Technology to Throw New Light On Ancient Artifacts

Science Daily

New technology which makes it possible to study the finer details of some of the world's greatest historical artifacts has been developed by computer scientists and archaeologists at the University of Southampton in conjunction with academics at the University of Oxford.

Dr Kirk Martinez at the University of Southampton's ECS -- Electronics and Computer Science and the team have developed two Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) systems to capture images of documentary texts and archaeological material. The systems takes 76 pictures of artifacts with the light in different positions, then creates a new type or RTI image. The viewer can then move the virtual light anywhere and focus on the detail.

From City of the (not so) Dead to Green Lung

CairObserver

The necropolis east of historic Cairo and under Muqattam hills is about ten times bigger than Al Azhar Park just across Salah Salem highway. It has received some attention from architectural historians due to the exquisite funerary architecture. There are tombs, mosques, and schools. Although this is only one layer of this Qarafa, as it is known to Egyptians. Besides the historic layer there is a living community that lives among the historic buildings, mostly in buildings that look like self-built apartment houses elsewhere in the city. Contrary to popular belief, few actually live in the tombs. The population may have changed over the course of the last forty years and it may have been larger at some point but today those living in this part of the city are not many. But there are enough families to give this place a sense of community and keep it alive.

This large area is diverse with different conditions, density of residents, density of historic buildings, and varying levels of livability.

Online: Saqqara

France-Diplomatique

For those who are interested in Saqqara this is an English language version of a really excellent French introduction to the site. In order to proceed through the full guide, just click the link at the bottom right, which shows the title of the next section.

Photo for Today - Temple of Tod

Another photograph from the small temple of Montu,
adjacent to the main temple, showing inscriptions
from different periods.

Banquo's ghost

The Art Newspaper (Martin Bailey)

Thanks to Alice Gaylor for the link. One wonders what sort of state the Antiquities service is in if only one person can be found with suitable qualifications to lead it.

Egyptian antiquities boss Zahi Hawass still remains the minister, despite reports that he has been sacked. On 19 July he told The Art Newspaper that prime minister Esssam Sharaf has asked him to continue to go to work. However, Hawass’s future is now very uncertain.

Although Hawass is facing dismissal in an imminent cabinet reshuffle, it is proving complicated to find his replacement as antiquities minister. Last Sunday Abdel Fatah El Banna of Cairo University was named as his successor, but the appointment failed to go ahead after he faced criticism, including protests from antiquities staff.

Jerusalem Post (Seth J. Frantzman)

Perhaps he spoke too soon.

The news that Zahi Hawass was recently swept aside from his post in a cabinet reshuffle in Cairo, should be welcomed. There was always something about Hawass that seemed not quite right. Besides his anti-Semitic comments, it was his constant presence. He was always there – in every video, television report, newspaper article, every time Egyptian archeology was mentioned. As Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, and later as the first Minister of Antiquities, he has spent a decade as the highest government bureaucrat responsible for Egypt’s archeological heritage.

But a close comparison of how new archeological discoveries are presented in Egypt and how they are revealed in other places, like Israel, gives a peek into how Hawass operates. In 2010, when a new pagan burial alter was found at Ashkelon in Israel, the interview for National Geographic was given by Yigal Israel, chief archeologist at Ashkelon for the Israel Antiquities Authority. Reports about the excavation of Vadum Iacob, a Crusader fort in the Galilee, quote Ronnie Ellenblum, head of the research project there.

But in Egypt things are different.

Exhibition: Pharaoh - King of Egypt

Culture 24 (Nick Owen)

With 2 lovely photographs.

Exhibition: Pharaoh: King of Egypt, Great North Museum: Hancock until September 25 2011

The North East’s premier museum, Great North Museum: Hancock, Newcastle, is hosting the largest ever UK touring exhibition of ancient Egyptian artefacts this summer.

The British Museum touring exhibition Pharaoh: King of Egypt sees the entirety of ancient Egyptian history brought to life in over 130 objects.

A diverse range of artefacts from the British Museum’s world-class collection explores the myths and real life realities of Egyptian Kinship.

Many of the objects display the images of the pharaohs they would have wanted us to see: the all-powerful military leaders descended from Ra, intermediaries between the gods and their people.

Yet, as the exhibition seeks to uncover, the realities of Egyptian Kingship were often very different.

The Guardian, UK

The exhibition Pharaoh: King of Egypt has just opened at the Great North Museum in Newcastle tomorrow. It's free and on there until September 25th before going on tour to Dorchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Glasgow and Bristol over the next two years.

With over 130 works from the British Museum, many of which have never been seen outside London before – and many of which aren't usually on display even there – the show claims to be the largest ever UK exhibition of ancient Egyptian artefacts on loan from the BM. Neil MacGregor, the BM's eximious director and presenter of Radio 4's "History of the World in One Hundred Objects" , accurately stated that "this exhibition is a fantastic example of collaboration between the British Museum and its partners across the UK." His colleague Dr Neal Spencer, the curator of Egyptology and Sudan at the BM, told me today:

The Act of Parliament establishing the British Museum in 1753 says it is "for all curious people", not just curious people in the capital, and this exhibition is a great way of using our collection and making sure different audiences across the country can see it.

Ancient Egyptian gilded mask Ready for a night on the town - an ancient Egyptian gilded mask. Photograph: British Museum/PA

One of the fascinating aspects of the exhibition is the way that it shows how Egyptians absorbed and assimilated foreign rulers. As Dr Spencer said, "Egypt was under foreign rule for centuries – Nubians, Persians, Libyans, Romans and Macedonians all provided Pharaohs and all of them, in Egypt at least, respected local traditions and gods." Tiberius, the emperor at the time of Christ's crucifixion, is represented here by a round-topped sandstone stela that shows him in classic pharaonic dress with a winged sun-disk kneeling before a couple of gods and with his name translated into hieroglyphs, recording the reconstruction of some flood-damaged temples at Karnak.

Photo for Today - Temple of Tod

The Case Against the Grand Egyptian Museum

Jadaliyya (Mohamed Elshahed)

A Modern Museum for an Ancient Nation?

With the French Revolution came the first truly public museum in the world, the Louvre, which opened its doors in 1793. Private collections owned by wealthy individuals were made accessible to the middle and upper classes in major European cities roughly since the eighteenth century. Access to such collections by a greater public was seen as one of the engines of European enlightenment. With the emergence of public museums came a new approach to art history that considered the views of the beholder, rather than just the viewpoint of the artist. New fields of knowledge became essential because museums were national spaces where identities were negotiated through the ritual of viewing untouchable objects.

Power relations between object, owner, institution, and viewer were constructed based on class relations: aristocrats owned precious objects that could be viewed by a wider audience within an institutional setting. Once objects were clearly identified as unfamiliar, such as Pharaonic, new dimensions including race and exoticism were added to the museum experience. Awe-inspiring ancient art from faraway places stimulated a wave of travel, treasure hunting, and exploration to destinations such as Egypt.

More re Hawass

See previous posts on the subject for a summary of the news to date (yesterday and the day before). There is also a discussion developing on Nora Shalaby's blog, which could be worth watchng for comments from Egyptian as well as other perspectives.

Smithsonian (Andrew Lawler)

Includes a statement in response by Hawass.

Hawass was characteristically blunt in assessing why he was let go after nearly a decade in charge. “All the devils united against me,” he said in an e-mail today. And he said he believed that archaeology will suffer as a result. Mubarak had created the ministry of antiquities in January as part of an effort to salvage his government; it had been a non-cabinet agency called the Supreme Council of Antiquities, which reported to the ministry of culture. Hawass predicted that the antiquities ministry would be abolished within two months.

That worries foreign archaeologists, who say that the ministry upgrade was a good idea. “I’m very concerned about the antiquities,” said Sarah Parcak, an Egyptologist at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. “And these monuments are the lifeblood of the Egyptian economy.”

Who would succeed Hawass was unclear. Sharaf initially nominated Abd El Fattah El-Banna, a University of Cairo professor who is an engineer specializing in stone conservation. El-Banna is a longtime critic of Hawass. “The people say they don’t want Hawass,” he said in an interview last month. “And we need a revolution within the ministry.”

But Egyptian and foreign sources said that protesting archaeologists rejected the appointment of a nonarchaeologist and mobbed the area outside the antiquities ministry’s headquarters in protest.

