New website dedicated to all SCA activities launches

drhawass.com

See the above page for the links. The website has been kicking around for some time but it does seem to have been udpated. Hawass's Monthly Column (under Breaking News) which hadn't been updated since March 2010 has now been updated this month with a summary of some of the more recent news stories.

The SCA website details all activities of the SCA and maintains a list of cultural property institutions under its purview. In addition, it serves as the gateway for foreign missions seeking to establish concessions at prehistoric and historic sites in Egypt.

Of particular note is the Breaking News section, which features current and archived columns by Dr. Hawass and provides a link to the SCA Press Office archives. The Press Office’s page, housed under Media Resources includes current and archived press releases of discoveries, initiatives, and conferences in which the SCA has been involved. For a more personal take on happenings in the Egyptian antiquities field, one can read Dr. Hawass’ Monthly Column about highlights in his recent work. Media professionals may also benefit from PDFs outlining filming and photography regulations under Download Forms in Media Resources.

In Foreign Mission Resources, one can find the titles of current and recent projects undertaken by foreign excavators or heritage professionals, with the members of each project listed below the project title. This is to facilitate access to permit information for prospective foreign missions; another important resource for such parties is the Download Forms page, where SCA regulations, the application, the security form, and ASAE publication guidelines are posted. Contact information for the Department of Foreign Missions is also listed here in case of further inquiries.

The home page of the SCA links to a general history of the organization, from the Antiquities Service’s inception in 1858 to the leadership of current Secretary-General, Zahi Hawass. A page outlining the organizational structure of the SCA divisions is also included on this page. Under this section is a list of special projects overseen by the Project Sector, a consulting and administrative body that interlopes among many different SCA offices and coordinates them with outside partners.

On the rest of the site, there exist lists of sites, museums, and exhibitions overseen by the SCA, all accompanied by their respective rules and permissions. A page for the SCA Store names all the publications and artifact replicas available for sale at the SCA headquarters in Zamalek, Cairo. The SCA also sponsors a series of Monday-night lectures, information for which can be found in Lectures and Events. Future events will be posted on the “SCA Events” page as they are scheduled.

Finally, Recovering Stolen Treasures outlines one of the most concerted initiatives of the SCA in recent years, arguably the paramount purpose of an antiquities organization in the post-imperial era—reintroducing into Egypt’s possession the thousands of artifacts taken illegally out of the country in the past. Though many objects have been successfully repatriated, many more remain unlawfully held by individuals and institutions overseas, and Stolen Treasures is a sampling of Egypt’s “wish list” for these stolen artifacts.

Check the SCA Website frequently as new updates are continually being posted and several of the pages are still under construction.

On Hawass and repatriation

The Wall Street Journal

Dr. Hawass is something of a global media icon, following a series of heavily hyped TV specials and a carefully cultivated public persona. His recent History Channel series, "Chasing Mummies," depicted him as a sort of burly denim-clad Indiana Jones in a trademark leather Stetson hat. The archaeologist earned his Ph.D. in Egyptology in 1987 from the University of Pennsylvania and returned to Egypt the same year. He was appointed director of the Giza Plateau, which includes overseeing the Pyramids and the Sphinx. He was named head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in 2002.

Imperious and relentlessly self-promoting, Dr. Hawass also has become a polarizing figure in the insular ranks of international archaeology, and may soon become more so. Some critics accuse him of hogging credit for other people's work and placing good television over sound science.

"I think Egyptologists kind of laugh and shrug their shoulders at Zahi," said one British archaeologist, who has worked with Dr. Hawass.

But few seem to doubt the sincerity of his antiquity-repatriation effort, which has become a personal mission for the 63-year-old.

Egypt abroad - London’s Petrie Museum

Al Masry Al Youm (Nadine el-Hadi)

The British Museum’s most controversial Egyptian object is the Rosetta Stone, who’s bilingual inscriptions provided the key to understanding hieroglyphics. Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, has recently been campaigning to bring the prized possession home.

A very short walk down the road from the British Museum is its humble counterpart – the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, located on the University College London (UCL) campus. Hidden away, the modest two room museum is overshadowed by the British Museum, but its collections should not be underestimated.

The Petrie Museum is the legacy of Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie (1853-1942) who was the first Professor of Egyptian Archaeology at UCL. Many of the objects displayed were either excavated or acquired Petrie when he worked in Egypt between 1880 and 1924, and the museum boasts 80,000 pieces. The relics - only 10 percent of which are on display - are mainly from Egypt but also from Sudan. The cluttered cupboards and shelves are packed with pots of all shapes and sizes, jewelery, clothes, statues, inscribed and decorated stone slabs, and a couple of mummy coffins.

Exhibition: Cleopatra at the Franklin Institute

Washington Times (Jacquie Kubin)

With photos. Still no news about where the next venues are going to be.

mposing in their size and power are the two 16-foot tall figures of a Ptolemic King and Queen from the Temple of Amon at Heracleion, an ancient city near modern day Alexandria.

Making a search extending back 2,000 years in history even more difficult is that Egypt’s Roman conquerors attempted to rewrite history by destroying all evidence of her existence and her romances with both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, assignations that were as much about romance as they were about aligning Egypt with political power.

Your visit starts with a brief movie, which introduces two men, Dr. Zahi Hawass, archaeologist and Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities and Franck Goddio, underwater archaeologist and director of IEASM. These explorers are looking beneath the sea and into the warm sands of Egypt seeking the final resting place of the elusive queen.

Stepping beyond what is believed to be a statute of Cleopatra’s body (the head is sadly missing) visitors walk into the ruins of ancient Alexandria and are able to see, quite closely, the very artifacts that once populated the Queens castle and court.

The presentation is as interesting and impactful as any I have seen. It is also reverently quiet as people listen to the personalized audio tour where the “voice” of Cleopatra narrates your journey centuries back in time.

Photo for Today - More from the Walters Art Museum

WM-EG031
Falcon Sacred to Horus

Copyright Rick Menges, with my thanks

Date (Period): ca. 380-150 BC (Late Period-early Greco-Roman)
Medium: granodiorite
Measurements: 15 7/16 x 6 1/4 x 12 5/8 in. (39.2 x 15.8 x 32 cm)

Item Description:
The falcon was associated with several celestial gods. One was Horus, a deity closely identified with living monarchs. This sculpture served as a protective image at a temple and once had a crown made separately, perhaps also from stone or even gilded bronze.

My broadband is down

Apologies, but my broadband connection is down at the moment. It appears to be a local problem. At first my landline phone wouldn't work. After two days the complaints of friends who were getting a permanent engaged signal eventually prompted me to try it myself, with the same result (and no dial tone when I tried to make outgoing calls). So I took out and replaced all the connectors and micro-filters, swapped out all the cables and tried again. Success!! The phones work again! But, alas, the broadband now doesn't. I have no idea why. I have pared the whole thing down to an absolute minimum but nothing I do will make my broadband work. The bizarre thing is that my broadband modem (and my laptop's perception of its wireless connectivity) both think that they are perfectly connected. And both the phone and the broadband modem are connected through the same cables. I really don't get it. Any ideas from anyone gratefully received!

Anyway, until I get it sorted it's unlikely that you'll be hearing more from me than top stories and breaking news.

Cheers to all
Andie
xx

All my very best wishes to the Birthday Girl

Have a great day Kat
Lots of love
Andie
xxx

Met to send items from Tutankhamun back to Egypt

New York Times (Kate Taylor)

With photos.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is voluntarily returning 19 artifacts to Egypt that had been in its collection for decades and that Met curators recently determined came from Tutankhamen’s tomb, the museum said on Tuesday.

Zahi Hawass, the secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt, was scheduled to announce the transfer in Cairo on Wednesday. The 19 objects are small in scale. Among the more significant are a tiny bronze dog, less than three-quarters of an inch tall, and a small sphinx from a bracelet. The objects will be on display until January as part of the Tutankhamen exhibition in Times Square, which was organized by a company working with the Egyptian government. After that, they are to be exhibited at the Met for six months and then sent to Egypt to be shown at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and the Grand Egyptian Museum at Giza when it opens in 2012.

The Met has been proactive about returning objects to Egypt in the past and has a good working relationship with Mr. Hawass’s council.

drhawass.com

Press Release. With more photos.

19 objects from the tomb of Tutankhamun returning to Egypt!

