Massive statue of Egyptian ruler Taharqa found deep inside Sudan

Heritage Key (Owen Jarus)

A massive one ton granite statue of the pharaoh Taharqa has been found in Dangeil, deep inside Sudan. Taharqa was a pharaoh of the 25th dynasty of Egypt. This was a period of Kushite rule, which means that Taharqa and his fellow rulers were from Nubia and drew their power-base from there.

The site is located approximately 350 km northeast of the modern Sudanese capital of Khartoum – in the general vicinity of the fifth Nile cataract.

In addition to Taharqa, archaeologists have found statues of two other Napatan kings at the site - Senkamanisken and Aspelta. Neither of these rulers controlled Egypt.

Photo for Today: Mustafa, inspecting the downside. Literally.

When the route over a dune in the Great Sand Sea looked potentially dangerous to
the lead driver, in this case Mustafa, he heads to the very top of the dune to
see what the view is like, what the sand is like, and whether or not the Landcruisers should
travel over that particular crest.

On this occasion it was decided that
the drivers would take the vehicles after all passengers had been evacuated,
to walk, slide or roll down at leisure, thereby reducing the risk for everyone
and lightening the load for the vehicles.

Feature: King Tut's Treasures: Perfumes, Alabaster Vessels and Wine for the Afterlife

 

Heritage Key

http://tinyurl.com/yfxvtzc

(Paula Veiga)

 

With video

 

“In this Heritage Key video, Dr. Janice Kamrin, head of the Egyptian Museum Database Project, shows and discusses some of the lifestyle objects found in Tutankhamun’s tomb by Carter in 1922, and now housed in The Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Board games, and containers for perfumes, cosmetics and unguents, are amongst the objects shown in this video that give an insight into the livestyles of the rich and famous ancient Egyptians. You can catch up on the previous videos in this series when Dr Kamrin looks at Animal iconography (Watch the video), The Canopic Shrine, Chest and Jars (Watch the video) and last week's video on the Ritual Figures inside the tomb of King Tut (Watch the video).

A Senet game box with game pieces is one of the most intricate and impressive pieces described by Dr Kamrin. King Tut was evidently a big fan of senet, as evidenced by the number of board games found in his tomb. Senet is known to have associations with the gods and goddesses. Dr. Kamrin refers a passage from The Book of The Dead where you would have to play against an invisible opponent and you have to win in order to progress into your own afterlife, although the exact rules of the game are unknown.”

 

In the field: More re the Alexandrian monolith

 

 

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/978/eg8.htm  
(Nevine El-Aref)

 

“After 14 centuries, a giant monolith from a submerged temple was raised from the seabed in Alexandria last week, Nevine El-Aref watched the dramatic recovery.

There was more activity than usual in Alexandria's Eastern Harbour last week as a team working offshore made preparations to ready the dock for the unloading of a giant piece of history. An enormous yellow crane stood ready to lift a pylon, or ceremonial entrance tower, belonging to the Ptolemaic temple of Isis Lochias which has been under the sea for 14 centuries.

Meanwhile, five underwater archaeologists in diving gear were inspecting the planned route on the seabed along which pylon tower would be moved.

The event was watched by 1,000 or so Egyptian and international journalists, TV anchors, photographers and producers as well as curious local people. It was planned that the media observe the event from the deck of a yacht, however, this wasn't possible due to the bad weather that hit Alexandria

The weather also interfered with plans for raising the pylon. After mud and scum which clung to the surface of the pylon, a huge, single block of granite was removed, the monolith was dragged across the seabed”

Trivia: Talking pyramid clock

http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/the-pyramid-talk-clock-28-12-2009/

 

There is very little news today but I really do need to test this email interface into Blogger, so here’s a bit of trivia for you.  There’s a photo of the pyramid clock on the above page.

 

“In the early 1980’s talking pyramid clocks were extremely popular. The Pyramid Talk Clock was the world’s first talking clock and worked by pressing the shiny pyramid at the top. The clock was considered legendary. Now, the pyramid clock is back in an updated version.”

 

It is just as well that I didn’t see this before Christmas or most of my friends would have found themselves with one!

New Book: Images of Egypt in Early Biblical Literature

http://www.degruyter.de/cont/fb/th/detailEn.cfm?id=IS-9783110221718-1

Russell, Stephen C.
Images of Egypt in Early Biblical Literature. Cisjordan-Israelite, Transjordan-Israelite, and Judahite Portrayals
2009 | Hardcover
ISBN 978-3-11-022171-8
Series: Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 403
Also available as an eBook

“This book suggests a regional paradigm for understanding the development of the traditions about Egypt and the exodus in the Hebrew Bible. It offers fresh readings of the golden calf stories in 1 Kgs 12:25-33 and Exod 32, the Balaam oracles in Num 22-24, and the Song of the Sea in Exod 15:1b-18 and from these paints a picture of the differing traditions about Egypt that circulated in Cisjordan Israel, Transjordan Israel, and Judah in the 8th century B.C.E. and earlier.

In the north, an exodus from Egypt was celebrated in the Bethel calf cult as a journey of Israelites from Egypt to Cisjordan, without a detour eastward to Sinai. This exodus was envisioned in military terms as suggested by the nature of the polemic in Exod 32, and the attribution of the exodus to the warrior Yahweh, Israel’s own deity. In the east, a tradition of deliverance from Egypt was celebrated, rather than the idea of a journey, and it was credited to El. In the south, Egypt was recognized as a major enemy, whom Yahweh had defeated, but the traditions there were not formulated in terms of an exodus.

While acknowledging the reshaping of these traditions in response to the exile, Images of Egypt argues that they originated in the pre-exilic period and relate to Syro-Palestinian history as it is otherwise known.”

Blog Updates until early/mid January

I'm off to my mountain retreat tomorrow with my father. This now has a landline phone but no broadband so I will be picking up emails but having very little time on the web. I have changed my Blogger settings so that I can email stories in to the blog instead of updating via the web. I've tested it and it appears to be working This will mean that the posts will not have their usual formatting.

I will schedule the "photo for today" to go automatically. There has been so very little news to report recently that there may be days with photos and no accompanying posts!

I'll be adding news items as and when they arrive today, rather than doing them in the usual block, so that I can be sure that the email solution works.

All the best
Andie
xx

Photo for Today: Murad, Gilf Kebir 2007

Well if you couldn't be impressed with that sort of view
what would would impress you?
Simply gorgeous.

Museum: New Islamic Art Galleries at Brooklyn Museum

Arts Museum Journal (Stan Parchin)

With photos.

The reinstallation of the Islamic art galleries at the Brooklyn Museum includes works from the 8th Century to modern times. Opened on June 5, 2009, the permanent display highlights 134 objects from some 1,700 in an American collection considered top-notch by art historians. Twenty works have never before or rarely been seen by the public.

Arts of the Islamic World Collection
Especially strong in later Iranian art, the Brooklyn Museum's Islamic holdings come from North Africa, the Middle East, Central and Southeast Asia. On view are illustrated and illuminated manuscripts, calligraphies, drawings, oil paintings, ceramics, glass, metal- and woodwork, carpets, costumes, textiles, jewelry and architectural elements. Originally part of the Department of Ethnology in 1903, the collection was administered by the Department of Asian Art from the 1980s until 2007.

The museum's reinstallation uses new signage, explanatory texts and maps to describe the thematically arranged works from Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and other countries.

Museum: Royal Jewelry Museum

Egypt State Information Service

The Ministry of Culture has completed renovation works of Alexandria Royal Jewelry Museum in preparation for inaugurating it at the beginning of 2010.

The Museum has been supplied with the state-of-the-art showcases suitable for exhibiting valuable jewelry that were owned by Mohamed Ali family. Culture Minister Farouk Hosni, Alexandria Governor, Dr. Zahi Hawas will attend the ceremony.

Minister Hosni said the project took three years to complete and cost LE50 million.

Online Journal: Egypt and Nubia in the 5th-4th millennia BCE

British Museum

Egypt and Nubia in the 5th–4th millennia BCE: A view from the First Cataract and its surroundings

Maria Carmela Gatto
British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan 13 (2009): 125–45

Introduction
Prehistoric sites were first found in the area of the First Cataract of the Nile more than a century ago (Weigall 1907; Reisner 1910; Junker 1919). These sites were assigned to the A-Group culture (Reisner 1910) because of the Nubian elements indentified in their material remains. A Nubian cultural affiliation was expected since the sites were located in the region of Aswan, positioned at the border between Egypt and Nubia. However, a review of the available data has shown that, in the area surrounding Aswan and southward to Metardul, the percentage of Nubian material is always extremely low compared to the Egyptian component, thus suggesting that the sites in this region should be affiliated with the Naqada culture rather than the Nubian A-Group (Gatto and Tiraterra 1996; Gatto 1997; 1998; 2000; 2006a; 2006b).
This revised cultural affiliation, however, does not answer the question of how the Nubian and Egyptian components are related. Before this relationship can be assessed, two questions must be addressed:

1) What is a frontier, and so how should we define the Egyptian-Nubian frontier?
2) What are the cultural consequences resulting from the interaction of two human groups in their boundary zone, and how can this be detected in the archaeological record?

Online Journal: Spectral Imaging of Ostraca

PalArch

Gregory Bearman* & William A. Christens-Barry

Bearman, G. & W.A. Christens-Barry. 2009.
Spectral Imaging of Ostraca
Palarch’s Journal of Archaeology of Egypt/Egyptology 6(7) (2009), 1-20.

ABSTRACT
By analogy with ancient texts, infrared imaging of ostraca has long been employed to
help improve readings. We report on extensive spectral imaging of ostraca over the visible and near infrared. Spectral imaging acquires the complete spectrum for each pixel in an image; the data can be used with an extensive set of software tools that were developed originally for satellite and scientifi c imaging. In this case, the spectral data helps explain why infrared imaging works to improve text legibility (and why not in some cases). A better understanding of the underlying imaging mechanism points the way for inexpensive methods for taking data either in the fi eld or at museums.

Online Journal: An interdisciplinary study of the Farafara Oasis

http://www.wgsr.uw.edu.pl/pub/uploads/mcg04/22plit.pdf

AN INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDY OF THE FARAFRA OASIS (EGYPT) BY A TEAM FROM THE INSTITUTE OF DEVELOPING COUNTRIES AT THE FACULTY OF GEOGRAPHY

AND REGIONAL STUDIES OF WARSAW UNIVERSITY
Florian Plit
Miscellanea Geographical 2004, Vol.11

Abstract: During January and February 2004, an interdisciplinary group from the Institute of Developing Countries at the Faculty of Geography and Regional Studies of Warsaw University spent time at the Farafra Oasis in Egypt, observing changes in resource management and transformations in the society. The aim was to compare the results with those of earlier studies conducted in 1993.

Online Resource: Egyptian Initiation (article)

NWO Library

Carolyn Harris

Egyptologists like Morenz, Piankoff, Mercer, Frankfort, Faulkner, Assmann, Hornung or Allen have good reasons to stress the difference between the Greek and the Pharaonic perspective on initiation (from the Latin "initio", introduce into a new life). The Egyptians maintained a series of rituals aimed at "a constantly renewed regeneration" (Hornung, 2001, p.14). At best, the Greeks induced the point of death in order to glimpse into its darkness, to "see the goddess" and renew. But they had no "science of the Hades" as in the Amduat. The active continuity between life and death found in Egypt, contradicts the closed and separated interpretation of the Greeks, fostering "escapism" (the "body" as a "prison" out of which one needs to escape). In Egypt, no "new" life was necessary. Death could bring "more" life. For both life and the afterlife depended on identical conditions : offerings ; either directly to the deities through Pharaoh or indirectly to the Ka of the deceased. If dualism fits the Greeks, triadism is Egyptian.

Feature: The 10 most important Egyptian objects outside Egypt

Egyptians blog (lovely Tim Reid)

Tim has helpfully assembled a list of Egyptian artefacts which are not in Egypt's hands but are of considerable importance. Very topical at the moment, of course.

This is a list of the most important Egyptian artifacts not the property of Egypt's Supreme council of antiquities. Though there are certainly more contenders for the list including perhaps the gold headdress of a wife of Thutmosis III in New York's Metropolitan museum of art or the Norbert Schimmel talatats from that same institution.

Photo: Theban Tomb 1

drhawass.com

A lovely photograph of Theban Tomb 1 (the tomb of Sennedjem) at Deir el Medina, taken by Sandro Vannini, has been added to Hawass's site.

For more photos and information about the tomb of Sennedjem see the following links:

http://osirisnet.net/tombes/artisans/sennedjem1/e_sennedjem1_01.htm
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/egypt/sennedjem.html
http://egyptsites.wordpress.com/2009/02/07/tomb-of-sennedjem-tt1/
http://wesheb.tdonnelly.org/esenedj.html

Photo for Today: Helen leaving the Wadi Obeyid cave, Farafra

In the field: More re Cleopatra

The Age (Helena Smith)

THEY were one of the world's most famous couples, who lived lives of power and glory but who spent their last hours in despair and confusion. Now, more than 2000 years since Antony and Cleopatra walked the earth, historians believe they may finally have solved the riddle of their last hours together.

A team of Greek marine archaeologists, who have spent years conducting underwater excavations off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt, have unearthed a giant granite threshold of a door they believe was once the entrance to a magnificent mausoleum that Cleopatra VII, queen of the Egyptians, had built for herself shortly before her death.

They believe the 15-tonne antiquity would have held a seven-metre-high door so heavy that it would have prevented the queen from consoling her Roman lover before he died, reputedly in 30BC.

''As soon as I saw it, I thought we are in the presence of a very special piece of a very special door,'' said Harry Tzalas, the historian who leads the Greek team. ''There was no way that such a heavy piece, with fittings for double hinges and double doors, could have moved with the waves, so there was no doubt in my mind that it belonged to the mausoleum. Like Macedonian tomb doors, when it closed, it closed for good.''

Mr Tzalas believes the discovery of the threshold sheds new light on an element of the couple's dying hours which has long eluded historians.

Online Resource: The Art of Ancient Egypt

scribd.com

The Art of Ancient Egypt: A Resource for Educators.
Metropolitan Museum

Available for download free of charge in PDF format.

Lecture: TT33 Padiamenope ala Petamenophis

Luxor News Blog (Jane Akshar)

Jane kindly took some notes for her readers as usual, but the lecture was in French so most of her notes were taken from the occasional slide with English captions. Here's an extract:

TT33 Padiamenope ala Petamenophis – Pr Claude Traunecker.

Sadly this lecture was in French so my notes are from the occasional English slide title


The tomb is situated in the Assasif next to Pabasa. It is the largest tomb in Egypt. In 1737 Richard Pocoke thought it was the subterranean palace of a king. It is described in Description de la Egypt and comprises a succession of rooms with an underground burial area. The opening of the tomb was mentioned in a novel by Paul Ivory

In 1881 W Johannes Dumuchen from the University of Strasbourg commented about the architecture, it is a very atypical layout and mentioned his family mother NamenKhetuset and wife Tudit

The tomb was used as storage for many years and many rooms were inaccessible. The tomb was reopened 5th December 2005. Here he showed a photo of the reopening and yours truly was in shot!! I wrote some notes at that time which you may wish to look at the end.

In the field: More re raising pylon in Alexandria

drhawass.com (Zahi Hawass)

Last Thursday, I went to Alexandria in order to remove an important artifact from the water of the harbor. This was the tower of the pylon, likely from the Ptolemaic temple of Isis in the area known as Chatby.

I had been convinced since 2002 that we should not take any major artifacts out of the water, but rather leave them there to be placed in the Underwater Museum we are planning. Also, it is difficult to remove these large pieces from the water, and it takes a lot of work and care to remove the salt from artifacts. But recently I was convinced to raise this piece by the head of the Greek mission, Dr. Harry Tzalas, who directed underwater excavations in the area in 1998. His team discovered 400 ancient artifacts and architectural elements. I would also like to acknowledge the work of Abu Saadat, an Egyptian diver who surveyed Chabty in 1960. He was not an archaeologist, so he was not able to recognize many artifacts, but his survey work contributed to the archaeology of the area.

The Greek expedition was able to recognize the artifacts, and they worked in cooperation with the Department of Underwater Antiquities of Alexandria at the coastal area of Chatby. The two most important of the 400 the Greek mission found are the 9-ton pylon tower, and the 15-ton threshold of a door. Both are made of granite and are of great historical importance in reconstructing the great city of ancient Alexandria. Ancient authors such as Plutarch and Strabo write about Cleopatra’s palace being located in this area, with her mausoleum and a temple of Isis right next to it. It seems likely that this pylon tower was for that temple of Isis, since it was the only temple in the area, and the threshold, which was found very near to it, could be for the door of Cleopatra’s tomb.

Conservation: Tomb of Tutankhamun

Heritage Key (Sean Williams)

An older story, but I managed to miss it somehow.

