Egyptians

Rediscovering a lost Temple

2012-01-27T13:23:00.000-08:00

Czech archaeologists have uncovered a temple in the Sudan that was last seen in the 19th century then was buried by the desert and forgotten. The temple is dated to the Meroe period from the 4th century bc to the 4th century ad and is located 130 km north of Khartoum.

The Saga of the Louvre Amarna Princess

2012-01-19T18:09:00.000-08:00

Though I am not a believer in the authenticity of the art pieces in the M.A. Mansoor Amarna collection I do feel that Mr. M.A. Mansoor was a well respected antiques dealer. The link is from the Mansoor Collection about the Amarna princess which the family gave to the Louvre.

The museum a number of years ago removed the statuette from display when after a scientific review agreed the princess was a fake. This does not please the family and it has been requested to be returned to them, unfortunately even if it is a fake the Louvre is not obliged to display or return the statuette.

The Chantress of Amun

2012-01-18T14:34:00.000-08:00

This is a very interesting post that Andie Byrnes has created which includes a report in English on the newly discovered tomb in the Valley of Kings from the University of Basel.

Picture of the Singer of Amun from Kv 64

2012-01-16T11:33:00.000-08:00

Here is a short article with a picture of the coffin as found in the tomb in the Valley of Kings. The singer in the coffins name is Nehmes Bastet. Her name is associated with the cat god Bastet.

Note the small stela next to the feet of the coffin.

The King and the Body guard

2012-01-16T11:28:00.000-08:00

Found this picture and just thought it was interesting. Note the size of the hidden mummy of Thutmosis II next to the huge uncovered mummy of the bodyguard Nebseni.

KV 64 Found?

2012-01-14T14:51:00.000-08:00

The web is abuzz over the possibility that a tomb has been found in the Valley of Kings on the path leading to the tomb of Tuthmosis III. The reports are as yet unconfirmed though this article claims a Swiss mission lead by Dr. Gross is saying it is true.

I found this article at Jane Akshar's Luxor News and though the original article is in Arabic with typically poor translation but it can be read through the lines.

Photo by Hajor

Three Old Kingdom Statuettes in the Brooklyn Museum

2012-01-12T17:06:00.000-08:00

This lovely alabaster statuette from the Brooklyn Museum is just over 39 cm tall and is of queen Ankhnes-meryre II with her son king Pepy II seated on her lap,(39.119). Pepy II is the second last king of Egypt's Sixth dynasty and the Old kingdom with dates for his reign being approximately 2278-2184bc (1).

The statuette which is without provenance is composed with the larger queen seated on a throne facing forward while king Pepy II is seated on her lap facing right with a base supporting his feet. There is a parallel of the statuette in limestone in Cairo (JE 44866) coincidentally almost the same size though the throne is handled different in that Amarna example.

In the Brooklyn museum's statuette of Ankhnes-meryre the queens head is disproportionately large for her body and a ureaus of another material appears to have been removed from her forehead while King Pepy is displayed as a small child with the features of an adult in correct proportions. Ankhnes-meryre places her left hand on Pepy's back and with her awkward stiff looking right arm places her right hand on Pepy's knees, the king resting his left hand on his mothers.

The whole composition of the piece is one of royal dignity and affection between a mother and son yet there is an element of detachment between the two where Pepy appears to be falling away from his mother, no tender embrace here.

I could not help but notice that in both Brooklyn's statuette and Cairo's that the child's feet in both compositions is closer to the adult subjects of the sculptures with the child's body leaning outward from the adults but that in Cairo's piece is successfully rendered by the child's head turning to kiss her father, Whereas in Brooklyn the tenderness of the composition is lost by impracticality of the size of Ankhnes-meryre's head and king Pepy stares straight ahead looking more like a doll than an actual person.

To my knowledge there are only two known images of king Pepy II both of which depict him as a child making Brooklyn's statuette the most impressive identified image of this long ruling king. Where in Egyptian history this image of Ankhnes-meryre and Pepy II was created may come with further evidence in the form of a smaller alabaster statuette also in the Brooklyn museum.

The alabaster statuette of king Pepy I (39.120), Pepy I sits on his throne with the falcon Horus resting on the back of the throne facing the kings left.

Again the statuette is without a find spot and yes the beauty of the stone is warm much like the Ankhnes-meryre statuette aforementioned and again in very pristine condition with minor damage to king Pepy's crown. Like Ankhnes-meryre, Pepy I's head is too large for the body, the girth of his head being only slightly smaller than the kings waist.