Photo for Today - Temple of Tod

Temple for the Barque of Montu
Built during the reign of Tuthmosis III
The annual festival of Montu involved a shrine houseing hte statue of
Montu being sailed down the Nile from Armant to Tod.

More re Hawass loss of position in reshuffle

I will continue to add to this post throughout today if any new information turns up, but I won't repeat anything that has already appeared on either this post or yesterday's. Although the interim government have clearly submitted to protester demands for Mubarak's former followers to be ousted, of whom Hawasss is one, there seems to be a question mark over whether these changes are constitutional. The final line-up, apparently due today, may provide more information about Hawass's replacement.


19:13
Ahram Online (Nevine El Aref)

Prime minister Essam Sharaf has cancelled the nomination of the Abdel Fatah El-Banna to hold Egypt’s antiquities portfolio. The decision was taken following the demonstrations of archaeologists and the employees of the Ministry of State for Antiquities (MSA) at the front gate of the cabinet building calling for the cancellation of El-Banna’s nomination to the ministry's top post.

El-Banna is an associate professor at Cairo University and a stone monuments restoration specialist. He obtained his Ph.D. from Warsaw University, Poland, in engineering geology and majored in restoration of historic buildings.

El-Banna, along with fresh graduate archaeologists, had been campaigning against former MSA minister Zahi Hawass, calling for him to step down.

15:55
Almahrusa.blogspot.com (Nora Shalaby)

With thanks to Kate Phizackerley for the link. Please bear in mind that whether or not Al-Banna is accepted as the official replacement of Hawass (if Hawass actually remains replaced) is a matter which appears to be still very much up in the air.

Yesterday we heard the delightful news that Zahi Hawass had resigned from the Ministry of Antiquities - something many Egyptians had long been waiting to hear. It was about time the Mubarak of Antiquities, who had been head of the SCA for over 10 years, be removed.

However when I heard about his replacement, Abdel Fattah el-Banna, I was shocked. I first heard about el-Banna post Jan25 when he appeared several times protesting against Zahi Hawass. He had a group of followers, mostly fresh archaeology graduates, and others who had an interest in Egyptian archaeology, that I saw several times outside of the SCA building in Zamalek. His dislike of Zahi was obvious and there were always chants calling for Zahi's resignation. Unfortunately though it seems that el-Banna is somewhat crazy.

13:31
Al Masry Al Youm (Mohamed Azouz)

The Supreme Council of Antiquities secretariat rejected the appointment of Abdel Fattah al-Banna as antiquities minister. The appointment was part of the cabinet reshuffle ordered by Egypt's prime minister.

In a statement, the secretariat said Banna, a restoration specialist, does not specialize in archaeology and should not assume the ministry's responsibilities.

The statement called for dissolving the Antiquities Ministry and returning its responsibilities to the council, which it said would act as an independent, scientific institute run by specialists.

The decision to establish the ministry was made by Hosni Mubarak, a mistake that should be reversed in the public's interest, the statement said.

10:21
The Guardian, UK (Jack Schencker)

Egypt's embattled prime minister, Essam Sharaf, has fired several of his top ministers in the latest attempt to end mass nationwide protests against his government's slow pace of reform.

The most high-profile departure was that of Zahi Hawass, Egypt's antiquities minister and a self-styled 'Indiana Jones of the East' who attained celebrity status through his global television ventures with the National Geographic and Discovery channels but was tainted by his strong praise for Mubarak during the anti-government uprising earlier this year.

The ministers of finance, industry, education and foreign affairs also followed in the footsteps of Sharaf's deputy, Yehia el-Gamal, who stepped down last week amid demonstrations that have called the legitimacy of Egypt's ruling military generals into question.

Protesters have demanded that the interim cabinet be purged of all politicians linked to the Mubarak regime.

Schenker also wrote a short update yesterday afternoon on the Guardian website:

With his trademark hat, pompous swagger and unbounded sense of self-worth, Hawass has been credited with boosting national tourism revenue and opening up the mysteries of pharaonic Egypt to the world.

But he's also been a consistent hate figure for many working within the archaeological community, and his emphatic support for Mubarak – made in a BBC TV interview just five days before the dictator was toppled – seemed to be the last straw for his career. But, as seen in a recent interview with the Guardian, Hawass tried to improbably style himself as an enthusiastic revolutionary in recent months and somehow clung onto his position – until today.

Al Masry Al Youm

Egypt's Interim Constitution does not entitle the current prime minister to appoint ministers or accept their resignations, an Egyptian military source said on Saturday.

The ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has the sole authority in that respect, said Major General Hassan al-Ruweiny, the head of the central command of Egypt's armed forces.

Ruweiny's statements follow discussions conducted by Prime Minister Essam Sharaf regarding a potential ministerial reshuffle, which came in response to week-old protests demanding a new government.

Egypt's young revolutionaries believe the military council does not provide Sharaf with the necessary authority to change ministers.

USA Today

Even after the Cabinet reshuffle, many of the protesters in the square said they have no intention of quitting more than a week into their sit-in.

"The real power brokers are the generals of Hosni Mubarak," said activist Hossam el-Hamalawy. "Nothing has really changed on the ground." He said ending military trials for civilians and an improved minimum wage remain high on the list of the protesters' demands.

Prime Minister Essam Sharaf is delivering on a promise for a Cabinet reshuffle in an attempt to end the new round of mass protests. A final lineup is expected Monday.

The most prominent among those replaced is Antiquities chief Zahi Hawass. For more than a decade, he has been the international face of Egypt's archaeology, with his trademark "Indiana Jones" hat that turned him into an instantly recognizable global icon. Hawass, however, has been the target of a series of heavily publicized protests by archaeology graduates who accused him of corruption and seeking publicity for himself.

Google / AFP

Egypt's antiquities minister, whose trademark Indiana Jones hat made him one the country's best known figures around the world, was fired Sunday after months of pressure from critics who attacked his credibility and accused him of having been too close to the regime of ousted President Hosni Mubarak.

Zahi Hawass, long chided as publicity loving and short on scientific knowledge, lost his job along with about a dozen other ministers in a Cabinet reshuffle meant to ease pressure from protesters seeking to purge remnants of Mubarak's regime.

"He was the Mubarak of antiquities," said Nora Shalaby, an activist and archaeologist. "He acted as if he owned Egypt's antiquities, and not that they belonged to the people of Egypt."

Despite the criticism, he was credited with helping boost interest in archaeology in Egypt and tourism, a pillar of the country's economy.

But after Mubarak's ouster on Feb. 11 in a popular uprising, pressure began to build for him to step down.

Hawass was among a list of Cabinet ministers protesters wanted to see gone because they were associated with the former regime.

And archaeology students and professors blasted him for what they saw as his lack of serious research.

Breaking News - Hawass replaced as Minister of Antiquities?

There are reports coming in that Zahi Hawass, Minister of State for Antiquities, has resigned his position or been replaced during or following the most recent cabinet reshuffle. It appears that his replacement is Dr Abdel Fattah Al-Banna from Cairo University. There are, as yet, no official statements on the subject. One of the reports has appeared on Bikya Masr and another on The Daily News Egypt.

The only things that I have been able to find out about Al-Banna are that he is an expert in stone restoration and, according to Al Ahram Weekly, led a protest to oust Mark Lehner and his team from the AERA dig house earlier this year.

I will post more news as I hear it. Thanks to those who have emailed me so far - do keep the news coming in.

Photo for Today - Temple of Tod

New discoveries at Dra Abu el-Naga

Luxor Times

More than 80 Ushabtis figures of 15 cm dated at least 3000 years ago have accompanied Djehuty,the ancient Egyptian priest, on his trip to the afterlife and was found by a research team led by Spanish Egyptologist Dr. José Manuel Galán.

The discovery was announced on 12th July in Madrid at a press conference which was attended by the Spanish Minister of Science and Innovation, Cristina Garmendia, and Rafael Rodrigo, CSIC President- Spanish National Research Council, held by the director of Djehuty Project to celebrate the 10th season completion.

The researchers believe the Ushabtis found belong to the priest. The importance of this discovery because the tomb have been looted by grave robbers, yet they have been discovered completely intact.

