Photo for Today: Shabti Box

Shabti box showing the deceased and her ba
receiving food and drink from the goddess Nut
19th Dynasty
Provenance unknown
British Museum
EA 35648

Grand Museum now scheduled for 2015

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El-Aref)

The roar of bulldozers, trucks and rock-crushers will soon be heard again on the Giza plateau as construction work is resumed following a year's hiatus.

On Tuesday, at a gala ceremony in the administration building of the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) on the Cairo-Alexandria road, an assembly of journalists, TV presenters, photographers, archaeologists, curators and governmental officials gathered to witness the signing of the contract for the GEM's third construction phase.

A joint venture between Egypt's Orascom Construction Industries (OCI) and the Belgium BESIX Group won the construction bid and was awarded the contract for the completion of the GEM's third phase, which entails the construction of the museum's main building and the surrounding landscaping.

Ahram Online (Nevine El-Aref)

At the premises of the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) overlooking Giza Plateau dozens of journalists and top antiquities officials will witness the signing of a contract between the Ministry of State for Antiquities (MSA) and Belgium construction companies in Egypt, who have been selected according to technical requirements agreed in a bid held early last month.

MSA Minister Mohamed Ibrahim Aly told Ahram Online that the third phase of the GEM rehabilitation scheme includes the construction of the museum’s main exhibition halls, which will display 120,000 ancient Egyptian artifacts. Featured in this wing of the museum will be the Ramses II colossus statue, transferred in 2005 from Ramses square Downtown Cairo, and his daughter’s colossus statue Merit-Amun, now on display in the Sohag open-air museum.

Crocodile Museum to open in Aswan

Ahram Online (Nevine El-Aref)

After three years of construction, the Crocodiles Museum in Aswan will share the significance of crocodiles and the ancient Egyptian crocodile god Sobek with visitors by the end of January.

Overlooking the Nile and across from the historic temple of Kom Ombo in the upper Egyptian City, the museum aims to become the next big tourist attraction. Minister of State for Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim told Ahram Online that the official inauguration of the museum will coincide with Aswan National Day in January.

The museum boasts a display of forty mummified crocodiles, ranging from two to five metres long, along a crocodile foetus and eggs. Also on show is a collection of wooden and granite crocodile statues and replicas of crocodile holes in rocks.

Egypt and U.S. Partner to Launch a Groundwater Lowering Project at Temple Edfu

Luxor Times

The Ministry of State for Antiquities (MSA) along with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) kicked-off a new groundwater lowering project at Temple Edfu in a workshop held today in Cairo. The project will construct a drainage system to lower the groundwater level that threatens antiquities in the Edfu Temple and will be carried out over approximately 20 months.

Amara West blog up and running

British Museum

If you enjoy following excavation blogs you won't be disappointed by this one. Here's one of the early posts, but they have been posting consistently since then, and their blog provides an excellent example of how good a blog can be at bridging between the researchers and the public. I've been enjoying it enormously.

With great photographs throughout.

After a few days preparing the house and all our equipment for the coming weeks of excavation, three of us took the boat journey to site on 2 January for the first time this season.

Michaela Binder walked the ground in cemetery D, where excavation will begin this week, but I spent most of my time supervising the erection of our site tents. One houses the policemen who guard the site, while the other is for our equipment. The tents also offer a welcome respite from the howling winds (like today) or biting flies, depending on the climate.

Once the tents were up, we started excavating in one of the houses (E13.8) under the supervision of Shadia Abdu Rabo. The upper deposit of mudbrick rubble has already yielded fragments with impressions of wooden poles, matting and foliage, indicating the space was once covered with a substantial roof.

Alongside pottery, fragments of ostrich eggshell, stone tools, carnelian and jasper jewellery have already come to light – perhaps this space will prove as intriguing as the other back rooms in this block of houses?