The tomb of Tutankhamun is one of the world's most famous ancient spots. Yet spots are precisely what are causing the decay of its beautiful wall paintings. The US-based Getty Conservation Institute have been drafted in to help mend the murals, but have been finding it an uphill struggle in the face of fierce desert weather and the onslaught of eager tourists.

Dr Zahi Hawass, Egypt's antiquities chief, has long bemoaned the damage tourists are doing to tombs at the Valley of the Kings; the necropolis of ancient Thebes near modern Luxor. Dr Hawass has even mooted the idea of a replica Tut's tomb to cater for a burgeoning demand for the boy-king. Whether tourists will be satisfied without a trip to the real thing is debatable to say the least (have you say here).

And our composite picture (below), combining an original snap from Harry Burton and a recent shot by Sandro Vannini, clearly shows the brown spots have been in the tomb since Carter and Carnarvon first burst in over 80 years ago. So how much of its deterioration is due to tourism? Getty spokesperson Melissa Abraham tells us: "(The brown spots) have indeed been there since the tomb was discovered, and have never properly been analyzed, so that will be part of the GCI's task. The visitor impact on the site is a separate issue that also will be looked at."

Interview: Marina Escolana

tv3.cat

Video.

Television interview with Marina Escolana, in Catalan. If you speak Spanish you'll probably be able to get to grips with it.

Ha estat directora adjunta de l'expedició arqueològica de l'Egypt Exploration Society a l'antiga ciutat egípcia de Sais i acaba d'aconseguir una beca Fullbright per aprendre demòtic, és a dir, l'última etapa de l'idioma egipci. Només hi ha una dotzena de persones al món que en saben.

Feature: Discovery of an intact tomb at Saqqara

drhawass.com (Zahi Hawass)

With video.

This past year we found a new tomb in Saqqara, in the Gisr el-Mudir area. I was there when we opened a sealed limestone sarcophagus. Before the event, I could not sleep because I could not stop thinking about the excitement of that moment. When I arrived, I came down about 11 meters underground, where we began to open the sarcophagus, which had not been touched in 2600 years.

If there was to be a mummy inside the coffin, they would have to be rich, because the limestone of the sarcophagus was very high quality, which means it would have been very expensive. To remove the lid, which is very heavy, many people had to work together to shift it.

When you open something like this it is very exciting, You never know what amazing secrets are hidden inside. The only way to truly understand the feeling is to experience it for yourself.

The mummy inside the coffin was kept safe, it is beautifully preserved. We plan to examine it using the CT scan machine to see inside, because most mummies of this period contained many amulets on the body inside the wrappings.

Feature: Opening a sacrophagus at Saqqara

Heritage Key (Malcolm Jack)

With video. It wouldn't load for me, but it is probably the same video as that on the drhawass.com website (see next post).

Nothing keeps Dr Zahi Hawass awake at night quite like the prospect of being the first person to lay eyes on a millennia-dead Egyptian mummy. “I could not sleep with thinking about it all the time,” he reveals at the start of Heritage Key’s latest fantastic video by Nico Piazza, documenting the opening of an intact tomb at Saqqara. “Thinking about the moment that I will come down,” he continues, “about 11 metres, and begin to open a sealed sarcophagus that no one ever touched since 2,600 years ago.”

The camera pans across creepy piles of heavily decayed human bones lying in corners – the latest intact tomb located at the massive necropolis of Egypt’s ancient capital Memphis, located 40 kilometres south of Cairo, is evidently one rich in human remains. The unidentified body found lying inside a giant limestone sarcophagus is the prize of them all.

Exhibition: More re "Secrets of Tomb 10A"

NewHamphsire.com

A good overview of the exhibition. With some photos.

Flashing against a wall are the stark black-and-white images of ancient greed.

Inside a 4,000-year-old tomb in which a governor and his wife hoped to make the journey into the afterlife is calculated chaos wrought by robbers intent on stripping the burial site of its valuables.

In their frantic search for jewels and precious metals, looters had ransacked the small stone chamber, ripping apart wooden coffins, tossing objects deemed insignificant into heaps, and even tearing apart the two mummies, leaving the head of one on top of the governor's coffin and the torso of the other propped in a corner. Then they set fire to the plundered pyramid.

But in one telling photograph, a jumbled pile of carved figures attests to an enduring presence, one that survived fires, robbers and thousands of years underground. In fact, what archaeologists in the joint 1915 Harvard University-Museum of Fine Arts Expedition unearthed while digging in Deir el-Bersha, a necropolis in central Egypt, was a treasure of previously unseen proportions.

The discovery led to nearly a century of work to reassemble the final resting place of an official named Djehutynakht and his wife, and piece together not only the funerary practices of a great bygone civilization but reconstruct daily life in an unheralded time of peace, prosperity and artistic achievement.

The dramatic result is "The Secrets of Tomb 10A: Egypt 2000 BC," a comprehensive exhibit set to run through May 16, in the Gund Gallery at the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston. On view in its entirety for the first time, the contents of the tomb include elaborately carved and painted coffins, with spells designed to ferry the couple safely into a higher plane, as well as representations of food, drink, clothing and servants meant to magically serve and sustain them in their new existence.

Happy Christmas!

Here's the 2009 blog Christmas card with best wishes to everyone, whether your celebrate Christmas or not (click to see the large version if required). I've escaped the chaos of pre-Christmas London and am now in Wales for a very quiet few weeks.






Here's a short selection of odds and ends to celebrate Christmas. Most of them are general archaeology rather than Egyptology.

Archaeology Magazine's Top Ten Discoveries of 2009

ARCHAEOLOGY's annual list of the year's most exciting discoveries--from North America's earliest canals to evidence for chemical warfare at a Roman outpost in Syria--highlights sites, artifacts, and scientific studies we feel most enrich our knowledge of the past.

Archaeology is an incremental science, and "eureka" moments are rare. Often the most significant advances result from many years of research. For instance, we feature the work of archaeologists who have dug for four decades at a second-century B.C. Greek city in southern Russia. They were only recently able to identify a large structure at the site as the palace of King Mithradates VI, a legendary foe of Rome.

Two elite tombs excavated this year are on the list, one belonging to a Moche lord in Peru and the other to a family of Iron Age priestesses on Crete. Meanwhile, graves of exotic animals now emerging at the Predynastic Egyptian capital of Hierakonpolis show that the city's rulers kept extensive menageries--the world's first zoos.

We hope 2009's remarkable finds inspire you to make your own connections with the past, and whet your appetite for the discoveries to come.

The Ancient Origins of Christmas Traditions, The Independent

The Christmas Tree: We might curse the fact that we're still picking pine needles out of our toes come spring, but the idea of decorating your house with greenery at winter goes back thousands of years. King Tut may never have seen the multicoloured mess we put up with nowadays, but he would have had date palm leaves scattered around his royal abodes on the winter solstice.

Ancient Egyptian Games Online (Vincent Brown)

Vincent has gathered together a terrific selection of Ancient Egyptian Games that you can play online. Enjoy!



Top Ten Archaeology News Stories of the Decade (K. Kris Hirst )

Many of the stories I chose for the top ten overthrew long-prevailing theories concerning human evolution and human migrations around our big blue marble. Others include a startlingly complex civilization discovered in Peru and a slab of serpentine appears to present information about the ancient roots of language in Mesoamerica. A man who was pulled out of a melting glacier in the Alps provided an astoundingly clear window into life as it was lived 5,000 years ago. It's truly been an amazing ten years.

The Biblical Story of Jesus in Egypt
(Jill Kamil)

Despite the biblical references to the Holy Family's journey to Egypt: Take the young child and his mother and flee into Egypt [Matt: 2:13], and Out of Egypt have I called my son [Matt: 2:15], outside of the Coptic communities around the world, the early years of Jesus are not as widely known as the Nativity, the Passion, and the Resurrection. Is it not time to stage a three-act play in Coptic churches that combines the Nativity with the Flight into Egypt? It should be borne in mind that, apart from Copts in Egypt and the Middle East as a whole, there are more than 500,000 in the United Sates, 100,000 or in Canada, 300,000- odd in Australia, and more than a million residing in Europe, Latin America, Africa and New Zealand.

Savour Every Santa

From the East Father Christmas arose, and in the West he became a popular iconic totem, now his status has partially been reinstated in Egypt and much of the Orient precisely because of the spread of Western-style consumerism, a way of life the Greek Saint Nicholas may not have approved of, writes Gamal Nkrumah, through the lens of Sherif Sonbol.

How to cook Christmas Dinner - in the style of European Prehistoric people! (Heritage Key, Jacqui Wood)

As an experimental archaeologist and independent researcher, I've spent the last 30 years investigating the eating habits of ancient civilisations - including their ancient Christmas dinners. Here are some tips and recipes for the perfect xmas dinner that I've collected along the way.

I use a technique that I've developed over the years to explore the practical aspects of the daily lives of prehistoric Europeans. The approach is based on the theory that the inherent skills and ingenuity of prehistoric European is still latent in the people of Europe today. But the skills of surviving in the northern European landscape have been forgotten because we no longer have a use for them in our modern-day society.

During my researches I have discovered that these skills are very easily acquired – particularly if one is not impeded by any training in the skill to be researched. It has to be approached purely by logic. It is essential, though, not to single out any particular skill, but to attempt to do all the required jobs that a prehistoric settlement would have to do to survive.

Christmas Eve Sphinx

Happy Christmas Eve!
It really is the silly season here in Wales.
I hope that everyone who celebrates it has a good day tomorrow.
New Year yet to come. Exhaustion all round.

In the field: More re submerged finds in Alexandria

The Guardian, UK (Helena Smith)

A team of Greek marine archaeologists who have spent years conducting underwater excavations off the coast of Alexandria in Egypt have unearthed a giant granite threshold to a door that they believe was once the entrance to a magnificent mausoleum that Cleopatra VII, queen of the Egyptians, had built for herself shortly before her death.

They believe the 15-tonne antiquity would have held a seven metre-high door so heavy that it would have prevented the queen from consoling her Roman lover before he died, reputedly in 30BC.

"As soon as I saw it, I thought we are in the presence of a very special piece of a very special door," Harry Tzalas, the historian who heads the Greek mission, said. "There was no way that such a heavy piece, with fittings for double hinges and double doors, could have moved with the waves so there was no doubt in my mind that it belonged to the mausoleum. Like Macedonian tomb doors, when it closed, it closed for good."

Tzalas believes the discovery of the threshold sheds new light on an element of the couple's dying hours which has long eluded historians.

In the first century AD the Greek historian Plutarch wrote that Mark Antony, after being wrongly informed that Cleopatra had killed herself, had tried to take his own life. When the dying general expressed his wish to pass away alongside his mistress, who was hiding inside the mausoleum with her ladies-in-waiting, he was "hoisted with chains and ropes" to the building's upper floor so that he could be brought in to the building through a window.

Plutarch wrote, "when closed the [mausoleum's] door mechanism could not open again". The discovery in the Mediterranean Sea of such huge pieces of masonry at the entrance to what is believed to be the mausoleum would explain the historian's line. Tzalas said: "For years, archaeologists have wondered what Plutarch, a very reliable historian, meant by that. And now, finally, I think we have the answer.

"Allowing a dying man to be hoisted on ropes was not a very nice, or comforting thing to do, but Cleopatra couldn't do otherwise. She was there only with females and they simply couldn't open such a heavy door."

The threshold, part of the sunken palace complex in which Cleopatra is believed to have died, was discovered recently at a depth of eight metres but only revealed this week. It has yet to be brought to the surface.

Repatriation: Egypt and others

Monsters and Critics (Shabtai Gold)

Egypt's antiquities chief announced plans on Wednesday for a conference to help coordinate the strategy of African and Asian countries who had artifacts 'stolen' from them.

'At the end of March we will hold a conference to meet with others who suffered like us from stolen artifacts and to discuss how to help all of us in efforts to return the stolen artifacts,' said Zahi Hawass, the secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council for Antiquities.

Repatriation: Comment re Rosetta

This came via email, not on a Blog Comment but I thought it a useful point so here it is:

Everyone makes the same assumption that we stole it from the French and the Egyptians had no say in it.

Your latest post mentions the treaty of Alexandria, which was indeed signed by the British and the French commanders, but no one seems to mention, or want to, or indeed even know, it was also signed by the OTTOMAN commanders. It was an Ottoman Govenrment in Egypt at the time, which was the recognised legitimate government at the time (regardless of if the modern Egyptians don't like that). Peace treaties are invariably signed by Army commanders, who represent their respective governments.

Repatriation: More re Nefertiti

Monsters and Critics

New tests show the limestone and plaster bust of Queen Nefertiti is too fragile to fly home to Egypt for a temporary exhibition, the Berlin museum that owns the disputed artwork said Tuesday.

It issued the statement two days after the Egyptian Museum's director, Friederike Seyfried, met in Cairo with Egypt's antiquities chief, Zahi Hawass. She said she did not negotiate over the 3,500-year-old bust with Hawass.

'An examination in 2007 of the state of preservation of the bust ruled it unsuitable for transport or loans,' said the Prussian Heritage Foundation, the parent corporation of the museum. 'Further tests which have not yet been completed only confirm this.'

The future of the exquisite head is highly political, as underlined by the fresh assessment of the bust in recent days.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's top culture aide, Bernd Neumann, said Tuesday through a spokesman that a loan was now 'absolutely out of the question on conservation grounds alone.'

Photo for Today: Fossicking for artefacts in Bahariya

Wessex archaeologist Chris Ellis hunting for lithics
(prehistoric stone tools and manufacturing debris)
in Bahariya as the sun began to set.
And yes, he found some. The Western Desert is strewn with them but
you do have to know what you're looking for. And Chris does.
Please note that Chris put everything back exactly as he found it.

Lecture Notes: TT28 at the Mummification Museum in Luxor

Luxor News Blog (Jane Akshar)

It is great to see that Jane is up and about and getting to the Mummification Museum lectures again. Here's her latest report.

TT28 Amenhotep – Huy Dr Francisco Martin Valentine 12/12/9

Identified on Friederike Kampp’s catalogue Amenhotep was a vizier, Huy is a common abbreviation or nickname for someone called Amenhotep. The tomb is ahead and down from the XI dynasty tomb TT366 Dyar and next to the XVIII dynasty tomb of TT192 Kheruef. It was discovered in May 1978 by Andrew Gordon and Dieter Eigner and is from the time of Amenhotep III 1387-1348 BC.

There is other evidence about this individual

1) 2 jar inscriptions from Malkata mention Vizier Huy referring to first Heb Sed Year 30
2) Steele BM138 Decree of foundation for a funerary temple for Amenhotep son of Hapu in Year 34 of Amenhotep III
3) Chapel at Gebel Silsila year 35 Amenhotep III Le Grand discovered in 1893. It is very important as the inscriptions talk about the relationship between Amenhotep III and IV and prove that Amenhotep III was not at Amarna
4) Remains from quarries
5) TT55 Ramose tomb there is an unnamed vizier at the front of the tomb making offerings to Ramose. This successor is believed to be Amenhotep – Huy
6) The Amarna letter EA11 from Prince Rib-Hadda seem to establish that he was commissioned to make inspections in Syria/Byblos
7) Statue CG590 from Tel El Basta which has no head or hands show he was an important man in the north
8) Statue BM1068 also with head and hands destroyed has an unusual title man, the main one of Nekten
9) Relief in Sobeks temple which replaced one of Ramose as Vizier of the south

See the above page for the rest of Jane's notes.

Profile: Salima Ikram

AUC Bulletin

Plus other Faculty News.

As the subject of our first profile we spoke with Salima Ikram, Professor of Egyptology, who has been with AUC in various capacities since 1995. Salima is a native of Lahore, Pakistan. A visit to Egypt in early childhood hooked her for life on the mysteries of the Egyptian past. She was educated primarily at Bryn Mawr College and Cambridge University, with a year in between as a Study Abroad student here at AUC. Salima is a powerhouse of productivity, with ten authored or edited scholarly books and six books for children, along with dozens of articles and conference presentations. She has also appeared in a staggering number of television specials and documentary films (since Egyptology is a beloved field around the world, after all). Among other honors, she was the 2007 winner of the AUC Excellence in Research and Creative Endeavors Award. Salima is also known around campus for a friendly personality and an excellent sense of humor. For all of these reasons, she seemed like an ideal candidate to launch our new Faculty Profiles series with the following interview. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Exhibition: Tutankhamun in Toronto a success

ArtDaily

Public response to the Canadian exclusive of King Tut: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs continues to be overwhelmingly positive, with more than 100,000 tickets sold since they became available just under three months ago.

As a result, and to accommodate continued high demand, the Art Gallery of Ontario will continue extended evening hours through Jan. 31, 2010, on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays until 9:30 p.m. (last entry is 8 p.m.). In addition, the King Tut exhibition as well as the Gallery will be open until 5:30 p.m. Family Day, Monday, Feb. 15.