Certainly king Pepi I will win no prizes for his weak shivering legs which appear to be too small for the rest of the figure while the white crown has a wonky appearance and perhaps even the height of the crown appears exaggerated. I am not looking at a great work of art even though it has it's charms.

I feel safe in the familiarity that each of the two statuettes have in common that they both come from the same source and perhaps even the same hand though the little questionable details for me make them unlikely to have belonged to the production of the royal workshop.

What type of situation were they created for a temple, a gift from the king to someone at court perhaps for their tomb? If I am right and they were created at the same time that would make them no earlier than Pepy II. I am again reminded of the unfinished limestone piece in Cairo (JE 44866) with its similarity of size and subject though the actors are very different.

Could Brooklyn's Statuettes belong to the Amarna period and have been a program finished or unfinished of a hall of ancestors at Tell el Amarna where the Cairo example was found unfinished?

This is quite a stretch and I am sure that equally good arguments could probably be made for many periods hundred years after the reign of Pepy II? There is still for me that statuette in Cairo (JE 44866) found at Tell el Amarna in that controversial year of 1912. Could that statuette be the model used as a subject for the carving of Brooklyn's Ankhnes-meryre in modern times after 1912?

Further evidence must be found in the cost of the raw block of stone which I would imagine was expensive for such vulgar carving of Ankhness-meryre's head which should have been corrected as there is enough stone in the volume of the head to be reworked to create a more naturalistic appearance but apparently this was not important?

Lets look at a third royal statuette of the Old kingdom in the Brooklyn museum, we come to (39.121) a statuette of king Pepi I which bares a grotesque spacey smile and in the middle of the kings forehead is a hole for a uraeus of another material to be inserted however the uraeus must have been huge to fill that large of a hole? The hands and toes of the king are exaggerated and the right side of the lips goes up while the left side goes down? In statuary of the Old kingdom the king is usually expressionless, he is not happy, he is not sad but firm.

This king has been perhaps thoughtfully damaged as the base is broken in such a way that it did not cause greater damage to the arms where the breakage to the right arm is a very clean separation with no appearance of shattering that I might expect, perhaps this is a repair and very clean at that? The back of the base is poorly carved and we can see that the kings collar bones are very amateurish .

Three statuettes of Old kingdom kings all with technical issues leaves me with more questions than answers. I am by no means an expert but I started writing an article on one statuette and now am dealing with three statuettes consecutively numbered in the museum register.

As for the stones the statuettes are carved from the greywhacke is most likely from the wadi Hammamat and is perfectly in vogue during the fifth and sixth dynasties as a number of kings from these dynasties had their sarcophagus' carved from it.(2) Alabaster or Travertine is found in a couple of places in Egypt and was also fashionable in the Old kingdom perhaps most famously represented in the smashed colossal statue of king Menkaure,(09.204) in Boston, found by George Riesner in the kings mortuary temple next to his pyramid at Giza (3).

So the stones for our statuettes are in compliance with royal statuary of the Old kingdom but based on the flaws in carving I would place them no earlier than the First intermediate period. It is in the Eighth dynasty we find rulers at Memphis identifying themselves with the kings of the sixth dynasty(4).

Believed to be the last pyramid built at Saqqara the small pyramid is inscribed as belonging to the Eighth dynasty king Qakare Ibi. The Seventh and Eighth dynasties make up less than sixty years ruling from ca. 2181-2125 B.C.(5) a date for the sculptures creation somewhere within perhaps even for king Ibi's propaganda scheme at his pyramid though the Turin Canon only attributes two years of rule to the king(6).

The Memphite king Ibi may not have had access to the finest sculptors and on a severely scaled down tax revenues these three sculptures may represent the best he could get. The fine preservation of the Brooklyn statuettes may be the result that the conquering Eleventh dynasty stripped and buried Ibi's statues to remove his status as a king leaving the delicate statuettes buried and out of harms way for the last 4000 years.

The true answers to these three statuettes may someday be found in photographs whether in situ or in a modern craftsman's personal catalogue. I have to admit with all this said I am still only fifty fifty whether they are ancient or modern but believe I have located where in ancient Egyptian art history I would consider they are from.