In Dra Abu el-Naga, Spanish archaeologists have also made two more discoveries (a pet cemetery and a new burial chamber). In the tomb of Hery, a senior Egyptian official who lived in 1500 BC, researchers have discovered a burial pit "completely inesperado - unexpected" in the words of Dr.Galan, and that the tomb had another cavity of these characteristics and is not unusual for having two burial rooms in tombs.

La Sombrilla

With video in Spanish.

Entre los ultimos hallazgos destacan 80 figurillas de unos 3.000 años de antigüedad.- La revuelta popular interrumpió el trabajo de campo, este año.

"Un viernes de finales de enero, justo cuando estábamos celebrando el X aniversario, con una tarta, sangría y jamón serrano, estallaron las primeras revueltas en El Cairo". El egiptólogo José Manuel Galán pasa seis semanas al año en Luxor, una ciudad situada a orillas del Nilo, en el centro de Egipto. Allí dirige las excavaciones de Djehuty, un proyecto del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) que iba a durar cinco años pero que, a golpe de hallazgo arqueológico, ha subido el listón de sus objetivos. "Empezamos con la intención de estudiar dos tumbas pero hemos ido excavando, descubriendo... y ahora podemos pasarnos trabajando allí 100 años".

Smuggled artefacts seized by US authorities

Reuters Africa

A set of 2,000-year-old sarcophagi and other Egyptian antiquities were smuggled into the United States by a black-market artifacts ring and recovered by U.S. law enforcement agents, officials said on Thursday.

Charges unsealed in Brooklyn federal court in New York accused four men of conspiring to smuggle the Egyptian artifacts in what one U.S. official described as a groundbreaking case against trafficking in cultural property.

The men charged -- Mousa Khouli, Salem Alshdaifat, Joseph Lewis and Ayman Ramadan -- were accused of evading customs officers by misrepresenting the nature of their cargo during border inspections. They also were charged with plotting to launder money.

New York Times (Kate Taylor)

Federal authorities announced on Wednesday that they had broken up an international ring that had been smuggling Egyptian antiquities into the United States. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations department said it was the first time that a cultural property smuggling network had been dismantled in the United States.

The latest on the arts, coverage of live events, critical reviews, multimedia extravaganzas and much more. Join the discussion.

The charges filed in United States District Court in Brooklyn accuse three antiquities dealers and a collector of conspiring to smuggle an Egyptian sarcophagus and other items, and of laundering money. All of the suspects have been arrested except for a Jordanian dealer who operates out of Dubai.

Brenton Easter, a federal agent who led the investigation, which began in 2008, said the items seized had a market value of $2.5 million.

CNN (Karin Khalid)

Alleged leaders of an international smuggling ring accused of stealing millions of dollars in antiquities from Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries are now facing federal charges in the United States, authorities said Thursday as they detailed some of the items seized by investigators.

"It is the first time an alleged cultural property network has been dismantled within the United States," James Hayes Jr., special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Homeland Security investigators in New York told CNN.

According to a federal indictment, the Department of Justice charged four men with conspiring to smuggle artifacts and launder money.

The United States Attorney's Office

An indictment was unsealed yesterday in federal court in Brooklyn charging Mousa Khouli, also known as “Morris Khouli,” Salem Alshdaifat, Joseph A. Lewis, II, and Ayman Ramadan, with conspiring to smuggle Egyptian antiquities into the United States and conspiring to launder money in furtherance of smuggling.1 The arraignments of Khouli and Lewis are scheduled today before United States Magistrate Judge Andrew L. Carter, at the U.S. Courthouse, 225 Cadman Plaza East, Brooklyn, New York. Alshdaifat’s arraignment took place yesterday before United States Magistrate Judge R. Steven Whalen, at the U.S. Courthouse, 231 W. Lafayette Boulevard, Detroit, Michigan. Ramadan, a Jordanian citizen residing in the United Arab Emirates, is a fugitive. The case has been assigned to United States District Judge Edward R. Korman.

The indictment was announced by Loretta E. Lynch, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and James T. Hayes, Jr., Special Agent-in-Charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), New York.

As alleged in the indictment, from October 2008 through November 2009, Lewis purchased a Greco-Roman style Egyptian sarcophagus, a nesting set of three Egyptian sarcophagi, a set of Egyptian funerary boats and Egyptian limestone figures from Khouli, who earlier acquired those items from Alshdaifat and Ramadan. Each of these antiquities was exported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and smuggled into the United States using a variety of illegal methods intended to avoid detection and scrutiny by U.S. Customs & Border Protection (“Customs”). Specifically, the defendants allegedly made false declarations to Customs concerning the country of origin and value of the antiquities, and provided misleading descriptions of the contents on shipping labels and customs paperwork, such as “antiques,” “wood panels” and “wooden painted box.”

Recovery of items from Qantara East

Ahram Online (Nevine El-Aref)

Bronze coins and clay vessels stolen from the Qantara East archaeological magazines were recovered.

Following archaeological investigations, a committee from the ministry of state for antiquities (MSA) approved the authenticity of five bronze coins and twenty-two clay vessels which were found in the possession of Bedouins at the canal city of Port Fouad.

Youssef Khalifa, head of the archaeological committee, told Ahram Online that the newly recovered objects were among the objects reported missing from Qantara East warehouses following the security vacuum that overwhelmed Egypt following the January revolution.

Recent discoveries help to clarify Egyptian past

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El Aref)

Monuments and artefacts uncovered during the past archaeological season in Aswan, Luxor and Alexandria have led to significant breakthroughs in understanding Egypt's ancient history, Nevine El-Aref reports.

Almost 700,000 years ago, early humans began leaving traces of their wanderings in the land that is now Egypt. Much later Egypt, alongside its neighbour Mesopotamia, became the first cradle of human civilisation. Over the course of its history it witnessed the rise and fall of the kingdoms of ancient Egypt, the rise of the Greek and Roman empires, the establishment of the Coptic and Islamic periods and the colonial era first under France, then Great Britain until it finally regained independence.

Although discoveries over the length and breadth of Egypt have helped write the country's ancient history, several pieces of the jigsaw are still missing.

During this archaeological season from January to May, major discoveries carried out in the Hamdulab area on Aswan's west bank, Karnak temples in Luxor and Al-Baron in the Semouha district of Alexandria have helped fit missing pieces into the puzzle.

Thames Valley Ancient Egypt Society announces £2000 in donations

TVAES

The Thames Valley Ancient Egypt Society (TVAES) today announces the inaugural set of awards from its Donation Fund established in 2010. In this initial set of grants Reading based charity TVAES has awarded a total of £2000 to ten archaeological missions to Egypt and Sudan. Although some missions to Egypt were forced to interrupt work in Egypt during the revolution, many projects continued without a break, and a full season of work is anticipated during 2011-12. In announcing these grants today TVAES is supporting excavation, epigraphic, recording, conservation and survey work across eleven ancient Egyptian sites. Recognising the global nature of Egyptology the grants have been made not just to UK based institutions but also to those based in Russia, Belgium and the US with many of these missions working alongside Egyptian or Sudanese colleagues.

Applications were sought globally for grants and the fund was many times oversubscribed.

Exhibition: Pharaoh - King of Egypt

British Museum Blog (Margaret Maitland)

In just under two weeks, over 3,000 years of history – in the shape of 130 objects – has been installed at the Great North Museum: Hancock in Newcastle upon Tyne for the British Museum UK touring exhibition Pharaoh: King of Egypt. The objects span almost the entire extent of ancient Egyptian history, from an exquisite ebony label belonging to one of the very first rulers of Egypt to a monument depicting the Roman Emperor Tiberius as an Egyptian pharaoh.

The exhibition focuses on the kings of Egypt, but there is an incredibly diverse selection of objects, which presented a wide range of challenges in the installation.

Eloquent Peasant (Margaret Maitland)

With photos.