Under the auspices of Farouk Hosny, the Minister of Culture, Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt, and Thomas P. Campbell, Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, announced jointly today that, effective immediately, the Metropolitan Museum of Art would acknowledge Egypt’s title to 19 ancient Egyptian objects that have been in its collection since the early 20th century. All of these small-scale objects, which range from study samples to a three-quarter-inch-high bronze dog and a sphinx bracelet-element, attributed to Tutankhamun’s tomb, which was discovered by Howard Carter in 1922 in the Valley of the Kings. The Museum initiated this formal acknowledgement after renewed, in-depth research by two of its curators substantiated the history of the objects.

“This is a wonderful gesture on the part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” said Hawass. “For many years the Museum, and especially the Egyptian Art department, has been a strong partner in our on-going efforts to repatriate illegally exported antiquities. Through their research, they have provided us with information that has helped us to recover a number of important objects, and last year, the Museum gave to Egypt a granite fragment that joins with a shrine on display in Luxor, so that this object could be restored. Thanks to the generosity and ethical behavior of the Met, these 19 objects from the tomb of Tutankhamun can now be reunited with the other treasures of the boy king.” Hawass continued that “The objects will now go on display with the “Tutankhamun” exhibition at Times Square, where they will stay until January, 2011. They will then travel back to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where they will be shown for six months in the context of the Metropolitan Museum’s renowned Egyptian collection. Upon their return to Egypt in June 2011, they will be given a special place in the Tutankhamun galleries at the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, and then will move, with the rest of the Tut collection, to the Grand Egyptian Museum at Giza, scheduled to open in 2012.”

At the time that Howard Carter and his sponsor, the Earl of Carnarvon, discovered the tomb of pharaoh Tutankhamun (reigned ca. 1336-1327 B.C.), the Egyptian government generally allowed excavators to keep a substantial portion of the finds from excavations undertaken and financed by them. However, during the decade that it took Carter and his team to recover the thousands of precious objects from this king’s tomb, it became increasingly clear that no such partition of finds would take place in the case of the Tutankamun tomb.

Owing to the splendor of the treasures discovered in the tomb, conjectures soon started nevertheless, suggesting that certain objects of high quality, dating roughly to the time of Tutankhamun and residing in various collections outside Egypt, actually originated from the king’s tomb. Such conjectures intensified after the death of Howard Carter in 1939, when a number of fine objects were found to be part of his estate. When the Metropolitan Museum acquired some of these objects, however, the whole group had been subjected to careful scrutiny by experts and representatives of the Egyptian government; and subsequent research has found no evidence of such a provenance in the overwhelming majority of cases. Likewise, thorough study of objects that entered the Metropolitan Museum from the private collection of Lord Carnarvon in 1926 has not produced any evidence of the kind.

The 19 objects now identified as indeed originating from the tomb of King Tutankahmun can be divided into two groups. Fifteen of the 19 pieces have the status of bits or samples. The remaining four are of more significant art-historical interest and include a small bronze dog less than three-quarters of an inch in height and a small sphinx bracelet-element, acquired from Howard Carter’s niece, after they had been probated with his estate; they were later recognized to have been noted in the tomb records although they do not appear in any excavation photographs. Two other pieces—part of a handle and a broad collar accompanied by additional beads—entered the collection because they were found in 1939 among the contents of Carter’s house at Luxor; all of the contents of that house were bequeathed by Carter to the Metropolitan Museum. Although there was discussion between Harry Burton (a Museum photographer based in Egypt, the Museum’s last representative in Egypt before World War II broke out, and one of Carter’s two executors) and Herbert Winlock about the origins of these works and about making arrangements for Burton to discuss with a representative of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo whether these works should be handed over to Egypt, that discussion was not resolved before Burton’s death in 1940. When the Metropolitan Museum’s expedition house in Egypt was closed in 1948, the pieces were sent to New York.

Restoration at Mit Rahina

ABC, Spain

Egyptian authorities have launched a project to restore the temples of Mit Rahina (Memphis), the capital of ancient Egypt, protect them from the threat of groundwater and enclose the 7km area within protective walls. A visitor centre and bazaars are also part of the plan. There is a budget of 7 million dollars for the project.

Las autoridades egipcias han lanzado un proyecto para restaurar los templos de la zona de Mit Rahina, a 32 kilómetros al sur de El Cairo, que acogió la antigua capital de Egipto, Menfis, en el año 3.100 antes de Cristo.

El proyecto tiene el objetivo de rescatar de las aguas subterráneas los templos situados en este área, informó hoy el Consejo Supremo de Antigüedades en un comunicado.

Petrie Museum Book Auction 2010

From Jan Picton at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology. (To subscribe to the auction newsletter email the words auction 'subscribe' in the subject line to petriebooks@ijnet.demon.co.uk):

The 2010 Petrie annual book auction will start this weekend. The first list will be sent out on Friday. If you have received this email you do not need to register again.

Thank you for subscribing to the Petrie book auction - remember that you can 'unsubscribe' at any time.

This email auction will culminate on the evening of the 8th December with a live auction. The auction is open to all and will be held at the Petrie Museum, Malet Place WC1. Viewing from 6.00, auction starts at 6.45

The complete list follows separately with starting prices on all volumes inviting bids (BID?). As bids come in the bid is listed with the bidder's initials alongside, e.g. GBP 10 (JP)

TO BID, please either cut and paste title with your bid added, or give me the book number(s) and your bid. Please don't return the entire list - unless you're bidding on everything!

Regular updates on the state of the bidding will be sent out. All bids should be sent to petriebooks@ijnet.demon.co.uk

Closing date for email bids will be Saturday 4 December. All bids will be carried forward to the evening of 8 December. No books will be sold before that date so that Friends and others not on email will have a chance to participate.

The highest email bidder will be invited to submit a final ceiling-price which will ONLY be used - in increments - if he/she is outbid on the evening.

We reserve the right to withdraw, cancel, or change the rules if it all gets too complicated.

If you wish to cancel your receipt of any further auction information just send an email with 'auction delete' in the header and we won't bother you again.

After the auction successful bidders will be contacted with the amount owed for their books.

All prices will be plus postage, payable in advance in GB pounds by cash, UK cheque, or overseas bankers cheque drawn on a UK bank, (or Post Office Giro-cheques from Europe are reasonably priced, or postal orders) so please bear that in mind when making your bid. Sorry, but we don't have the facilities to accept direct credit card payment although we can accept payment via PAYPAL. Books can be collected from the Museum by prior arrangement.

Best wishes, and good luck!!

Jan Picton
Secretary

More re Ramesses III inscription in Saudi

LA Times

Saudi archaeologists recently discovered the first royal pharaonic inscription on a mountain face near the ancient oasis city of Tayma, evidence, experts say, of the major trade networks that criss-crossed the region thousands of years ago.

The discovery comes on the heels of a major push by Saudi authorities to foster wider appreciation for the Arabian peninsula's pre-Islamic history, which has often been glossed over or ignored in official narratives. In September, the Louvre in Paris wrapped up an exhibition of pre-Islamic Saudi artifacts, most of which had never been displayed before, according to an article in Le Monde at the time (a translation appeared in the Guardian).

The attention on the country's pre-Muslim past has proved controversial in the ultra-conservative kingdom. Some Saudis believe that displaying non-Muslim artifacts, whether Pagan, Jewish or Christian, should be forbidden, even if these artifacts pre-date Islam.

Astronomical interest in the Big Dipper

Heritage Key (Owen Jarus)

New research on a 2,400 year old star table shows that the Ancient Egyptians kept close tabs on the Big Dipper, monitoring changes in the constellation’s orientation throughout the course of an entire year.

The Big Dipper is composed of seven stars and is easily viewable in the northern hemisphere. Its shape looks like a ladle with a scoop attached. Ancient Egyptians represented it as an ox’s foreleg.

If a person were to observe the constellation at the exact same time every night they would see it gradually move counter-clockwise each time they saw it.

Professor Sarah Symons, of McMaster University in Hamilton Canada, carried out the new research.

Egyptian Archaeology 37

Egypt Exploration Society

Mine turned up this morning. I haven't had the chance to do more than flip through it but the photographs from North Dashur and from the Book of the Dead exhibition are stunning.