Antiquities Council to list endangered archeological sites in Lower Egypt

Al Masry Al Youm

The Supreme Council of Antiquities is preparing a list of endangered archaeological sites in the Delta region and Lower Egypt, announced Mostaf Amin, the council’s newly appointed head, on Sunday. The list is to be published on the council’s website to flag archaeological sites threatened by urban expansion.

Object Biography #1: A vessel naming Nesi-khonsu

Egypt at the Manchester Museum (Campbell Price)

So good to see Campbell Price making real use of this blog.

Each month I hope to highlight an individual object that will feature in our new Ancient Worlds galleries. Many of the objects in the collection have incredible stories behind them but, due to an inevitable lack of space, these cannot be included fully in gallery labels or text panels. We aim to tell some of these stories – or “object biographies” – in digital content to accompany the new displays.

This small cup is only 6.75 cms in height but is made of eye-catching bright blue faience, or glazed composition ceramic. The hieroglyphs name Nesi-khonsu, wife of the Twenty-first Dynasty ruler Pinedjem II. She is given the title “first in charge of the musical troupe of Amun” (tA wrt-xnrt tp n imn) – a group of female musicians who entertained the deity in his temple at Karnak.

Animals mummified by the millions in Ancient Egypt

Discovery News (Rossella Lorenzi)

Millions of animals were‭ ‬ritually slaughtered in ancient Egypt to foster a huge mummification industry that even drove some species extinct.‭ ‬

As an exhibition‭ ‬at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. shows,‭ ‬almost no animals escaped the carnage.

‭Although ‬pets died of natural causes before their mummification,‭ and sacred beasts were pampered by adoring priests, most‬ animals in ancient Egypt had miserable, short lives. ‭

Many ‬were simply bred to become votive mummies -- offered to the gods in the same way that people light up candles in churches today.

"Various gods had different animal totems or avatars.‭ ‬Priests who maintained temples for these different gods offered a service whereby people could have an associated animal mummified and placed in a catacomb in their name," exhibition curator Melinda Zeder, director of the archeobiology program at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, told Discovery News.

Penn Museum collections now online

Penn Museum

The diverse, internationally acclaimed Collection hails from six continents and spans the millennia, shedding light on the vast scope of human activity and achievement. The permanent building to house the field notes and artifacts came more than a decade later, with the first section of the Museum, at what is now 3260 South Street, opening in 1899.

Now, the Penn Museum begins its 125th anniversary year by placing its Collection front and center, launching the Penn Museum online Collections Database from the Museum’s homepage: www.penn.museum. It’s a place where scholars can go to get preliminary information on a particular artifact or set of artifacts, teachers and school children can explore a region’s cultural materials, and anybody with access to a computer can “curate” their own set of favorite “finds” and share them with friends.

The new public database allows users to search in multiple ways, including by keyword, curatorial section, type of material, and display status. Highlights from the Collection are featured, as are several cross-cultural thematic collections, including Egyptian Afterlife, Hair & Makeup, Feathers, and Animals.

UWO 'ground zero' for mummy studies: Researcher

Toronto Sun

Two University of Western Ontario researchers have won international grants for their projects, one of which will make the university the "ground zero" of mummy studies.

Using CT scans to help him look inside mummies, researcher Andrew Nelson and his team are trying to determine cultural, political and foreign influences in ancient Egypt.

"To look at that pattern, you need to assemble data from lots of mummies," said Nelson, an associate professor of anthropology and associate dean of research in the faculty of social sciences.

Nelson is partnering with research groups in the U.S.

The project has won him a $165,000-grant as part of the second annual digging into data challenge.

The Pyramid Shafts: From Dixon to Pyramid Rover

Em Hotep! (Keith Payne)

Another excellent summary of a subject that fascinates the public.

Last May the Project Djedi Team caught the world’s attention, and imagination, when they announced that the robot crawler designed to explore the southern shaft leading out of the Queen’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid had transmitted back images of markings left behind by the pyramid’s builders. Hidden behind a “door” that had either thwarted or limited previous attempts to investigate the shaft, the markings prompted much speculation about their nature and purpose.

