New Book: Tomb of Hetepi, Abusir

Czech Institute of Egyptology

Miroslav Bárta, Filip Coppens, Hana Vymazalová et al.
Tomb of Hetepi (AS 20), Tombs AS 33-35 and AS 50-53
Charles University in Prague, Prague 2010

The tombs published in this volume of the Abusir series have been excavated during several seasons at Abusir South. The eight tombs are located in the easternmost sector of Abusir South, on the slopes (tombs AS 20 and AS 33) and at the bottom (tombs AS 34-35, 50-53) of a large but low hill, to the north of the so-called Wadi Abusiri. They do not form a single cemetery; rather, they represent different groups of sacral structures that illustrate very well the diachronic development of the Abusir South necropolis during the Old Kingdom and the Late Period-Ptolemaic era. Most if not all of the structures document in a new way important archaeological and historical themes, such as the origin and development of the false door tradition; early administration (tomb AS 20); unique building development of early Old Kingdom tombs (AS 20 and 33); the late Old Kingdom sociology of family cemeteries (tombs AS 34-35 and 50-53) and the appearance of new Late Period animal cemeteries (tombs AS 33, 34-35 and 50-53). Format: A4, 422 pages, many b-w photos and plans, hardcover.

Avaiable from a number of online retailers.

Ideological concealment of mummies

The Independent, UK (Tiffany Jenkins)

Egyptian mummies used to be among the most popular displays in British museum collections. But their days as a visitor attraction may be numbered. Increasingly they are being secreted away by curators, hidden away from the public without consultation.

In the coming year, Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery will publish its first policy specifically on the use and display of human remains. It is clear from the draft that staff are increasingly sensitive about exhibits of ancient bodies and skeletons. Recommendations include erecting signs to "alert" visitors that such material is on display – and reconsidering whether to show it at all.

Already the museum has dramatically altered what is on display. It used to present its celebrated collection of Egyptian mummies in open sarcophagi, but now keeps the lids semi-closed because, curators say, that is more respectful. Visitors are only permitted to see photographs of unwrapped mummies and they have to positively opt in to this by switching on the light.

More discoveries at Amara West

British Museum (Charly Valance)

Exerpt:

With some great photos, as usual. Lovely to see things coming along nicely at Amara West, whilst everything goes on hold in Egypt.

In my second season at Amara West – I spend the rest of the year as a field archaeologist in the UK – I have been excavating in the south-west portion of the town, an area never previously investigated, alongside Shadia Abdo Rabo, a curator at the Sudanese National Museum, also acting as our inspector from the National Corporation of Antiquities and Museums.

The first stage of our work was to locate the south-west corner of the town’s enclosure wall. You might think a wall 3.5 metres wide and several metres high would be easy to find, especially with the help of magnetometry data.

The architecture of excavation – sandbags keeping sand out of the deep trench

But, after two days of hard digging, there was no sign of the wall corner; local workman Abdul Razig was becoming increasingly frustrated and threatened to move trenches!

On the fifth day, relief, as several areas of mudbrick were exposed and identified as belonging to the town walls. The walls have suffered badly from deep pits dug through them to extract clay for building material.

Book Review: Qasr Ibrim - The Greek and Coptic Inscriptions

Bryn Mawr Classical Review (Reviewed by Pieter W. van der Horst)

Adam Lajtar, Jacques van der Vliet, Qasr Ibrim: The Greek and Coptic Inscriptions (Journal of Juristic Papyrology Supplement XIII). Warsaw: University of Warsaw Press, 2010.