For the past three and a half months, I’ve been privileged to be working as a trainee curator in the ‘Future Curators’ programme at the British Museum, where I’ve had the opportunity to work on the UK touring exhibition Pharaoh: King of Egypt. Developed in partnership with Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums and the Great North Museum: Hancock, the exhibition explores both the ideals and the realities of ancient Egyptian kingship. The exhibition includes extraordinary objects, such as the sed-festival label of King Den, one of the earliest rulers of Egypt; an Abusir papyrus, a record of temple accounts and one of the oldest surviving papyri; the iconic siltstone head of Thutmoses III; a wooden tomb guardian statue from the tomb of Ramses I; beautiful decorative tiles from royal palaces; a doorjamb from the tomb of General Horemheb before he became king; several Amarna letters with diplomatic correspondence between Akhenaten and foreign powers; and monumental reliefs from the temple at Bubastis and mortuary temple of Montuhotep II at Deir el-Bahri.

Animal mummies under the scanner at Brooklyn Museum

The Media Line (David Rosenberg)

Once ignored by all but children, scholars start taking them seriously

A baboon sits in a lotus position swathed in yellow bandages. A cat, his body crisscrossed by elaborated folded strips of linen, looks up as if expecting a morsel from its owners. A hunting dog is preserved so carefully that individual strands of fur are identifiable as well are a pair of sleepy, half closed eyes. He stands erect on his four feet.

These animal mummies – all of them housed at Cairo’s Egyptian Museum – seem more alive and evoke more warmth than their human counterparts, usually fond lying rigid topped by an expressionless face, the stuff of monster movies and nightmares. That has made the animal mummies and the sarcophagi that house many of them popular with museum-visiting school groups. Now Egypt’s animal mummies are getting serious attention from Egyptologists.

Last month, the Brooklyn Museum took a big part of its collections to a nearby veterinary hospital to have them examined under a computerized tomography (CT) scanner to reveals their secrets. The museum plans to mount an exhibit of its collection sometime in 2013.

Q&A with Archaeologists Syndicate head Fayza Haikal

Al Masry Al Youm (Ola El-Saket)

After years of rejection by the Mubarak regime on the grounds that Egyptian antiquities are an issue of “national sovereignty,” the first Egyptian Archaeologists Syndicate was launched last week; and Fayza Haikal, Egyptology professor at The American University in Cairo, was chosen as its head.

On this occasion, Al-Masry Al-Youm talks to Haikal about the challenges the nascent syndicate is facing, from charges of corruption and antiquity theft against government officials - both before and after the protests erupted - to improving the work conditions of archaeologists and objections to the way Haikal was appointed.

Field Museum, Chicago, CT scans

Sun Times (Kara Spak)

One of the Field Museum’s mummies is a 40-year-old woman who had lower back pain.

A second was a teenager who may have jumped to his death.

Another mummy has no torso.

“It was a bit of a shocker” learning that within the sarcophagus was a skull and legs but nothing to join them, said J.P. Brown, associate conservator for the museum’s department of anthropology.

The murky life and times of the Field’s ancient mummy collection, the largest in the Americas, recently got a little clearer. Since July 6, select mummies from ancient Egypt and Peru were given CT scans in a trailer in the museum parking lot. The CT machine was donated by Genesis Medical Imaging in far northwest suburban Huntley.

PR Newswire

By providing a mobile CT scan unit free of charge to Chicago's famed The Field Museum for a series of mummy scans this month, Genesis Medical Imaging, Inc. has helped discover ancient secrets, and opened the door to new mysteries.

Field scientists were surprised to find only a skull and legs inside the wrappings of one Egyptian mummy and the baskets of four Peruvian specimens simply empty, with no mummies inside. Yet it was all instructive for the museum's researchers, who after several days of scanning objects more than 2,000 years old are more certain of what their collection actually holds.

Several of the museum's oldest and most delicate specimens were moved with painstaking care last week to the museum's back parking lot, where they slowly passed through an advanced multi-slice computed tomography scanner in a 53-foot semi-truck trailer specially configured by Genesis.

Online: Bir Umm Fawakhir

Oriental Institute (1993 season)
Oriental Institute (1996-1997 season)

Bir Umm Fawakhir Survey Project 1993: A Byzantine Gold-Mining Town in Egypt. C. Meyer, L.A. Heidorn, W.E. Kaegi, and T. Wilfong.

The Oriental Institute continued its survey of the site of Bir Umm Fawakhir in Egypt with a short season in January 1993. The site lies halfway between the Nile and the Red Sea, or about five kilometers northeast of the famous bekhen-stone quarries and graffiti of the Wadi Hammamat. The 1992 project was a geological study of the area of Bir Umm Fawakhir. Since the only resources in this hyperarid desert are mineral, it explains why the Bir Umm Fawakhir town existed where it did and why. By far the most valuable resource was the gold carried in white quartz veins in the local granite, and the mountainsides around Bir Umm Fawakhir are riddled and trenched with ancient mines.

Bir Umm Fawakhir, Volume 2: Report on the 1996-1997 Survey Seasons, By Carol Meyer, with contributions by Lisa Heidorn, Alexandra A. O'Brien, and Clemens Reichel.

Bir Umm Fawakhir is a fifth-sixth century A.D. Coptic/Byzantine gold-mining town located in the central Eastern Desert of Egypt. The Bir Umm Fawakhir Project of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago carried out four seasons of archaeological survey at the site, in 1992, 1993, 1996, and 1997; one season of excavation in 1999; and one study season in 2001. This volume is the final report on the 1996 and 1997 seasons.

The goals of the 1996 and 1997 field seasons were to complete the detailed map of the main settlement, to continue the investigation of the outlying clusters of ruins or "Outliers," and to address some specific questions such as the ancient gold-extraction process.

Airbags help to preserve pyramid of Djoser

Daily Mail

With photos.

Egypt's oldest pyramid has been saved from collapse by giant airbags which have been used to prop up the ceilings.

The 4,700-year-old building has been stabilised so engineers can carry out permanent repairs.

The giant structure was built as a burial place for Pharaoh Djoser, a warrior who reigned in the third dynasty for 19 years but has been damaged in an earthquake.

The British team - who helped repair Windsor Castle after it was damaged by fire in 1993 - used technology first developed to aid in the safer disposal of improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan.

Engineering boss Peter James said: 'The entire structure could be destroyed at any point due to the damage caused by the earthquake.

'But we have stabilised the roof with these inflatable airbags and we will soon start repairing this magnificent building.'

New Book: Egypt, Canaan and Israel: History, Imperialism, Ideology and Literature

Brill
Egypt, Canaan and Israel: History, Imperialism, Ideology and Literature
Proceedings of a Conference at the University of Haifa, 3-7 May 2009
Edited by S. Bar, D. Kahn, and J.J. Shirley

The proceedings of the conference “Egypt, Canaan and Israel: History, Imperialism, Ideology and Literature” include the latest discussions about the political, military, cultural, economic, ideological, literary and administrative relations between Egypt, Canaan and Israel during the Second and First Millennia BC incorporating texts, art, and archaeology. A diverse range of scholars discuss subjects as wide-ranging as the Egyptian-Canaanite relations in the Second Intermediate Period, the ideology of boundary stelae, military strategy, diplomacy and officials of the New Kingdom and Late … read morePeriod, the excavations of Beth-Shean and investigations into the Aruna Pass, and parallels between Biblical, Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern texts. Such breadth in one volume offers a significant contribution to our understanding of the interactions between the civilizations of the ancient Near East.

The struggle to document Egypt's revolution

The Guardian, UK (Jack Shenker)

Historians are racing to gather material for the national archives, but decisions about what to include have political significance.

On any given evening Cairo's Tahrir Square creaks under the weight of its own recent history: trinket-sellers flog martyrs' pendants, veterans of the uprising hold up spent police bullets recovered from the ground, and an ad hoc street cinema screens YouTube compilations of demonstrators and security forces clashing under clouds of teargas. This is collective memory by the people, for the people – with no state functionaries around to curate what is remembered or forgotten.

"Egyptians are highly sensitive about official attempts to write history and create state-sponsored narratives about historical events," says Khaled Fahmy, one of the country's leading historians. "When Hosni Mubarak was vice-president in the 1970s he was himself on a government committee tasked with writing – or rather rewriting – the history of the 1952 revolution to suit the political purposes of the elite at that time. That's exactly the kind of thing we want to avoid."

Fahmy knows only too well about the inherent tension between acts of mass popular participation and official attempts to catalogue and record them. Less than a week after the fall of Mubarak, the professor received a phone call from the head of Egypt's national archives asking him to oversee a unique new project that would document the country's dramatic political and social upheaval this year and make it available for generations of Egyptians to come.

