cells. Such lesions may be seen in all the sites described in the article by Allam et al (abdominal aorta, aortic arch, popliteals, . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Philippe Charlier, MD, PhD
ph_charlier@yahoo.fr
Department of Forensic Medicine and Pathology
University Hospital R. Poincaré (AP-HP, UVSQ)
Garches, France

Isabelle Huynh, MD
Department of Radiology
University Hospital Pitié Salpétrière (AP-HP)
Paris, France

And the reply . . .

Drs Charlier and Huynh propose that mediasclerosis is a unique disease, manifest as calcification of the tunica medica, a disease completely different from atherosclerosis, which they presumably would define exclusively as a disease of the intima. We believe that atherosclerosis is a multifaceted, systemic disease that encompasses both of these histologic features. The earliest pathologic manifestations of atherosclerosis include intimal thickening and fatty streaks, but complex changes occur as the disease progresses, with structural remodeling of the vessel, cellular infiltrates, lipid accumulation, thrombosis, fibrosis, and calcification involving the media as well as the adventitia.

Although mediasclerosis (also called Monckeberg sclerosis) has been attributed by some to a distinct disease process, others regard it as an advanced form of atherosclerosis, most commonly seen in patients with chronic kidney disease and diabetes. These patients often die from heart disease, another manifestation of the systemic disease of atherosclerosis. A distinct metabolic . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Photo for Today - Temple of Kalabsha

Pronaos - hypostyle hall
Temple of Kalabsha

Minufiyeh Survey now on Twitter

MinufiyehSurvey

I cannot believe that I am again advertising a Twitter site! It is good to see that there are a growing number of archaeological projects using Twitter and other online applications as a quick way to keep people updated. Jo Rowlands is posting updates about the work of the Egypt Exploration Society's Minufiyeh Survey currently taking place in the Delta. There's a page on the EES blog with details of the project.

Tutankhamun's Funeral

Arts Museum Journal (Stan Parchin)


An excellent review of the exhibitions, with photographs.

Tutankhamun's Funeral in the spacious first-floor Egyptian Special Exhibitions Gallery at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (March 15-September 6, 2010) highlights some 60 artifacts that describe the mummification and religious rites that occurred upon the death of the adolescent New Kingdom pharaoh. The majority of them, given to the museum by archaeologist Theodore Davis (1837-1915) in 1909, eventually led to the discovery of the boy-king's tomb by Howard Carter (1874-1939) in 1922. The installation is supplemented by pertinent loan objects, vintage site photographs and facsimiles of wall paintings that illustrate ancient Egyptian funerary rituals.

On Dating Egyptian Literary Texts

Dating Egyptian Texts

Institute of Egyptology and Coptic Studies, Göttingen, June 9th to 12th 2010. This website is effectively the brochure for a seminar, but it has some useful information in its own right.

A central issue of Egyptological research is the question of dating the original composition of religious or literary texts. However, re-dating might amount to a downright re-writing of parts of the Egyptian cultural history. Very prominent is a lively debate about the date of composition of a number of literary texts, traditionally dated to the First Intermediate Period or the Early Middle Kingdom but known only from New Kingdom manuscripts. Over the last forty-five years, several attempts have been made to date the production of some of these texts much closer in time to their first physical appearance. Using religious, cultural, linguistic, or textual arguments scholars have argued for a New Kingdom origin (Admonitions: van Seters 1964 (» list of readings); Hymn to the Nile: van der Plas 1984; Merikare: Bickel 1994; Amenemhet: Grimal 1995; Loyalist [Kaires]: Schipper 1998). More recently the discussion has heated up considerably with contributions that argue for a New Kingdom origin of Merikare, Neferti, Khakheperreseneb and Amenemhet with the reassessment based on conceptions of Egyptian cultural history (Gnirs 2006; eadem in press) or on linguistic analysis (Stauder, in press). On the other hand, there is an equally strong tendency to oppose any later datings which bases itself on the very same categories of arguments (for example Amenemhet: Burkard 1999; Merikare and Neferti: Burkard/Thissen 22007) and a general attitude to take the oldest linguistic layer of a text as a direct indication of its time of origin (von Lieven 2006).

Book Review: When the pyramids were built

Egyptians (Tim Reid)
When the Pyramids Were Built: Egyptian Art of the Old Kingdom
Dorothea Arnold, 1999
Rizzoli International Publications

This lovely book was written by Dorothea Arnold in conjunction with the exhibition "Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramids" at the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris from April 6 to July12 1999; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York from September 16 1999 to January 9 2000; The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto from February 13 to May 22 2000.