Exerpt:

Qasr Ibrim is an archaeological site in the southern area of Egypt (between Aswan and Abu Simbel) that in antiquity and the Middle Ages was part of Nubia. In the sixth century CE, Nubia converted to Christianity and remained a country with a rich Christian culture till the fourteenth century when it was forced to accept Islam. The town of Qasr Ibrim had a cathedral, several churches, monasteries, and other buildings. Excavations have been going on there since the beginning of the previous century and these have yielded, inter alia, quite a number of inscriptions, both in Greek and in Coptic, not all of which have been published so far. The Polish epigraphist Lajtar and the Dutch Egyptologist Van der Vliet now present in this volume almost one hundred Christian inscriptions discovered during archaeological field work of the Egypt Exploration Society at Qasr Ibrim since 1963. All inscriptions are described in detail (in most cases with photos added), transcribed, translated, and commented upon. Since both editors have much experience in this field, they do an excellent job.

St. Louis Art Museum files suit

Google / The Canadian Press

The St. Louis Art Museum has filed a federal lawsuit to try to keep a 3,200-year-old mummy mask that Egypt wants returned, claiming it was stolen.

The museum says the U.S. government is trying to seize the 20-inch (51-centimetre)-long funeral mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer and return it to Egypt. But the museum says it has legal rights to the mask it purchased from a New York art dealer for $499,000 in 1998.

KMOV.com

The St. Louis Art Museum is going to court to try to keep a 3,200-year-old mummy mask that Egypt wants returned, claiming it was stolen nearly two decades ago.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in St. Louis on Tuesday, the museum is seeking a judgment to prevent the U.S. government from seizing the 20-inch-long funeral mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer and returning it to Egypt. The museum claims it legally purchased the mask, that there was no evidence the mask was ever stolen, and that the statute of limitation has expired for any seizure under the Tariff Act of 1930.

Museum attorney David Linenbroker said Wednesday that the lawsuit was filed after a Jan. 13 meeting in which federal prosecutors made it clear they intended to begin proceedings to seize the mask and return it to Egypt.

More re false toe research

Science Daily

Two artificial big toes -- one found attached to the foot of an ancient Egyptian mummy -- may have been the world's earliest functional prosthetic body parts, says the scientist who tested replicas on volunteers.

University of Manchester researcher, Dr Jacky Finch, has shown that a three-part wood and leather artefact housed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, along with a second one, the Greville Chester artificial toe on display in the British Museum, not only looked the part but also helped their toeless owners walk like Egyptians.

The toes date from before 600BC, predating what was hitherto thought to be the earliest known practical prosthesis -- the Roman Capula Leg -- by several hundred years.

Dr Finch, who is based in the University of Manchester's KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology, recruited two volunteers whose right big toe had been lost in order to test exact replicas of the artificial toes in the Gait Laboratory at Salford University's Centre for Rehabilitation and Human Performance Research.

Writing in the Lancet, Dr Finch said: "To be classed as true prosthetic devices any replacement must satisfy several criteria."

Past Horizons

University of Manchester researcher, Dr Jacky Finch, has shown that a three-part wood and leather artefact housed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, along with a second one, the Greville Chester artificial toe on display in the British Museum, not only looked the part but also helped their toe-less owners walk.

The toes date from before 600 BCE, pre-dating what was hitherto thought to be the earliest known practical prosthesis, the Roman Capua leg which dated to c. 300 BCE. Unfortunately, the Capua leg was burned when the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons was bombed in World War II.

Dr Finch, who is based in the University of Manchester’s KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology, recruited two volunteers whose right big toe had been lost in order to test replicas of the artificial toes in the Gait Laboratory at Salford University’s Centre for Rehabilitation and Human Performance Research.

Exhibition: Secret Egypt at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum

Culture 24

Coventry, UK

Since then a heady concoction of entertaining Hollywood films, novels and occasional crack-pot theories have taken the world of mummies, pyramids, pharaohs - and even aliens - and fashioned them into a melting pot of Egyptomania.

Now the Herbert Museum in Coventry is exploring these myths and secrets of Ancient Egypt via a blockbuster exhibition.

With artefacts from the Ashmolean Museum, Bolton Museum and Art Gallery, the British Museum, Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery, the Manchester Museum, the Foyle Foundation and The Henry Moore Foundation, Secret Egypt showcases over 200 Ancient Egyptian effects borrowed from the store rooms of the UK’s top Egyptology collections.