Egyptian Archaeology 37 (Autumn 2010) has just been published and copies are now being mailed to EES Members. The layout of EA has been changed with this issue to include pages at the front of the magazine which showcase the Society’s activities, including a report on EES tours to Egypt and Sudan, a summary and photographs from BEC3, news of the appointment of our Development Director, Victoria Perry, and photographs from recent events at Doughty Mews. Appreciations of the lives of Ian Mathieson, Win Exley and Lydia Barker are also included in this new section.

The main articles are:

Joseph Hekekyan: pioneer archaeologist by David Jeffreys
Dahshur North: intact Middle and New Kingdom coffins by Masahiro Baba and Sakuji Yoshimura
The Christian settlement at the Amarna North Tombs by Gillian Pyke
Revealing new landscape features at Tell Basta by Daniela Rosenow
King Sheshonqs at Bubastis by Eva Lange
The Book of the Dead by John Taylor
Petrie finds revisited by Tine Bagh
Tell Yetwal wa Yuksur by Jeffrey Spencer
The Yale University Moalla Survey Project by Colleen Manassa
Ancient Egypt in the Pitt Rivers Museum by Alice Stevenson
The face of a king in the Pitt Rivers Museum by Earl L Ertman

Bookshelf has reviews by Marianne Eaton-Krauss (Aidan Dodson, Amarna Sunset), Andrew Bednarski (Dieter Arnold, The Monuments of Egypt), Sylvie Weens (Elizabeth Wickett, For the Living and the Dead), Josef Wegner (Wolfram Grajetzki, Court Officials of the Egyptian Middle Kingdom) and Julie Anderson (W Y Adams, The Road from Frijoles Canyon).

‘Digging Diary’ contains brief summaries of the work of over 50 expeditions that carried out research in Egypt during 2010.

New Book: Behind the Colonnade

Love Reading (Jason Taylors)

Behind the Colonnade - Thirty Seven Years at the British Museum
Norman Jacobs
The History Press Ltd.

A "fascinating and insightful" expose of the British Museum hits the shelves in November.

Behind the Colonnade lifts the lid on London's oldest historical institution, and reveals the building's "secrets, charms and colourful past".

The 216-page autobiography chronicles events of the last four decades, as witnessed by one of its longest-serving - and most trusted - employees.

Author Norman Jacobs spent 37 years at the museum where he "watched, listened and recorded" life in its corridors.

The father-of-two, 63, compiled his "notes and memories" and decided to pen Behind the Colonnade following his retirement in 2004 aged 57.

Pre-publication copies have secured praise from critics and readers alike. It is now set to become a genre bestseller when it hits the bookshops on November 1.

Speaking yesterday from his home in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, Norman - an established history author with 25 titles to his name - said his latest offering was among his "personal favourites".

He said: ''I spent 37 years at the British Museum, and I thoroughly enjoyed every second.

''That said, there were times when I wished I was anywhere but at work! Thus Behind the Colonnade contains a number of anecdotes about my time at the museum, and has been written to shed some light on an institution some people may consider 'secretive' or, at the least, publicity-shy.''

New Book: Egyptian

Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten

Egyptian. An Introduction to the writing and language of the Middle Kingdom
Volume I: Grammar, Syntax and Indexes; Volume II: Sign lists, Exercises and Reading Texts
J.F. Borghouts
2010

This is a data-oriented grammatical description of Middle Egyptian, a now extinct Pharaonic language, spoken and written in the hieroglyphic and hieratic scripts, between 2100 and 1700 before our era, the period of the Middle Kingdom. Middle Egyptian was regarded by the Egyptians as a classical stage of their language and it remained in use for a long time after that period.

Middle Egyptian texts are extremely varied and comprise stories, historical narratives, letters, scientific treatises, and a great number of religious sources.

The first volume is a systematic description of the language, illustrated by a great number of quotations from original texts, and provided with word lists and other indexes. The second volume leads the reader in a gradual way in 33 lessons through the grammatical description of the first volume, and moreover contains an extensive list of hieroglyphic signs and their values, exercises and, finally, original texts for reading.

New Book: Everyday Writing in the Graeco-Roman East

University of California Press
Everyday Writing in the Graeco-Roman East
Roger S. Bagnall
December 2010

Most of the everyday writing from the ancient world—that is, informal writing not intended for a long life or wide public distribution—has perished. Reinterpreting the silences and blanks of the historical record, leading papyrologist Roger S. Bagnall convincingly argues, however, that ordinary people—from Britain to Egypt to Afghanistan—used writing in their daily lives far more extensively than has been recognized. Marshalling new and little-known evidence, including remarkable graffiti recently discovered in Smyrna, Bagnall presents a fascinating analysis of writing in different segments of society. His book offers a new picture of literacy in the ancient world in which Aramaic rivals Greek and Latin as a great international language, and in which many other local languages develop means of written expression alongside these metropolitan tongues.

Book Review: Tutankhamun - The Untold Story

Egyptians (Tim Reid)

Tutankhamun - The Untold Story
Thomas Hoving
Simon and Schuster
1978
ISBN 0-671-24305-5

The late Thomas Hoving is a former director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York with this book being his 1978 bestseller. Mr. Hoving opens his book with an introduction into the excavation of the tomb of Tutankhamun and a list of documents used by the author to pull the truth from the romantic story of the boy kings discovery.

From here the author tells us the scanty known biography of Tutankhamun before the discovery of his tomb in November of 1922. We are then introduced to the experienced archaeologist Howard Carter, his foibles and his introduction to Lord Carnarvon, an opulent aristocrat without aim.

A cast of characters of some of the most notable Egyptologists and specialist of the day include Herbert Winlock and Harry Burton of the Metropolitan's excavation team in Egypt. The concession is formed and the scene is set for the history of the Valley of Kings, it's burials and the history of it's plunder and exploration.

TV: Ancient Worlds (UK)

There's a new series on the BBC in the UK at the moment called Ancient Worlds. I managed to miss the first episode of which is showing tonight. Here's the write-up from the Radio Times website.

Wednesday 10 November
9:00pm - 10:00pm
BBC2 London
Come Together

1/6, series 1

Archaeologist and historian Dr Richard Miles, looking cosy in a fetching multicoloured scarf, is seeking the origins of the first great civilisations of the ancient world: "I'm going to make the case for civilisation itself." Ooh, get him. In one of those portentous documentaries BBC2 does so well, Miles strides through Istanbul and the deserts of Syria and Egypt. He's the master of the brooding, significant stare, and the almost whispered, awe-stricken commentary. It's fascinating stuff, though. In Baghdad, with military helicopters buzzing overhead, Miles explains the bedrock of any civilisation is "good order". He doesn't have many good things to say about ancient Egypt, though; it was xenophobic and obsessed with the cult of death. Or, as Miles puts it, a "glittering dead end [whose] otherness was its great selling point."

New Book: UNESCO - Managing Historic Cities

World Heritage Convention

Slightly off-topic but may be of interest to some readers.

Managing Historic Cities, World Heritage Series n°27.

With over 250 properties inscribed on the World Heritage List, cities are one of the most abundant and diverse categories of heritage. This quantity and diversity add to the dynamics of urban heritage conservation, where concepts and approaches are constantly changing and evolving. To stay in the forefront of international views and trends and to contribute to ongoing debates involving development of standards and practices, a World Heritage Cities Programme was established to assist States Parties in their efforts to protect and preserve their urban heritage. As cities have a constant need for upgrading or further development of infrastructure, housing and services, the World Heritage Cities Programme aims to address the permanent challenge of how to accommodate the needs for modernization and investment in historic cities and city centres without compromising historic character and identity.

This publication contains a selection of papers written for the regional expert meetings organized in the context of UNESCO's initiative on the conservation of the Historic Urban Landscape. They contain forward-looking ideas and some propose innovative strategies for inclusion into urban conservation practice, while others promote specific tools for particular issues arising from historic urban landscape management.

Photo for Today - More from the Walters Art Museum

WM-EG035

(Top) Appliqué: Head of a Lion

(Bottom) Sculptor's Model of a Lion

Copyright Rick Menges, with my thanks

(Top) Appliqué: Head of a Lion
Date (Period): ca. 380-342 BC (Late Period)
Medium: faience with light blue glaze
Measurements: 1 13/16 x 1 11/16 x 7/8 in. (4.7 x 4.2 x 2.2 cm)
Item Description:
This plaque was used as an attachment for a piece of furniture or a box. The head of the lion is carefully molded, and the structure of the mane incised. Lions were connected to the king, and were also a manifestation of the horizon.