The photographs by Bruce white are wonderful images of so many old kingdom objects I have never seen before and a few old favorites as well. I confess from the start that old kingdom art really does it for me especially by when the book lets the large often full page images do the talking.

More controversy re Luxor redevelopment

Reuters Africa

Villagers from southern Egypt's Luxor are suing the state over plans for a port on the site of nearly 2,000 homes, a lawyer representing them said on Tuesday.

The estimated $1-billion port aims to provide docks for more than 180 Nile cruise boats as part of a project to revamp Luxor, the site of ancient Thebes, whose antiquities attract hundreds of thousands of tourists every year.

The port would take 500 feddans (210 hectares) of land from villagers in el-Maris and displace at least 10,000 people, said residents who oppose the plan despite promises of compensation.

Interview with José Manuel Galán, director of the Djehuty project

nortecastillo.es

With photo.

Su currículo nos dice que estamos ante un 'galáctico' de la egiptología, y su conversación, que disfruta con verdadera pasión de cada uno de los avances realizados en los últimos nueve años que ha durado su última misión: el 'proyecto Djehuty'. «Djehuty era el supervisor del Tesoro, una especie de ministro de Hacienda de aquella época encargado de controlar el oro y la plata». José Manuel Galán (Madrid, 1963) es investigador científico del CSIC.

Photo for Today - Temple of Kalabsha

Entrance to the hypostyle hall and open court
The scene below is one of several carved into one of the four panels
to the side of the entrance to the hypostyle hall, one of which can be
seen in the above photograph to the left of the entrance. This one shows
the king being purified by Thoth and Horus.

More re statues Found at Kom el-Hettan

drhawass.com

Press release with photo.

The Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosni, announced that two red granite statues of King Amenhotep III and of the god Thoth, were unearthed near the Pharaoh’s funerary temple at Kom el-Hettan on Luxor’s west bank.

Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the SCA, said that the first statue depicts the 18th Dynasty king, Amenhotep III, together with the god Re-Horakhty, while the second statue represents the god of wisdom, Thoth, in the form of a baboon. A huge, calcite statue fragment possibly dating to the reign of Amenhotep III, was also found.

Mansour Boriak, General Supervisor of the Luxor Antiquities Department of the SCA, added that excavation work is ongoing in order to discover further statues which once stood inside the temple at Kom el-Hettan.

The father of all monks

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El-Aref)

The world's oldest monastery has had a facelift to smooth out the cracks. Nevine El-Aref sees what the conservationists have been up to

“If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasures in heaven; and come, follow me.” Way back in the third century, a man from Upper Egypt named Anthony took these words of Jesus quite literally and turned his life upside down. In 285, at the age of 34, Anthony gave away some of his family’s estate to his neighbours and sold the remaining property, donating the funds thus raised to the poor. He placed his unmarried sister with a group of Christian virgins in a type of proto-nunnery, and he himself became the disciple of a local hermit.

Leaving the place of his birth, he headed towards the settlement of town Zafarana on the Red Sea coast. There he took up a residence in a cave at the foot of the nearby mountains, with little more than a spring and a cluster of date palms to sustain him. Anthony now dedicated his life to trying to implement the words of Jesus, and he became the first known Christian ascetic and the spiritual father of all monks. Upon his death in 356, his followers built cells for themselves which formed the core of what was to become a large monastery bearing the saint’s name.

If anyone is interested I've written a short "armchair introduction" to the Coptic religion on one of my other blogs.

Antiquities agreement with Equador

Latin American Herald Tribune

The upper house of Egypt’s Parliament approved an agreement on Sunday that was signed with Ecuador in 2008 and opens the way for the recovery of antiquities stolen and taken illegally to the South American country, the official MENA news agency reported.

Egypt and Ecuador, under the terms of the agreement, ban and criminalize trafficking in ancient, cultural, art and historical items stolen from either country.

Book Review: Biography of Cleopatra

statesman.com (Roger Gathman)

Anachronism is the despair of the historian. Though it is easy to correct the misdating of objects and events, it is a lot harder to root out the intuitively appealing idea that the people in the past were somehow "aiming" at the people in the present us. George Bernard Shaw, in his notes to his play "Caesar and Cleopatra," wrote, "The more ignorant men are, the more convinced are they that their little parish and their little chapel is an apex which civilization and philosophy have painfully struggled up the pyramid of time from a desert of savagery."