Conference: Final programme for CRE XI

Challenging The Past blog (Marsia Sfakianou Bealby)

Current Research in Egyptology XI will be held in Leiden (Netherlands) this year from 5th to 8th January 2010 and the full programme is now available at the above blog site.

Repatriation: More Rosetta

ModernGhana.com (Dr Kwame Okopu)

It is very strange how the minds of some Westerners seem to work when it comes to discussing repatriation of looted/stolen cultural objects or objects acquired under dubious circumstances or from a people under foreign domination. For example, we have a fairly senior member of the British cultural establishment, Roy Clare, head of Britain's Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, writing in an article, “The Rosetta Stone can be shared where it is” as if its removal by French soldiers and the subsequent transport to London were perfectly legitimate. (2) Who gave the French the right to remove objects from Egypt? Even the British Museum, in its publication, entitled The Rosetta Stone, by Richard Parkinson, noted the evil colonialist and imperialist aims of Napoleon's military expedition to Egypt in 1799: “…it colonized, in the name of the Enlightenment, a country that was supposedly the origin of all wisdom. The French justified this imperial enterprise by claiming that it would rescue the ancient country from a supposed state of modern barbarism, but the Egyptian historian Abd al-Rahman al Jabari (1754-1882) saw the start of the occupation in July 1798 from a very different perspective as the beginning of a period marked by great battles…miseries multiplied without end.” (3)

Since the British seized the Rosetta Stone, considered by scholars as having been very crucial to the modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphics, from the French on the defeat of Napoleon's army in 1801, they cannot claim any right greater than that of the French, except if you concede that the powerful can take whatever they like from any country. The Egyptians never consented to such a seizure or removal. The capitulation agreement, the Treaty of Alexandria (1801), was an agreement between the victorious British and the defeated French. The surrender, resulting in the seizure of Egyptian artefacts under the control of the French, some allowed to be taken to Paris and others, including the Rosetta Stone, taken to Britain, was an affair between two European imperialist powers at the cost of an African country, not recognized by either combatant State as equal partner at the International Law level.

Museum: Petrie Museum auction result

Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology

Thanks to Jan Picton for the terrific news that the annual book auction was a huge success and raised more than £11,500.00 (UKP), largely thanks to the superb library donated to them by Phyllis Grierson. The book auction raises funds for the Petrie (in London, UK) to help them to continue conservation and other works in support of the magnificent collection.

Online Resource: INORA

International Newsletter on Rock Art

For anyone interested in rock art, Egyptian or otherwise, it may be worth checking out the above INORA page. The newsletter is available to download free of charge in PDF format. The most recent issue showing on the page (2008) has an article by Dirk Huyge on Quta in Egypyt, two on Moroccan rock art and various covering topics in Europe.

The 2009 newsletter/s is/are not yet on the site but the Masaryk University website says that an article about the Cave of Swimmers (Gilf Kebir, Egypt) rock art by Jiří Svoboda should appear in that issue. Here's the citation: SVOBODA, Jiří. Observing anthropomorphs in the Swimmers´ Cave, Gilf el-Kebir, Egypt. International Newsletter on Rock Art 54, Francie, Comité International dArt Rupestre (CAR, France. ISSN 1022-3282, 2009, vol. 2009, no. 54, pp. 23-25. And here's the abstract:

Several rockshelters and smaller caves in the southern Gilf el-Kebir area provided Neolithic paintings, but there is a variability of topics and meanings between the individual sites. This paper examines the so-called “swimmers”, and compares their form with ethnological analogies: the acrobatic dances of actual Africa.

Keep an eye on the above page if you're interested.

Online Journal: New post on PalArch

PalArch

"Eveline Zahradnik. 2009. Zur Darstellung eines Königs mit krankhaftem Beinbefund auf dem Relief 'Spaziergang im Garten' Spectral Imaging of Ostraca. – PalArch’s Journal of Archaeology of Egypt/Egyptology, 6(8) (2009)" was written on the December 23, 2009 at 09:25 on "PalArch".

*Abstract* The relief Berlin 15000 from the Amarna Period, known as ‘The Stroll in the Garden’ most likely shows Tutankhamun with an injury of the left leg. According to a specialist in accident surgery who also practices sports medicine, the relief shows a man leaning on an auxiliary crutch whose left leg seems to be injured, as he is holding the crutch on his right side. This assumption is further strengthened by the fact that in 2005, a new CT scan of the mummy of Tutankhamun diagnosed a fracture of the left leg.
Tutankhamun was also the sole king to be represented with sticks in his hands, and a high number of sticks were among his grave goods. I elaborate on the unusual representation of a young king holding a staff and the potential medical consequences and complications of a broken leg.

-------------------------
*Download PDF File*

Links:
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[1] http://www.palarch.nl/wp-content/Zahradnik_Spaziergang_im_garten_PJAEE_6_8_2009.pdf

Feature: Tutankhamun's Tomb - House of Gold

Heritage Key (Sean Williams)

With video.

"In most Egyptian tombs you've either got the wall paintings or the coffin." Fiona, 8th Countess of Carnarvon says, stressing the uniqueness of Tutankhamun's tomb, the greatest discovery in history. Its treasures may be well documented, less so the incredible wall paintings that greeted Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon when they burst through in 1922 (Watch a special video on the discovery here).

Lady Carnarvon, herself a two-time author on the Tutankhamun phenomenon with Carter & Carnarvon (click here to buy) and Egypt at Highclere: The Discovery of Tutankhamun (click here to buy), seems totally engrossed in the walls she and husband George Herbert, 8th Earl of Carnarvon have replicated in the bowels of Highclere Castle.

Photos: Western Desert in black and white

pixinalasidra flickr site

I've never thought of the the Western Desert, the oases and Gilf Kebir as anything other than a festival of shape, light and colour but this flickr site, which was thrown at me by Google Alerts, shows it in monochrome. The shapes and light are given the floor and they look fantastic. Well worth a look if you love the Western Desert and you're interested in photography. They were taken in 2009 and uploaded this month. Lovely.

Photo: Kom Ombo at night

drhawass.com

Photograph of the temple of Kom Ombo lit up at night.

Birthdays: Lepsius and Champollion

I don't usually feel the need to mark birthdays but this pair seemed very well worth noting.

Jean Francois Champollion was born today in 1790.
Wikipedia
BBC History

Karl Lepsius was born today in 1810.
Wikipedia

General: Hawass visit to London

drhawass.com (Zahi Hawass)

With photos. General day by day account of Hawass's recent visit to London. Here's a short extract.

On the day I arrived in London, I went to the British Museum, where there was a very nice reception in the ancient Egyptian sculpture gallery. Neil MacGregor, the director of the museum, and Vivian Davies, the Keeper of Egyptian Antiquities, were present along with many other Egyptologists and many people who love Egyptology and Egypt. I was pleased also that the Egyptian Ambassador to England, Hatem Saiful Nasr, attended with his wife and gave a speech. Mr. MacGregor also gave a speech during the reception, as well as the President of the British Egyptian Society.

Photo for Today: Bahariya sunset

I'm all out of obelisks so unless someone comes up with a rescue plan and sends
some Egyptology photos for my laptop, I'm afraid we're back to the Western Desert!
I love the desert scenery but I do realize that desert pics are not to everyone's taste.

In the field: Discovery in Alexandria

drhawass.com

Press release (with photo):

On Thursday, the Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosni, and the Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), Dr. Zahi Hawass, witnessed the extraction of a red granite tower, originally part of a pylon, from the Mediterranean seabed at the archaeological site of Alexandria’s eastern harbor.

Hosni described the pylon’s tower as unique among Alexandria’s antiquities. The Minister explained that it was discovered in 1998, along with 400 other artifacts, by a Greek archaeological mission in collaboration with divers from the Underwater Archaeology Department in Alexandria while conducting a comprehensive archaeological survey along the coastal area of Qaitbey. Hosni added that the tower is 2,25 meters tall, weighs 9 tones, and is cut from a single piece of red granite.

Hawass announced that although the SCA has prohibited the removal of submerged artifacts since 2002, the tower is considered an exception – it is intended as the centerpiece for the future Underwater Museum to be constructed in the Stanley area of Alexandria. The museum will exhibit over 200 objects taken from the seabed of Alexandria’s eastern harbor and from Abu Qir.

Hawass explained that the SCA has prohibited the extraction of submerged pieces because on the one hand, the SCA is conducting an extensive archaeological and cultural project with UNESCO, studying all the procedures necessary to build a new underwater museum in Alexandria. Visitors will be able to enjoy an underwater tour walking along special tunnels among the different sunken artifacts. On the other hand, extracting further pieces would require a great amount of time as would the cleaning the objects from accumulated salts.

According to Harry Tzalas who headed the 1998 mission, the tower was part of an entrance to a temple dedicated to Isis Lochias located on Cape Lochias. According to ancient sources, Cleopatra’s Mausoleum was near this temple – a door lintel and a coin bearing the image of a similar tower were among objects discovered in 1998.

At the eastern harbor is where Mark Antony died after being defeated by Octavian. It is also where Cleopatra tragically ended her life. However, we do not think the couple was buried here.

eTurboNews (Hazel Heyer)

On December 17, Egypt’s Culture Minister, Farouk Hosni, and the secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), Dr. Zahi Hawass, unveil yet again an important find in Egypt’s Mediterranean coast.

The precious artifact is to be the centerpiece in the future Underwater Museum to be constructed in the Stanley area of Alexandria. The museum is set to display over 200 objects excavated from the Mediterranean over the past several years.

Media attending an international press conference at the Qait Bey Citadel on the eastern harbor in Alexandria - Egypt’s historic city on the Med will be given the first view of the relic. Both Hosni and Hawass will unveil a unique, sunken artifact from the Mediterranean’s seabed. This piece is said to be a granite pylon tower of Isis temple found beside the Cleopatra Mausoleum off the royal quarter at the eastern harbor.

Repatriation: Tetiky paintings return to Egypt fro Louvre in France

drhawass.com (Zahi Hawass)

With photo. For anyone who missed the story there's a good summary on Al Ahram Weekly by Nevine El-Aref explaining the background to the return of the paintings to Egypt (also with photo).

I am pleased that the five paintings from the tomb of Tetiky have been returned to Egypt from the Louvre Museum.

It was very interesting that when our President Hosni Mubarak visited Paris last week, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France placed one of the paintings in the hall for President Mubarak when he arrived, so that he could symbolically receive it. This gesture shows that France is willing to return stolen artefacts to Egypt.

I sent four crates from the Cairo Museum with Sayed Hassan, the assistant director of the Museum to receive the artefacts. They were well protected and travelled back to Egypt on EgyptAir to Cairo. Representatives of the SCA met them at the airport and transported them to the Cairo Museum, where they are now.

We are now looking into the possibility of replacing the five paintings in the tomb, TT 15. I think it would be very difficult to put them back in the tomb, because it was severely damaged when thieves stole the artefacts. I believe returning these artefacts to Egypt is a good example to show that any museum that buys stolen artefacts will have an immediate reaction against them. However, because of the return of these artefacts, the Louvre expedition at Saqqara will be allowed to resume.

Repatriation: Hawass on the Rosetta Stone

Asharq Alawsat (Zahi Hawass)

I recently travelled to London to give a lecture at the British Museum on my archaeological discoveries, and to host a book-signing event for my book ‘A Secret Voyage’ that has finally been published in English. This book deals with the experiences of my career [as an archaeologist] from my view on the beauty of the Pharaonic civilization, to [discussing] the Pharaonic view on love, religion, daily life, and festivals, and also includes stories about my latest discoveries in the Valley of the Kings.

This visit came a long time after my last visit to the British capital, and I told journalists and reporters from various media organizations that I had come to London to demand the return of the Rosetta Stone that is housed by the British Museum. The Rosetta Stone was part of an agreement concluded by the French with the British following the Battle of the Nile [also known as the Battle of Aboukir Bay]. The French fleet was defeated in this battle, forcing it to leave Egypt, which then fell under British influence.

One of the conditions of this treaty was the French surrendering all antiquities in their possession to the English, including the Rosetta Stone, which held the key to the secrets of the ancient Pharaonic civilization. The secrets of the hieroglyphics were later discovered by French scholar [Jean-François] Champollion, even though the Rosetta Stone itself was on display at the British Museum.

In truth, I had no desire to wade into this battle, but I told the media that Egypt is demanding the return of six individual antiquities, and that the real home of these artefacts is their native Egypt. These six antiquities are; the bust of Queen Nefertiti in Berlin's Neues Museum, the Rosetta Stone at the British Museum, the Dendera Zodiac at the Louvre in Paris, the statue of Great Pyramid architect Hemiun in Hildesheim's Pelizaeus Museum, the bust of Prince Ankhhaf in Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, and the statue of King Ramses II in the Turin Museum.

See the above page for details.

Repatriation: More re Nefertiti bust

ANSAMed

Egypt has firmly continued to reiterate that the bust of Nefertiti was taken out of the country illegally, and has officially requested that it be returned, according to the head of the High Council for Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, after a meeting in Cairo with Friederike Seyfried, director of the Egyptian Museum within the Berlin's New Museum. The bust, which dates back to about 3,400 years ago, was discovered in 1912 in southern Egypt by the German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt, and Egypt has been asking for its restitution since the 1930s. According Hawass, the German archaeologist managed to bring the statue to Germany by claiming that it was a plaster bust and not the one in limestone of the queen. He said that ''this confirms that the statue left Egypt in a non-ethical manner, and that Germany used deception and fraud in that period.'' Berlin instead claims that the purchase was legal, and the museum's director has presented a document which allegedly provides proof.

Earth Times

Egypt has not made a formal request for Germany to return the bust of Queen Nefertiti, the director Berlin's Egyptian Museum said on Monday, defending the museum's right to the famous artefact. Museum director Friederike Seyfried said the 3,500-year-old limestone sculpture was not the subject of a Sunday meeting in Cairo with Egypt's antiquities chief, Zahi Hawass.

Hawass was quoted by Egyptian media Monday as saying "the Nefertiti bust was smuggled out of Egypt by a German archaeologist, through deception and obfuscation," adding that he would use official channels to demand its return.

In response to the reports, Seyfried stated that documents seen by Hawass, detailing the 1912 excavation during which the Nefertiti bust was discovered, clearly demonstrated that Nefertiti was rightfully in Berlin.

"The German position is clear and unequivocal. The acquisition of the bust by the Prussian state was lawful," Seyfried said.

The discussion in Cairo, she added, had revolved around future cooperation, including shared exhibitions and an exchange programme for conservators.

drhawass.com (Zahi Hawass)

A meeting was held today at the offices of the Supreme Council of Antiquities between Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the SCA, and Dr. Friederike Seyfried, Director of the Aegyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung in Berlin, to discuss the Bust of Nefertiti.

Dr. Seyfried presented Dr. Hawass with copies of all of the key documentation held by the Berlin Museum concerning this iconic piece. This includes the protocol of January 20, 1913, written by Gustave Lefevre, the official who signed the division of finds on behalf of the Egyptian Antiquities Service, as well as excerpts from the diary of Ludwig Borchardt, the excavator of the piece. These materials confirm Egypt’s contention that Borchardt did act unethically, with intent to deceive: the limestone head of the queen is listed on the protocol as a painted plaster bust of a princess. Borchardt knew, as his diary shows, that this was the queen herself; he also knew that the head was of limestone covered with plaster and painted, not simply of plaster, as this was clearly visible through inspection of the piece itself. It seems that there was an agreement between Borchardt and Lefevre that all the plaster pieces (which included an important group of plaster masks of the royal family at Amarna) would go to Berlin, and this appears to have been one way that Borchardt misled Lefevre to ensure that the bust would also go to Berlin.

As director of the Berlin Musem, Dr. Seyfried does not have the authority to approve the return of the head to Egypt, but will act as liaison between Dr. Hawass and the relevant German officials, Dr. Hermann Parzinger, President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, and Dr. Bernd Neumann, Minister of State for Culture.

Based on the information currently in the possession of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Dr. Hawass will call a meeting of the National Committee for the Return of Stolen Artifacts this week, which will then make a formal request for the return of the Bust of Nefertiti.

New York Times (Julie Bloom)

Egypt has found new evidence to support its demand for the return of Queen Nefertiti’s bust, right, from Berlin, Bloomberg News reported. According to the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Cairo the diary of the archaeologist who discovered the 3,500-year-old bust shows that he misled authorities when it was transferred abroad. In an e-mail statement the council said the diary of Ludwig Borchardt, who found the bust in 1912, showed he knew the head was of Queen Nefertiti but instead reported it as a “painted plaster bust of a princess.” The statement said, “These materials confirm Egypt’s contention that Borchardt did act unethically with the intent to deceive.”

Feature: A pilgrim's tale

Al Ahram Weekly (Nader Habib)

Peter Grossmann, 76, spent more than four decades excavating the ruins of Deir Abu Mina, known in English as the Monastery of St Menas, in the desert near Mariout. Each year from 1961 to 2002 the German archaeologist would spend between one and three months sifting through the sand, digging up artefacts and generally trying to reconstruct an image of what pilgrims did there 13 centuries ago.