(Bottom) Sculptor's Model of a Lion
Date (Period): ca. 380-342 BC (Late Period)
Medium: limestone
Measurements: 5 1/16 x 8 7/8 x 4 1/8 in. (12.8 x 22.5 x 10.4 cm)
Item Description:
This statuette of a resting lion was most probably used as a donation into a temple or shrine.

Pharaonic inscription found in Saudi Arabia

Arab News (Rodolfo C. Estimo Jr.)

With photo.

The Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA) announced Sunday that Saudi archaeologists have discovered an ancient hieroglyphic inscription mentioning an Egyptian pharaoh on a rock near the ancient oasis of Tayma, Tabuk province. The discovery, about 400 km north of Madinah and northeast of the ancient Nabatean site Madain Saleh, marks the first confirmed hieroglyphic inscription discovered in the Kingdom.

"The rock was bearing an inscription of King Ramses III, one of the kings who ruled ancient Egypt from 1192 B.C.to 1160 B.C.," said SCTA Vice President for Antiquities and Museums Ali Ibrahim Al-Ghabban at a news conference on Sunday at the Commission on National Museum.

Al-Ghabban said the discovery was made in July. Since then researchers have posited that Tayma was on an important land route between the western coast of Arabia and the Nile Valley.

Another statue uncoverd at the temple of Amenhotep III, Luxor

drhawass.com

Press Release.

The upper portion of a red granite double statue featuring King Amenhotep III (1390-1352 BC) with the falcon-headed sun god Re-Horakhti was found today on the north western side of Amenhotep III’s funerary temple on Luxor’s west bank.

Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosny announced that the statue was found during a routine excavation carried out by an Egyptian team from the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), directed by Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the SCA.

Hawass remarked that the statue is one of the best new finds in the area because of its expert craftsmanship, which reflect the skills of the ancient Egyptian artisans. Dr. Hawass pointed out that King Amenhotep III is well known for his overwhelming amount of statuary, particularly group statuary featuring the king with deities such as: Amun-Re, Re-Horakhti, Bastet, Sobek and Sekhmet, the goddess of healing. Hawass pointed out that the Amenhotep III Temple Conservation Project, directed by Dr. Hourig Sourouzian, has unearthed more than 80 statues of the goddess Sekhmet during their excavations at the temple. It has been suggested that the Sekhmet statues were erected because Amenhotep III was very sick during his final years.

The Egyptian mission has found several statues depicting King Amenhotep III with the solar god, Amun-Re and a granite colossus featuring Thoth, the god of wisdom, in the form of a baboon. “This is the first time that we have found a standing statue of the god Thoth,” asserted Hawass.

According to Mansour Boraik, General Supervisor of the Luxor Antiquities Department of the SCA, a number of group statues of Amenhotep III are still partially buried under private farmland that surrounds the temple. Dr. Samir Farag, governor of Luxor, and the SCA are now trying to reach an agreement with the farmer to buy this section of land so that the statues can be fully excavated. In the future, this area will be converted into an open-air museum that will display the objects found in the mortuary temple complex.

Heritage Key (Ann Wuyts)

With photo

Archaeologists today discovered the upper portion of a statue of Egyptian Pharaoh Amenhotep III at Luxor, Egypt.

The find – part of a double statue featuring King Amenhotep III with the falcon-headed sun god Re-Horakhti – was made at the pharaoh's funerary temple, located on the west bank of the Nile.

In a press statement, Egypt's Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosny said that the discovery was made during routine excavations at Amenhotep III's mortuary temple carried out by the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA).

Egypt - A life before the afterlife

The Guardian, UK (Richard Parkinson)

An excellent article by Richard Parkinson, who is a curator in the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan at the British Museum. His main research interest is the poetry of the classical age of Egyptian literature. With photos.

Ancient Egypt rarely escapes our stereotypical view of it: an exotic place full of pyramids crammed with cursed treasure, waiting to be discovered by adventurous archaeologists. As in René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo's comic Asterix and Cleopatra, it is often presented as a land of spooky tombs and people speaking in hieroglyphic pictures. These stereotypes are themselves quite ancient – even to the ancient Greeks, Egypt was a quintessentially different culture. But they trivialise a complex society.

Ancient Egypt is one of the first civilisations that children are taught about, and so people sometimes assume that it must be a "childish" culture, an early step in humanity's evolution towards modernity. People of all ages visit the displays of mummies in the British Museum, and there can be no more vivid way of stirring anyone's historical imagination than to look into an actual ancient face. But as we stare, we can sometimes forget that they were more than mummies, and that once they were people as complex and sophisticated as us.

Some of our misunderstandings about ancient Egypt come about in part because the Egyptians presented much of their history in a monumental and monolithic form. For centuries, the Egyptians codified in stone their history as a list of kings, each the son of the sun god, each a triumphant hero who, with each reign, re-established order in a chaotic universe. Even now, Egyptian history is conventionally divided into great kingdoms of centralised rule, the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms, divided by periods of supposed chaos.

Tutankhamun chest injury

Heritage Key (Owen Jarus)

A new study shows that Tutankhamun, Egypt’s famous “boy-king” who died around the age of 18, suffered a “massive crushing tearing injury to his chest” that likely would have killed him.

X-rays and CT scans have previously shown that the pharaoh’s heart, chest wall, the front part of his sternum and adjacent ribs, are missing. In Ancient Egypt the heart was like the brain and removing it was something that was not done.

“The heart, considered the seat of reason, emotion, memory and personality, was the only major organ intentionally left in the body,” writes Dr. Robert Ritner in the book Ancient Egypt.

The new research was done by Dr. Benson Harer, a medical doctor with an Egyptology background, who was given access to nearly 1700 CT scan images of Tut that were taken by a team of Egyptian scientists in 2005. Dr. Zahi Hawass, head of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, gave permission for the work.

More re the mudbrick wall at the site of the Sphinx

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El-Aref)

Egyptian archaeologists from the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) working in front of the valley temple of King Khafre on the Giza plateau are currently occupied brushing the sand off a newly-discovered mudbrick wall dating from shortly before Pharaoh Tuthmosis IV came to the throne (ca. 1398-1388 BC). The wall is in two parts: the first part is 75cm high and stretches for 86m from north to south along the eastern side of Khafre's valley temple and the Sphinx, while the second part is 90cm high and is located in the area north of the valley temple. This section is 46m long and runs from east to west along the perimeter of the valley temple area. The two parts of the wall converge at the south-east corner of the excavation area.

Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the SCA, explained that initial studies carried out at the site show that the newly- discovered wall is a part of a larger wall found to the north of the Sphinx. This wall was constructed by Pharaoh Tuthmosis IV as an enclosure to protect the Sphinx from wind-blown sand.

Dig Days - Nazlet Al-Samman and Pyramidiots

Saving Giza (Zahi Hawass)

There are two components to this edition of Dig Days - an understandably frustrated commentary on the "Friends of the Giza Geomatrix Team" (the mind boggles, quite frankly) and a short but informative paragraph about the investigations that took place during the laying of new sewers in Nazlet Al-Samman.

While the sewerage system for the village was being completed we dug in every street of it and were able to discover the whole route of the causeway of the pyramid of Khufu. We recorded limestone blocks in situ and also the base of the causeway in many locations. We discovered that the causeway runs for 700m from Khufu's funerary temple and then turns for 129m until it reaches his valley temple. We recorded limestone blocks to the south of the valley temple that could be the remains of a palace from which Khufu ruled Egypt, as well as a settlement about 3km south of this that could be a 4,500-year-old Downtown!

Exhibition: More re Australia receiving Tutankhamun

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El-Aref)

Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs has now been touring the globe for six years. It has already travelled around Europe and the United States, and now it will fly to Australia and descend on the Melbourne Museum to enjoy the scenic atmosphere of the Carlton Gardens.

Six months ago the director of the Sydney Museum, Frank Howarth, told the Sydney Morning Herald that the show's $10-million price tag and its size were too big for Australian institutions to handle. However, the Melbourne Museum stepped in to allow the Australian exhibition to go ahead in a joint venture with Victoria State and its major events company, the sports and entertainment management company IMG, and the Australian government.