Yet Shaw's play is a case in point. His Cleopatra is more like some Edwardian teenager than the plurilingual incarnation of the goddess Isis, which Cleopatra was firmly convinced she was. The hardest task for artists or historians is to efface the thumbprint of their own time when they handle times past.

Two recent biographers of legendary ancient monarchs Cleopatra and Mithradates have found different solutions to the anachronism problem. Duane Roller has sought to build a portrait of Cleopatra "based solely on information from the ancient world," and Adrienne Mayor, writing about Mithradates, seeks to "apply 'the scientific use of the imagination' to fill in the spaces between surviving accounts and contextual facts." Both authors present us, then, with new accounts of the most famous monarchs to make a last stand against the Roman takeover of the eastern Mediterranean.

JSesh 3.0

JSesh, release notes

Dear all,

I have the pleasure to announce version 3.0 of JSesh. Thanks to M. Thomas' work, the full Manuel de Codage (or, in other terms, the "extended library") is now covered by JSesh (save a few signs here and there, which will be fixed in the near future). So JSesh 3.0 is essentially JSesh 2.13, but with complete X, Y and Z families. I thought however that a full coverage of the Manuel de Codage warranted a new version number.

Best regards,

S. Rosmorduc

A visit to the Ashmolean Museum

For those of you who have read the blog over the last year you'll probably have noticed the occasonal report about the massive refurbishment at the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford, UK), which lead to it being closed for a period. I went with a friend to see it on Thursday, to see the archaeological sections.

The first thing to highlight is that the Egyptology section hasn't changed. One or two artefacts seem to have been moved around but that's all. The refurbishment did not include the four ancient Egyptian galleries are much as they were. Sadly the wall of Amarna relief fragments is no longer illuminated and they are almost impossible to see.

We had a look at other archaeology sections that interested us both. The new design is modern, clean and attractive. The presentation of the objects themselves has changed considerably and I am very much in two minds about how successful that it actually is.

My friend described the presentation as taking an art gallery approach, which really hits the nail on the head. Instead of showing lots of artefacts and giving a wide view of a place the new presentation takes the most attractie or remarkable of the collection and, with beautiful lighting, presents them as highlights of an area. Information boards help to describe the galleries, but there is a loss of the sense of variety and depth which the rather untidy layout surviving in the ancient Egyptian galleries still maintains.

I found the new Ashmolean quite beautiful but much less informative. I would have liked to have seen a much better balance between attractive presentation cabinets and the volume and richness of displays you would expect to see in a museum so closely tied in with a research institution like Oxford University.

I suppose that there's never going to be a way of pleasing everyone with such a dramatic re-invention.

Photo for Today - Temple of Kalabsha

The Temple of Kalabsha with the Kiosk of Qertassi in the foreground
New Kalabsha Island, near Aswan



Pylon, Temple of Kalabsha


Kalabsha is the biggest of the Nubian Temples after Abu Simbel.
It was originally located at Talamis, which has been submerged by
the waters of Lake Nasser.
It is a Roman period temple built during the reign of Augustus and was dedicated to
Nubian deity Mandulis/Merwel, who is usually shown as a human
crown composed of ram's horns, plumes and sun disks. He is also shown
in the temple as a falcon with a man's head.
It was divided into 13,000 blocks for its removal to the island of New
Kalabsha, which it shares with other re-homed monuments.

Looking for the blue pigment of New Kingdom pottery

Washington University in St Louis

Jennifer Smith, PhD, associate professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, was belly crawling her way to the end of a long, narrow tunnel. The tunnel was carved in the rock at a desert oasis by Egyptians who lived in the time of the pharaohs.

“I was crawling along when suddenly I felt stabbed in the chest,” Smith says. “I looked down and saw that I was pressing against the broken end of a long bone. That freaked me out because at first I thought I was crawling over bodies, but I looked up and saw a sheep skull not too far away, so I calmed down. At least the bones weren’t human.”

What was she doing in the tunnel?

The answer: seeking an uncontaminated sample of a mineral that might have been the key ingredient in the blue used to decorate “blue painted pottery” popular among the Egyptian elite during the New Kingdom (1550-1079 BC).

Lecture by Otto Schaden on KV63

Luxor News Blog (Jane Akshar)

Jane has kindly shared her notes from the latest Mummification Museum lecture again.