Birmingham Post (Alison Jones)

Were the pyramids the work of aliens? Are the tombs of the Pharaohs cursed? And why would Raiders of the Lost Ark get a thumbs up from an Egyptologist when it comes to accuracy? A new exhibition at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum in Coventry sets out to unravel some of these millennia old myths and mysteries, and also to expose visitors to pieces that have been packed away in storage, away from the public eye, for decades.

Secret Egypt has been curated by Chris Kirby, an Egyptologist and Head of Collections at the Herbert, together with his co-curator, and Keeper of Collections, Ali Wells.

Their aim was to create a showcase that stood out from other exhibitions, from the conventional displays of art or religious and historical objects.

“We wanted to take a subject that is generally well known but just approach it in a provocative and exciting way,” says Chris.

He was inspired by how much resonance the period still has today, that it continues to be a source of ideas for everything from blockbuster films, like Raiders, Stargate or The Mummy, to adverts for comparison websites.

“It has a got a lot of power in our society, it is something that people relate to. But there are misconceptions and misunderstandings about Ancient Egypt. In the exhibition we look at some of these enduring myths and at the evidence behind them, then we ask the visitor to reassess that evidence.”

The exhibition's dedicated website is at
http://secretegypt.org.uk/

All sites in Luxor open for tourists

Luxor News Blog (Jane Akshar)

Jane has been keeping readers updated with the situation at Karnak. Mansour Boraik of the SCA phoned Jane to reiterate that ALL sites in Upper Egypt are open and welcome visitors. Jane had to explain that the lack of tourists was down to advice being delivered by the Embassies, including the U.K.'s Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The good news is that the FCO, amongst others, has changed the advice being given, saying that they no longer advise against non-essential travel to Luxor.

Online resource - Spanish Egyptology portal

Egiptologos.es

Including links to free downloads of books, articles and theses.

Photo for Today - more from the Temple of Luxor

Thanks to everyone for the good wishes for my cold, and thanks to Kate for posting the articles that were of critical importance. A friend of mine has the same cold and the main symptom, apart from some very minor coughing and snuffling, is an inability to stay awake for any period of time. Apparently it is hitting a lot of people around the UK. Feeling much better today, and am even managing to stay awake for more than an hour at a stretch!

My favoured reading whilst sitting under my duvet feeling sorry for myself was Chapter 17 from the Book of Going Forth By Day - but it was pointed out to me that when I told friends who don't know much about Egypt that I was taking the "Book of the Dead" to bed with me whilst feeling unwell it might give out quite the wrong signals :-)

A figure of the goddess Seshat carved on the back of the throne of
the seated statue of Rameses II.


With thanks to Jon Bosworth for both text and photograph.

Breaking News: Akhenaten Statue Found

From Jane Akshar:

The Akhenaton statue has been found!!! Just on the phone to a very excited Mansour Boraik who was so happy to tell me the statue had been found.

There are no other sources yet for this story so we don't know where it was found, nor its condition.  (It had been reported slightly damaged before it was reported stolen.)

Mummy's false toe may be the world's oldest known prosthetic device

JS Online (Journal Sentinel)

A University of Manchester researcher believes two artificial big toes, one of which was found on the foot of an Egyptian mummy, may represent the earliest prosthetic devices.

The toes, which predate 600 B.C., would be several hundred years older than the Roman Capula Leg, previously considered the oldest prosthetic device.

Update 16th February

The abstract linked contains more than the quote presented, but the University of Manchester has recognise the popularirty of this story and has posted a new article which as more information.  The original paper was published in the Lancet.

British Goverment Updates Advice on Travel to Egypt

UK Foreign and Commenwealth Office - 15th February 2011

This advice has been updated with new amendments to the Travel Summary and Safety and Security Political Situation. We continue to advise against all but essential travel to Cairo (all four governorates, including Giza), Alexandria, and Suez. However, we no longer advise against all but-essential travel to Luxor.  We have also removed the recommendation that British nationals without a pressing need to be in Cairo Alexandria and Suez leave by commercial means.