Stephen Flint Wood, managing director of IMG Arts and Entertainment, said that bringing an exhibition that holds such historical significance throughout the world to Australia for the very first time was a great privilege. He also expressed his gratitude to the Victoria government, the Melbourne Museum, Arts Victoria and Tourism Victoria for making the event possible.

Ancient Battle of Actium forged coin found in UK

Daily Mail

A unique Roman coin found by a metal detector was made by an ancient ‘Del Boy’ forger who could not spell and did not know his emperors.

The silver denarius, an average day's pay for a Roman worker, was modelled on coins struck to commemorate the Battle of Actium of 31 BC.

The famous battle saw the combined forces of Roman General Mark Antony and Egyptian Queen Cleopatra defeated by Octavian, who went on to rule as Emperor Augustus.
The silver denarius was made 2,000 years ago but is a terrible fake, with spelling mistakes and even the wrong Emperor

Experts said it was made a few years after Actium but was a terrible fake, probably created from memory by a craftsman who was ‘barely literate’.

One face has a crocodile but it is facing the opposite way to the original.

Emperor Caesar is on the head side, when it should have been Augustus.

And the die cutter misspelled Egypt as Aegipto instead of the common spelling of the time, Aegypto or Aegvpto.

The Pharaonic Village

Al Masry Al Youm (Louise Sarant)

With photos.

n 1984, a renowned papyrus maker, Hussam Ragab, opened the world’s first living museum, the Pharaonic Village on the island of Qorsaya, in Giza. His boundless ambition led him to research the lives of the Ancient Egyptians and their habitat to the smallest details in order to establish a living museum that would realistically depict the everyday lives of the Egyptians 4,000 years ago.

Ragab already owned a part of the Island, where he was growing the world’s largest papyrus plantation. The iconic Egyptian plant had gradually disappeared during the industrial era, when new paper techniques invaded worldwide markets. His quest for papyrus seeds led him to Uganda and Ethiopia and the US, where he viewed an exhibition that retraced the lives of the first American settlers.

The American exhibition gave him the idea for creating a museum on Ancient Egyptian history, but a living one, with actors in costumes operating in a typically Pharaonic environment.

Photo for Today - More from the Walters Art Museum

WM-EG034

Jubilee Vessel of Pepi I
Copyright Rick Menges, with my thanks

Date (Period): ca. 2290 BC (Old Kingdom)
Medium: alabaster (calcite) and pigment
Measurements: bottom: 5 11/16 x 4 3/16 in. (14.5 x 10.7 cm) (h. x diam.);
top: 5 11/16 in. (14.4 cm) (diam.)
Item Description:
The beautiful hieroglyphs on this vessel identify its owner and the ritual in which it was used. On the left is King Pepi I's Horus name (one of a king's five names), "Beloved of the Two Lands [Egypt]." At center is his throne name, Mery-re; below are brief, symmetrical texts reading, "given life and dominion forever." On the right is a text, "First day of the Sed-festival." If an Egyptian king reigned for thirty years, he performed a ritual of renewal, the Sed-festival, in which this vessel would have been used.

New Discovery at Giza

drhawass.com (Zahi Hawass)


Press Release, with photographs.

An Egyptian archaeological mission directed by Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), has discovered a large mud brick wall dating to the reign of King Thuthmose IV (1400-1390 BCE). The wall was uncovered in the area located in front of King Khafre’s valley temple on the Giza plateau.

Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosny added that the discovery was made during routine excavation work carried out by the SCA.

Dr. Hawass stated that the newly discovered wall consists of two parts: the first section is 75cm tall and stretches for 86m from north to south along the eastern side of Khafre’s valley temple and the Sphinx; the second part is 90cm tall and is located in the area north of Khafre’s valley temple. This section is 46m long and runs from east to west along the perimeter of the valley temple area. The two parts of the wall converge at the south-east corner of the excavation area.

Hawass explained that according to initial studies carried out at the site, the newly discovered wall is a part of a larger wall found to the north of the Sphinx. This wall was constructed by King Thuthmose IV as an enclosure to protect the Sphinx from winds. According to ancient Egyptian texts the construction of this wall was the result of a dream which Thuthmose had after a long hunting trip in Wadi El-Ghezlan (Deer Valley), an area next to the Sphinx. In the king’s dream, the Sphinx asked the king to move the sand away from his body because it choked him. For this favor, the Sphinx promised to make Thutmose IV King of Egypt. To accomplish this task, Thuthmose IV removed the sand that had partially buried the Sphinx and built an enclosure wall to preserve it.

Hawass pointed out that archaeologists previously believed that the enclosure wall only existed on the Sphinx’s northern side because a 3m tall by 12 m long section had been found there. This theory has now been disproven thanks to the discovery of the two new wall sections along the eastern and southern sides of the Sphinx.

In addition to the two sections of the enclosure wall, the SCA team found a mudbrick wall on the eastern side of Khafre’s valley temple. Hawass believes that this wall could be the remains of Khafre’s pyramid settlement, which was inhabited by priests and officials who oversaw the activities of the mortuary cult of Khafre. This cult began at the king’s death and continued until the eighth dynasty (ca. 2143-2134 BCE), which was the end of the Old Kingdom.

Essam Shehab, supervisor of Khafre’s valley temple excavation, said that the mission also dug a 6m deep assessment trench in the area located in front of Khafre’s valley temple to search for any activity dating to the Middle Kingdom (2030 – ca. 1660 BCE). Initial inspection did not reveal any Middle Kingdom activity in the trench as it was filled with almost 5m of sand. Such amount of sand, said Shehab, suggested that the area was abandoned during the Middle Kingdom.

Excavations continue in order to reveal the rest of the Thuthmose IV enclosure wall and any other secrets still hidden within the sand.

Memphis development project

Luxor Times

Dr. Zahi Hawass announced that the Supreme Council of Antiquities decided to work on a big project to develop Memphis area with a cost of 41 million pounds.

The Centre of Archaeology and Environment engineering, Cairo University will study a plan to control the underground water in the area. The project includes building walls around the archaeological sites to protect it and start restores the antiquities in that area.

Exhibtion: More re Journey through the Afterlife

The Guardian, UK (Jonathan Jones)

Real-life details fill these books of the dead. Gardens, houses, feasts, clothes, animals and boats are lovingly portrayed. The texts themselves are also very beautiful: it is amazing to look at precisely inked writing that is more than 3,000 years old, a thousand years before Julius Caesar. So why are there comparatively few quotes in this exhibition? Although Budge's translation is now considered dated, there are clear, modern English translations of many of these spells, and surely there should be more of them on the walls.

The show does not stint on deathly drama, however. The setting, under the dome of the old British Museum reading room, is strikingly exploited with ghostly lighting and deep shadows; a mummy's burial chamber is even recreated inside.

More re Tutankhamun in Australia

drhawass.com

Press Release.

Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosny, announced today that the Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs exhibition will travel to Melbourne, Australia at the beginning of April 2011.

Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities added that this is the first time that the treasures of the golden king will be displayed in Melbourne. The exhibition contains 140 objects belonging to King Tut and his family, fifty of which were found by Howard Carter during his excavation of the boy king’s tomb. Tutankhaumn’s tomb was uncovered on November 4, 1922 and is so far the only royal tomb to be discovered intact.

Dr. Hawass said that the exhibition will leave New York City’s Discovery Center in January 2011 in order to travel to Australia. The Melbourne exhibition will contain some never before seen objects, including a statue of King Akhenaten. This statue is being added as a result of DNA analysis, which proved that Akehnaten was the father of Tutankhamun, and the son of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye. This statue depicts Akhenaten in the Amarna style, with physical features of a man and a woman. Many scholars previously thought that these statues were a realistic depiction of the king and that he may have suffered from a disease, which caused him to exhibit severe physical deformities. However, after the CT scan and DNA analysis carried out by the Egyptian Mummy Project (EMP), it was determined that Akhenaten was a completely healthy individual. Dr. Hawass stated that the statuary of the king represented a religious concept of the Amarna age. During this period, the king was supposed to exhibit the qualities of the Aten, or sun disk, which was both male and female. Therefore, Dr. Hawass believes that the statues of Akhenaten are not realistic depictions of the pharaoh.