Otto opened the lecture by reminding us that whatever KV63 finally turns out to be it will always be the first tomb discovered since the tomb of Tutankhamen. It started with a search for foundation deposits for the tomb of KV10. Excavation revealed 2 huts to the west and 10 huts to the east. These were used by the workman who lived in the valley and filled with ostracha and other artifacts. Theodore Davies had excavated the east most huts 10, 9 and 9a but left the central area. Under hut 5 they found KV63. Consisting of a single chamber with a stack of 8 coffins and 28 huge storage jars. This season they have been working on restoration of the coffins and the contents of the jars. Within these jars they have found natron, pots, textiles and the ‘embalming bed’ that is now in the mummification museum.

Coffin B (please refer to the Kv63 website for identification and pictures) was in a dreadful state, split with its mask fallen off and laying face down. SCA conservators have restored it and put the mask back in place. This is slow and painstaking work like watching the grass grow. It is not a work of art (I thought the profile was nice) and there is no writing or decoration.

It is nice to know that KV10 is not being forgotten!

Desert ecotourism: what's in it for Egypt?

Global Post (Jon Jensen)

Ecotourism is taking off throughout Egypt, boosting an economy already heavily dependent on tourism revenue. Bahariya is among those destinations increasingly popular for their pristine natural environment.

However, Egypt is quickly learning the need for balance between environment and development, amid concerns that tourism is stressing the country's fragile ecosystems to the point of collapse.

And the debate on ecotourism is even being had here, on the dusty streets of Bahariya’s largest village.

Ali Abdel Salem, 58, has lived in Bawati all his life. He has fond memories of the days before an asphalt highway was built linking the oasis to Cairo.

A trip from the capital that once took five days now takes only five hours.

“Fifty years ago, Bahariya was calm and quiet,” said Abdel Salem. “Now it’s starting to feel like Cairo. It’s crowded and noisy.”

Bahariya Oasis, once a thriving agricultural center for the Roman Empire, is now the preferred stepping-stone and supply stop for tourists heading to the surrounding deserts. Newly discovered ancient temples set against a stunning natural backdrop is another reason tourism is increasing here.

In recent years, the number of visitors to Bahariya has climbed so high that one-third of the oasis’ almost 40,000 residents are now working in tourism. Over the past decade, unemployment decreased as the number of hotels in Bahariya shot up 500 percent, according to Bahariya’s tourism office.

Mummy Hermione among revelatory treasures at Girton College Museum

Culture24

Rarely-seen treasures from Anglo-Saxon England, Ancient Egypt and the Mediterranean are being opened up to public view following the refurbishment of the small museum of Girton College Cambridge.

The Lawrence Room at Girton contains a range of unique pieces including Anglo-Saxon treasures recovered on the college site in 1881 and, perhaps most importantly, Hermione Grammatike, a named portrait mummy of a young female classics teacher from the Fayum city of Roman-era Egypt.

Excavated by William Flinders Petrie during the winter season of 1910/1911 in the Roman cemetery at Hawara, on the eastern edge of the Fayum, Hermione has become something of a Girton icon.

The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus

Thanks to the Resource Shelf blog for the information that the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus is now available online at the Turning the Pages Online website, from where you can load the virtual papyrus, or you can link to it directly by clicking here (it takes quite a while for the page to load). This is a terrific way of looking at the original papyrus. The Eye of Ra that shows under the papyrus allows you to zoom in on any part of it.

The Edwin Smith Papyrus, the world's oldest surviving surgical text, was written in Egyptian hieratic script around the 17th century BCE, but probably based on material from a thousand years earlier. The papyrus is a textbook on trauma surgery, and describes anatomical observations and the examination, diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of numerous injuries in exquisite detail.

American archaeologist Edwin Smith discovered the papyrus in Egypt in the 1860s, and his daughter donated the papyrus to the New-York Historical Society after his death. It eventually made its way to the Library of the New York Academy of Medicine, and it was recently translated for the first time in over 50 years into English by James P. Allen of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

A visit to the Petrie Museum, London

Amigos de la Egiptologia (Javier Uriach Torelló)

If you speak Spanish this is a really nice introduction to the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology written by a recent visitor. It includes a history of the museum and gives a blow by blow account of the visit t the museum. It is accompanied by around ten good photos and a plan of the museum.