Improvements in Luxor

Luxor News Blog (Jane Akshar)

The new governor of Luxor is making a real effort to improve Luxor and one of his initiatives was to have a meeting with ex-pats living here to find out their views. The first meeting was Wednesday night which I missed as I had guests arriving but the follow-up meeting was today. General Khaled Fouda explained exactly who he is, his military background and experience, he had spent sometime in the US and although his English was not bad he had a translator there as well. He has been in Luxor 2 ½ months and is very happy to be here.

On Wednesday he had been asked if he would still be in position after the autumn elections and he said he would (personally I am not sure how he can say that).

At the moment he is concentrating on complete certain projects started by the last governor Sphinx Alley, the Corniche, the area behind the Sheraton, the Cultural Palace and the Olympic Swimming pool. These are all scheduled to open 30th October. There were lots of other project but he is concentrating on those .

Zahi Hawass in post-revolution Egypt

New York Times (Kate Taylor)

Until recently Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s antiquities minister, was a global symbol of Egyptian national pride. A famous archaeologist in an Indiana Jones hat, he was virtually unassailable in the old Egypt, protected by his success in boosting tourism, his efforts to reclaim lost artifacts and his closeness to the country’s first lady, Suzanne Mubarak.

Zahi Hawass near the Giza Pyramids last year. Critics are questioning his closeness with the Mubaraks and his business ties.

Now demonstrators in Cairo are calling for his resignation as the interim government faces disaffected crowds in Tahrir Square.

Their primary complaint is his association with the Mubaraks, whom he defended in the early days of the revolution. But the upheaval has also drawn attention to the ways he has increased his profile over the years, often with the help of organizations and companies with which he has done business as a government official.

Scientific American (Jeffrey Bartholet)

Egypt’s minister of state for antiquities research focus Hawass brings a bigger-than-life personality to the quest to find Cleopatra’s tomb and other Egyptian treasures.

A consummate marketer and political operator as well as an archaeologist, Hawass was a controversial figure even before the revolution.

One night in the weeks leading up to then President Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, looters swarmed the grounds of the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo (sometimes called the Cairo museum), and at least one broke into the main building by descending on wires from a skylight. Others rampaged through storerooms at well-known archaeological sites. Panic swept the world of Egyptology.

Ultimately, the looting was not as devastating as some had feared, and many of the country’s treasures were recovered. The chaos, though, focused renewed criticism and exacted an emotional toll on Zahi Hawass, the minister of state for antiquities.

Portable Antiquity Collecting and Heritage Issues (Paul Barford)

Paul points to the inconsistencies in some of Hawass's statements, past and present.


Ahram Online (Nevine El-Aref)

The Supreme Public Funds Prosecutor (SPFP) decided to hold back investigations of the allegations submitted by Yasser Ahmed Seif El Din, chairman of the International Association for Development, Environment and Culture against Farouk Hosni, former minister of culture and Zahi Hawass, minister of state for antiquities. Seif el Din claimed that both Hosni and Hawass offered Suzane Thabet, wife of former president Hosni Mubarak, an authentic gold necklace once belonging to Princess Samiha, a member of the Mohamed Ali family. This necklace was on display at the jewellery museum in Alexandria.

Tourists are back at Egyptian museum in Tahrir

Ahram Online (Nevine El-Aref)

A large number of tourists flocked to the Egyptian museum today following the start of the rapid travelling phenomenon known as one-day trips.

Minister of State for Antiquities Zahi Hawass said that the number of tourists to Egypt has been growing in the last few days compared to their low number in past months.

More re Tutankhamun buried in a hurry

Noticias de al Ciencia y Tecnologia

Ésta es la conclusión a la que se ha llegado en un nuevo análisis de las inquietantes manchas de color marrón oscuro que cubren las paredes exquisitamente pintadas de la tumba de Tutankamon, un personaje histórico bien conocido por la leyenda de que una maldición cae sobre cualquiera que interrumpa el descanso de ese faraón.

El faraón Tutankamon ascendió al trono cuando tenía tan sólo 8 años de edad, y falleció contando con entre 18 y 20 años. Se le momificó y fue enterrado con otros antiguos reyes. Su tumba fue descubierta cerca de Tebas (Luxor), Egipto, en 1922.

A pesar de casi un siglo de investigación científica, sigue siendo un misterio la identidad precisa de estas manchas dentro de la tumba, pero el equipo del microbiólogo Ralph Mitchell de la Universidad de Harvard cree haber dado con la respuesta más probable.

Photo for Today - Temple of Tod

Bob Partridge. In Memoriam

My thanks to Michael Ackroyd, who knew Bob very well, and shared many G&Ts with him (Bob once told me, with a very big smile), for these words in memory of a really lovely man who will be so very much missed:

Bob Partridge died yesterday after a long battle with cancer. Bob was one of the leading lights of the Manchester Ancient Egypt Society and for many years the Chairman. He is best known in recent years as the Editor of the Ancient Egypt Magazine which he took over almost a decade ago and steered onto its course as one of the world's leading magazines on Ancient Egypt. As a reviewer, writer and particularly as a photographer Bob's life work is synonymous with Ancient Egypt. He also lectured widely and on a number of subjects. Bob also led tours to Egypt and this is where many people will have got to know him best. Bob was extremely good company and very amusing and I cherish the times we were able to kick back and relax over his favourite gin and tonic both in Egypt and in London.

Bob had very little time for the fringe element in Egyptology and rather marvellously he was once taking a group around Karnak for AWT and was asked to keep quiet because there was an alternative group praying in one of the temples in the Open Air Museum. Far from keeping quiet Bob marched his group right into the temple and made his feelings known of the rights of misguided esoterics against genuine Egyptophiles. That's typical Bob.

Bob's picture library was absolutely outstanding and I hope very much that Peter Phillips will be able to retain control of it.

Bob was a a true amateur in the real meaning of the word who became a respected expert by sheer dint of his passion and dedication to Egypt.

Rest in Peace Bob, you will be much missed.

Sad News: Bob Partridge

I am so very sorry to have to tell you that Bob Partridge, editor of Ancient Egypt Magazine, lovely man and good friend has lost his battle with cancer. The world will be a much less bright and colourful place without him. My sincere condolences to his friends and family, and much love to Bob himself.

Earliest ever civil Roman basilica found outside Alexandria

Ahram Online (Nevine El-Aref)

With three photos.

At Al-Baron area in Semouha district, south of Alexandria, an Egyptian archaeological mission has discovered several significant monuments and artefacts that will help in the writing of the history of the area.

During excavations, archaeologists uncovered the earliest Roman civil basilica yet found on top of a Ptolemaic temple dedicated to the three Alexandria deities (Isis, Serapis, Harpocrates) along with a collection of terracotta statues.

Mohamed Mostafa, director general of Alexandria antiquities, said that excavations have also uncovered two parallel rows of granite and lime stones as well as parts of granite pillars that give the impression that these items were once part of a larger building that can be dated to the Roman period. Early investigations, said Mostafa, reveal that it could be a court, a club, or for trade activities

Al Masry Al Youm

Officials say archaeologists have unearthed the first basilica erected in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria.

Antiquities authorities say the basilica is dated to the Roman era and was built on the ruins of a temple from the Ptolemaic reign that ended with the death of Cleopatra.

A statement Thursday says two parallel rows of granite and limestone pillars suggest the basilica was a social site that was also used for trade and judicial matters.

Egypt or Central Park: Where Does an Ancient Obelisk Belong?

New York Times (Francie Diep and Joseph Castro)

With video.

Is New York City’s weather destroying a 3,500-year-old Egyptian obelisk?

That’s a question the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation is setting out to answer this summer as it conducts a “weathering study” of Cleopatra’s Needle, which was given to the United States government by Egypt as a gift to commemorate the opening of the Suez Canal. The obelisk has stood in Central Park since 1881.

In January, the minister of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, wrote that the obelisk’s stay in New York had worn away its hieroglyphs and that the city’s acid rain was gradually destroying it. He threatened to “take the necessary steps to bring this precious artifact home.”

But Egypt is not necessarily the safest place for precious artifacts these days.

