Happy Valentine's!

New head of Supreme Council of Culture has much to address

Egypt Independent Ola el-Saket

Saeed Tawfiq, a professor of aesthetics at Cairo University, was appointed the new secretary general of the Supreme Council of Culture on Thursday, after the resignation of Camellia Sobhy.

Sobhy, the first woman to head the council, resigned after two months for unknown reasons. Tawfiq was one of the candidates competing against Sobhy during the elections for the position.

As Tawfiq takes up his new role this week, he is faced with a number of issues at the council.

The Supreme Council of Culture Youth recently issued a statement condemning what they described as the “totalitarian management” of the council, and asking for real reforms. They have threatened to go on strike and hold a sit-in starting Tuesday 14 February.

Among their demands are more competitive salaries for employees and official contracts for staff who have worked on temporary contracts for years. These demands have been raised repeatedly since April 2011.

Emergency Red List of Egyptian Cultural Objects at Risk

ICOM

The International Council of Museums (ICOM) announces the publication, at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation in Cairo (NMEC), on 6 February 2012 at 10 a.m., of a new Emergency Red List: the Emergency Red List of Egyptian Cultural Objects at Risk. ICOM Director General, Julien Anfruns, officially presented the Emergency Red List, on this occasion, in the presence of the Director of the NMEC, Dr Mohammed Abdel Fatah. Julien Anfruns had an official meeting after the presentation with the Minister of State for Antiquities, Pr Mohammed Ibrahim Ali.

Catastrophe in Cairo's historic Al-Muizz Street contained

Ahram Online (Nevine El-Aref)

With two photographs.

Following six hours of being submerged in drainage water, Al-Muizz Street is back to normal and the distinguished Islamic monuments that line its edges are safe.

Yesterday, after the noon prayer, drainage water leaked into the street and almost inundated a large section where the 11th century Qalawun complex is located. The Qalawun complex consists of a mosque, a quranic school, a sabil (water fountain) and a mausoleum.

Mohsen Sayed, head of the Islamic Antiquities Department, told Ahram Online that the street was inundated in water as the main sewage tunnel of the street was blocked.

“This is not the antiquities' fault,” Sayed said, adding that according to the street’s development project, the Antiquities Department is paying an annual fee to operate a pumping machine that has been installed to prevent the leakage of water into the street and to pump it out if neccessary.

Missing Ancient Egyptian objects returned to Berlin

Auction Central News

Dozens of mostly Egyptian objects from the 4th to 7th centuries AD which had been missing since the end of World War II have been unearthed and returned to a Berlin museum, officials said Monday.

The 44 pieces were identified as being part of the Bode Museum's collection of Byzantine art after being stored for decades in two boxes at Leipzig University's Egyptian Museum in eastern Germany.

They had been transported to the Soviet Union after World War II and were brought back to Germany in 1958 but got mixed up with objects from Leipzig and ended up there instead.

New archive space takes shape at EES

Egypt Exploration Society

With some great photos.

For the last few months the new archive space in no. 4 Doughty Mews has slowly been taking shape. The room in question was formerly the kitchen of Professor Caminos who lived at no. 4 until his death in 1992, and was refurbished in readiness for the storage of archival material in the summer of 2011 (see ‘Refurbishment Commences’). Immediately prior to this the room had been used for the temporary storage of archival material for which no space could be found elsewhere on the premises, most problematically two series of historic photographs which had both been returned to the Society in 2007.

The first series, taken during the Society’s work at Tell El-Amarna in the 1920s and 30s had previously been kept in Cambridge where the current Amarna Project was based, but were transferred back to Doughty Mews when the project moved its base to Cairo. The photographs in the second group were taken at the temple of Sety I at Abydos in the 1920s, 30s and 70s (see ‘Amice Calverley, the EES, and the temple of Sety I at Abydos’) and had until recently been kept at the University of Oxford where the decoration in the temple is the subject of ongoing research.

Egypt security stop robbery at Cairo mosque

Ahram Online (Nevine El-Aref)

Police patrolling Cairo's Citadel area discovered thieves trying to escape from the Al-Refaai mosque with boxes containing four large Islamic lamps.

Antiquities Minister Mohamed Ibrahim announced that officers from the Tourism and Antiquities police had caught the thieves red handed as they attempted to leave the mosque through the backyard.

The Al-Refaai mosque is located in the square adjacent to the Salaheddin citadel.

The mosque was constructed in two phases between 1869 and 1912. It was originally commissioned by Lady Khushiar Hanim, mother of the 19th century Khedive Ismail, to extend and replace the pre-existing mediaeval zawiya (small mosque) of Ahmed Al-Refaai. She founded the mosque in 1869, but construction was stopped in 1880. Construction resumed in 1905 and the mosque was finished in 1911.

Bikya Masr

Egypt security forces said it stopped an antique lamps robbery at the al-Refai mosque in the historic area of the Citadel on Thursday morning.

Minister of Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim said security personal noticed three men carrying heavy bags and trying to flee the area and they stopped them.