Groundbreaking Partnership Unites Decades of Research

New York Times

MOST people associate museums with art and artifacts, not research libraries. But many of New York’s most prestigious museums have extensive collections of books and papers. Four of them — the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum and the Frick Collection — have combined forces to share resources, save money and make their holdings more accessible to the public.

Together these institutions make up the New York Art Resources Consortium, an integrated library system formed in 2007 that is supported by grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Its Web site, nyarc.org, just went on line in February. Last year, three of the museums united their collections in one catalog, called Arcade (the Met has kept its catalog separate).

“This allows us to do some things collaboratively that we weren’t able to do individually,” said Milan R. Hughston, the chief of library and museum archives at MoMA. “Together we aggregate close to a million books, articles, periodicals and special collections that document art history.”

The database, at arcade.nyarc.org, is a trove of more than 800,000 records from ancient Egypt to contemporary art that includes exhibition and auction sale catalogs, monographs, periodicals, rare books, photographs and archival materials.

J. Arch. Science - reservoir offset in C14 record?

Available to journal subscribers, or by purchase for download.

Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 37, Issue 4, Pages 671-900 (April 2010)

Investigating the likelihood of a reservoir offset in the radiocarbon record for ancient Egypt
M.W. Dee, F. Brock, S.A. Harris, C. Bronk Ramsey, A.J. Shortland, T.F.G. Higham, J.M. Rowland

Abstract
Some radiocarbon dates for ancient Egypt have been significantly offset from the established historical chronology (see Bonani et al., 2001). In this paper, short-lived plant species collected in Egypt between 1700 and 1900 AD were used to investigate the possibility that the radiocarbon record had been influenced by reservoir effects. AMS radiocarbon measurements were made on 66 known-age samples, resulting in an average offset from expected values of 19 years. The implications of this minor discrepancy on the likelihood of a reservoir process are discussed, and the agreement of the data with recent models of radiocarbon seasonality is also considered.

Photo for Today - Beit el-Wali

Ramesses II with the Elephantine deity Khnum and his consort Anukis
Beit el-Wali, New Kalabsha island, near Aswan

This is the last of the photos from Beit el-Wali.
There will be more from New Kalabsha in the next couple of weeks.

More discoveries from the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III

Yahoo!

NB - the photograph currently showing on the page is not from the site - it is not even from Egypt - but is part of a slideshow of general archaeology and anthropology photographs.

A team of archaeologists unearthed two large red granite statues in southern Egypt at the mortuary temple of one of the most powerful pharaohs, who ruled nearly 3,400 years ago, the Culture Ministry said Tuesday.

A ministry statement said the team discovered a 13 foot (4 meter) statue of Thoth, the ancient god of wisdom and the top part of a statue of Pharaoh Amenhotep III standing next to another god.

Both were found buried in the pharaoh's mortuary temple on the west bank of the Nile in the southern temple city of Luxor.

On Feb. 28, archaeologists discovered a massive red granite head of Amenhotep III at the same temple.

Zawya

Egyptian archaeologists have discovered a colossal ancient statue of the pharaonic deity of wisdom, Thoth, in the shape of a baboon, the council of antiquities said in a statement on Tuesday.

The four-metre (13-foot) tall statue was discovered in four pieces along with two statues while workers were lowering ground waters beneath Luxor to help preserve the city's pharaonic temples, the statement said.

It dates back to the 18th Dynasty, which ruled Egypt until 1292 BC.

"It is the first time that a statue of Thoth, depicting him as a monkey, of this magnitude has been discovered," Mansur Boraik, head of pharaonic antiquities in Luxor, told AFP.

Scanning and Digging at Yetwal

EES Delta Survey

This will probably be our last visit to Shirbin as we return on Friday to Cairo from where we hope to be able to return home, though at present we are booked on a British Airways flight on one of the days they are going on strike! We’re waiting for further information from BA as to whether or not our flight will be operating before we look for alternatives. In the meantime, we will just carry on working!

Artur left us today to rejoin the Polish mission at Tell Mura, after several very successful days of magnetic scanning.

The magnetic map of Yetwal is not as clear as that of Balamun as the surface is covered by small fragments of red brick and sherds so it is more difficult to see any underlying features but there are some buildings visible and this year we have SCA permission to carry out limited excavation to try and date the structures. So far they would seem, from associated red brickwork, plaster floor remains and a few diagnostic sherds to be of the Roman Period .