Harry Smith, the Nubian Survey and an A-Group Cemetery

Egypt Exploration Society

An excerpt from the Society’s Oral History Project interview with Professor Harry Smith has now appeared on the Society’s YouTube channel and is available below. In this part of the interview, which was conducted by Chris Naunton in March 2009, Harry talks about the EES' 1961 survey of archaeological sites in Egyptian (Lower) Nubia, which he directed and which formed part of the Society's contribution to the UNESCO rescue campaign. This was the last opportunity to gather information on the archaeology of the region before it was submerged beneath the flood waters created by the High Dam at Aswan.

The first half of this part of the interview appears here and a second installment will follow shortly.The recording of Harry's voice is accompanied by footage shot by EES member Dr Anthony Hovenden during a tourist visit to Lower Nubia in 1962, and also by images from the Society's Lucy Gura Archive. We are extremely grateful to Professor Smith for his time and recollections and to Dr Hovenden for permission to use his footage.

Book Review: Berenike and the Ancient Maritime Spice Route

Bryn Mawr Classical Review (Reviewed by Wim Broekaert)

Steven E. Sidebotham, Berenike and the Ancient Maritime Spice Route. California World History Library, 18. Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, 2011.

Preview

Rome’s trade with the East, with Arabia, India and China, continues to fascinate scholars of ancient history. The existence of large commercial networks and long-distance maritime routes in a notoriously volatile business world, linking the Mediterranean and the shores of the Indian Ocean long before Europe’s famous Age of Discovery, is indeed a remarkable aspect of ancient trade. In this book, Sidebotham analyzes the actual features of these trading routes by focusing on a single yet important harbor on the Egyptian coast, Berenike, where merchant ships moored after a voyage to the East and products destined for the Mediterranean were discharged and stored before being transported to the Nile. Having organized ten excavations on this site, Sidebotham obviously is best qualified for presenting a vivid and intimate picture of merchants, soldiers, artisans and citizens living and working together in Berenike.

A succinct introduction highlights Berenike’s importance for the Roman-Indian trade and explains why an in-depth study of a single port may be a valuable starting point to analyze trading routes (p. 1-6).

More re Dynasty 0 engraving

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El-Aref)

With two photographs.

Following the relocation of the artefacts, a team from Yale University, the University of Bologna and the Provinciale Hogeschool Limburg, Belgium, has completed the first epigraphic and digital record of a site near Nag El-Hamdulab on the west bank of the Nile, north of Aswan. The site was discovered nearly half a century ago by the famous Egyptian Egyptologist Labib Habachi. Minister of State for Antiquities Zahi Hawass said this new and thorough study has brought to light a previously unknown Early Dynastic cycle of royal images and an early hieroglyphic inscription.

This work was carried out by the Aswan-Kom Ombo Archaeological Project (AKAP), which is a joint venture between Yale and University of Bologna, lead by Maria Carmela Gatto and Antonio Curci, with an international research team from various European and America countries as well as Egypt. Now in its seventh season, the project aims to survey and rescue the archaeology of the region between Aswan and Kom Ombo, in the southern part of Upper Egypt.

Gatto said that this group of images and the short inscription—carved around 3200 BCE, at the dawn of the dynastic period—record the earliest depiction of a royal Jubilee complete of all the elements known from later documents

Washington Post

With a photograph of the outcrop.

Egypt’s Antiquities Authority says archaeologists have unearthed a 5,200-year-old rock drawing depicting a royal festival during Ancient Egypt’s earliest dynasty.

The ministry says the scenes were part of a series of rock drawings featuring hunting, fighting and celebrations along the banks of the Nile River.

Antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said in a statement Monday the scenes represent the first unearthing of a complete drawing of a royal festival during Dynasty Zero, when the earliest foundations of Ancient Egyptian culture are believed to have been formed.

Nubian Gallery at Royal Ontario Museum re-opens

The Star (John Goddard)

Before Barack Obama there was Taharqa.

Last in a line of so-called Black Pharaohs, he ruled over ancient Egypt and beyond as king of the African civilization of Kush, the last black leader of a superpower before the current U.S. president.

Toronto enjoys a special connection to the time.

For 27 years, archaeologist Krzysztof Grzymski, head of world cultures at the Royal Ontario Museum, has been unearthing the remains of Kush and other lost civilizations of ancient Nubia, in what is now northern Sudan.

In 1992, he opened North America’s first Nubian gallery at the ROM.

NYU Excavations at Amheida in Egypt's Dakhleh Oasis

What's New in Papyrology

Three photographs from the excavations at Amheida - which look fascinating.

Skepticism meets plan to transform Tahrir into UNESCO site

Al Masry Al Youm (Maggie Hyde)

Cairo Governor Abdel Kawi Khalifa wants to turn the epicenter of the city and the revolution into an official UNESCO World Heritage site. But with protesters still occupying parts of the traffic islands and sidewalks, the governor’s plan seems a little out of touch and far-fetched, especially to people who live, work, or protest in Tahrir Square.

“The revolution is still ongoing,” says Ahmed Maziz, one of dozens of protesters staging a sit-in in Tahrir. “The revolution will continue until the ruling military council is sacked and the killers of protesters are tried.”

A World Heritage site can be either a place of natural value and beauty or a man-made place with great cultural significance. There are 936 such sites in the world today.

Egypt is one of the founding members of UNESCO and has 7 World Heritage sites, with another 32 still pending. If the governor has his way, Tahrir Square would be next on the list.

Photo for Today - The Temple of Tod

The Temple of Tod originally had a short avenue of sphinxes
that lead to a quay (shown in the previous photo). There are
signs that an Old Kingdom temple may have been built here, and
remains of the Middle Kingdom temple survive, with
later additions during the Graeco-Roman period.
A small New Kingdom temple was built to one side,
A silver hoard was found under the floor of one of the
Middle Kingdom rooms.

Dynasty 0 rock carvings found in Aswan area

Google / AFP

Egypt's Antiquities Authority says archaeologists have unearthed a 5,200-year-old rock drawing depicting a royal festival during Ancient Egypt's earliest dynasty.

The ministry says the scenes were part of a series of rock drawings featuring hunting, fighting and celebrations along the banks of the Nile River.

Antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said in a statement Monday the scenes represent the first unearthing of a complete drawing of a royal festival during Dynasty Zero, when the earliest foundations of Ancient Egyptian culture are believed to have been formed.

A joint U.S.-Italian expedition team discovered the unique drawings in the southern city of Aswan, a hub of archaeological treasures.

Two new monuments discovered at Karnak

Ahram Online (Nevine El-Aref)

With 2 photos

This week, during their routine excavation work, the French-Egyptian archaeological team working at the Karnak Temple in Luxor uncovered two major monuments. The first is the wall that once enclosed the New Kingdom temple of the god Petah and the second is a gate dated back to the reign of 25th dynasty King Shabaka (712-698 BC).

Christophe Tiers, director of the Karnak French mission, said that the mission has also unearthed a number of engraved blocks from the Petah temple. During the restoration process, archaeologists realised that the blocks date to the reign of King Tuthmosis III (1479-1425 BC) which means that the construction of the temple started under Egyptian rule and not during the Ptolemaic dynasty as was previously thought.

Ptolemaic mud brick walls which surrounded the temple were also uncovered.

Google/AFP

With photo

Egyptian and French archaeologists have unearthed a 2,700-year-old stone gate belonging to Nubian King Shabaka while digging near Luxor's Karnak temple, the ministry of antiquities said on Sunday.

The gate, which was found to be "in good condition," once led to the room holding the king's treasures, the ministry said.

"It is the first time an item of the 25th dynasty has been found in such good condition, and wasn't ruined by the 26th dynasty," Mansur Boraik, the Egyptian head of the Franco-Egyptian Research Centre of the Temples of Karnak, told AFP.

The large stone door features colourful engravings that depict King Shabaka offering the goddess of truth, Maat, to the god Amun Raa, the chief deity.

"The Egyptian-French mission succeeded in making important discoveries from the 18th to the 25th dynasties," minister of state for antiquities Zahi Hawass said in a statement.

The mission also unearthed a stone wall surrounding the temple of Ptah, the chief god of the city of Memphis.

The current state of the Avenue of the Sphinxes

Luxor Times

An article looking at all the internal problems involved with the construction of the Avenue of the Sphinxes, a project which has divided people in Luxor and beyond. With a great many photographs to illustrate the writer's point.