Grossmann was recently honoured for his efforts by the Coptic Church. The committee organising the festivities marking the passage of 17 centuries since the martyrdom of Mar Mina, or St Menas, paid tribute to Grossmann during a seminar held recently at the St Menas Church at Fomm Al-Khalig in Cairo.

Grossmann, who has been a towering figure in Christian archaeology over the past half century, spoke of the highlights of his career at a gathering of fellow archaeologists who came to Cairo for the event.

The modern story of Deir Abu Mina goes back to July 1905, when a German team led by archaeologist Carl Kaufmann discovered the monastery after travelling for 30 days on camel back from the Libyan Desert. A member of the Abu Ali tribe showed Kaufmann pottery fragments found in some desert ruins. Then a Bedouin boy brought a flask inscribed in Greek. The boy led Kaufmann to the site, where the archaeologists found an expanse of ruins that looked like a major settlement. The team soon started documenting the site in sketches and photographs.

Features: More from Heritage Key

Treasures from KV62 - King Tut's Funerary Figures. With video.
Sandro Vannini's Photography - The burial crypt of Seti I. With slideshow.
Discovering Tut - Carter and Carnarvon. With video.

Museum: First ever museum for the revolution

drhawass.com (Zahi Hawass)

Press release:

Culture Minister Farouk Hosni approved the Supreme Council of Antiquities’ (SCA) request to establish a museum for the revolution of July 1953 in Egypt. This will be the first ever museum for the revolution, and will be installed in the building used by the revolution’s leadership in Al-Gezirah on Zamalek Island.

This decision came after the SCA’s Permanent Committee listed the site of the revolution’s leadership on Egypt’s Islamic and Coptic heritage list. This building was the location of several meetings of the revolution leaders where they made critical decisions.

The building was built in 1949 by the late King Farouk on the bank of the Nile in order to be a dock for his royal yacht, and consists of three floors with 40 rooms.

Today Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the SCA, will meet architect Ahmed Mito to discuss plans to turn the building into a museum.

Hawass calls all historians, artists, intellectuals and anyone interested in this subject to share in developing the museum by introducing thoughts and artistic touches to spruce up the building with the aim of turning it into a museum.

“It is a complementary step to what was started in 1996 by the Fine Art department, following President Mubarak’s decision to convert the building into a museum relating the history of this great revolution that changed Egypt’s history,” said Hawass.

Dr. Mohamed Ismail, General Supervisor of the Permanent Committees, said that the decision to place the building on Egypt’s Islamic and Coptic heritage list underlines its architectural and historical importance. The building’s architectural condition, continued Ismail, was inspected by SCA experts as a first step toward its development.

Sad News: Harry James

Thanks very much to Bob Partridge for letting me know that Harry James has passed away. Harry James was a Vice-President and former Chairman of the Egypt Exploration Society, and former Keeper of Ancient Egypt at the British Museum. He died last Wednesday after being in hospital for a few weeks.

Online Journal: South Levantine Early Bronze Age chronological correlations with Egypt

BMSAES

Available for download from the above page as a PDF. Here's the abstract:

South Levantine Early Bronze Age chronological correlations with Egypt in light of the Narmer serekhs from Tel Erani and Arad: New interpretations

Eliot Braun
W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, Jerusalem, Israel and Centre de Recherche Français de Jérusalem, Israël

Ever since the first serekh of Narmer from the southern Levant was discovered at Tel Erani, scholars have been trying to identify Early Bronze Age (EBA) occupations contemporary with that Egyptian king’s reign. The serekh, assigned in a series of publications to Tel Erani Stratum IV, was subsequently considered a chronological peg for south Levantine-Egyptian correlations at the end of the 4th millennium. The unearthing of a second Narmer serekh at Arad, definitively assigned to the Stratum IV occupation there, was considered an additional fixed point for chronological correlations.

Despite discoveries in the southern Levant of more than a score of additional serekhs, many bearing Narmer’s name and one incised for his predecessor, Ka, none of the additional examples was discovered in situ, in sound stratigraphic context. Thus, the absolute chronological correlations between the southern Levant and Egypt for this time span rest solely on the evidence of the serekhs from Tel Erani and Arad. Although both purportedly derive from chronologically relevant contexts, careful consideration of their find spots questions their stratigraphic ascriptions and hence their utility as chronological benchmarks.

This paper reviews germane data on the archaeological provenance of these two serekhs, including some previously unpublished information from the excavation records of Tel Erani. Also considered are the Strata IV and III occupations at Arad in light of what is understood of Egyptian activity in the southern Levant at the end of Dynasty 0. The result of this inquiry offers a slightly refined scheme for the chronological correlation of south Levantine occupations with the reign of Narmer, last ruler of Dynasty 0. Additionally, it offers evidence of tangential importance for understanding the beginnings of the Egyptian state by identifying neighboring polities with which it came into contact on the very eve of Dynasty 1.

New Book: The Language of the Papyri

Oxford University Press

The Language of the Papyri
Edited by T. V. Evans and D. D. Obbink

The modern rediscovery of the Greek and Latin papyri from Egypt has transformed our knowledge of the ancient world. We cannot, however, make the same claim in the specific area of language study. Although important studies of the language of the papyri have appeared sporadically over the past century, we are still dealing today with a linguistic resource of extraordinary richness which has hardly begun to be explored. Every scrap of papyrus and every ostracon (potsherd) or tablet unearthed has the potential to change some aspect of the way we think about the Greek and Latin languages. This book demonstrate that potential, by gathering together essays from seventeen scholars who present a variety of perspectives and methodological approaches. The Language of the Papyri charts current directions of international research, and will also provide a stimulus for future work.

Readership: Scholars and students of classics, ancient Greek and Roman history and culture, papyrology.

New Book' Treasure of Karnak

Hungry Tiger Press

Not really a new book, but a newly released edition of a classic. Here's the press release:

Sam Steele's Adventures : The Treasure of Karnak

From the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum, comes a Young Adult adventure novel set in 1906 Egypt, Sam Steele's Adventures: The Treasure of Karnak. Inspired by the author?s own visit to Egypt, this long-forgotten tale of treachery and treasure is available again in a beautiful new edition from Hungry Tiger Press

The San Diego-based publisher has produced a beautiful new edition of this rare volume. The handsome hardcover book includes all three original half-tone illustrations by Emile A. Nelson, plus new decorations by Eric Shanower, the award-winning writer/artist of Age of Bronze: The Story of the Trojan War, and an expert foreword by Egyptologist and Baum scholar David Moyer that explains the historical significance of the actual lost treasure of ancient Egypt's Karnak Temple. The book also includes a fifty page appendix of Maud Baum's Egyptian travel journal from 1906. The tour of Egypt that Maud took with her husband L. Frank Baum inspired the story of Sam Steele's Egyptian adventure. More than a dozen vintage photographs taken by L. Frank Baum himself--some never before published--accompany this detailed account of the trip.

The Treasure of Karnak is the latest release in Hungry Tiger Press's decade-long project of reprinting all of L. Frank Baum's Young Adult adventure novels. So come explore Egypt with boy-adventurer Sam Steele on a thrilling and dangerous quest to find an ancient Egyptian treasure of unimagined wealth. Struggling against all odds--against pits filled with scorpions, traitorous allies, murdering desert tribes, mad camels, even the Egyptian government--the crew of the good ship Seagull finds something that has eluded scores of searchers for more than two thousand years, the hiding place of the legendary treasure of Karnak! If you love Indiana Jones movies or the books of H. Rider Haggard, you're bound to enjoy Sam Steele's Adventures: The Treasure of Karnak.

Sam Steele's Adventures: The Treasure of Karnak may be ordered directly from the publisher for $29.95 plus $6.00 Shipping ($10.00 outside USA) from Hungry Tiger Press, 5995 Dandridge Lane, Suite 121, San Diego, CA 92115. The book may be ordered online, too, at: www.hungrytigerpress.com where you can also read a free excerpt from the exciting novel.

Profile: Zahi Hawass

Art Museums Journal (Stan Parchin)

An excellent factual and no-nonsense profile of SCA General Secretary Zahi Hawass.

Zahi Hawass (b. 1947), a native of Damietta, Egypt, has served as his country's Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities since 2002. The award-winning Director of Excavations at the Giza Pyramids, Saqqara and Bahariya Oasis became a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence in July 2001. One of Time magazine's Top 100 Most Influential People in 2005, the world-renowned archaeologist and Egyptologist was appointed Deputy Minister of Culture in November 2009.

Education and Teaching
Having studied law, Hawass turned his attentions to Greek and Roman archaeology at Alexandria University, where he received his bachelor's degree. With a diploma in Egyptology from the University of Cairo, the Fulbright Fellow eagerly pursued his doctorate in the same subject at the University of Pennsylvania. He earned the advanced degree in 1987.

After 1988, Dr. Hawass taught at the American University in Cairo and the University of California-Los Angeles. Involved tirelessly in the construction of 19 new museums, he currently supervises programs that train a fresh generation of Egyptians in the modern methods of systematic excavation, conservation, preservation, restoration and site management.

Volunteering; Western Sahara

Western Sahara Project (Nick Brooks)

Ok so it's not Egypt but if you want to get involved in Saharan archaeology this might be a very fine way of doing so.

Here's an extract from the above page. See the above page for full details and photographs.

We are currently seeking volunteers for both excavation and reconnaissance survey work in November 2010. See below for more details of the next season.

The role of volunteers in the Western Sahara Project

Volunteers play a vital role in the work of the Western Sahara Project, and make a major contribution to the funding of the Project, which is run on a not-for-profit basis, with all funds raised going towards the costs of fieldwork and laboratory analysis. Volunteering for a Western Sahara Project field season is a way of experiencing a unique desert environment and culture in a part of the world which is largely closed to outsiders. Volunteering is also an opportunity to learn about the fascinating and little-known archaeology of this remote region and of the Sahara at large. Many of our volunteers have found a trip to Western Sahara to be a life-changing, and enhancing, experience, and a number have participated in multiple seasons of fieldwork.

Volunteers can participate in both reconnaissance surveys and excavations, although more commonly participate in the former. No experience of archaeology or desert travel is required in order to volunteer for reconnaissance survey work. Excavation work can incorporate both experienced and inexperienced volunteers. See below for more details, for requirements for specific seasons of fieldwork (currently October 2009), and for general information about future field seasons.

The Project runs at least one field season every year. Reconnaissance survey work tends to take place in the autumn (October or November), and excavation work in the spring (March-April), although this situation may change in the future. Where a season combines both excavation and reconnaissance/environemntal work, it is possible to volunteer for either excavation or reconnaissance. While excavation and reconnaissance teams are likely to be in close contact while in the field, for logistical and practical reasons it is not possible to swap from one team to the other once in the field. Excavation work is more physically demanding than reconnaissance work, but represents an excellent opportunity to gain experience of archaeological excavation in a region in which almost no excavations have been conducted, and would suit people embarking on an archaeological career and wishing to expand their digging experience. Reconnaissance work provides an opportunity to gain general archaeological experience, and experience of arid environments and palaeoenvironmental research.

The cost of participating in a field season of reconnaissance survey work is comparable with the cost of many adventure holiday packages, or the cost of participating in a conservation project such as those run by many charitable organisations. For further information on specific seasons, see below or contact Nick Brooks.

Seriously Off-Topic: Scientists crack 'entire genetic code' of cancer

BBC News with video

Such good news for the potential of cancer research that I just couldn't resist posting it. Amongst all the very important small steps to finding more ways of fighting cancer this really is a biggie.

Photo for Today - Thutmosis III obelisk, London

I'm back in Wales which means that I'm short of photos again.

Here's another expatriate obelisk, this time in London on the Victoria Emankment
overlooking the River Thames.

Known locally as "Cleopatra's Needle" it was actually erected by Tuthmosis III in Helipopolis.

Read more about it at historic-uk.com.

Vincent Brown has two great old photos of Alexandria obelisks on his site
at the following address:
Talking Pyramids

Research: The Temple as Canon of Egypt’s Religious Literature

AlphaGalileo

Prof. Dr. Christian Leitz has been awarded with a prestigious research grant for a long-term research project entitled ‘The Temple as Canon of Egypt's Religious Literature'. At the University of Tübingen he will direct a group of researchers whose aim is to explore the hieroglyphic inscriptions of Egyptian temples dating to the Hellenistic and Roman periods. The project is affiliated to the Heidelberg Academy and is financed by the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities. During the initial phase of twelve years the German Union of Academies will support his research with more than 300.000 Euros per annum. It is the second major archaeological project of the Heidelberg Academy based at Tübingen: in 2008, the project ‘The Role of Culture of Early Expansion of Humans' started here.

Exhibition: Exhibit looks at fakes throughout history

Canadian Press

That's the question raised in a new exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum, which will present artifacts ranging from Egyptian antiquities and Chinese porcelain to knockoffs of designer brand clothing.

The 115 objects in "Fakes & Forgeries: Yesterday and Today," opening Jan. 9, include bogus items displayed alongside their genuine counterparts. Visitors will see fossils, pre-Columbian urns, ancient Greek terracotta statuettes, black market DVDs and hockey equipment, the museum says.

Show sponsor Microsoft Canada contributes a display on counterfeit software, while the Bank of Canada is providing a historical exhibit on phoney money.

The exhibition also gives tips on how to avoid being fooled by modern scams, said Paul Denis, assistant curator in the ROM's department of world cultures.

Development: Luxor

Egypt State Information Service

Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif discussed during a meeting on Sunday 13/12/2009 with the UNESCO advisor at Luxor governorate a report on the organization's endorsement of three major projects in this Egyptian governorate.

The projects aim at developing Corniche el-Nile, the Karnak Ram Road and river anchor of tourist ships in Luxor.

In statements after the meeting, Cabinet spokesman Magdi Radi said that the meeting discussed the three ventures in Luxor.

Radi added that the UNESCO envoy stressed the organization's approval of the three projects.

New Book: Egyptian Funerary Cones

egyptianfunerarycones

Thanks to Ingebork Waanders for letting me know about the above recently published book.


A Compendium of EGYPTIAN Funerary Cones
A book by Gary Dibley and Bron Lipkin (c) 2009

Egyptian funerary cones were used on the facade of some tombs of high ranking officials buried in the Theban necropolis from the 18th to the 26th dynasty.

Cones have stamped hieroglyphic impressions on their bases giving details of the owner's name and title[s] and are a valuable information resource for Egyptologists.

In 1957 M.F. Laming Macadam published the work of the late N. de Garis Davies in a book titled A Corpus of Inscribed Egyptian Funerary Cones. He provided 611 facsimile drawings of cones known at the time. It had been his intention to produce a further study of the texts and to match cones to known tombs but sadly this never occurred.

We hope that this publication will go some way to filling this void, as a book that will be of use to scholars and laymen alike.

The facsimile drawings within this book are reproduced with a transliteration and translation of the owner’s name, title[s] and any other information provided on the cone with a note of the tomb number if known. The index contains a referenced Tabulation of information regarding each cone. A further number of cones which have been published or located since the publication of Macadam’s book are added to the corpus.

Repatriation: Louvre items returned to Egypt

France24

Gone are the days when young French writer André Malraux, who would go on to become France’s minister for culture, could chip off four sculptures from a Cambodian temple and ship them back to France. Almost a century later, the French government has officially returned five frescoed fragments from a Luxor tomb to Egypt, ending a row that had poisoned relations between Cairo and Paris.

The artefacts, the last of which was handed over to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak by his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy, in Paris on Monday, are thought to belong to a more than 3,200-year-old tomb in the Valley of the Kings. They were illegally carried out of Egypt in the last century, before the Louvre museum in Paris acquired them in 2000 and 2003.

The fragments’ return home is largely the work of a 62-year-old Egyptian, Zahi Hawass, who has spent the better part of the past decade scouring the world on the hunt for relics from the Pharaoh’s age. “This news fills me with joy. I have sent a delegation from the Cairo museum to fetch them in Paris,” he told FRANCE 24.com in a phone interview from Cairo.

A controversial figure, Hawass has been at the helm of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities since 2002. As such, he alone can grant archaeologists the permits required to carry out excavations in his country.

A few years back he embarked on a mission to repatriate some of the artefacts from Ancient Egypt that are currently held in Western museums. On his website, Hawass boasts of having recovered some 5,000 works of art that had been disseminated across the world. To lay his hands on the Louvre’s relics, he went so far as to withdraw Egypt’s collaboration with the landmark Parisian museum.

Also on
BBC News (with photo)
Fox News (with photo)
ANSAmed
Discovery News
Bikya Masr

Museum: Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, New York

Art Daily

Two new galleries showcasing the Memorial Art Gallery’s ancient art collections will open December 16. Renovation and reinstallation of the second-floor galleries, which began this summer, was made possible by one of the largest gifts in Gallery history—a $1 million donation from long-time MAG friend and supporter Helen H. Berkeley.