La Universidad de Jaén comienza su cuarta campaña arqueológica en Asuán

Diario Digital, Universidad de Jaen

Desde este próximo día 9 de enero hasta el 3 de marzo, la Universidad de Jaén llevará a cabo su cuarta campaña de excavación en la necrópolis de los nobles de Asuán (Egipto), bajo la dirección del profesor del Área de Historia Antigua, Alejandro Jiménez Serrano. Este año la campaña se desarrollará durante siete semanas y en ella participarán diecisiete investigadores, la mayor parte de ellos de la Universidad de Jaén.

Según explica el director de las excavaciones, las convulsiones políticas que ha sufrido Egipto durante el último año han hecho peligrar la presencia de los investigadores de la Universidad de Jaén, pero el nuevo clima democrático permite augurar una situación estable y supone un compromiso de la institución jiennense en la defensa y conservación del patrimonio egipcio. En este sentido, Alejandro Jiménez afirma que, de hecho, el proyecto de la Universidad de Jaén es uno de los más importantes que desarrolla España en el país de los faraones, tal y como lo demuestra el hecho de tratarse de un proyecto de I+D+i Nacional, contar con las subvenciones de la Dirección General de Bellas Artes y Bienes Culturales y la colaboración desinteresada de empresas e instituciones privadas, entre las que destaca la Fundación Qubbet el-Hawa.

Some MFA galleries are in need of attention

boston.com (Sebastian Smee)

Egyptian art, like Greek and Roman, is one of the MFA’s great strengths. What’s more, imaginatively presented, Egyptian art seems to excite young people more than any other category of art besides video games. The museum’s Egyptian collection, which dates to the first joint MFA- and Harvard-sponsored expeditions to Egypt in the early 20th century, inspires envy the world over. But the Egyptian galleries are lackluster: They are split up over two levels into galleries both new and old, and irrationally displayed.

Online: Egyptian Animal Mummies Database

Egyptian Animal Mummies Database

Animalmummies.net is a searchable database of Ancient Egyptian animal mummies. Animal mummies were created by the millions during the Late-Roman Periods in Egypt, mostly to be used as votive offerings at temples of gods associated with those animals. Some were extravagantly made with decorations and colorful wrappings to be sold at high prices at the temples. During early excavations in Egypt, many animal mummies were dug up and discarded. Very few examples were saved and sent to museums. This has resulted in only a small sampling of these objects being studied. Animal mummies, however, provide important insight into the lives and religion of Ancient Egyptians during a crucial point in their history and deserve to be studied in-depth.

This site was created as a resource for both scholars and the interested public in the hopes that it may become a collaborative project to help gather information on animal mummies. We encourage contributions from museums, researchers and individuals in the hopes of enlarging the corpus.

Searches can be done on any of the descriptive fields as well as advanced searches, which combine two or more fields. There is also a Browse mode which lists mummies by animal type, wrapping type and museum.

Mummification Museum lecture: The Opening of the Mouth ritual in the tomb of Harwa TT37

Luxor News Blog (Jane Akshar)

The Opening of the Mouth ritual in the tomb of Harwa TT37: Miriam Ayad's report.

This lecture was a serious treat and I look forward to Miriam publishing her work. That book is going to be one of the classics to keep on your shelves. She started with a back ground to the Opening of the Mouth ceremony and the work she has already done in various tombs. You may find this link helpful http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/religion/wpr.html and she referred to Otto’s work continually through the lecture. Otto 1960. E. Otto, Das Ägyptische Mundoffnungsritual, Wiesbaden, 1960

The Opening of the Mouth ritual could be performed on a cult statue, a mummy or a temple. In 1960 E. Otto published examples of 75 scenes which could appear either as text, a scene or both. The ‘sen’ priest appears wearing a leopard skin and using an adze, he also appears presenting incense or pouring libations to be ritually purify the mummy.