The press release from the Ministry state of Antiquities and the announcements were made by Governor of Luxor in the past few weeks about the Grand opening of the Sphinx Avenue after restoration.

During the reign of Dr. Samir Farag (Former governor of Luxor) hundreds of families were forced to leave their homes in order to start the excavation work to retrieve the Sphinx Avenue and few dates were set for the Grand opening starting when Hosni Mubarak (Former President) was on a visit to Luxor in December 2009 and said that he will come in March for the opening and the newspapers and media sources spread the news and the work was going on almost 24 hours a day in 3 sectors of the avenue that was divided into 5 phases. When the former President had to fly to Germany for medical treatment around the same time he was supposed to visit Luxor so the work stopped or slow down big time as the need to finish for the show was not there. . . . .

The other issue here is the status of the Sphinx Avenue as of Today. The pictures below and the video were taken only hours earlier will show the status of the Avenue and the non going work there. Does this look like a project waiting for a Grand opening in 3 months time? Even so ... how it was left to get to that state? Children ride on top on the Sphinx (unfortunately, there is no picture here to prove it) and people dumping their rubbish there. Could anyone think about how families who used to live for years in their homes there would feel now seeing a historical site of over 4000 years old and what used to be their home location used as a rubbish dump? Where is the security?

See the above page for the full report and all the photographs.

The search for Cleopatra

National Geographic (Chip Brown)

Where, oh where is Cleopatra? She's everywhere, of course—her name immortalized by slot machines, board games, dry cleaners, exotic dancers, and even a Mediterranean pollution-monitoring project. She is orbiting the sun as the asteroid 216 Kleopatra. Her "bath rituals and decadent lifestyle" are credited with inspiring a perfume. Today the woman who ruled as the last pharaoh of Egypt and who is alleged to have tested toxic potions on prisoners is instead poisoning her subjects as the most popular brand of cigarettes in the Middle East.

In the memorable phrase of critic Harold Bloom, she was the "world's first celebrity." If history is a stage, no actress was ever so versatile: royal daughter, royal mother, royal sister from a family that makes the Sopranos look like the Waltons. When not serving as a Rorschach test of male fixations, Cleopatra is an inexhaustible muse. To a recent best-selling biography add—from 1540 to 1905—five ballets, 45 operas, and 77 plays. She starred in at least seven films; an upcoming version will feature Angelina Jolie.

Yet if she is everywhere, Cleopatra is also nowhere, obscured in what biographer Michael Grant called the "fog of fiction and vituperation which has surrounded her personality from her own lifetime onwards."

Learning from Mumab

Em Hotep! (Keith Payne)

Another great article from Keith on his excellent blog.

Whether it was officially declared or not, this June has certainly been the Month of the Mummy. June 10 saw the opening of the Modern Day Mummy: The Art and Science of Mummification exhibit at the San Diego Museum of Man, and then the incredible Mummies of the World exhibit opened at the Franklin Institute on June 18. All that was needed for a perfect Month of the Mummy was an American convention of the World Mummy Congress, and that was delivered on June 12 – 16 in San Diego.

It is probably not a coincidence that the Seventh World Mummy Congress was convened at the University of San Diego, a short trip across town from the San Diego Museum of Man, where Mumab had just settled into his new home. Mumab—short for Mummy of University of Maryland at Baltimore—has the distinction of being the first modern ancient mummy. The inspiration for his creation came in the mid 90’s when mummy expert Dr. Bob Brier realized that the only way to know how ancient Egyptian mummies were made would be to mummify a human cadaver using the same tools and methods the Egyptians used. And so he did.

In this article Em Hotep will look at the history of Mumab—how he was made, what was learned from him, and what he is up to now.

Unveiling Animal Mummies

The Scientist (Cristina Luiggi)

With video.

Stuffed into the sand-buffeted ancient ruins scattered about the Nile Delta are tens of millions of mummified animals. Birds, cats, dogs, crocodiles, snakes—nearly all manner of creature that lived during the time of the Egyptian pharaohs—were carefully preserved and tucked away in the depths of temple catacombs.

For the past 74 years, around five dozen of these mummified animals have sat on the polished display tables and dusty shelves of the Brooklyn Museum like unopened presents. Their time-worn linens and tightly-sealed sarcophaguses have guarded their inner contents for thousands of years, leaving the museum curators and historians to glean clues from external observation.

But in preparation for an upcoming exhibition of Egyptian animal mummies, Brooklyn Museum curator Edward Bleiberg and conservationist Lisa Bruno joined forces with veterinary radiologist Anthony Fischetti to use one of the most powerful medical imaging tools—X-ray computed tomography (CT scan for short)—to reveal the inner secrets of mummified specimens in exquisite detail.

Protests against Hawass

Al Masry Al Youm (Ola El-Saket Mohamed Azouz)

As Zahi Hawass, Egypt's antiquities minister, traveled to Peru on Sunday to represent Egypt in the second Conference on Retrieving Stolen Artifacts, dozens of people protested outside the Ministry of Defense demanding his removal from office.

The calls for his resignation stem from a number of complaints against him, included claims of irregularites regarding antique artifacts stolen during the Egyptian uprising earlier this year.

"Zahi never provided official documents on what remains missing from the Egyptian Museum,” says Nasser Ibrahim, an employee at the ministry’s restoration department.

On UK television tonight: The Pharaohs' Museum on Liberation Square

Tuesday 05 July, 10:35pm - 11:25pm, BBC1 London

Should be available to UK viewers on BBC iPlayer aswell, for seven days following transmission.

From the Radio Times:

Alan Yentob has his work cut out this week, trotting after Egyptian director of antiquities Zahi Hawass as the man described as the second-dmost- famous man in Egypt (after Omar Sharif, who's also featured) strides around the Egyptian Museum. Yentob is in Cairo to see how the museum survived the demonstrations on its doorstep earlier this year. The museum did suffer minor looting - one curator gleefully points out the bloodstains left by clumsy intruders - and its status has been tarnished by evidence that it was used for torture. But Yentob clearly has great affection for its dusty displays: he's positively thrilled when the mask of Tutankhamun is casually taken out of its cabinet right in front of him so a light bulb can be replaced.

Radio Times reviewer - Gill Crawford

Hawas to assert rights of countries with ancient civilisations in Peru conference

Ahram Online (Nevine El-Aref)

Minister of State for Antiquities Zahi Hawass travelled yesterday to Peru on an official four-day visit to participate in the Second International Conference to Recover Stolen Antiquities to be held in the capital city of Lima, whose attendees come from over twenty countries.

At the conference opening session before Peru’s president Alan Garcia Perez and Bolivian President Evo Morales, Hawass will deliver Egypt's speech reminding the attendees that Egypt is the country that called for this conference to convene and that the first conference was held in Cairo in April last year with the presence of thirty countries.

Podcast: The Emory Old Kingdom Mummy

Michael C. Carlos Museum

iTunes required.

In September of this year, the Carlos Museum will open the exhibition Life and Death in the Pyramid Age: The Emory Old Kingdom Mummy, which will focus attention on a 4,000 year old mummy that was purchased for Emory in Egypt in 1920 by Professor William A. Shelton of the Candler School of Theology. Earlier this year, two renowned Egyptologists, Janet Richards of the University of Michigan and Salima Ikram of the American University in Cairo, saw the mummy for the first time, before conservators began their restoration work. Hear their first thoughts about the mummy, with Carlos Curator of Egyptian Art Peter Lacovara.

More re second solar boat

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El-Aref)

Khufu's second solar boat is to be exhibited at the entrance of the Giza plateau after the completion of four years of restoration, writes Nevine El-Aref

The north side of King Khufu's Great Pyramid, which dominates a Giza plateau that has been all but deserted since the January Revolution five months ago, was crowded again last Thursday as foreign and Egyptian journalists, photographers and TV crews armed with digital recorders and cameras awaited the arrival of Minister of State for Antiquities Zahi Hawass and the head of the archaeological and scientific team of Waseda University, Sakuji Yoshimura.

They were assembled to witness the lifting of the 41 blocks that have covered the pit of Khufu's second solar boat for the last 4,500 years, and the announcement of the start of the second phase of the boat's restoration project.