Jewish history part of heritage

Bikya Masr (Mohamed Abdel Salam)

The Egyptian Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni said that Egypt bears the expenses of the restoration of all Jewish antiquities being restored in the country. He added that like the rest of the Egyptian antiquities whether ancient Egyptian, Islamic or Coptic, Egypt “considers the Jewish temples in Egypt as part of the Egyptian heritage, which must be restored on a regular basis.”

His comments come as the Egyptian government recently completed the restoration of a number of Jewish synagogues in the country as part of the culture ministry’s efforts to bolster its past, the minister’s office said.

Friends of the Petrie on You Tube

Thanks to Jan Picton (Secretary, Friends of the Petrie) for the following information.

The Friends of the Petrie Museum have received an unusual donation from PMF committee member, Gillian Mosely. Gillian is the Director of Medialab, a concept house that devises and sells factual television ideas to broadcasters including the History Channel, Channel 4, Five, Discovery, and National Geographic.

Gillian and her cameraman, Christoph Steiger, donated their skills, time and editing expertise to produce a series of 23 short films about the Petrie Museum which we have now put up on UCL's YouTube channel. The voice-overs have been done by Richard Langley, our Operations Manager.
Richard is leaving us this month and we wish him well. The films include a brief introduction to the museum, staff interviews, projects and objects.

We hope you enjoy them.

Jan


The links are as follows:

Petrie introduction:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiBZd8qRa3w

Interviews with Debbie Challis, now Audience Development Officer, and Tracey Golding, Visitor Services Officer
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=FCE6507E03B0F4B0

Five interviews with Susi Pancaldo, Conservation Manager, about issues around sustaining the collection:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=6AD39DD1B2312BAE

Stephen Quirke Interviews:
12 separate films about Petrie, the museum, and Stephen's introduction to the collection and the his role at the museum.
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=913964FDCBDA4D1E

Petrie Time Capsules: Stephen discusses five objects, their role and meaning in the past and what we can learn from them
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=13E58C36E130B15A

Petrie Special Projects: films discussing the 3D laser scanning project, ongoing cartonnage conservation, and our newest project organic materials conservation
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=DB686266033FF158

Anubis to visit the Statue of Liberty

Arts Museum Journal (Stan Parchin)

In anticipation of the special exhibition Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs at Manhattan's Discovery Times Square Exposition (April 23, 2010-January 2, 2011), a towering five-ton sculpture of the Egyptian god Anubis will sail into New York Harbor on March 23, 2010. There it will be juxtaposed for a time with the majestic Statue of Liberty. Hopefully the massive work, measuring 7.6 m (25 ft.) in height, will then take up temporary residence in Shubert Alley, directly opposite the traveling show's last and largest American venue.

The Persian presence at Qasr el-Ghuieta, Egypt

The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies

Another paper found whilst looking for something else entirely, in case it is of interest to visitors:

The Persian presence at Qasr el-Ghuieta, Egypt
By Eugene Cruz-Uribe
Northern Arizona University

In studying the spatial relationships amongst the different temples in Kharga Oasis, it becomes clear that there was a clear pattern in the placement of those structures that does not seem to have anything to do with religious motives. Hibis temple is by far the largest of the temple structures in the oasis and the area around the temple clearly was a prominent part of the oasis culture.

Morkot’s discussion (R. Morkot, "The Darb el-Arbain, the Kharga Oasis and its forts, and other desert routes," in D. Bailey, ed., Archaeological Research in Roman Egypt, Ann Arbor, 1996 [JRA Supplemental Series 19], pp. 82-94, esp. p. 84) reiterates the belief that the temple within the fortress at Qasr el-Ghuieta dates to the reign of Darius I and not to an earlier period. He compares it to the same dating often given for the temple at Hibis.

The purpose of this short page is to discuss possible dating issues and view the remains of Ghueita from a new view point. This discussion follows with a series of jpeg images. It is hoped that these images depict the environment of the site and perhaps explains a bit more on the dating of portions of the temple structure.

Photo for Today - Beit el-Wali

Beit el-Wali courtyard, New Kalabsha, near Aswan

As anyone who has taken photographs in Egypt will know,
the intense light can make a photograph or destroy it.
In this case the light simply wasn't helping, and it was difficult
to photograph the wonderful scenes in the courtyard at the
time of visiting. I was there on a tour, so there were no second chances
but it would be good to go back for another go at some stage.
These were the best of the lot. Hopefully you can make out the
monkey in the top of the two relief images, and the giraffe below.
Both were part of the tribute being offered by the defeated Nubians, the
theme of this particular wall.