The various scenes, using Otto’s numbering, are 2-7 and 57-75 are about ritual purification and 26 and 17 about opening of the mouth.

Photo for Today: Coffin of Hetepnebi

British Museum
EA46629
http://bit.ly/w3qb6W

Exhibtion Review: Ancient Egypt - Art and Magic

Tampa Bay Times (Lennie Bennett)

With photos.

Being an art critic has mandated that I see all art, not just my preferred art, and judge it with an open mind. That mandate has been a gift. It opened my eyes to the value of so much that I otherwise would have ignored, which has been especially true of antiquities. Now I love.

Yes, love.

I find in them essential and universal human connections. The long-gone lives they represent are usually only dimly known, if at all, and even the cultures from which they come hold mysteries despite exhaustive research and study through the ages. But in these objects, their world lives still. We see what mattered to these people and measure their values against our own. Often, the distance between us is not great.

All of which is a long prelude to my hope that you will see "Ancient Egypt — Art and Magic" at the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg. You have time; it continues through April 29. And take your time while there. This is the kind of exhibition that unfolds slowly and subtly, and reading the wall labels really does enrich the experience.

A lovely group of about 100 pieces comes from the much larger collection of Jean Claude Gandur, a European billionaire, and is curated by Egyptologist Robert Steven Bianchi.

Under the Pharaohs' spell

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El-Aref)

This year, 2011, was indeed different for Egypt. A few days after the revolution broke out on 25 January, eventually toppling president Hosni Mubarak and his autocratic regime, the corrupt police force faded into the background and many of Egypt's most important monuments and archaeological sites were left vulnerable to attacks by vandals, thugs and thieves. The first victim of the turmoil was the Egyptian Museum on the rim of the revolutionary hotspot, Tahrir Square. On Friday 28 January thieves broke into the museum through a skylight and removed 48 artefacts from their showcases. By good fortune, 29 of the missing items were recovered soon afterwards, many of them handed in by members of the public.

Many storage places all over Egypt suffered break-ins, among them the Qantara East storehouse in Sinai, which houses artefacts belonging to the planned Port Said Museum and the Suez, Sharm El-Sheikh and Taba museums as well as objects returned from Israel under the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. Looters broke into the storehouse and stole several boxes of objects containing up to 800 items, although to date 292 of these have been returned. Meanwhile, people have encroached on monument buffer zones, building houses or carrying out illegal night-time excavations. Reports of illegal construction have come in from near the Pyramid of Merenre and at the Mastaba Faraun near Saqqara. Many sites, including some in Alexandria, Ismailia, Saqqara, Beheira, Sharqiya, Abusir and Dahshour, have reported illegal excavating, very often at night.

Restoration work underway at Giza and Mit Rahina

Ahram Online (Nevine El-Aref)

Earlier today the Minister of State for Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim led a tour around the Giza plateau to monitor work being done on the Sphinx’s Valley Temple and Mit-Rahina archaeological site, as part of the lead up to the second phase of the Giza Plateau Development Project due to be launched in March.

At the Sphinx’s Valley Temple, workers have been draining the subterranean water that has accumulated under the iconic statue. Ibrahim maintained that they only periodically pumped the water as part of the planned schedule designed to prevent further damage of the Sphinx.

Luxury products and trade at Amara West

British Museum (Marie Millet)

Though the majority of our finds, including pottery, stay in Sudan, each season we have the opportunity to bring back samples for scientific analysis, and also to borrow vessels of particular interest for conservation and reconstruction. These will be returned to Sudan in due course.

I have previously written about the shapes and purposes of the vessels we find in excavations, but another important part of working on pottery is to study the fabrics, that is, the different preparations of clay – often mixed with materials such as chaff – used to make the vessels. As the composition of clay varies from region to region, the fabrics can indicate where a vessel may have been made, which has implications for the organisation of production, transport and trade networks.