The Helen H. Berkeley Gallery of Ancient Art will bring together works from ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, including objects never before on view. Among its highlights are two of the most important acquisitions of recent years—the rare pair of fourth-century Egyptian coffins that were until recently in MAG’s Gill Discovery Center.

Photo for Today by Anthony Marson

Raising the Djed Pillar

Copyright Anthony Marson, with my thanks

In the Field: Discoveries at Naqlun

drhawass.com (Zahi Hawass)

With photos.

A mission from the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology of Warsaw University unearthed a decorated clay vessel from a room in a monastic building at the Deir Malak Gubrail monastery in Naqlun, a site in the Fayum.

The vessel is of Aswan production and contained a hoard of coins, Farouk Hosni, Egypt’s Minister of Culture, announced today.

Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), said that the hoard consists of 18 gold coins and 62 fragments of coins, all of them provisionally dated to the Abbasid period (AD 750-1258). Under the charred remains of a collapsed wall, archaeologists also uncovered a chandelier and a well-preserved oil lamp, both made of bronze.

Wlodzimierz Godlewski, the head of the Polish mission, said that the monastic complex of Naqlun was built in the early 6th century AD. The area excavated this season dated to the 7th century AD, and was destroyed by a massive fire around the end of the 8th or the beginning of the 9th century AD.

Also on:
eTurobNews (Hazel Heyer)

In the Field: KV 63

http://www.kv-63.com/

As 2009 is rapidly drawing to a close, we are in process of making the final plans for the season of 2010. The season will officially get started in early January and run past the middle of March. There is no more excavation to conduct in KV-63 and during the past season earlier this year, the remaining sealed storage jars were opened and examined. Thus, we can claim that the excavations for KV-63 are complete. What remains, however, consists of more study and resin removal from the coffins, plus some specialized studies on a variety of the finds. As we are now in a “study season” mode, we will have a smaller staff. More details on the coming season will be in the next KV-63 Update which we hope to send out to staff and sponsors before the end of this calendar tear. The web site will have extracts from the KV-63 Updates which are issued at intervals during the season.

The report (for the Annales du service des Antiquites de l’Egypte) was submitted some time ago and now we await news from the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) on our proposal for the renewal of the concession and the supporting security documentation.

There's also a report on "The Valley of the Kings Since Howard Carter" Symposium and a short summary of the plans for 2010, including the re-opening of KV-10.

Sad News: Susan Weeks

Thanks to Paula Veiga for forwarding the very sad news about Susan Weeks sent out by the AUC.

From: AUC President

It is with great regret that we announce the death of Ms. Susan Weeks, wife of Egyptology Professor Emeritus Kent Weeks.

Susan received a Bachelor of Arts in graphic arts from the University of Washington. She and Kent met while working on the Nubian Salvage Project in Upper Egypt. In addition to being one of the foremost archaeological illustrators of the past half-century, she has built a career as one of the best general field archaeologists in Egypt, having worked on sites all over the country, both with her husband and as a specialist called by other teams. Members of the AUC community who knew and worked with Susan will always remember her sly wit (which her quiet demeanor never succeeded in obscuring), her keen and penetrating intelligence, and most of all the immense care and concern that she devoted to her friends, colleagues and students.

In addition to her husband, she is survived by her two children, Emily and Christopher, and one grandchild.

Those wishing to send condolences may do so by email care of magdiali@aucegypt.edu, Dr. Weeks's assistant.

There will be a memorial service at AUC's Oriental Hall on Tuesday, December 15th at 4:00 pm.

Jane has some more information on her Luxor News blog. My heart goes out to her friends and family.

Tourism: Tourist Regulations in the VOK

drhawass.com

Many people who come to Egypt like to take pictures everywhere, to remember their visit. However, many people come into the Cairo Museum and take pictures with flash, even though there are signs everywhere saying no flash photography, which is to protect the objects.

I had made it a rule that people could take pictures in the Cairo Museum as long as they did not use flash, but when I went into the Museum, I saw that there were camera flashes everywhere. I had to change the rule so no one can use a camera inside the Museum.

This also became a problem in the Valley of the Kings. I learned that the tombs in the Valley of the Kings will be completely destroyed if people continue to use flash inside the tombs. Even though we had allowed people to take pictures in the Valley, people continued to bribe the guards and take cameras into the tombs and use flash. So I made a decree that people could not bring cameras into the tombs. If 20 tourists would disobey this rule and use flash in the tombs, they could be damaged. When I made this rule, many tour guides were upset, but it is their job to help preserve the monuments of Egypt. Tourists are still able to take pictures in the temples, such as Karnak and Luxor Temple, but now people cannot bring their cameras into the Valley of the Kings, because then some will take pictures in the tombs.

Book Review: The Lost Tombs of Thebes

Las Cruces Sun News (Greg Lennes)

"The Lost Tombs of Thebes - Life in Paradise"
By Zahi Hawass
Photographs by Sandro Vannini
Thames & Hudson, 288 pp. $80.

LAS CRUCES— The interest in Ancient Egypt is understandable since it was the longest lasting civilization of more than 3,000 years. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt, has written a clear and scholarly narrative on the tombs of the officials or nobles of the Pharaohs in the New Kingdom period from 1630 B.C. to 1069 B.C. These tombs were near Ancient Egypt's administrative center of Thebes, which was about the same size of Las Cruces today. The royal tombs of the Pharaohs were in the Valley of the Kings.

The acclaimed Italian photographer, Sandro Vannini, provides the magnificent large format images in this beautiful book. If you were able to travel in Egypt, you could never have a better view of the art in these private tombs. It is really breathtaking. Some of the mural paintings are as fresh and vivid as if created yesterday.

The book focuses on 80 of the 400 tombs of the courtiers of the "Golden Age" of Egypt. The colorful art reveals that active lives and accomplishments of Egyptians who were treasury administrators, high priests, granary supervisors, tutors, nurses, royal architects and other officials.

Hawass succinctly summarizes the Egyptian concepts of death and their view of the afterlife. He also shows why so much wealth was spent in the construction and decoration of the tombs and explains the details of the burial and mummification.

Feature: Sandro Vannini's Photography - Tomb of Seti I (KV17): The Crypt's Side Chamber

Heritage Key

With photographs, slideshow, site plan and video.

In 2008, an archaeological team found that the Tomb of Seti I (KV17) was in fact larger than originally thought. Where the original discoverer, Giovanni Battista Belzoni had found the tomb to be 100 metres long when he entered in 1817, recent archaeological excavations overseen by the Supreme Council of Antiquities' Director Dr Zahi Hawass (You can meet Sandro and Dr Hawass at the British Museum tonight, or meet Dr Zahi at his London book signing on Thursday) have uncovered a mysterious tunnel leading from the Crypt which further extends the tomb by another 36 metres at least (Watch a video with Dr Hawass on the mysterious tunnel in the Tomb of Seti I).

But a smaller room is adjacent to the left of the burial chamber, which like the rest of KV17, is adorned with beautiful tomb paintings which the Tomb of Seti I is famous for. The Pharaoh oversaw the artistic peak of the Ancient Egyptian era, and it is therefore fitting for his tomb in the Valley of the Kings to contain some of the finest and diverse works of art.

Several intense excavations in KV17 during the 1950s and 1960s caused structural damage in the tomb which led to the closure of the tomb to the general public, and protective conservation measures being put in place. So while we may not be able to go down and explore one of the finest examples of Ancient Egyptian art, the renown Egyptology photographer Sandro Vannini has taken his lens down into the tomb and emerged with several beautiful images which Heritage Key brings to the internet.

Repatriation: Survey Results for Artefacts Abroad

Heritage Key (Jon Himoff)

The big Museums have the greatest advantage when it comes to the artefacts that the UNESCO heritage sites and others want back -- the big Museums have possession. Further, the Museums typically reside in the countries that made the laws governing repatriation. But as cultural tourism continues to be a growing and massive business, the UNESCO sites are making their own big Museums and are able to hire their own lawyers to defend their interests (check Zahi Hawass' Most Wanted List). The complex battle for who controls artefacts is really heating-up now. Perhaps the issue of who owns antiquity is possibly less urgent than who controls it. Yet, what does all this mean to us?

One person commented in the Heritage Key survey (see full results below): "The fact is, that many of these artefacts were saved from oblivion by being brought to European museums and later North American and other important museums around the world." And you might also consider that while some of the pieces are well known, they are also a fairly small percentage of all the artefacts discovered--or to be discovered.

Illegal activity should also be sanctioned: "The fact that museum directors, antiquities dealers, and others in the field still hold out hands while covering their eyes to the black market is a crime that should no longer be facilitated." It was encouraging to see the Louvre (perhaps reluctantly, but eventually) do the right thing when challenged on Egyptian hot artefacts (read > the TT15 wall fragments scandal here).

Is Professor Dimitrios Pandermalis the president of the new Acropolis Museum, right when he suggested that things like the Elgin Marbles belong to the world, serving as a unifying symbol of European civilisation which aren’t owned in a legal sense (since they can’t in reality be bought or sold) but are really the cultural property of humanity. So if antiquity belongs to everyone, then what do we think about distributing objects around the world?

"It is invaluable that different artefacts from different cultures are spread amongst the world as if every Egyptian artefact went back to Egypt, many people will never get the opportunity to visit Egypt and see these important pieces," commented one respondent. Additionally, spreading them out makes the entire set less liable to a single damaging event like a natural disaster or war.

We asked Heritage Key users to share their opinions on "Artefacts Abroad" and below are the results and some further comments. Please join the discussion and add your comments below.

Photo for Today - The Scorpion Macehead

Scorpion Macehead
Ashmolean Museum

There's a description of the macehead on Jacques Kinnear's Ancient Egypt website.

Discussion: Ancient army may bridge Iran-Egypt gap

PressTV

A discovery in Egypt of the remains of an army led by the Persian King Cambyses II can lead to further Cairo-Tehran cultural cooperation, officials say.

According to Aleddin Hassan-Youssef, head of the Egyptian interest section in Tehran, the discovery of Iran's historic relics in Egypt can lead to cultural heritage cooperation, CHTN reported.

The remains of an army led by the Persian King Cambyses II has reportedly been discovered by the Castiglioni brothers in a small oasis not far from Siwa, Egypt.

Some 50,000 warriors are said to have drowned in a great sandstorm 2,500 years ago.

"The matter must be studied by related (subject) experts to uncover the real story," Hassan-Youssef was quoted by Hamid Baqayi, Head of Iran's Cultural Heritage Organization (ICHO), as saying.

"We should make efforts to protect the two countries' historic relics given that both Iran and Egypt have had ancient civilizations," he added.

Comments follow the above report (6 at the time of writing).

Update: Cairo Museum Newsletter #2

oddthing

Thanks to Richard Vijay for letting me know that the file download link to the second issue of the Cairo Museum Newsletter on the page of my website where I post the PDFs of the newsletters was broken. It is now fixed. You can find it on the above page.

Features on Heritage Key

Another round up of the recent features on Heritage Key

Article: The King and I(deology) by Garry Shaw
Article: We are Not Pirates! by Sean Williams (re Hawass reaction to BM loan letter)
Article with Video: How King Tut's Tomb Avoided Robbery by Malcolm Jack
Exhibition Report: It's a Fake! by Owen Jarus
Exhibition Report: Hidden hands behind Petrie's Egypt by Paula Veiga

Photo for Today by Anthony Marson

Temple of Hathor, Deir el-Medina

Copyright Anthony Marson

Repatriation: The Rosetta Stone

This week's melodrama is the question of whether or not the British Museum should/will loan the Rosetta Stone to Egypt and whether or not Egypt will try to claim it on a permanent basis. There are some interesting opinions being floated. Unlike Nefertiti the question of the repatriation of the Rosetta Stone seems, at least in some cases, to generate serious consideration of the issues, not merely emotional responses. I am sure that all readers are familiar with the Rosetta Stone but if not, you can find a description, here, on the British Museum's website.

The Telegraph, UK (Roy Clare)

The three languages displayed on it, translations of the same text, enabled us to make the first interpretations of Egyptian hieroglyphs. It is no surprise, then, that each year, millions of visitors to London seek out this exceptional artefact (and the thousands of others) in the galleries that present the world's cultures in the British Museum.

And it is equally unsurprising that a distinguished academic should come to London from Cairo on a mission to retrieve what he sees as rightfully Egyptian. Dr Zahi Hawass argues that the stone is an icon of the Egyptian past, and the Egyptian identity, and belongs in the country of its creation. As secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, he points to the historical material he has recovered from other countries – why should Britain be different?

When dealing with any artefact acquired in the imperial past, there are bound to be sensitivities, and demands for repatriation – witness the controversy over the Elgin Marbles, another gem of the British Museum's collection. But in this case, the law is not on Dr Hawass's side. The Rosetta Stone was properly acquired and its provenance within Britain's national collections is beyond dispute. The trustees of the British Museum could decide to loan it out – although to date, no such request has been received – but their deliberations would take account of the conditions in which the item would be displayed, the risks to its safety and security, and the likelihood of its return. Dr Hawass's recent public statements would also be considered – which could present an unusual backdrop to any judgment the trustees might reach.

But the decision as to whether to return the stone is not just about the technicalities of ownership.

Glasgow Herald

To Enlightenment scholars searching for the key to the magic door into Ancient Egyptian culture, it had a double significance. It records a decree issued by the priests in Memphis in 196BC ordering the teenage Ptolemy V to be worshipped in recognition of his “establishing Egypt and making it perfect”. The outcome of a power struggle in the dying years of his dynasty (originally Greek), it was to be displayed in temples. So it was an early form of mass communication, asserting the ruler’s authority.

To emphasise this, the decree is written in three languages, including ancient hieroglyphs, written only by the priestly class, and Greek, the language of administrators. It was this that enabled European scholars – primarily the Frenchman Jean-Francois Champollion and Englishman Thomas Young – to crack the secret of hieroglyphics that had been lost for 2000 years and spark a love of and fascination with Egyptology that continues to this day, and which accounts for millions visiting the ancient sites every year.

The 4ft-high stone, with its jagged top, is not spectacular but when my family first saw it a few years ago, we all felt the power of its history. It was the sense that such artefacts have important stories to tell.

The claims of Dr Hawass rest on the assumption that artefacts should remain in whatever country they were found. (Other culturally protectionist nations include Turkey, Greece and, in the case of the Lewis Chessmen, Scotland.) . . .

However, there is a much bigger point that needs to be made.

Dr Hawass justifies both his extensive shopping list and the ever-stricter controls and restrictions placed on foreign archaeologists in Egypt like this: “We are the descendants of the pharaohs. If you look at the faces of the people of Upper Egypt, the relationship between modern and ancient Egypt is very clear.” Frankly, this is nonsense.

BBC News

Egypt's head of antiquities will drop a demand for the permanent return of the Rosetta Stone if the British Museum agrees to loan it out, he says.

The Stone - a basalt slab dating back to 196BC which was key to the modern deciphering of hieroglyphics - has been at the museum since 1802.

Dr Zahi Hawass has long called for foreign museums to return six of the most prized antiquities of Egypt.

The British Museum said it would consider the loan request soon.

A spokeswoman said no official request had been made by Egypt for the permanent return of the stone, but the loan had been discussed and would be considered by the museum's trustees "fairly shortly".

Dr Hawass said while he still ultimately wanted the stone to have its home in Cairo, he would settle for the British Museum's acceptance of his request for a three-month loan.

An FAQ of the Rosetta Stone:

The Independent, UK (Cahal Milmo)

Why are we asking this now?

Dr Zahi Hawass, the secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) and the high priest of all matters archaeological in the Land of the Pharaohs, arrived in London yesterday to further his demand for the return of the Rosetta Stone from the display rooms of the British Museum, where it has been on show since 1802. Dr Hawass has embarked on an international campaign to secure the return of a host of renowned artefacts which he claims were plundered by colonial oppressors and assorted brigands from Egypt's ancient tombs and palaces before ending up in some of the world's most famous museums.

What is so important about a 2,200-year-old slab of granite?

Carved in 196BC, the Rosetta Stone is the linguistic key to deciphering hieroglyphics and probably the single-most important conduit of understanding between the modern world and ancient Egypt.

Opinion:

A don's life, Times Onine (Mary Beard)

What is the best selling post-card in the British Museum?

The last time I inquired -- admittedly more than a decade ago, but was told that it was the permanent "number one" -- it was a rather dreary image of the Rosetta Stone. That outsold its major rivals by several thousand. If you are interested, the main post-card rivals were: various views of the Museum itself, the (also Egyptian) bronze "Gayer Egypt Anderson" cat (displayed on the card plus or minus a real live tabby cat) and an original drawing of Beatrix Potter's Flopsy Bunnies.

There is no doubt that the Rosetta Stone (seen a few years back above) is a major icon of the British Museum -- and in fact, its post-card celebrity is backed up by its presence on best selling umbrellas, duvet covers and mouse mats (remember them?), all especially popular, I am told, in Japan.