They found several antique lamps from inside the mosque that the thieves unscrewed in their attempt to steal them and sell them for large amounts of money.

Security chased the thieves, forcing them to leave the lamps behind.

Work at Sharm el Sheik Museum progresses

Luxor Times

With photos

Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim (Minister State of Antiquities) visited the site of undergoing establishing Sharm El Sheikh Museum to check the workflow.

Sharm El Sheikh Museum which is designed to occupy 52 acres on which buildings will be only on 14% of the total area and the rest will be green areas and open display area. The museum is planned to host 7000 objects covering the history of Egypt from Pharaonic ages to modern ages (Mohamed Ali family).

Interview with Archaeologists Syndicate head Fayza Haikal

Egypt Independent

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.

Texts in Translation #1: The Heart Scarab of Na-her-hu

Egypt at the Manchester Museum (Campbell Price)

Campbell Price continues to do an excellent job of making Egyptian objects more accessible to the general public on the Manchester Museum blog.

With a photograph of the inscription on the scarab.

Visitors sometimes comment that they would like to have access to translations of the hieroglyphic texts that appear on some of our Egyptian and Sudanese objects. We aim to provide these as a digital resource to complement the new Ancient Worlds galleries, and I will post them here as time – and work – allows. On a recent visit to the Museum, a group called Forever Young expressed a particular liking for this text, so it seemed a good place to start.

This spell is of a type usually carved on the underside of amulets known as Heart Scarabs. This example dates to the later New Kingdom (c. 1320-1069 BC), and belonged to a scribe named Na-her-hu. This is a shortened version of Spell (or ‘Chapter’) 30B of the Book of the Dead: slightly different versions are sometimes included in papyrus copies of the Book.

Dig Diary: Malqata

iMalqata

The Malqata excavation is now underway at Luxor, and a dig diary with plenty of photographs can be found at the above address.

Other tabs show information about the site, including its history. Here's a short expert:

While the tombs of the pharaohs from the pyramids of the Old Kingdom to the Valley of the Kings are familiar the world over, the settings in which the kings of ancient Egypt lived and ruled are comparatively little known. One of the two royal cities from Ancient Egyptian times is at Malqata in western Thebes. It was built by the 18th Dynasty pharaoh Amenhotep III, who reigned for thirty-eight or thirty-nine years from about 1390-1352 B.C. Located on the sandy edge of the cultivation at the southern end of the Theban necropolis, the site today is marked only by low mud brick ruins and the great mounds that border the huge harbor known as the Birket Habu, also built by Amenhotep III.

One of the most significant urban sites surviving from ancient Egypt, Malqata was established by Amenhotep III in the 30th year of his reign (about 1360 B.C.) when he celebrated his first heb-sed, a royal jubilee intended in part to rejuvinate the king. The great palace city was constructed to the south of the large funerary temple the king was building for himself. In all, Amenhotep celebrated three sed-festivals: in year 30, year 34, and year 37 of his reign. After his death , the palace city was largely abandonned.

Catalan archaeological mission returns to Egypt

ANSAMed

One year after the uprising in Egypt, the mission of archaeologists and Egyptologists of the University of Barcelona, working in collaboration with the Catalan Egyptology Society, returns to Cairo to resume its excavation work in Oxirrinco. The news is reported by mission director and Egyptology professor Josep Padro, quoted by La Vanguardia.

The goal of the Spanish mission, entering its 20th year, is to ''continue excavating the remains of a large Greek-Roman temple which, because of its position and texts found on papyrus scrolls, could be the Serapeum, dedicated to the god Serapis'', Pardo explains.

Dig Diary: Proyecto Qubbet el-hawa

Universidad de Jaen

If you speak Spanish there is a lot of great information on this site about Qubbet el-hawa in Aswan, including the dig diary at the above page.

The English/American icon goes to a page where they promise an English language summary in the near future.

Qalawun complex is re-opened for visitors

Luxor Times

With photo.

After completion of the cleaning and disinfecting work required because of a sewage pipe in the site, Sultan Qalawun complex is re-opened. The complex located in Gamalia district of Islamic Cairo and consents of a mosque, school and hospital (dated to 1294 A.D).

According to Mohsen Said (Head of the Islamic and Coptic department) the buildings were not affected by the sewage problem.

New Book: Belzoni: The Giant Archaeologists Love to Hate

Charlotte Observer (Alan Rauch)

Resting in apparent tranquility at uptown's Discovery Place are more than 40 mummies from around the world. Charlotte is one of only a few American destinations for this major exhibit, and the opportunity to see so diverse an array of mummies - human and animal, Egyptian and South American - is remarkable.

The fascination that we feel for mummies, relics of the past that seem eerily in the moment, is not hard to understand, and it's certainly not a new phenomenon. Now a timely coincidence brings a new book tracing our compulsion for Egyptian relics. Ivor Noël Hume's "Belzoni: The Giant Archaeologists Love to Hate" examines the emergence of the Egyptian craze in the early 19th century by looking at one of the main figures in that movement.

Hume, an archeologist himself, introduces us to Giovanni Belzoni, an Italian-born English citizen whose name became synonymous with Egyptian treasures.