Australian visitors will also be able to view ground-breaking information on the family tree of Tutankhamun, thanks to the recent findings of the Tutankhamun Family Project. Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs will travel to Australia after visiting many major cities in the USA, including; Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Philadelphia. One million people are expected to visit the exhibit and the income from the show will go towards the construction of the new Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Some of the unique artifacts that visitors will see include: a mannequin statue of the boy king, which would have been used in antiquity to hang ceremonial robes and jewelry; a beautiful golden dagger; a small coffinette used to house one of King Tutankhamun’s internal organs; and other statues of the king. Dr. Hawass believes that this exhibition will be one of the most important events in 2011.

New Book: The Multilingual Experience in Egypt

What's New in Papyrology
The Multilingual Experience in Egypt, from the Ptolemies to the Abbasids
By Dr Arietta Papaconstantinou
Ashgate

For over a millennium and a half, Egypt was home to at least two commonly used languages of communication. Although this situation is by no means exceptional in the ancient and medieval worlds, the wealth of documentary sources preserved by Egypt's papyri makes the country a privileged observation ground for the study of ancient multilingualism. One of the greatest contributions of papyri to this subject is that they capture more linguistic registers than other ancient and medieval sources, since they range from very private documents not meant by their author to be read by future generations, to official documents produced by the administration, which are preserved in their original form. This collection of essays aims to make this wealth better known, as well as to give a diachronic view of multilingual practices in Egypt from the arrival of the Greeks as a political force in the country with Alexander the Great, to the beginnings of Abbasid rule when Greek, and slowly also Coptic, receded from the documentary record.

Toledo Museum of Art new exhibit

Toledo Blade (Tahree Lane)

"People keep saying ‘Where are the mummies?' What they really mean is ‘Tell me about the ancient Egyptians.' They want to know the whole story," said Sandra Knudsen, creator of the exhibit and the museum's associate curator of ancient art.

The first peek at the mummies (especially the partially unwrapped one with its exposed brown, leathery skin), often elicits an "ewww!" followed by questions: Who is it, male or female? How old were they, what did they do?

(Note: The leathery mummy is in a high-sided case that can't be seen by people less than about 36-inches tall, giving parents an option of whether to show young children.)

But who isn't intrigued by a culture that believed they could live forever and take it with them when they died?

A warren of rooms have been constructed to evoke ancient tombs and chapels.

Dig Diary - Proyecto Visir Amen-Hotep Huy

Tendencias21 (Francisco J. Martín Valentín y Teresa Bedman)

For those of you who speak Spanish the TT28 dig diary has been regularly updated throughout October, with lots of photographs, and is now coming to an end.

Va a cumplirse un año del inicio de la excavación de la Tumba del Visir Amen-Hotep, Huy (TA nº -28- en Asasif) por el equipo del Instituto de Estudios del Antiguo Egipto. Hoy el monumento tiene un aspecto imposible de imaginar antes de comenzar los trabajos en noviembre de 2009.

Lecture notes from Toronto

Heritage Key (Owen Jarus)

Thanks to Owen for letting me know that they are blogging about a series of events which have been taking place in Toledo. You can find them at the above address. I don't usually post lecture details but these notes have some useful comments about the lectures themselves attached. For those of you fascinated by Tutankhamun there's one that suggests he was killed by a hippo.

Joann Fletcher profile

The Star, south Yorkshire (Rachael Clegg)

SHE'S discovered the mummy of the most important woman in Ancient Egyptian history - but is now banned from conducting expeditions in the country - and she's from Barnsley - Dr Joann Fletcher talks to star reporter Rachael Clegg about life as an Egyptologist and how her beloved South Yorkshire mining town is more connected with Ancient Egypt than one would think.

With her noise-piercing, wild hair and long black jacket, Joann Fletcher is not how you imagine an Egyptologist to look. There's not a shred of tweed on show and no trace of a plummy accent. This renowned Egyptologist, who is believed to have discovered the body of the beautiful Queen Nefertiti, is as Barnsley as Arthur Scargill.
Joann's here, at the University Centre Barnsley, to deliver a lecture on Yorkshire's historic connections with Egyptology. She's been obsessed with Ancient Egypt since she was a child, thanks to her parents' book collection on the subject. "I was fascinated by the visuals - I loved the primary colours they used and the way they represented people in simplified form," she said.

This fascination would remain with Joann - now 44 - throughout her life. She studied Egyptology at University College London in 1987, followed by a PhD at Manchester University entitled Ancient Egyptian Hair: a study in style, form and function.

It is, of course, widely disputed whether or not Fletcher's identification of Nefertiti is correct.

I was I was her I'm not sure that I would be overjoyed by the comparison to Arthur Scargill!

Photo for Today - More from the Walters Art Museum

WM-EG033
(Top) Sculptor Model for a Royal Bust
(Bottom) Ostracon with a Royal Head

Copyright Rick Menges, with my thanks

(Top) Sculptor Model for a Royal Bust
Date (Period): ca. 200-150 BC (Greco-Roman)
Medium: limestone
Measurements: 7 3/8 x 6 5/16 x 3 3/4 in. (18.8 x 16.1 x 9.5 cm)
Item Description:
A limestone model bust of a royal male wearing the "nemes" headdress with a "uraeus." The "uraeus" serpent has been broken away. As was typical for the period, the "uraeus" had two coils, one to each side and the tail extended back over the top of the rounded "nemes." Beneath the edge of the band of the "nemes" the natural hairline of the figure may be seen. The eyes are naturally outlined and the brow delicately follows the contour of the eye. The pupils and irises of the eyes are picked out in black paint. The surface of the piece has been scratched and chipped in several places. The face is fleshy and rather flat in profile. The lips are pursed and smiling. The back, sides and base are flat planes and there are grid squares etched into the back and sides. Where the lappets touch the shoulder they are creased in an unnaturally sharp way. The lappets are flat with a curved outer edge and strictly vertical inner edge.

(Bottom) Ostracon with a Royal Head
Date (Period): ca. 1280 BC (New Kingdom)
Medium: limestone with ink
Measurements: H: 7 5/16 x W: 5 3/4 x D: 1 1/8 in. (18.5 x 14.6 x 2.9 cm)
Item Description:
This sketch depicts a king wearing the "blue crown," a collar, and two strings of gold beads. His stubble beard is a sign of mourning. The features of the king make it likely that Seti I is represented. The elaborate execution of the royal image, which is without doubt the work of a master painter, differs from the depiction of the two hands. This sketch was probably a model for trainees, and was later reused for other training purposes by an experienced artist. It is interesting that the painter of the royal head has chosen the topic of a stubble-bearded king, which was not part of the official motifs.

Minnesota mummy under the scanner

MinnPost

While many a mummy-costumed trick-or-treater heads to the streets this Halloween weekend, Minnesota’s most famous bona fide mummy is going to Children’s Hospital in St. Paul for a CT scan.

The Science Museum of Minnesota has decided it’s time to strip away some of the mystery from the mummy it acquired in 1925 as a donation from the private collection of Mr. and Mrs. Simon P. Crosby.

Thousands of Minnesotans have seen this mummy over the years without knowing much about it.

A few hints came in 1983 when radiographic studies revealed that all internal organs except the heart had been removed during the mummification process, a common practice that confirms the mummy’s authenticity.

Findings from those tests supported the museum’s theory that the mummy probably was a priest. The evidence pointed to a shaven head, callused feet of a man who walked barefoot and hands that showed no signs of extensive manual labor.

KTTC.com

Just in time for Halloween, the mummy at the Science Museum of Minnesota is getting a CT scan.

Staff at Children's Hospital in St. Paul plan to conduct the scan Friday afternoon.

While the museum already has a scan and other X-ray studies from 1983, researchers hope to learn even more by using modern imaging equipment.

They hope to come away with a 3D model of the mummy's inner workings and new details about his life.

Insights from papyrus research

Science Daily

A University of Cincinnati-based journal devoted to research on papyri is due out Nov. 1. That research sheds light on an ancient world with surprisingly modern concerns: including hoped-for medical cures, religious confusion and the need for financial safeguards.

What's old is new again. That's the lesson that can be taken from the University of Cincinnati-based journal Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists, due out Nov. 1.

The annually produced journal, edited since 2006 by Peter van Minnen, UC associate professor of classics, features the most prestigious global research on papyri, a field of study known as papyrology. (Papyrology is formally known as the study of texts on papyrus and other materials, mainly from ancient Egypt and mainly from the period of Greek and Roman rule.)