I was once very puzzled about all this. After all, it is a rather uninspiring lump of black basalt, inscribed at the beginning of the second century BCE, recording an agreement between the Greek king of Egypt and a group of Egyptian priests, concerned among other things with tax breaks for the said priests. It came to London, as spolls of war in the early nineteenth century, captured from the French.

So why so charismatic?

Presumably because it was the key to decoding Egyptian hieroglyphs, as the inscription was trilingual -- in hieroglyphs, Greek and Egyptian demotic. Whether you think that the key work was done by Thomas Young (British) or Jean-Francois Champollion (French) depends partly on your national prejudice.

And now, again, Zahi Hawass (Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt) wants it "back"? Does he have a point?

In my view, no -- not at all.

And on a lighter note:

The Guardian, UK (John Crace)

The head of Egypt's supreme council of antiquities is in London to request the return of the Rosetta stone from the British Museum. The 2,200- year-old tablet bears three parallel texts of the same passage and was the key to deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. But what does it actually say?

Captain's Log Star Date Year 9, Xandikos day 4, the King, the lord of the Uraei, whom Ptah has chosen to help decode hieroglyphics with this edict though it would have been nicer if it had been something more interesting, the son of Pre Ptolemy, living for ever, obviously, the Manifest God whose excellence is fine, which is more than can be said for the punctuation, on this day, a decree is made to the mr-sn priests and scribes of the House of Life on the festival of the Rulership by King Ptolemy . . . . .

There's also a discussion taking place in the Comments section on The Guardian website (150 comments at the time of writing). Some of it is pretty lame, and all of it is predictable, but it's there if you're interested.

Heritage Management: UNESCO's new director-general

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El Aref)

Irina Bokova, the newly appointed UNESCO director-general, visited Egypt on 5 December to attend the first meeting of the permanent Forum of Arab-African Dialogue on Democracy and Human Rights after being invited by Boutros Boutros-Ghali, president of the National Council for Human Rights.

Bokova met President Hosni Mubarak and Mrs Suzanne Mubarak in Sharm El-Sheikh where they discussed regional issues, including the mode and strategy of cooperation between Egypt and UNESCO.

Bokova also paid a visit to Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni, her competitor during the UNESCO election. It was a very warm and friendly meeting. After 45 minutes of discussion, Bokova and Hosni told reporters that the next joint venture project between UNESCO and Egypt will be to construct an underwater museum on the Mediterranean sea-bed to display sunken treasures from ancient Alexandria.

Hosni said collaboration with UNESCO will continue on several projects, including the second and final phase of the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation in Fustat, Old Cairo, and the third phase of the Grand Egyptian Museum overlooking the Giza plateau.

See the above page for more details about Bokova.

Heritage Management / Tourism: Clearing minefields of El Alamein

Scotsman

THE second Battle of El Alamein was a turning point in the Second World War. Montgomery's Desert Rats and the Allied Eighth Army broke through German lines, pushing Rommel's forces back to Tunisia and ending the Axis powers' designs on Middle East oilfields.

More than 65 years later, Egypt's north-west coastline remains riddled with the detritus of that war. But now the country is stepping up efforts to clear the area of the millions of landmines and lure tourists to its golden sands.

"This project opens a huge gate to the future," Mr Shazly said.

Eventually, developers believe the Mediterranean beaches, planned golf courses and marinas could rival the resorts that line the Red Sea coast to the south. . . .

Plans to build a golf course over part of the battlefield last year provoked fury from veterans' groups.

Although I categorized this partially as heritage management there appears to be very little intention (if any) to open up the battlefields themselves for visitors to experience or to pay their respects. As remarked in the above article, it was only an outcry from a veterans' group that prevented part of the battlefield being developed for golf. The mind boggles.

Museums: Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo

Al Ahram Weekly (Zahi Hawass)

The MIA has been closed for restoration since 2002. Unfortunately, the previous renovation plan that was developed for the museum was never put into action. Simultaneously, Dar Al-Kotob, the Egyptian National Library and Archives in Cairo, was also under renovation. One of the major concerns we faced was that both institutions shared a single basement, leaving the MIA with less storage space. Finally in 2002 I initiated a new strategy plan for the renovation of the MIA.

I wanted to hire a good museum designer in order to properly display the beautiful artefacts. I spoke to my dear friend Luis Monreal, general manager of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC), and convinced him to raise the funds required to hire an expert designer. To design the galleries we selected Adrien Gardère of Studio Adrien Gardère in Paris.

The museum building dates back to 1903. We began looking into the current architectural and structural design and discovered that we needed further to consolidate the area around the museum, meaning that the ground needed to be stabilised in order to prevent the building from collapsing. This is due to the fact that the building was constructed above an ancient canal that had been filled in during the 19th century, and was located in a heavily congested area in the heart of Cairo's commercial and wholesale district.

Museums: British Museum launches handheld guides

Art Museum Journal (Stan Parchin)

The British Museum has introduced a set of handheld guides that are designed to teach many of its six million annual visitors about its collections.

The Multimedia Guide is available in 11 different languages: English, Korean, Arabic, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish and British Sign Language. It features in-depth audio-visual descriptions of more than 220 objects. Also included are three guided tours with directions for Highlights of Ancient Egypt, the Parthenon Marbles and the Korean Gallery as well as an interactive map.

See the above page for further details.

Speaking for myself I find the introduction of handheld audio guides a flaming nuisance to those of us who don't use them. They turn people into zombies, and you find yourself trying to see displays which are characterized by motionless figures standing still like immovable rocks oblivious to the world around them. At busy times they form inpenetrable walls. The machines are also frequently loud, leeching intrusively into the would-be quiet gallery space - at the very least there ought to be a cap on the volume.

In the Field: More about subterranean Giza

Examiner.com
Part 1
Part 2

A look and the pros and cons of the claims made by both sides in the claim by investigator Andrew Collins that he has found a cave or caves beneath the Giza plateau.

Collins first found clues to the cave’s exstence in the memoirs of Harry Salt, a 19th century British diplomat and adventurer, who describes an exploration beneath the Giza plateau in 1817, alongside Italian explorer Giovanni Caviglia. According to the memoir, Salt and Caviglia walked “several hundred yards into the cave,” before turning around, leaving the rest of the cave unexplored.

Recently, Collins and British Egyptologist Nigel Skinner-Simpson, retraced Salt’s steps from 200 years before. Sure enough, in the back of an apparently unrecorded tomb west of the Great Pyramid, they stepped through a fissure in the rock and found themselves in the mouth of an "spacious" cave. They explored as deep as they could, then turned around, citing “unseen pits and hollows, colonies of bats and venomous spiders.”

The caves beneath the pyramids, Collins believes, are the inspiration for the Ancient Egyptian belief in the underworld. Collins told Discovery News: "Ancient funerary texts clearly allude to the existence of a subterranean world in the vicinity of the Giza Pyramids.”

Ancient Egyptian religion was based on the existence of Duat, the subterranean afterlife ruled by the god Osiris. After a person was given a ritual burial, a form of his spirit would descend underground where his heart would be weighed – judged – by Osiris.

Upon hearing of Collins’s report, Hawass dismissed the find with a huff: "There are no new discoveries to be made at Giza. We know everything about the plateau.”

In the Field: Alexander - A gem of a find in Israel

Archaeology Magazine

With photo.

There was some beginner's luck this field season at the Hellenistic port of Tel Dor, 19 miles south of Haifa, Israel. On her first dig, Megan Webb, a 28-year-old potter from Philadelphia, was cleaning an area of a large public building with her trowel when this tiny gemstone etched with Alexander the Great's portrait, emerged. Less than half an inch long, it might once have been mounted on a signet ring.

New Book: A Secret Voyage

PR Log

But only if you have £2600.00 (UKP) to spare!

Corbis (www.corbis.com), a leading visual media provider for the creative community, today announced that it is now exclusively representing a collection of prized Egyptian images by renowned photographer Sandro Vannini. The announcement was made last night at a VIP event at the British Museum in London celebrating the launch of A Secret Voyage, a limited-edition large-scale photography book featuring select images from the collection.

Having worked as a professional photographer since 1980, Vannini has amassed an extensive collection of photography across a range of subjects including illustration, architecture, archaeology, portraiture and other visual arts.

Since 1997, Vannini has been working on a project capturing Egyptian archaeological heritage. The result is A Secret Voyage, his most recent work produced in collaboration with Dr. Zahi Hawass, a celebrated Egyptologist and current Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities.

Corbis exclusively represents Vannini’s images from the book and his broader Egyptian collection, which includes stunning photos from the likes of the Valley of the Kings, noble and private tombs at Thebes, and representations of beauty and afterlife in ancient Egypt. Specialists have provided detailed captioning for each photograph for added customer insight and research precision.

Images have been captured using cutting-edge digital techniques and specially designed lighting, enabling Vannini to produce images of extremely high quality and resolution. Vannini has not digitally altered the imagery, but instead combines sometimes a hundred images or more into a single image to capture more detail than would be possible with film or typical digital photography. He has also been able to obtain unique access to restricted sites across Egypt to capture rarely seen objects, antiquities and perspectives.

Exhibition: Hungarians in Egypt

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El Aref)

Click photo to see all photos.

Hungary's leaning towards Egyptian history was sparked by a dawning interest in all things antiquarian that came with the opening up of foreign travel, and reached full maturity in the wake of the decipherment of hieroglyphs and the unfolding of the science of Egyptology. During the last decades of the 19th century, displays of artefacts brought home by Fejérvàry and his fellow contemporary amateurs developed from collections of curiosities into aesthetically appreciated exhibitions of the culture that, they deduced, sprang from the "cradle of civilisation".

In 1898 the first actual step in the long process of establishing Egyptology as an academic discipline in Hungary was pushed forward with the foundation of a chair of Ancient Oriental history, and when Egyptologist Ede Mahler was appointed to the University of Budapest as professor of Egyptian studies. However the first Hungarian archaeological mission to Egypt was not until 1907, when Hungarian amateur Fèlöp Back sponsored excavation work led by Polish Egyptologist Tadeusz Samolenski at Sharuna in Middle Egypt. At that time the mission stumbled upon a so-far unknown Pharaonic tomb and relief blocks from a temple of Ptolemy I. They also discovered an intact cemetery at Gamhud in the modern town of Fashn, on the other side of Al-Hibe where the Graeco-Roman of Ankyronpolis is to be found.

Exhibition: Egypt invades Tarragona, Spain

Diario de Tarragona (Isaac Albesa)

Dar a conocer de forma fácil e inteligible la historia y la cultura del antiguo Egipto es uno de los objetivos de la exposición Egipte. El pas a l’eternitat, una producción del Museu Egipci de Barcelona que llega a Tarragona desde este viernes hasta el próximo 7 de marzo en la sala de exposiciones de Caixa Tarragona, en la calle Higini Anglès, con entrada gratuita.

Se trata de una exposición que ofrece al interesado un viaje por los ritos funerarios de la cultura egipcia y todo lo relacionado con la muerte, uno de los aspectos fundamentales de esa desaparecida civilización. «La exposición se presenta de forma muy didáctica y no hay que ser un entendido para apreciar la importancia de una cultura que, a pesar de separarnos entre 3.000 y 5.000 años, tiene mucha relación con la actual cultura mediterránea. De hecho, hasta los niños pueden sentirse interesados por esta cultura si acuden a la exposición donde algunas de las piezas, sobre todo las decorativas, pasarían inadvertidas hoy en día como si de una pieza actual se tratara», explicaba ayer Luis Manuel Gonzálvez, comisario de la exposición y conservador del Museu Egipci de Barcelona.

Exhibition: Egyptian collection in Bexley

This is Local London

With photos.

A NEW exhibition on ancient Egyptian pottery is causing a stir at Hall Place in Bourne Road, Bexley.

Following a £5.5m restoration project which was completed earlier this year, the Tudor house now has museum space good enough to take items on loan from other collections across the south east.

The new exhibition, which opens to the public on December 3, will include many of Bexley’s own exhibits, all of which have been verified by experts at the British Museum.

Two very early predynastic beakers, part of Bexley’s collection and more than 6,000 years old, have been also reconstructed by conservators at the Museum of London in preparation for the exhibition.

Other exhibits loaned to Bexley include mummified human remains, mummy bandages and shabtis.

Details of Hall Place (which looks like a stunning building, standing within 65 acres of land, and is definitely now on my list of "must see" places locally) are available from its website.

Unfortunately the article doesn't mention the exhibition's name, and neither does the Hall Place website.

Sad News: Thomas Hoving

New York Times (Randy Kennedy)

Thomas Hoving, the charismatic showman and treasure hunter whose tenure as director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1967 to 1977 fundamentally transformed the institution and helped usher in the era of the museum blockbuster show, died on Thursday at his home in Manhattan. He was 78.

Thomas Hoving with what was then a recent acquisition at the Met in 1967, his first year as director of the museum. During his 10-year tenure, he sought to make the museum a more populist institution.

The cause was lung cancer, his wife, Nancy, said.

One of the breed of brash, self-mythologizing leaders like Mayor Edward I. Koch who came to define New York in the 1970s, Mr. Hoving spent a whirlwind year running the city’s parks before taking over the Met at a time when it was, as many thought and as he boldly told trustees, “moribund,” “gray” and “dying.”

He became its seventh director and, at 35, its youngest. And during his tumultuous reign the museum did many things it had never done before, often for the better, sometimes for the worse. It formed a contemporary art department and displayed Pop painting alongside Poussin and David; regularly draped the now-familiar banners on its facade to advertise shows; created the enlarged front steps that have become Fifth Avenue’s bleachers; paid $5.5 million for a single painting (the Velázquez masterpiece “Juan de Pareja”) while quietly selling works by van Gogh, Rousseau and others to help pay for it.

Photo for Today - Close up of RII obelisk in Rome

Updates:

I have been playing catch-up and there are several stories still on my laptop which need to be posted. I'll be adding them over the next couple of days.

Obelisk of Ramesses II
Piazza della Rotunda, Rome

See previous post for full details.

News: Iran requests UNESCO's help re Lost Army

Heritage Key (Sean Williams)

Remember the 'groundbreaking discovery' of Cambyses' lost Persian army a few weeks back, in the Western Desert of Egypt? Almost as soon as it had been announced, Zahi Hawass' Supreme Council of Antiquities were all over it, rejecting the Castiglioni brothers' claims they'd found the legendary fleet near Siwa Oasis.

Yet any doubts as to the brothers' credibility have been lost on Iranian officials, who have branded Dr Hawass' rejection of the discovery as politically motivated, and have urged UNESCO to step in to save the army's remains. The request by Iran's Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Toursim Organisation (ICHHTO) was made yesterday. Spokesman Hassan Mohseni tells Fars news agency: "Egypt's chief archeologist Zahi Hawass has recently rejected the discovery of the army in his personal weblog due to political pressure."

It's an odd twist in a growing saga which promises to run for some time yet. Various cyber-sleuths have succeeded only in shrouding the story in even more mystery, digging up conflicting claims from sources as far back as 2004.

I'm guessing that it will be only a matter of time before Iran asks for the repatriation of the entire army :-). Joke!

News: Tomb of the Birds

andrewcollins.com

With photo.

I posted back in about an investigator called Andrew Collins who claimed to have found caves under the Giza plateau. The initial report and a video were both reported on Discovery News. This was always going to cause a bit of a fuss at the SCA (shades of the Lost Army) and there was a response from the SCA at the time. The above link has the latest from Collins himself, from which the following is a short extract.

Dr Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, is now exploring the Tomb of the Birds, the point of access to Giza's cave underworld discovered last year by Nigel Skinner Simpson, Sue Collins and myself. Coincidence? Note likely. He and his team have been in there ever since news of the discovery hit the internet in August. Obviously, I applaud his interest in our cave discoveries, but I remain cautious of his intentions. His official view will be that he has found Giza's lost bird and animal cemetery, long known to exist on the plateau but never traced until now. I suspect that this will be the official announcement next year. I might be wrong. Let's wait and see.

Yet strangely there is still no mention of the caves themselves. In an email to me last Friday he admits that the "system" is now being cleared, and that in his opinion it is merely a "catacomb", like so many others in Egypt.

This is wrong. Other catacombs in Egypt are rock cut by human hands. What we have found is a unique natural cave system that stretches beneath the plateau for hundreds of meters, and would seem to have been adapted in Egypt's Late Dynastic period to become a bird cemetery.

Field work: Archaeological activity on the West Bank at Luxor

News from the Valley of the Kings

Kate Phizackerley has recently had some excellent photos from visitors to Egypt who have taken shots of work being carried out on the West Bank at the Valley of the Kings, Deir el Bahri and elsewhere. Go to her site, above to see some of the views of work in progress.

Feature: Archaeologist Kathryn Bard

BU Today (Vicky Waltz)

With video.