New Book: Making Archaeology Happen

Left Coast Press

This being Martin Carver (he of Sutton Hoo) it is probably a UK-centric book (I haven't read it yet) but it's an interesting, widely relevant topic.

Making Archaeology Happen: Design versus Dogma
Martin Carver (Author)
184 pp. / 6.00 x 9.00 / Sep, 2011

‘Archaeology is for people’ is the theme of this book. Split between the academic and commercial sectors, archaeological investigation is also deeply embedded in the needs of local communities, making it simultaneously an art, science and social science. Such a multi-disciplinary discipline needs special methods and creative freedom, not repetitive responses. Carver argues that commercial procedures and academic theory are both suffocating creativity in fieldwork. He’d like to see us bring much more diversity and technical ingenuity to every opportunity, and maintains this is more a matter of getting ourselves free of dogma than needing more time and money. This has many implications for the way archaeology is designed and procured – moving archaeologists up the professional ladder from builder to architect, with contracts based on quality of design, not the price.

Exhibition: To Live Forever

omaha.com (Carol )

Over the next three months, visitors to Joslyn Art Museum can get a taste of its allure during the "To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures From the Brooklyn Museum" exhibition, which opens Saturday.

Put together by Dr. Edward Bleiberg, curator of Egyptian, classical and ancient near Eastern art for the Brooklyn Museum, the exhibit spans thousands of years, from prehistoric times to the Roman era.

Bleiberg thinks it's Egypt's history that speaks to us. "This is one of the oldest documented places on earth," he said in a phone interview. "We can see the origins as far back as 7,000 years. It speaks to our fascination of where it all began."

Another draw is the civilization's mystery, said Toby Jurovics, Joslyn's chief curator and Holland curator of American Western Art. "It's still mysterious to us, which is something you don't have with Greece or Rome."

Exhibition: Picturing the Past at the OI

Oriental Institute

February 7 - September 2, 2012, Oriental Institute, Chicago.

Download the Show Catalog in Adode Portable Document Format (pdf)

Picturing the Past presents paintings, architectural reconstructions, facsimiles, casts, models, photographs, and computer-aided reconstructions that show how the architecture, sites, and artifacts of the ancient Middle East have been documented. The show also examines how the publication of those images have shaped our perception of the ancient world, and how some of the more "imaginary" reconstructions have obscured our real understanding of the past. The exhibit also shows how features of the ancient Middle East have been presented in different ways for different audiences, in some cases transforming a highly academic image into a widely recognized icon of the past.

Among the topics covered are the Oriental Institute's contributions to the documentation of Egyptian monuments through the development of an epigraphic method. James Henry Breasted's notebooks of careful hand copies of hieroglyphic inscriptions and his own camera are shown alongside archival photos of the 1905 expedition to Nubia during which the epigraphic process was invented. The work of the current Epigraphic Survey is shown by a sequence of photos and collation sheets that illustrate the many steps that culminate in the final publication.

Exhibition: Pharaoh: King of Egypt at Leeds, UK

AboutMyArea

Visitors to Leeds City Museum will be transported back to ancient Egypt from this weekend as a major new exhibition featuring over 130 stunning historic artefacts goes on display.

The touring exhibition entitled ‘Pharaoh: King of Egypt' which showcases objects from the British Museum collection opens on Saturday and runs until Sunday 17 June 2012 at the museum off Millennium Square with admission being free.

Developed by the British Museum in partnership with the Great North Museum, the exhibition explores the lives of the pharaohs and their role as head of state, chief priest and army commanders through objects and artefacts spanning over 3,000 years of history including stunning palace decorations, sculpture, jewellery and papyri.

Themes examined include the realities of ruling a complex society and dealing with issues such as international diplomacy, tomb-robbing, civil war and foreigners on the throne. Among the eye-catching objects on display is a wonderfully-preserved standing wooden tomb guardian representing the figure of Pharaoh Ramses I, who was hugely influential despite a short-lived rule from 1295-1294 BC.

Exhibition: Fascinating Mummies, Edinburgh UK

STV (Catie Guitart)

The Fascinating Mummies exhibition runs from February 11 to May 27 at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

There's a nice slideshow of the exhibition aswell.

An exhibition guiding visitors through the complex rituals surrounding death and the afterlife in Ancient Egypt opens at the National Museum of Scotland.

Fascinating Mummies features hundreds of treasures from two of the world’s top Ancient Egypt collections, some dating back as far as 4000BC.

The exhibition, which opens on Saturday, boasts material from the Rijkesmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden, the Netherlands, as well as a selection from National Museum Scotland’s own collection.

Dr Gordon Rintoul, director of National Museums Scotland, said: “This is the first major Egyptian exhibition that has been in Edinburgh, indeed Scotland, in three decades. It is the only opportunity to see this wonderful material from the Rijkesmuseum, together with our own material that has previously been unseen.

“Both collections sprang from the same source in the early and mid 19th century of people who were intellectually enquiring and outward looking, and collected things from Egypt and took them back to their homeland.