Excavations in the Valley of the Kings

drhawass.com (Zahi Hawass)

A summary of the work currently being carried out in four areas of the Valley of the Kings. Two of the areas excavated - Nick Reeves's proposed site for "KV-64" and another possible tomb location proposed by Lyla Brock - both failed to produce results. However some interesting minor discoveries were made in the cliffs behind the tombs and there is hope that a new tomb will be discovered in the area known as the Valley of the Monkeys. See the above page for the full report.

KV63 Dig Diary updated

KV-63 (Otto Schaden)

A report for the end of the current season at KV63, with the heading "Otto's Dig (less) Diary *KV-63 excavation complete". There are several paragraphs to the post. Here's a short extract:

Coffin A was made for a Royal Nurse named Iny, as reported at the end of last season. However, we noticed some additional decoration and so we have been examining other parts of the lid and box in the hope of reassembling more connected texts on the cross bands. Only one cross band was legible and it translates as “Revered, may I see Re in the sky and drink from the pool….”. This unusual statement and the lack of mention of the traditional deities led us to suggest that Iny flourished during the Akhenaton era. It is unlike we can recover much more of the cross bands in the last few days of this season, but we will continue to gain as much data on the texts and decoration of Coffin A as is possible.

The Forgotten Boy

Egyptians (Tim Reid)

Tim has written a piece speculating on the identity of the third occupant of the side chamber in KV35, a young boy who seems to have got lost in the telling of the DNA tale. In this detailed post Tim examines the possibility of identifying the boy.

In the recent two year study of eighteenth dynasty royal mummies it seems that this boy from a side chamber in valley of kings tomb KV 35 was not included.

There are artifacts from the tomb Kv 35 which belong to a son of Amenhotep II named Webensenu as a result of the mummies found in the tomb there are four candidates to be that prince including this boy or another mummy found attached to a funerary boat belonging to Amenhotep II or either of two skeletons.

Some have speculated that the mummy on the boat was the founder of the twentieth dynasty Sethnakht because of a reused coffin once manufactured for that king was present in the tomb at the time of discovery. Unfortunately the mummy was destroyed more than a hundred years ago when the boat was stolen.

Gurob Harem Palace website

Gurob Harem Palace Project

Thanks to the Friends of the Petrie newsletter I found that there's another excavation website that I hadn't know about before. The Gurob Harem Palace Project looking at both urban and funerary remains at Medinet el Gurob in the southern Faiyum. The palace was founded in the reign of Thutmose III (1479-1425 BC) and occupied throughout the rest of the 18th Dynasty and posssible for a part of the Ramesside period.

Egyptian Archaeology No.36, Spring 2010

Egypt Exploration Society

The welcome sound of heavy mail hitting the floor in my hallway greeted me this morning. It doesn't mean that there will be no bills in amongst it but that particular "clunk" usually indicates that a few goodies have arrived. Included in the pile of books and magazines was Egyptian Archaeology, The Bulletin of hte Egypt Exploration Society, the contents of which are as follows (in alphabetical order by author):

• Will Carruthers, A means to an end: seeking Bryan Emery in archives
• David Dufton and Tom Branton, Climate change in early Egypt
• Sami el-Husseiny and Adel Okasha Khafagy, The Dahshur tomb of the Vizier Siese rediscovered
• Angus Graham, Ancient landscapes around the Opet temple, Karnak
• Nozomu Kawai and Sakuji Yoshimura, The tomb chapel of Isisnofret at Saqqara
• Chris Naunton, The EES Oral History Project
• Dirk Obbink, Recent discoveries from Oxyrhynchus
• Stephen Quirke, Petrie at Abydos in 1900: Margaret Murray's album
• Kveta Smolarikova, Embalmers' caches in the shaft tombs at Abu Sir
• Patricia Spencer, Harry James and the EES
• Patricia Spencer, Digging Diary
• Kristin Thompson, Concrete evidence on Amarna composite statuary
• Gyoso Voros, The temple treasures of Taposiris Magna

I am particularly looking forward to the Dufton and Branton article about climate change in early Egypt.

More re DNA studies - focusing on Akhenaten

AP News

This article focuses on the identification of the mummy in KV55 as Akhenaten and also looks at why Akhenaten was more important in ancient Egypt than Tutankhamun. Here's an extract.