Five years ago, Kathryn Bard made a remarkable discovery in the Egyptian desert. While digging with an archaeological team along the Red Sea coast, she reached into the opening of a wall — and felt nothing. Further excavation revealed an ancient man-made cave containing a mud brick, a small grinding stone, shell beads, and part of a box.

Days later, the team, led by Bard, a College of Arts & Sciences associate professor of archaeology, and Italian colleague Rodolfo Fattovich, uncovered the entrance to a second cave. Inside they found a network of larger rooms filled with dozens of nautical artifacts: limestone anchors, 80 coils of knotted rope, pottery fragments, ship timbers, and two curved cedar planks that likely are steering oars from a 70-foot-long ship. According to hieroglyphic inscriptions, the ship was dispatched to the southern Red Sea port of Punt by Queen Hatshepsut during the 15th century B.C.

“It just gave me chills to stumble across such a frozen moment in time,” Bard recalls. “The ropes were perfectly preserved. They looked as if they’d been coiled yesterday.”

The team discovered seven caves at Wadi Gawasis containing relics dating back 4,000 years. The first pieces ever recovered from Egyptian seagoing vessels, they offer a tantalizing glimpse into an elaborate network of Red Sea trade.

In the Lab: Mummies from the Egyptian Museum, Cairo

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El-Aref)

An intelligent summary of some of the results of the work being done at the Cairo Museum where researchers have been using CT scans to find out more about the health of ancient Egyptians.

If you have been given the unwelcome news that you or a loved one has heart disease, don't blame fast foods. Cardiovascular disease does not come with modern living but is a genetic syndrome and has been with us since the Pharaohs.

Heart disease is the world's leading killer, and its increase in the past few years has been put down to recent changes in living styles. For some time the growing frequency of the disease has often been attributed to urbanisation, smoking, fast food and an idle lifestyle, but now this theory is being challenged by the results of CT scans and studies carried out by a team of scientists, cardiologists and archaeologists on 20 ancient Egyptian mummies.

The studies being conducted at the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square, Cairo, are revealing that cardiovascular disease and arteriosclerosis are genetic ailments and have been around since the Pharaohs. They point to the lifestyle characteristic of our modern times being not guilty of the original cause of the problem. However, it appears that lifestyle has affected certain aspects of the growth and increase of disease.

The story of the scientific discovery began in 2008 when Adel Allam, co-investigator of the study, and Gregory Thomas, a cardiologist and imaging specialist at California University, made a visit to the Egyptian Museum, and admired the nameplate on the mummy of the 19th-Dynasty Pharaoh Merenptah (1211-1201 BC). This mentioned that Merenptah died at approximately 60 years of age and was afflicted with arteriosclerosis, arthritis and dental decay.

This piece of information triggered the curiosity of both scientists, who asked in astonishment how this could possibly be.

In the Lab: Bad Teeth

Discovery News (Rossella Lorenzi)

Worn teeth, periodontal diseases, abscesses and cavities tormented the ancient Egyptians, according to the first systematic review of all studies performed on Egyptian mummies in the past 30 years.

After examining research of more than 3,000 mummies, anatomists and paleopathologists at the University of Zurich concluded that 18 percent of all mummies in case reports showed a nightmare array of dental diseases.

"Evidence of dental disorders is plentiful because usually teeth are among the best preserved parts of a body. As for other diseases, the published studies do not always provide in-depth details. Nevertheless, we came across some interesting findings," senior author and medical doctor Frank Ruhli, head of the Swiss Mummy Project at the University of Zurich, told Discovery News.

Features: A round up of recent features

I'll be here forever and a day if I try to put together a post for each drhawass.com and Heritage Key feature that has appeared in the last couple of weeks so apologies for the brevity but here's a list of those that struck me as the most interesting.

drhawass.com
Article: Climate change and conservation in Egypt (with a lot of information about planned archaeological work at Saqqara)
Video: King Tutankhamun's Treasure
Photo: The Mummy of Sitre-In

Heritage Key
Article: Climate change is threatening Egypt's landmarks
Article: Zahi Hawass on the SCA's Projects at Saqqara
Brief article with photo: Discovering the Temple of Edfu
Article: Maltese Expert discovers hieroglyphs from "Yam" (reporting an old story from 2007)
Video: Treasures of Tutankhamun - the Animal Deities
Video: Tutankhamun's Jewellery
Video: Preserving King Tut's guts
Video: The curse of King Tut
Satellite photos of tombs and monuments of Luxor
Article: The first ten cities of the world
Article: Taking photographs in the Valley of the Kings

Feature: On the subject of masonry

Theoretical Structural Archaeology (Geoff Carter)

Geoff is looking at the subject of masonry, and looks at the stone work produced by many different nations, and has included a chunk about Egypt. Here's a short extract from the piece.

The history of architecture is largely the study of what survives, and building in stone is an essential prerequisite if you want posterity to admire your architecture -- Certainly if you want it to visit. It was lucky our ancestors in Northern Europe had the good sense to stick a few stones upright in the ground just to prove they were human.

Architecture sells, and if you want to pick a favourite ancient civilisation as a travel destination, Egypt ticks this, and most of the other, boxes. So our conception of ancient architecture is naturally drawn from those places like ancient Egypt, where stone was available and used, and architecture, as a practice in wood and earth, fades into a hazy background. The narrative of architectural history woven around these somewhat atypical and often eccentric monuments of Egypt has to be set against this vast and unimaginable backdrop of absence.

I don’t think Egypt as important as Mesopotamia in the wider scheme of things, but like so much of the ancient world, Mesopotamia used mud brick architecture, so there is not much to see.

The same is actually true of Egypt; most buildings would have been mud brick, a shortsighted economy, if you want people to admire your pyramid in 4000 years.

It is in Egypt that we first see historical figures whom we can clearly identify as architects, or at they least claim to be. Characters like Hemiunu, architect of the Great Pyramid, were members of the wider royal family.[7] As Vizier to Khufu he had a range of titles.

He could be just some bloated aristocrat taking credit for the work of others, but it would be nice to think he was an architect.

Pyramids are an extraordinary architectural achievement, better known for the pharaohs who extracted the resources to build them rather than the architects who conceived them. It really does not help to dwell on the nature of the societies that created these extraordinary monuments.

Pharaohs, the rich and powerful celebrities of their day, with bigger architecture, pretty tombs, and lots of shiny things, still fascinate; they are still box office. But you not want to be owned by one. Then again, this may have been considered a lucky break by a slave at the time -- tricky thing, anthropomorphism.

Lecture: Mummification Museum lecture. Funeary Cones

Luxor News (Jane Akshar and "Michael on the Roof" AKA Michael Campbell Smith)

It is lovely to have Jane back after her operation in Cairo which really sounded very painful. Best wishes for a speedy recovery, Jane - and a HUGE hug. Thanks to Michael Campbell Smith for keeping the notes flowing in Jane's absence.

With photos.

Well I wasn't there due to my surgery but Michael Campbell Smith of "Michael on the roof" fame was and took these notes, big thank you. He even took some photos seems like I am redundant.

Funerary Cones
The first of the SCA series of winter lectures was given by Dr Kento Zenihiro of Waseda University, Tokyo in the Mummification Museum Luxor on Saturday 5th December.
Funerary cones, baked clay tapered cones, bearing the titles of the owner of the tomb are found at many sites in Egypt, but the vast majority come from Thebes. The cones, taken from one mould, were inserted in the courtyard of the tomb, above the entrance door to the inner hall.

Cones can come in many shapes. 646 different types have been identified so far, with 21 discovered by Dr Zenihiro in recent years. Cones appear to have a white face for a male, and a red finish for a female. The taper can be long, or short. Different manufacturing methods were used. They appear to come mainly from the 17th and 18th Dynasties, with a revival in the practice under Seshonkh.

Many theories have been advanced for the purpose of these cones. To indicate the sealing of the tomb, as a passport, as an ornament, or perhaps symbolically as meat, bread, the position of roof beams, or as the sun. (Clearly, no-one has the first idea. ed.)

See the above for the rest of Michael's lecture notes.

Heritage Management: New York's Central Park obelisk

Ground Report (Paul Sterne)

Here's one I missed from October - a call for the obelisk of Tuthmosis III on New York's Central Park to be moved to the safer and more appropriate environment of the Met.

The obelisk was gifted to the United States in 1879 by the Khedive of Egypt as a gesture of friendship and to promote trade. It was brought to America by William Henry Vanderbilt, the richest man in the world at that time. It is not clear who owns the obelisk -- the Federal Government, the City of New York or the Central Park Conservatory.

Sited a block away from the Metropolitan Museum of Art on a hill next to Central Park Drive, this magnificent artifact is rarely visited. In comparison to the Met, which is mobbed in good weather and bad, the obelisk stands largely unnoticed by the joggers and bikers rounding the park. It is very difficult for a visitor to the Met to exit the museum and view the obelisk. More concerning, the obelisk has been and continues to be damaged by New York City’s harsh weather and the corrosive effects of its pollution.

Heritage Management: Islamic Cairo

Al Ahram Weekly (Gamal Nkrumah)

Ahmed Sedky, the self-effacing prince of Arab-Islamic architectural treasures talks cultural memory, traditional lifestyles in mediaeval urban settings, and the pitfalls of preservation, conservation and restoration to Gamal Nkrumah

Ahmed Sedky sighs. "The Boharas? Now they are not funny. They are dead serious," he mock drawls. Baby-faced, grey-haired, wide-eyed and smiling with mischievous pleasure, he acknowledges that city dwellers, particularly those resident in historic districts, have a harder time befriending their neighbours since lives are busier and closer quarters often lead to conflicts of interests. Minutes earlier as I go up to the first floor to meet Sedky, I reflect that if anyone can bridge the large divide on restoration between developing countries like Egypt and the developed world, it is articulate architects like Ahmed Sedky. He is keen on transferring the state-of-the-art conservationist technologies from Western countries to the developing world, but he does not see the process as a piecemeal one. For years Sedky has been well known among the cognoscenti, and deservedly so.

"Of course they have a hidden agenda. Of course, they are wrong, and deliberately so," he added, quick as a flash.

"But my point is," he hastens to add is: Who is really responsible for the shortcomings with regards to sustainability and social needs of the residents of historic Islamic Cairo in the conservation and restoration projects of the area over the past few decades?"

Exhibition: Cleopatra to open in Philadelphia in Summer 2010

PR-Canada.net

The world of Cleopatra, which has been lost to the sea and sand for nearly 2,000 years, will surface in a new exhibition, "Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt," making its world premiere in June 2010 at The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Organized by National Geographic and Arts and Exhibitions International, with cooperation from the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities and the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology (IEASM), the exhibition will feature more than 250 artifacts, and take visitors inside the present-day search for Cleopatra, which extends from the sands of Egypt to the depths of the Bay of Aboukir near Alexandria.

The exhibition about the legendary queen, who remains one of history's greatest enigmas, debuting at The Franklin Institute from June 5, 2010 - January 2, 2011, will travel to five North American cities.

Exhibition: The Mummy Chamber in New York, Summer 2010

http://artmuseumjournal.com/mummy_chamber.aspx

The Mummy Chamber, a long-term installation of more than 170 artifacts that explores the ancient Egyptians' complex funerary rituals and beliefs associated with mummification, opens at the Brooklyn Museum on May 5, 2010. Drawn entirely from the museum's vast collection, the presentation follows the appearance of the traveling exhibition To Live Forever: Art and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt (February 12-May 2, 2010), its objects also derived from the institution's world-famous holdings.

The installation describes the ancient Egyptian corporal and supernatural methods used to protect mummies from harm, thus ensuring a pleasant afterlife for the deceased. As seen in To Live Forever..., the various kinds of mummification available to members of different social classes based upon their financial means are also examined in The Mummy Chamber.

Repatriation: It's not just Egypt

Sydney Morning Herald (Jason Koutsoukis)

Egypt will host an international conference next March for countries seeking the return of ancient indigenous treasures being kept in foreign museums.

The secretary-general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, said the conference would be a world first.

''We expect around 12 countries to participate, possibly several more,'' Dr Hawass said.

''There is a moral imperative for museums around the world to return certain artefacts to the countries they came from, and we are going to identify how we can help each other to increase the pressure on the keepers of those artefacts.''

Among those nations to attend will be Greece, Italy, China and Mexico.

''I am calling on all nations who want their important artefacts returned to attend the conference,'' Dr Hawass said.

After the above extract the article goes into the usual description of Hawass vs. anyone holding on to his list of most-wanted artefacts.

Repatriation: Hawass vs. Berlin

Bikya Masr (Joseph Mayton)

It has become the neverending story of Egypt’s Zahi Hawass to get Germany to return the famous Nefertiti bust. He has made threat upon threat against Berlin, demanding they give back what is rightfully Egypt’s. The threats have been met with laughter and skirting. Germany has no intention of returning their prized possession, taken from Egypt’s sands in the early part of last century.

Either way the diplomacy falls, the two sides will hold talks this month in order to see what will be done about the statue. Hawass believes the 3,400-year-old treasure was illegally taken from Egypt and should be returned.

Speaking to Reuters, the embattled Hawass – whose outbursts recently have put in under fire – said he will meet with the head of the Egyptian Papyrus Collection at Berlin’s Neues Museum, where the bust is currently on display. The two are expected to meet on December 20, but most observers are doubtful anything will happen.

One Belgian archaeologist said the bust and the Rosetta Stone, currently at the British Museum, will never be returned to Egypt, at least not in the foreseeable future. “It is because Egypt is not equipped to take it and at the same time, these are the prize possessions of the two museums, so I don’t think it will happen. Threats are not going to get Germany to change their mind,” he said, asking that his name not be revealed due to the tension with Hawass’ Supreme Council of Antiquities, who has often barred foreign scholars from the country after disagreements.

See the above page for the full story.

Book Review: Living with Heritage in Cairo

Al Ahram Weekly (Jill Kamil)

In reviewing Ahmed Sedky's Living with Heritage in Cairo, I am reminded of the many questions I have asked myself -- or posed to others -- over many years, concerning the deficiencies -- should I say apparent lack of planning -- behind the restoration and/or conservation of historically important zones in Egypt. I speak in particular of Luxor, Aswan, and Old and Mediaeval Cairo.

Was there a philosophy behind the decisions being made, I asked. Who was making them? What was the incessant talk about "facelifts" in reference to historical or archaeological zones, when what it really meant was that they were being cleared of the living fabric for the ever-growing tourist market? Who, I asked, was behind the erection of the pseudo-Roman walls in Old Cairo, or the superficial beautification of the frontages of the buildings in Muezz Street and elsewhere, presumably in the belief that this would make them more palatable to tourists? And why was interaction with local people not encouraged when it was clear that there could be no meaningful conservation of historical zones without commitment to preserve the framework, which touches equally on history, architecture, and residents. Without doubt some areas are over- populated, but by stripping them of what gives them character, and taking foreign visitors to tour-approved restaurants and encouraging them to make purchases at tour-guide- approved commercial outlets, is to lose the very spirit of the area.

I noted that whenever there was a press report of an area being developed as an "Open Air Museum" -- whether Giza, Fustat or Fatimid Cairo -- what it really meant was that the local population was being systematically moved out of the area.

I asked (in articles in Al-Ahram Weekly and in PowerPoint presentations) whether this was really necessary. As Nawal Hassan, chair of the Association for the Urban Development of Islamic Cairo, pointed out during a Cairo symposium in 2002, "Thousands of families' livelihoods will be affected by the plan to seal off the mediaeval city and turn it into an open-air museum. Wholesale and retail shops will lose their clients if they have to reach their destination on foot or from perpendicular streets." She added that tourists anyway showed little interest in mediaeval buildings with newly-stuccoed walls, marble panelling applied to the interior of mediaeval courtyards, mashrabiya windows that looked newly fabricated, and cobbled streets paved with tiles. Foreign visitors, she declared, wanted to explore "the heart of a living city 1,000 years old, with its still dynamic population".

I have keenly followed the praise and the criticism of archaeological and conservation practices in Cairo, and have tried to understand the strategy behind decision-making. I have joined others in my concern for the monuments, the people, and the long-term effects of pedestrianising Al-Azhar Street, and diverting traffic underground through a tunnel running its full length. And finally I came to the conclusion that there was in fact no integrated planning and development programme; and that decisions taken at "the highest level" were considered final and tended to overrule the views of all lower strata of power and public opinion. This, of course, begged further questions: Why was the historical and cultural integrity of historical sites being compromised, and by whom? By the heads of districts under the control of the governor of Cairo who receives direct orders from the presidency? By the Waqf authority, who owns most of the deteriorated buildings in historic Cairo? And what part did the SCA, the Supreme Council of Antiquities, play in the whole conservation scenario, or was it under the direct control of the Ministry of Culture as I suspected? Where did the planning of highways fit into the picture, not to mention the distinction between "polluting" and "non-polluting" workshops?

Then I receive this excellent and insightful book for review and it answers my every question. Living with Heritage in Cairo fully explains the concepts and processes influencing area conservation of Egypt's capital, the commercial and industrial centre since the end of the 19th century with the highest concentration of mediaeval monuments in the world where traditional lifestyles continue until today.