Notes:
Statuette of Ankhnes-Meryre
Medium: Egyptian alabaster
Possible Place Collected: Upper Egypt, Egypt
Dates: ca. 2288-2224 or 2194 B.C.E.
Dynasty: VI Dynasty
Period: Old Kingdom
Dimensions: 15 7/16 x 9 13/16in. (39.2 x 24.9cm)
Collections: Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art
Museum Location: This item is on view in Egypt Reborn: Art for Eternity, Old Kingdom to 18th Dynasty, Egyptian Galleries, 3rd Floor
Accession Number: 39.119

Credit Line: Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund
Rights Statement: Creative Commons-BY-NC
Caption: Statuette of Queen Ankhnes-meryre II and her Son, Pepy II, ca. 2288-2224 or 2194 B.C.E. Egyptian alabaster, 15 7/16 x 9 13/16in. (39.2 x 24.9cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 39.119. Creative Commons-BY-NC
Image: front, 39.119_front_SL1.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph
Record Completeness: Best (92%)

Statuette of Pepy II

Medium: Egyptian alabaster

Possible Place Collected: Southern Egypt, Egypt

Dates: ca. 2338-2298 B.C.E.

Dynasty: VI Dynasty
Period: Old Kingdom
Dimensions: 10 7/16 x 6 3/16 in. (26.5 x 15.7 cm) Other (Throne): 6 1/2 in. (16.5 cm)
Collections: Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art
Museum Location: This item is on view in Egypt Reborn: Art for Eternity, Old Kingdom to 18th Dynasty, Egyptian Galleries, 3rd Floor
Accession Number: 39.120
Credit Line: Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund
Rights Statement: Creative Commons-BY-NC
Caption: Seated Statuette of Pepy I with Horus Falcon, ca. 2338-2298 B.C.E. Egyptian alabaster, 10 7/16 x 6 3/16 in. (26.5 x 15.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 39.120. Creative Commons-BY-NC
Image: front, 39.120_front_SL1.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph
Record Completeness:

Statuette of Pepy I

Medium: Greywacke, alabaster, obsidian, copper
Possible Place Collected: Upper Egypt, Egypt
Dates: ca. 2338-2298 B.C.E.
Dynasty: VI Dynasty
Period: Old Kingdom
Dimensions: 6 x 1 13/16 x 3 9/16 in. (15.2 x 4.6 x 9 cm)
Collections: Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art
Museum Location: This item is not on view
Accession Number: 39.121
Credit Line: Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund
Rights Statement: Creative Commons-BY-NC
Caption: Kneeling Statuette of Pepy I, ca. 2338-2298 B.C.E. Greywacke, alabaster, obsidian, copper, 6 x 1 13/16 x 3 9/16 in. (15.2 x 4.6 x 9 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 39.121. Creative Commons-BY-NC
Image: front, 39.121_front_PS6.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2011
Catalogue Description: Small green slate kneeling figure of Mr-read more...
Record Completeness: Best (92%)

1. Eternal Egypt: Masterworks of Ancient Art from the British Museum pg.260

2. Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology, pg.57

3. MFA Highlites: Arts of Ancient Egypt, pg. 80-81

4. James H. Breasted: A History of the Ancient Egyptians, 133-134

5. Eternal Egypt: Masterworks of Ancient Art from the British Museum pg.260
6.. J. von Beckerath, The Date of the End of the Old Kingdom, JNES 21 (1962), p. 143

Crocodile Museum to open in January

2012-01-09T16:00:00.000-08:00

This is a short article about the opening of this museum after 3 years of construction. The museums collection includes 40 crocodile mummies from 2-5 meters as well as statuary of the crocodile god Sobek. Sounds to me to be a little to specific and a total snooze fest.

Kv 63 Postponed

2012-01-07T15:34:00.000-08:00

Dr, Schaden has postponed the 2012 season in tombs number 10 and 63 in the valley of kings due to reoccurring health issues, May Dr. Schaden get well soon!

The Making of Modern Egypt

2012-01-05T17:09:00.000-08:00

Sir Auckland Colvin
K.C.S.I., K.C.M.G., C.I.E.
Thomas Nelson & Sons
1906(?)

This lovely small blue book opens with a picture of Lord Cromer, British Comptroller-General of Egypt in 1879 and later from 1883-1907 as British Council-General of Egypt. Sir Auckland Colvin was Comptroller-General in Egypt, 1880-1882, and a financial adviser to the Khedive. The book also has a lovely foldout map of Egypt and the Sudan.