Film Record of the EES' 1930s Excavation at Tell El-Amarna

Egypt Exploration Society

Among the many treasures kept in the Egypt Exploration Society's Lucy Gura Archive is the 'film record' of excavations at Tell el-Amarna, which was made over the course of three seasons from 1930 to 1933. A selection of clips is now available below and here [You Tube].

The excerpts used in this case were selected for what they show of the character of the expedition Director, John Pendlebury, and his love of athletic competition and play-acting.

For further information on the film please see the following recently published article:

'The "Film Record of the Egypt Exploration Society's Excavations at Tell-El-Amarna"' KMT vol. 21, No. 3 (Fall 2010), 45-53. http://www.kmtjournal.com/currentissue.htm

The footage is also accompanied by the voices of Julia Samson and Margaret Drower both of whom worked with Pendlebury at Amarna. Their reminiscences were recorded by Rosalind Janssen during the 1990s and digitized recently as part of the Society's Oral History Project. The Society is very grateful to Mrs Janssen for her generosity in allowing the digital recordings to be added to the Society's archives, and for permission to use the sections included here.

Travelling along on the bookshelf

Al Ahram Weekly (Jill Kamil)

Once upon a time and not so long ago, which is to say 60-odd years ago when the monarchy sailed away and the Free Officers took over, there were only two guidebooks on the market. One was the famous Baedeker guide to sites all over Egypt and Nubia; the other my own, Jill Kamil's guides to Luxor, Saqqara and Upper Egypt. Mine long held sway because they were up to date and covered archaeological work in progress. But they, like Baedeker's, eventually became dated, especially after the 1960s when the international missions ended their work on the Nubia Salvage operations and were granted concessions in Egypt. As soon as it was realised that the higher average water table of the River Nile -- one of the disadvantages of the High Dam -- was causing seepage and damage to surviving archaeological sites, excavations were set on motion all over the country of pharaonic, Christian and Islamic sites, not to mention burial grounds.

For a time Nagel's Egypt and the Blue Guide held the market; the latter, in translation, still does. However, with the surge in tourism following the exhibition of Tutankhamon's treasures abroad and the new Son et Lumiere shows at the pyramids; and with a further surge following the successful promotion of "Sun and Sea" coastal holidays alongside "Cultural and Recreational" tourism, with new facilities provided, and transport improved, there was an increased demand for all kinds of books on Egypt, especially guidebooks. The choice is enormous: there are illustrated guides, practical guides, pocket guides and specialised guides.

Museum of Islamic Art centenary

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El-Aref)

Now that refurbishment is complete, would-be visitors to the museum need wait no longer to roam the spacious galleries showcasing its wooden, metal, ceramic, glass, rock crystal and textile objects from across the Islamic world. Following years of neglect, the Museum of Islamic Art has undergone comprehensive rehabilitation not only of its building and interior design, but also of its exhibition design and displays. Before it closed in 2003 the galleries were dark and dusty and the showcases were overstuffed with 100,000 objects.

"Restoring the Museum of Islamic Art was an ambitious and challenging task that illustrates Egypt's commitment to preserving one of the country's Islamic institutions, in addition to its Pharaonic and Coptic heritage," Hosni told Al-Ahram Weekly.

The renovation project has been a lengthy and dedicated one. "The restoration of the Museum of Islamic Art is an extraordinary achievement, executed by some 15 specialists, 20 SCA restorers and 150 workmen with all the work executed to the highest international standards," Hawass said in an interview with the Weekly. "Now that the museum meets the international standards set out by the International Committee of Museums, it is in a position to compete with its counterparts in Europe and America," he said, adding: "Following its reopening, the museum will once again stand as proudly as it ever did."

Hawass said reopening the MIA sent a political massage to the whole globe showing that Islam was not a religion of terror as some tried to put about, but that it supported the arts and encouraged skills and crafts.

TV - The Silver Pharaoh

PBS

Informative trailer for the PBS show The Silver Pharaoh, about the discovery at Tanis in the late 1930s of the tomb of Pharaoh Psusennes I, one of the surprisingly under-sung Egyptian finds, the most remarkable item of which was the silver sarcophagus of the pharaoh. With video.

Tanis, Egypt, circa 1939. On the brink of World War II, an excavation team led by French archaeologist Pierre Montet unearthed an intact royal burial chamber containing treasures that rival the riches found in Tutankhamun’s tomb almost two decades before. But while the Tut discovery created an international sensation, the opening of the tomb in Tanis made barely a ripple in a world focused on impending war.

Now for the first time, we can examine this remarkable and long forgotten find. One of the most spectacular discoveries inside the crypt was the exquisite silver sarcophagus of Pharaoh Psusennes I, an, up till now, obscure ruler who governed Egypt more than 3000 years ago during one of its most difficult periods. As far as we know, this is the only time a pharaoh’s mummy was entombed in silver. The story of the sepulcher and of this virtually unknown pharaoh helps fill in some of the gaps in ancient Egypt’s history.

After Montet made his discovery, he raced to get his family back to Europe before the outbreak of war and the treasures he found were transported to Cairo for safe-keeping. There, they remained vaulted and unstudied, until now. In the season premiere of THIRTEEN’s Secrets of the Dead, a team of Egyptologists decodes hieroglyphic clues and pieces together forensic evidence left behind by Psusennes I, whose lost legacy could rewrite Egyptian history.

Protectorates not protected - The Siwa Oasis

Al Masry Al Youm (Hoda Baraka)

Siwa Oasis became a protectorate in 2002 as per Prime Ministerial decree number 1219, although nowadays visitors would have a hard time noticing any overt measures meant to be in place to ensure that the environment in the area is in fact protected. Such measures are much needed since Siwa is particularly rich environmentally and in cultural history.

Siwa houses a distinguished set of touristic attractions, some of which include Amoun’s temple, the Dead Mountain in Aldakrour area, which has some ancient tombs. There is also the Deheba area, which includes tombs engraved in the rocks from the Greco-Roman era, and the remains of Shali Fortress in the city center.

The biological variety of Siwa, on the other hand, is characterized by the existence of more than 40 species of wild plants, including medical and pastoral. Some of them have significant genetic origins. Moreover, there are around 28 species of wild mammals, some of which are threatened with extinction, such as the hyena, the Egyptian deer, the white deer and the red fox, in addition to 32 types of reptiles and around 164 species of birds.

Book Review: The Akhenaten Colossi of Karnak

Al Ahram Weekly (Jill Kamil)

Lise Manniche, The Akhenaten Colossi of Karnak, The American University in Cairo Press, Cairo and New York, 2010

You will want to read this book -- but perhaps not in the order in which it is published. In The Akhenaten Colossi of Karnak, Lise Manniche examines the colossal statues of the pharaoh Akhenaten erected at the beginning of his reign (1353 -- 1335) in his new temple to the Aten at Karnak. Fragments of more than 30 statues are now known, and show paradoxical features of the king combining male and female, young and aged.

Akhenaten was one of the most controversial rulers of Egypt. Soon after his death his monuments were taken apart and hidden inside or under subsequent buildings. His statues were overturned, mutilated or destroyed. His name was included on none of the subsequent king lists carved in stone or recorded on papyrus by his successors. In other words, the art of the so-called Amarna period, and the life of the pharaoh Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti, were all but stricken from the record and would have been obliterated were it not for modern scholars.

The opening of the Crocodiles museum dedicated to Sobek

Luxor Times

After 3 years of working on the same spot where it used to be the cult for Sobek, the crocodiles museum will be opened Sunday next to Kom Ombo temple. Dr. Zahi Hawass said that the museum cost 10 million Egyptian pounds and it is the first of its kind to display crocodiles of different sizes.

Online: Causing His Name To Live

The University of Memphis

Thanks very much to Chuck Jones for posting this link on the Ancient World Online blog.

Causing His Name to Live: Studies in Egyptian Epigraphy and History in Memory of William J. Murnane Culture and History of the Ancient Near East Volume 37
Edited by Peter Brand and Louise Cooper
(E. J. Brill Academic Publishers: Leiden, 2009)
ISBN 978 90 04 176447 * ISSN 1566-2055
www.brill.nl/chan

William J. Murnane (1945-2000) dedicated his life to the epigraphic recording and historical interpretation of the monuments of pharaonic Egypt. In tribute to his important contributions to Egyptology, a prominent group of his colleagues and students offer a range of new studies on Egyptian epigraphy and historiography. Amarna studies loom large in the volume as they did in Murnane's own work. Several chapters investigate the art, history and chronology of the reigns of Akhenaten and his immediate successors. Other contributions deal with historical issues, especially those connected with the epigraphic and archaeological aspects of the Theban temples of Karnak and Luxor. The book is richly illustrated with photographs and drawings.