See the above page for the review.

New Book: Archaeological Approaches to Technology

Left Coast Press

Neither on topic nor off-topic - the blurb about the book doesn't indicate which countries are used as examples or case studies but I thought that the subject might be of interest in its own right.

Archaeological Approaches to Technology by Heather Margaret-Louise Miller
December 2006, 304 pages

"Writing in a cogent and engaging style, Miller leads us step-by-step through the intricacies of a breathtaking array of technologies and brilliantly captures how the material 'things' people make and use are embedded in their social lives.”
- Rita P. Wright, New York University

"As an introduction to archaeological studies of technology in an era of over-specialization, Millers pan-technology book is a welcome addition to our arsenal of teaching tools. By describing different technologies, she provides a worthy sequel to Otis T. Mason’s The Origins of Invention. Miller’s book is well written, informative, and speaks to contemporary issues in the study of technology."
- Michael Brian Schiffer, University of Arizona

The study of ancient technologies, that is, the ways in which objects and materials were made and used can reveal insights into economic, social, political, and ritual realms of the past. This book summarizes the current state of ancient technology studies by emphasizing methodologies, some major technologies, and the questions and issues that drive archaeologists in their consideration of these technologies. It shows the ways that technology studies can be used by archaeologists working anywhere, on any type of society and it embraces an orientation toward the practical, not the philosophical. It compares the range of pre-industrial technologies, from stone tool production, fiber crafts, wood and bone working, fired clay crafts, metal production, and glass manufacture. It includes socially contextualized case studies, as well as general descriptions of technological processes. It discusses essential terminology (technology, material culture, chaine operatoire, etc.), primarily from the perspective of how these terms are used by archaeologists.

Journal: Changes at JNES

Chicago Journals

The Journal of Near Eastern Studies is changing the frequency of its issues, and altering the format of the content, the layout and the style. Scary that they have a two year backlog of book reviews!

The editors and publisher of the Journal of Near Eastern Studies are pleased to announce several exciting changes to JNES.

Effective with the 2010 volume, JNES will move from quarterly publication to semiannual publication, with two issues now appearing each year, in April and October. The amount of content published in JNES will not decrease, however, because each issue will contain at least twice as many pages as previously. Current subscriptions due to expire with the January 2010 issue will now expire with the April 2010 issue; current subscriptions due to expire with the July 2010 issue will now expire with the October 2010 issue. Current JNES subscribers should therefore be assured they will receive all the journal content they have paid for, and more.

Corresponding with the frequency change, we will introduce the first significant redesign of JNES since 1942. An increased trim size (8.5” × 11”) will better accommodate larger photographs and drawings, and a smoother text stock will allow for better reproduction of halftones as well as the possibility of color figures. A two-column interior format and an updated typeface will make the journal easier to read. Additionally, the full-color cover of each issue will feature a different artifact from the collection of the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute, to be loosely connected in terms of theme to one or more of the articles appearing in the issue.

The JNES editors will also be adjusting the balance between articles and book reviews. The aim is to focus increasingly on original research, and JNES will therefore publish more articles and fewer (though more substantial) book reviews. This goal will only be fully realized, of course, once JNES works through its considerable backlog of book reviews sometime within the next two years.

Otherwise, the traditional editorial scope of JNES—all aspects of the vibrant and varied civilizations of the Near East from ancient to premodern times—will remain unchanged.

Photo for Today: Obelisk of Ramesses II

Obelisk of Ramesses II
Piazza della Rotunda, Rome

Just what a baroque fountain needs - its own Ramesside obelisk!

Here's the description on Wikipedia, on the List of obelisks in Rome page:

Originally one of a pair at the Temple of Ra in Heliopolis, the other being the now much shorter Matteiano. Moved to the Temple of Isis near Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Found in 1373 near San Macuto and erected east of Santa Maria in Aracoeli on the Capitoline. Moved to the front of the Pantheon by Pope Clement XI in 1711 over a fountain by Filippo Barigioni.

News: Egypt to demand the Rosetta Stone

Times Online (Christina Ruiz)

Not really "news" if you've been following the repatriation themes recently.

Hawass first asked the British Museum to lend the Rosetta Stone to Egypt for a temporary display. However, he was angered when trustees asked him to provide assurances that the stone would be safe.

"The [security] standards of our new museums in Egypt are better than the standards of security at the British Museum and therefore I decided that we are not going to ask for a loan. We are going to bring [it back] for good," said Hawass.

He is launching a new book on egyptology at the British Museum on Tuesday, but he is unlikely to make a formal request for the permanent return of the stone until next spring.

A spokeswoman for the British Museum said it was considering Egypt's request to borrow the stone and that asking for information about the conditions of display was standard for any loan request.

Feature: Journeying to see prehistoric whales in the Faiyum

Heritage Key (Garry Shaw)

With slideshow.

If you're into long accounts of travel in four-wheel-drives then you'll find a lot to appeal to you in this article, which is mostly about whether or not the Wadi el Hitan (Valley of the Whales) is an adventurers dream to get to (or not. The author does write briefly about the whales as well:

The path to the whales was clearly marked out by rows of red rocks. I followed them to the first exhibit which displayed the fossilised lower jaw bone, ribs and vertebrae of an ancient whale known as Basilosaurus Isis, a type of whale that still had functional hind limbs from an earlier phase as a land-based mammal. It was marked by a circle of small red stones, followed by an inner circle of rope held by stumpy posts. The fossils lay on the surface; while being impressive due to their antiquity, they were at the same time unimposing, as if they had been sitting there sunbathing within their little circle and I’d disturbed them. Further remains followed: another type of whale called a Dorudon atrox, a short-toothed sawfish, the curious fossilised ‘burrows of wood digesting Teredo’, a marine turtle, and the fossilised mangrove roots that once formed a shallow coastline, and in which the various carcases of these animals had once become entangled. Between the fossil displays were small domed huts containing information panels describing every aspect of the area’s history, and giving particular details about life here in ancient times. All around, as I walked from exhibit to exhibit, unusual rock formations dotted the landscape; pillars of stone standing in the desert. Over millions of years the weaker stone had been eaten away by the wind, leaving the harder stone standing. The life history of each column was strikingly visible in the stratigraphy, worn by the rock like a striped jersey.

If you ever find yourself in the Faiyum, an attractive agricultural area centred around a large lake, the prehistoric whales and fossilized mangroves are an absolute must-see. They take you into a well laid out nature reserve. The prehistoric finds are astonishingly well preserved, many are vast, and they are all fascinating. They are all easy to find along a well laid out route and each is accompanied by excellent information boards which put the fossils into their environmental context, explaining how they relate to the surrounding landscape and to each other. There is a nice cafe on the site, sparklingly clean toilet facilities (or at least they were when I was there), and a small shop where you can buy souvenirs, locally made crafts and a very good colour information guide (with map). All the buildings are made of mud brick. If it is still as it was in 2008, when I took the above photo, the site as a whole is a huge compliment to those who planned, executed and maintain it.

Here is a useful link for those of you wanting to read more about the prehistoric remains at the site:

UNESCO Evaluation 2004 (English and French)

This is a fascinating report in PDF format - if you are interested in the subject do have a look.

Over 40 million years ago the so-called Tethys Sea reached far south of the existing Mediterranean. This sea gradually retreated north depositing thick sediments of sandstone, limestone and shale, visible in three named rock formations which are visible in Wadi Al-Hitan. The oldest rocks are the Eocene Gehannam Formation, about 40-41 million years old, consisting of white marly limestone and gypseous clay and yielding many skeletons of whales, sirenians (sea-cows), shark teeth, turtles, and crocodilians. A middle layer, the Birket Qarun formation, of sandstone, clays and hard limestone, also yields whale skeletons. The youngest formation is the Qasr El-Sagha formation of late Eocene age, about 39 million years old. It is rich in marine invertebrate fauna, indicating a shallow marine environment. These formations were uplifted from the southwest, creating drainage systems, now buried beneath the sand, which emptied into the sea through mangrove-fringed estuaries and coastal lagoons when the coast was near what is now the Faiyum oasis, c. 37 million years ago. . . .

Three different species of Eocene whales have been identified with certainty at Wadi Al-Hitan. All are basilosaurids, the latest surviving group of archaeocete whales, and the group which are thought to have given rise to modern cetaceans.

Feature: A historical perspective on climate change

UN Chronicle (Fekri Hassan)

From 11,600 to 8,200 years ago, the climate became warmer and in the Eastern Mediterranean, wetter. It was during this period that successive generations of foragers, who took advantage of the well-watered habitats, adopted farming as their dominant mode of obtaining food. This marked the most remarkable revolutionary achievement of humankind—the invention of agriculture.

Life has never been the same since. Villages coalesced to form corporate village communities governed by councils or chiefs. Afterwards, conglomerates of farming communities merged into kingdoms, while those who managed cattle, sheep and goats became herders and roamed the rain-fed grasslands outside the river valleys preferred by farmers.

The effect of climate change on humanity under this new agrarian regime with its politically more complex organization assumed a new turn. This has been mostly due, in part, to the nature of the agrarian ecology and economic growth potential. Agricultural yields fluctuated annually, in part because of interannual variability in rainfall, but more importantly, they also varied responding to decadal and centennial changes in climatic conditions, which influenced both the flow of rivers and rainfall in the grasslands. . . .

By the 5000 B.C. the early agrarian States had developed into the world’s first great civilizations in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and India. But by around 4200 B.C., an abrupt turn of climate led to dramatic changes all over the world.

See the above page for the full story. Fekri Hassan has written extensively on the subject of climate change and its impacts on the development of societies, with particular reference to Egypt.

In the Lab / Feature: Examing mummies with Rosalie David

Discovery Channel

A short video featuring Rosalie David talking about the benefits and dangers of examining mummies.

In the Lab: Mummy scans at Stanford

Ivanhoe.com

With Video

"This was a mummy we weren’t allowed to touch," Paul Brown, a biocomputing expert at Stanford, told Ivanhoe.

Biocomputing experts -- who study biological applications of computers -- and medical physicists got a detailed look at a priest who died 2,600 years ago in ancient Egypt and had been stored in a museum for decades. The scan produced thousands of high-resolution, three-dimensional pictures.

"It's a high contrast CT scan, which is an experimental CT scan -- perfect for the mummy since the mummy doesn’t have any soft tissue," Brown said.

Graphic artists use images to put the mummy back together-piece by piece. The scans reveal the most detailed images of a mummy to date. This priest died in his 20s.

"You can see the calcification, and that’s one predictor of age," Brown said.

He was laid to rest with an amulet on his forehead, representing eternal life. His organs were placed in linen pouches and set inside his torso. Another scan of a child reveals even more mysteries.

"We think it’s a little girl," Brown said. "We could see the trauma. We could see a tooth that was cracked. We looked at every single bone in her body, and we didn’t find anything unusual. They think she was weaned late, and once she left her mothers milk, she probably died."

Exhibition: Mummified at the Walters Art Museum

The John Hopkins Newsletter (Alec Meacham)

Mummified!, a current exhibit at The Walters Art Museum, is interesting, somewhat educational, and a great weekend venture for anyone looking for a nerdy good time.

The Walters Art Museum, located a block away from Peabody, is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday to Saturday. Mummified!!, highlights the Walters Museum's very own well-preserved mummy, Mery. It is an exhibit that is at once serious and playful.

The first part of the exhibit features a few interesting artifacts and two computer stations that offer information on the processes involved in mummification and the cultural and religious significance of this hallowed ritual.

This first section, though, barely holds a candle to the centerpiece of the exhibit: Mery the Mummy. Mery, who is about 4' 9'' tall and lived to be somewhere around 60, can be found in a climate-controlled glass case in the center of the room.

She is placed on a "Mummy board" and is wrapped in linen and plaster. This casing is painted with images, in surprisingly vivid colors, of Egyptian gods involved in the processes of death and renewal: Osiris, Anubis, Horace and Hapi.

Next to the body one finds four canopic jars, or containers for the departed's vital organs. Some might remember these jars from the modern-day popular movie The Mummy. Along with these jars are several small, ornate amulets that were at one point sewn into Mery's fabric.

One of the best parts of the exhibit - indeed, of The Walters in general - is the endearing nerdiness of it all.

Exhibition: Tutankhamun unaffordable for Australia

Sydney Morning Herald (Catharine Munro and Jason Koutsoukis)

A BLOCKBUSTER exhibition of King Tutankhamun will not tour Australia because museums cannot afford it.

Egypt wants to send the world's most successful tour of artefacts from the tomb of the boy-king but offers to host the exhibition have been underwhelming, to say the least.

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

Zahi Hawass, who is Egypt's Vice-Minister of Culture and secretary-general of its Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the exhibition could travel to Australia early in 2012 if a museum was willing to host it.

''I want to see King Tut go to Australia,'' Dr Hawass told the Herald in his office in Cairo last week. ''I have been planning for it to go to Australia but no one from Australia has asked me at all.''

Journal: Current Anthropology October 2009

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/ca/2009/50/5

Slightly off topic, but may be of interest to some visitors.

Table of Contents

• Special Section: Rethinking the Origins of Agriculture
• Comments: Rethinking the Origins of Agriculture
• Rethinking the Origins of Agriculture: Replies
• Reports
• Books

Resource: Oriental Institute

OIP 55.
The Excavation of Medinet Habu, Volume 4. The Mortuary Temple of Ramses III, Part 2
By Uvo Hölscher. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1951.
http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/catalog/oip/oip55.html

Book Review: Amenophis I. und Ahmes Nefertari

Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Reviewed by Jan Moje

Gabi Hollender, Amenophis I. und Ahmes Nefertari: Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung ihres posthumen Kultes anhand der Privatgräber der thebanischen Nekropole. Sonderschrift Deutsches Archäologisches Institut Kairo 23. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2009. Pp. x, 182; 4 p. plates. ISBN 9783110204612.

Zu den bekanntesten Personen, die nach ihrem Tod göttliche Verehrung erfuhren, gehören Pharao Amenhotep I., der zweite Herrscher des Neuen Reiches, und seine Mutter Ahmose-Nefertari. Schon seit der Mitte der 18. Dynastie bis zum Ende der Ramessidenzeit, und stellenweise auch noch in späterer Zeit, erfuhren beide einen gemeinsamen posthumen Kult, der sich in zahlreichen Monumenten belegen lässt. Die vorliegende Arbeit, deren Basis eine Magisterarbeit aus dem Jahre 1991 darstellt, fokussiert auf die thebanischen Belege in den Privatgräbern des Neuen Reiches.

Fiction review: Bahaa Taher's Sunset Oasis

Montreal Gazette (Ian McGillis)

Many readers whose familiarity with modern Egyptian fiction might have begun and ended with Naguib Mahfouz were suddenly presented with a writer whose body of work, if not quite Mahfouzian in scope, is deep and varied: six novels, four story collections, numerous plays and non-fiction works, all apparently very well-regarded in the Arabic-speaking world.

Now, a year later, the novel that won Taher the prize is accessible to English-language readers.

Sunset Oasis is historical fiction with a strong element of the exotic, but it’s clear very soon that Taher has no interest in providing escapist fare. The setting is 1890s Egypt, where a nationalist movement is simmering under British colonial rule. The dominant voice among a shifting set of narrators belongs to Mahmoud, an ineffectual police officer inclined toward melancholy who finds himself out of favour with the current regime. Assigned to oversee the remote Berber settlement of Siwa – a virtual death-sentence posting, as the two preceding district commissioners have been assassinated – Mahmoud reluctantly takes along his Irish wife, Catherine, an amateur archeologist keen to investigate the legend that Alexander the Great might be buried there.

Once they’ve arrived, their apprehensions about a cold reception are soon confirmed. Siwa in the late 19th century, it’s evident, is a place where no one can trust anyone, and the tension plays out at every level.

Photo for Today

As usual the photo chosen for the day whilst I'm in Wales inevitably comes from my laptop, on which I keep only a few holiday snaps of the Egyptian deserts and a few more of Italy. In case you are fed up with desert shots here, instead, is a photo from Rome of one of the Egyptian obelisks, easily distinguished from its eleven expatriate cousins by the fact that it stands on top of a rather overwrought elephant sculpted by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (which is worth appreciating in its own right). The friend with whom I was touring in Italy eventually cottoned on to the fact that we were navigating Rome via obelisks. Fortunately, as she can't read a map and I do all the navigating, it was quite late in the day when the penny dropped.

Located in the square outside the important basilica Santa Maria sopra Minerva (built over the remains of a Roman temple to the goddess Isis) it was brought to Rome by the emperor Diocletian, from Sais. It is dedicated to the Pharaoh Apries (Wahibre Haaibre - 589 BC - 570 BC).

There's a list of the other obelisks in Rome on Wikipedia.

There are many more posts from last week to come, but my connection here in Wales keeps dropping out and I've lost all patience with it today.