In a hanger built to cover the boat pit, a dozen workmen were helping Egyptian and Japanese scientists and archaeologists in white uniforms, yellow helmets and white masks to wrap the first stone block, weighing 16 tonnes, and to lift it aside so as to start uncovering Khufu's second boat.

The on-site team has developed a new technique to lift the blocks. They first inserted a chemically-treated piece of wood beneath the cover stone and then lifted it.

More re San Al-Hagar

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El-Aref)

French archaeologists have made a major discovery at the San Al-Hagar archaeological site, 70 kilometres north of the town of Zagazig. San Al-Hagar, site of the ancient city known to the ancient Egyptians as Djanet and the Greeks as Tanis, contains the ruins of a number of temples that can be seen in what during the Third Intermediate Period was an important royal necropolis, and is now an outdoor museum.

The French archaeologists were conducting routine excavations in search of the sacred lake of the temple to the goddess Mut. During the course of their work, which commenced last year, the team early this month stumbled upon what are believed to be some of the blocks that once formed the lake's enclosure wall. Of the 120 blocks that the French team has cleaned so far, two thirds bear inscriptions. They expect that further excavations will reveal more blocks.

The minister of state for antiquities, Zahi Hawass, said that early on-site studies revealed that the blocks were engraved with coloured decorations depicting royal figures, which indicated that they dated to the reign of the 22nd (Libyan)-Dynasty Pharaoh Osorkon II.

Art attack

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El-Aref)

Were last weekend's allegations over objects missing from the Museum of Islamic Art's new display aimed at stirring up more controversy over the Ministry of State for Antiquities?

The well-known Egyptian writer Farouk Goweida, who writes a column in Al-Ahram daily, wrote last Friday under the heading "Who did plunder the Museum of Islamic Art [MIA]?" that 80,000 objects had gone missing from the Ministry of State for Antiquities [MSA] -- among them are a gold incense burner that once belonged to French Empress Eugenie; the gold and diamond sword collection of the Taymour Pasha family; 130 handmade tapestries and carpets of Mohamed Ali Pasha Ibrahim; as well as the swords that belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte, Murad Bey, the Mamluk Sultan El-Ghuri.

Goweida also complained that there was no masharabiya (decorative woodwork) gallery in the MIA's new exhibition scenario, while several objects had been transferred to the presidential palaces during restoration. Goweida also asked why the MIA has only 2,500 pieces on show out of the 90,000 in its collection?

At the end of his column, Goweida asked Prosecutor- General Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud to conduct investigations as to where these objects now were and to punish any criminals, if indeed there were any.

Minister of State for Antiquities Zahi Hawass, however, has rebutted Goweida's accusations and blames him for listening to "amateurs" who have fuelled him with false information. He also invited Goweida to visit the MIA and see for himself that all the objects he mentioned were safe in the museum's storehouse.

Photos from Kom el-Hisn

ArchaeoBlog - first set and second set (Tony Cagle)

Thanks to Tony for posting some great photos from the excavations at Kom el-Hisn, a multi period site in the Delta.

Photo for Today - The Temple of Tod

Artefacts discovered in North Egypt's San El-Hagar

drhawass.com (Zahi Hawass)

French archaeologists in San El-Hagar have discovered hundreds of colored and inscribed limestone blocks, which they believe were used to build the sacred lake walls of a temple dedicated to the goddess Mut.

The limestone blocks may have belonged to King Osorkon II of the 22nd Dynasty and used for either a temple or chapel, announced Dr. Zahi Hawass, Minister of State for Antiquities today. The stone may have also been reused in the late period and the Ptolemaic era. Dr. Hawass added that following a complete excavation and study of the blocks, the French mission would reconstruct the original arrangement to determine if they are from a temple or chapel.

Ahram Online (Nevine El-Aref)

With photos.

During routine excavation work, French excavators working at the San El-Hagar archaeological site unearthed hundreds of painted limestone blocks that were once used in the construction of the temple of the XXII dynasty king Osorkon II.

Minister of State for Antiquities Zahi Hawass said that early studies on site revealed that these blocks were dismantled and reused in the construction of edifices during the Late Ancient Egyptian period and the Ptolemaic era.

He promised that after unearthing all the blocks the archaeological team would study and reconstruct the blocks into their original shape in order to discover whether they formed a temple or a chapel.

Island of Meroe added to World Heritage List

UNCESCO

With photo.

The Archaeological Sites of the Island of Meroe, a semi-desert landscape between the Nile and Atbara rivers, was the heartland of the Kingdom of Kush, a major power from the 8th century B.C. to the 4th century A.D. The property consists of the royal city of the Kushite kings at Meroe, near the River Nile, the nearby religious site of Naqa and Musawwarat es Sufra. It was the seat of the rulers who occupied Egypt for close to a century and features, among other vestiges, pyramids, temples and domestic buildings as well as major installations connected to water management. Their vast empire extended from the Mediterranean to the heart of Africa, and the property testifies to the exchange between the art, architectures, religions and languages of both regions.

Opening plans for the Avenue of Sphinxes

drhawass.com (Zahi Hawass)

Dr. Zahi Hawass, Minister of State for Antiquities, made the announcement following a meeting attended by Major General Khalid Fouda, Governor of Luxor, Dr. Mohamed Abdel Maksoud, Undersecretary of State for the Minister’s Office, Dr. Mohamed Shikha, Head of Projects, at Luxor and Mansour Boraik, Director of Antiquities in Luxor

The attendees have agreed to organize a festival during the month of October to open the project and attract international tourism to Luxor. The important event will be opened by the Prime Minister of Egypt, Essam Sharaf, and is to bring together various government ministries such as the Ministry of Tourism and Ministry of Culture.

Lined with sphinxes, the 2.7km route that connects the grand temples of Luxor and Karnak will be lit by the Sound and Light Company of Egypt. Company president, Essam Abd El Hady, made it clear that the sophisticated lighting design would be appropriate to the archaeological importance and beauty of the site.

Ahram Online (Nevine El-Aref)

After five years of hard work, the avenue of Sphinxes has been reincarnated into its original form, inviting Luxor’s visitors to walk along the historical avenue as the ancient Egyptians did in the days of the Pharaohs.

To celebrate the restoration, said Mansour Boreik, director of Luxor monuments, the ministry of state for antiquities (MSA) is organizing a special inauguration ceremony on October at the avenue. Sound and Light Company is installing a special lamp to light the avenue and showcase the distinguished artistic beauty of its sphinxes, as well as the monuments that were unearthed during the route’s development project, including Greco-Roman workshops and wine factories.

Hawass appoints new Sec Gen for Supreme Council of Antiquities

Youm 7

This is the sum total of information on the above site, but hopefully more information will come soon if this is accurate. It is about time that the SCA now has a new head, particularly as Hawass as a minister presumably has other responsibilities than the management of the SCA's multiple interests and people.

Egypt's Minister of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, has Mohammad Abdel-Moneim as Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.

Abdel-Moneim was the Ministry's general supervisor. He was also the chairman of the Central Administration for Lower Egypt and monuments in Sinai monuments. He discovered many excavations along with important archaeological pieces in North Sinai and the East of the Delta.

Online: Tarek Waly Centre

Tarek Waly Centre (Journal)
Tarek Waly Centre (Articles)

Thanks to Geoffrey Tassie for sending me the links to the above site, which has open access publications.

PHILOSOPHY

Our founding as a heritage planning and architectural practice evolved around the cultural continuum … Our prime responsibility; helping perpetuate this continuum, by both drawing on past practitioners and, looking to pass it on to the coming generations

Social-urban heritage and the architecture of the place are the heart of our interest and expertise…Through analytically reading and critiquing this built – or at times, once built - heritage, we explore the geometry and patterns that provided it its being... its value

Our urban and architectural contributions to places of either a strong or a nascent heritage value, respect and, are informed by these geometries in an attempt to accomplish a lasting and relevant architecture... and heritage

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The Tarek Waly Center, Architecture & Heritage was founded in 1998 to create a vision for the historic quarter of Cairo.

Since then we have established ourselves as a heritage planning practice with a portfolio of almost twenty heritage sites including the Giza Pyramids World Heritage Site.

Our interests and experience cover;

• Research on the historic value of a site or place in the form of a complete overview and time-line
• Urban and architectural design and design-guidelines for the immediate and surrounding built environment
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