Through the generosity of E. J. Brill, all of the content of the book Causing His Name to Live will remain available here for free public use. Although the content is the same, the typesetting and formatting of the material on this website differs from that of the printed book.

Exhibition: Tutankhamun to go to Australia

Herald Sun (Simon Plant)

In a stunning coup, Melbourne Museum will host Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs in April 2011.

Up to 700,000 people are expected to visit the blockbuster exhibition, which showcases 50 of King Tut's burial objects and 80 more treasures unearthed from Egyptian tombs in the Valley of the Kings.

"This is going to truly be a once in a lifetime experience," museum chief Dr Patrick Greene said yesterday.

"The biggest, the greatest exhibition of all time, right here in Melbourne."

A National Geographic exhibition, Tutankhamun has already been seen by seven million people worldwide.

The museum was chosen as the exclusive Australian venue because of its success with blockbusters such as 2009's A Day in Pompeii, which had 332,679 visitors, and Titanic: The Artefact Exhibition, which will end on November 7, has attracted 430,000 people so far.

The Age

Egypt's Ministry of Culture has spiked interest by vowing that this is the last time the boy king's tomb treasures will ever leave his homeland.

Only last December, the director of Sydney's Australian Museum, Frank Howarth, said the show's $10 million price tag and its size were too big for Australian institutions to handle.

But in a coup for Victoria, the Melbourne Museum entered a partnership with sports and entertainment management company IMG to bring the king to Melbourne. Victorian Major Events Company and the State Government also helped to underwrite the bill.

"We looked at bringing it out ourselves and the answer was no," said Dr Patrick Greene, the director of the Melbourne Museum. "It needed IMG to take on the risk."

Exhibition: Lost Egypt

The Shorthorn (Lee Escobedo)

With video.

In 3,000 years, when our current civilization is dead and deep underwater, android robots will teleport excavation teams to our submerged Atlantis to uncover artifacts that give insight into our culture.

Sadly, because of the rise in social networks and dependency on digital media, they will probably unearth cell phones filled with drunken sexts and awkward nude pictures.

For now, the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History’s newest exhibit, “Lost Egypt, Ancient Secrets, Modern Science,” shows until Jan. 3 and hopes to make its attendees a little more aware of Egyptian history.

The 6,000 square-foot exhibit travels the country boasting 15 interactive features, 67 artifacts and eight large photos of Egyptian excavation environments.

Exhibition: Mummies of the world

srippsnews (Dinah Eng)

Many people think of mummies as scary creatures in horror movies, or funny costumed characters that come out at Halloween, but when you walk among real mummies, life and death take on a whole different meaning.

“Mummies of the World,” the largest traveling exhibition of mummies and related artifacts ever assembled, is now on view at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, sharing an intimate look at both naturally and intentionally preserved mummies from various cultures until November 28.

Twenty one museums provided mummies for the exhibit, curated by the Reiss-Englehorn Museums of Mannheim, Germany in association with American Exhibitions, Inc.

“People are fascinated by mummies because they’re such an anomaly,” says Diane Perlov, senior vice president for exhibits at the California Science Center. “Why did they survive, and other things decomposed? People can see themselves in these human mummies.”

Exhibition: Journey through the Afterlife

British Museum (John Taylor)

What is a Book of the Dead? With video An introduction to The Book of the Dead exhibition. John Taylor, curator of the exhibition Journey Through the Afterlife, talks about the star of the exhibition.

I’m the curator of the exhibition Journey through the afterlife: ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, which opens at the British Museum on 4 November 2010. The exhibition is the result of years of work behind the scenes in planning, preparation and research. It’s exciting to be able to focus on these special documents and to have the rare opportunity to display such a variety of them.

‘Book of the Dead’ is a modern term for a collection of magical spells that the Egyptians used to help them get into the afterlife. They imagined the afterlife as a kind of journey you had to make to get to paradise – but it was quite a hazardous journey so you’d need magical help along the way.

The Book of the Dead isn’t a finite text – it’s not like the Bible, it’s not a collection of doctrine or a statement of faith or anything like that – it’s a practical guide to the next world, with spells that would help you on your journey.

The ‘book’ is usually a roll of papyrus with lots and lots of spells written on it in hieroglyphic script. They usually have beautiful coloured illustrations as well.

New Zealand Herald

When it comes to scary monsters, the ancient Egyptian devourer is always going to be hard to top.

With the head of a crocodile, the body of a lion and the hindquarters of a hippo, it is certainly more exotic than the average Halloween outfit.

And, though it sounds risible now, for centuries in Egypt the grim fear of meeting this evil, "cut 'n' shut" beast on the other side of death helped to shore up an entire system of belief, a system shared by pharaohs and artisans. In fact, the devourer played a key part in one of the most intriguing tenets of faith humankind has yet come up with: The Book of the Dead.

Next month, the most comprehensive exhibition to be staged on this ancient doctrine of denying death will open inside the Reading Room at the British Museum.

It will showcase, for the first time, the entire length of the Greenfield Papyrus, which, at 37m, lays out each detailed stage of a journey the ancient Egyptians believed they would all have to make when mortal life had slipped away.

On display, too, will be a succession of paintings taken from the papyri of Hunefer and of Ani, probably the two most famous works to depict the many episodes, or trials, that together constitute The Book of the Dead.

Online: Careers for Women in Ancient Egypt

BBC (Joann Fletcher)

In order to understand their relatively enlightened attitudes toward sexual equality, it is important to realise that the Egyptians viewed their universe as a complete duality of male and female. Giving balance and order to all things was the female deity Maat, symbol of cosmic harmony by whose rules the pharaoh must govern.

The Egyptians recognised female violence in all its forms, their queens even portrayed crushing their enemies, executing prisoners or firing arrows at male opponents as well as the non-royal women who stab and overpower invading soldiers. Although such scenes are often disregarded as illustrating 'fictional' or ritual events, the literary and archaeological evidence is less easy to dismiss. Royal women undertake military campaigns whilst others are decorated for their active role in conflict. Women were regarded as sufficiently threatening to be listed as 'enemies of the state', and female graves containing weapons are found throughout the three millennia of Egyptian history.

Talking about the BBC's 100 Objects

artknows (Tom Flynn)

A bit off-topic, but an interesting post about the BBC's "History of the World in 100 Objects," of which I have heard really polarized views. Tom Flynn tackles the implications of some of the items discussed in the context of colonialism and repatriation.

Exhibition: Photographs from Manchester

Luxor News Blog (Jane Akshar)

Jane has posted nine photographs sent to her from the exhibition of replicas, Tutankhamun: His Tomb and His Treasures.

Photo for Today - More from the Walters Art Museum

WM-EG027
(Left) Head of King Amasis
(Right) Head of Ptolemy II

Copyright Rick Menges, with my thanks

(Left) Head of King Amasis
Date (Period): ca. 560 BC (Late Period)
Medium: red quartzite
Measurements: 12 3/8 x 7 7/8 x 9 1/4 in. (31.5 x 20 x 23.5 cm)
Item Description:
King Amasis was the next to last ruler of the 26th Dynasty. The head probably came from a temple statue. He wears the traditional royal nemes head cloth, with a protective uraeus serpent at the brow.

(Right) Head of Ptolemy II
Date (Period): ca. 280 BC (Greco-Roman)
Medium: gray granite
Measurements: 11 1/4 x 8 11/16 x 9 1/2 in. (28.5 x 22 x 24.2 cm);
mount: 8 7/16 x 6 5/8 x 6 5/8 in. (21.5 x 16.8 x 16.9 cm)
Item Description:
In 332 BC, Alexander the Great freed Egypt from Persian control and made it part of his growing empire. One of his generals, Ptolemy Lagus, was sent to Egypt to serve as governor after Alexander's sudden death in 323 BC. Ptolemy eventually crowned himself king and founded the Ptolemaic Dynasty. One of the early rulers of this Dynasty is represented in this elegant, life-size head. The Ptolemaic rulers were sensitive to the political needs of their diverse subjects. Therefore, royal portraiture is mainly of two types, one in strictly Egyptian style, like this head, and the other purely Greek.