The discovery of Akhenaten's remains lay to rest longtime speculation over his physical appearance. Royal statues of the time show an effeminate figure with womanly hips, elongated skull and fleshy lips - leading to speculation he suffered from any number of rare diseases that distorted his body.

But the mummy and DNA tests showed a normally shaped man without genetic conditions that might given him both masculine and feminine features.

"It ought to dampen down some of the more dramatic interpretations," said Barry Kemp, who has been working on the Amarna excavations since 1977. "But people do love a good story."

Jerome Rose, of the University of Arkansas, who has been working on the site with Kemp, said the discovery "makes our work at Amarna of greater interest."

What the discovery does not resolve, however, is the mystery of how Akhenaten died. Unlike Tutankhamun's well preserved mummy, which showed he suffered from congenital defects and malaria, Akhenaten's remains are little more than bones with no soft tissues to provide clues to his death.

In fact, the difference in preservation between his skeleton and all the other royal mummies could have been due to his different religious beliefs or animosity by those burying him.

Photo for Today - back to New Kalabsha

Now that Lucia's excellent photographs of Amarna have all been posted I'm back in Nubia with my holiday snaps from a Lake Nasser cruise in 2007. I still have some more photographs from Beit el Wali, both the interior and exterior, so I'll finish those before going on to other monuments on the island of New Kalabsha.

If I manage to find it the next set should be photographs taken in and around Kharga oasis by a friend of mine. I had a recent sort-out of my office, due to the need to lay a new carpet, and have managed to jumble all my CD-Roms and DVDs, some of which have lost labels in the process. In this case my friend had stuck a post-it to the case of the DVD containing his photographs and I've found the post-it but have not yet isolated the DVD to which it was attached! Failing that, I'm aiming to visit the newly refurbished Ashmolean Museum in the near future so I'll have some shots of that lovely collection to post, whilst still hunting for Kharga.

Beit el Wali, New Kalabsha Island, near Aswan.
Detail of paintwork.

Video of Queen Behenu discovery

Reuters

Thanks very much to Tony Marson for this link, which is a short but excellent video about the discovery and excavations at the tomb of Queen Behenu at Saqqara. I had trouble getting it to work at first, but it was worth the effort. The season is over for this year but there are plans to begin excavations at the neighbouring mortuary temple next season.

More re the Avenue of Sphinxes in Luxor

The Times (Matthew Campbell)

Visitors will have the chance to stroll under the imperious gaze of the sphinxes — mythological creatures with the body of a lion and head of a human or ram.

The remainder of the buried avenue, 75 yards wide and flanked originally by an estimated 1,350 sphinxes, will be opened in the next few years.

“It is the longest processional avenue in the world,” said Jihane Zaki, a government Egyptologist. Its restoration, he said, would return “dignity and glory” to Luxor, in what was once the ancient city of Thebes.

Controversy has surrounded the project, not least because of the speed of the excavation in which bulldozers have cut a 100-yard trench through some of the densely populated districts of Luxor.

Foreign archeologists say historical buildings have been demolished to make way for a lucrative new attraction.

“The whole thing is a disgrace,” said an American archeologist, who declined to be named because of fears of reprisals from Egyptian officials. “The work is being done in a big rush to get the place ready for tourism. Several very special buildings have been destroyed on purpose. They’re murdering the soul of the place.”

The dispute has drawn in Unesco, which has responsibility for world heritage sites such as the Luxor and Karnak temples at each end of the avenue.

A morning with Dr Andrzej Cwiek at Deir el Bahri

Luxor News Blog (Jane Akshar)

With photographs. Jane's been out and about again in Luxor getting the first hand view of things from the experts. Lucky thing!!

I was privileged and lucky enough to be taken round Deir el Bahri by Dr Andrzej Cwiek the Assistant director of the Polish Mission. I made sure the previous day that the inspectorate knew I was coming, this is really important as when I turned up on site their local inspector was freaking out. The knowledge that I was there with permission from Moustafa Wazery smoothed all that out. Permission is god here. The director of the site took me to the Punt portico where Dr Andrzej was photographing.

He enhanced the lecture from Saturday by showing me the places where erasure had happened and how it had been done by different hands. Honestly it was so obvious once you have been shown. It helped that he had a mirror to shine the light against the decoration and we were under the barrier. But once it has been pointed out it is so obvious even when this is taken away.

We then went to the Hatshepsut chapel which is actually their workshop. I am afraid I am not going to remember everything he said, there was so much but I will do my best.