Yuya Heart Scarab and One Ushabti Retrieved

Al Arabiya News

 But Zahi Hawass, recently named minister of state for antiquities affairs, said in a statement that some objects including a Heart Scarab and a small Ushabti statue were found.

Part of a coffin dating back to the Modern Kingdom 3,000 years ago was also found outside the museum.

"We found two of the eight missing artifacts outside the museum between a government building that got burnt and the gift shop. We are continuing the search and will find more," Hawass told Reuters.

Other sources carry the same story in pretty much the same form, but Ahram Online states that the items were found on the ground outside the museum gift shop. Most reports also include news of the theft from the De Morgans magazine at Dashur:

Ahram Online

Minister of State for Antiquities Zahi Hawass announced that an inventory carried out at Darshour storage gallery, known as De-Morgans, by the site inspectors, reveals that there are eight missing amulets. A huge iron gate is to be erected around the gallery in an attempt to tighten security.

Andie has a cold so I will catch up on any other news headlines before I go to bed, although I don't think there is much.

Happy Valentine's Day to all readers

Valentine's Day Doodle

Chasing Mummies

I've just noticed that the series Chasing Mummies, which had such polarized reviews when it aired in the US, is starting on UK television tonight on Sky 3. I won't be in to watch it so I won't be reviewing it. Here's the Radio Times online summary:

Egyptologist Dr Zahi Hawass and his team supervise the restoration of the Step Pyramid, the oldest in Egypt, but a member of the fellowship program becomes trapped inside.

Photographs of items looted from Egyptian Museum

Eloquent Peasant (Margaret Maitland)

Margaret Maitland has posted photographs of some of the missing items and will add more soon.

Very sad official news that items have gone missing from Egyptian Museum and Dashur

drhawass.com

With photos. Zahi Hawass, Minister of Antiquities, has confirmed that against his expectations and predictions an inventory of the museum following the break-in has resulted in the finding that items have been looted from the museum, including items from the Tutankhamun collection:

The staff of the database department at the Egyptian Museum, Cairo have given me their report on the inventory of objects at the museum following the break in. Sadly, they have discovered objects are missing from the museum. The objects missing are as follows:

1. Gilded wood statue of Tutankhamun being carried by a goddess

2. Gilded wood statue of Tutankhamun harpooning. Only the torso and upper limbs of the king are missing

3. Limestone statue of Akhena

ten holding an offering table

4. Statue of Nefertiti making offerings

5. Sandstone head of an Amarna princess

6. Stone statuette of a scribe from Amarna

7. Wooden shabti statuettes from Yuya (11 pieces)

8. Heart Scarab of Yuya


An investigation has begun to search for the people who have taken these objects, and the police and army plan to follow up with the criminals already in custody. I have said if the Egyptian Museum is safe, than Egypt is safe. However, I am now concerned Egypt is not safe.

In another terrible turn of events, last night a magazine in Dahshur was broken into; it is called De Morgan’s. This magazine contains large blocks and small artifacts.

Blog update

I took yesterday off and I am busy but will resume normal posting on Monday. I will , however, post any breaking news today.

Mubarak has stepped down

Impossible not to post the news that Mubarak has stepped down. Quite remarkable! Tahrir Square is one big happy and peaceful party. Families and members of the military are shown mixing with the crowd and everyone there seem to be elated.

The Higher Military Council has apparently been put into temporary control, replacing Mubarak's government, and we will have to wait and see what will happen in the next few days and weeks. Hopefully real reform will follow.

The next few weeks will be very interesting, but in the meantime here are some very recent reports on the subject on the Web.

Interesting that Switzerland have announced that they are freezing Mubarak's assetts. Tunisians are apparently out on the streets to celebarate Mubarak's resignation as well.

(photo from the BBC)

Al Jazeera
The BBC
CNN videos
The Guardian Live
New York Times