Sir Colvin begins "In the course of the year 1882 an outbreak of anarchy in Egypt led to British occupation.". The troubles of which Sir Colvin speaks began a number of decades earlier saying "the sources of the military revolt and popular disorder may be traced in the policy and practice of the reigning dynasty in Egypt, from the days of its founder Muhammad Ali, to the expulsion of Ismail Pasha.".

In 1863 at the accession of Ismail Pasha, Egypt's debt amounted to less than four million sterling, and upon his expulsion on June 25, 1879, more than one hundred million pounds sterling. This led in January of 1882 to a Joint Note of "aggressive tone", to the Egyptian government by the governments of Great Britain and France.

Sir Colvin tells us "Opportunity was taken of the incident of the Joint Note and of the six months' interval that followed to induce the mass of the population to believe that the jealousies of the two Western Powers would prevent their co-operation, and that the debts of the fellaheen would be wiped out by the Egyptian party now in power.".

"It would be presumably beside the point to ask whether in 1882 there existed in Egypt any potentiality of self-government. For in spite of all evidence to the contrary, men will still maintain that the mere gift of popular institutions brings with it the capacity for freedom."

At the expulsion of Ismail Pasha his son Tewfik Pasha became Egypt's ruler controlled by the Sultan in Constantinople. We are informed by Sir Colvin "Between June 2nd and 5th, British and French ironclads appeared at Alexandria, and on the 11th of June Alexandria responded by breaking out into riot and bloodshed, in which many European lives were sacrificed."

Sir Colvin continues "On July 11th the forts of Alexandria were bombarded by the British fleet; the French fleet under instructions from its Government, having steamed out of the port of Alexandria prior to hostile operations." These operations would not be long and as a result the Egyptian army surrendered on the 14th of September 1882.

Lord Dufferin arrived on the 7th of November to "advise the British Government as to the state of affairs in Egypt" and to propose how to rebuild its administration. An international Caisse was set up of representatives of Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy and Turkey which were made responsible for collection and expenditure of Egypt's economy. All revenue goes to this Caisse not the Egyptian government to manage the various debts of the country including as a high priority repayment of damages to the European victims of the riots in Alexandria in 1882.

All debts must be first managed as well as the infrastructure of Egypt need to be maintained and improved, such as the countries irrigation systems. By about now you will realize that you are in a retelling of the legacy of English lords and knights of her majesties realm in her period of empire and Sir Auckland Colvin intends on telling it to the last pound sterling.

"The maximum issue of silver token money was not to exceed 40 paistres per head of population; the nickel and bronze coins being limited to a ratio of 8 paistres per head. The total to be ultimately issued was not to exceed L(E).2,720,000 in silver and L(E).544,000 in copper and bronze. Silver was made legal tender up to a maximum of 200 paistres; nickel and bronze up to a maximum of 10 paistres."

The book is an excellent account of Egypt's economy at the period however as books go this is very dry and detailed and definitely not for those looking for a story of monuments.

This is a detailed study of international economics on Egypt and the causes by which colonialism stemmed including the mechanisms employed in rebuilding the Egyptian economy at the turn of the last century. Whatever one thinks of colonialism we find here that history is written in the name of the empire in The Making of Modern Egypt.

The Egyptian Book of the Dead

2011-12-31T20:56:00.000-08:00

James Wasserman
Chronical Books
San Francisco, CA
1998
ISBN 978-0-8118-6489-3

This large Chronicle book is the complete papyrus of Ani in the collection of the British museum with a preface by Carol A. R. Andrews and an introduction by Dr. Ogden Goelet. The translations of the papyrus is by Dr. Raymond Faulkner and while it is true the book is large it is also thankfully a carryable book complete including all 37 pages Sir Wallace Budge cut the original papyrus into dismembering the text in a desire for aesthetics.

I have long seen the beauty in the well known images but to have the complete document is more than about pretty pictures. Ani's book of the dead's wonderful images are not accompanied by equally impressive texts , the painter is finer than the scribe. The books foreword and introduction were very useful in putting the papyrus into context.

Ani's Book of the dead opens with an introductory Hymn to the sun god Re including an image of Ani and his wife in adoration in front of a table of offerings. This is followed with a similar vignette of Ani and his wife only this time the hymn is to Osiris.

Perhaps my favorite image of Ani's Book of the Dead is the feild of offerings though there are so many wonderful vignettes. Dr. Faulkner's translations of the papyrus are excellent as in example chapter 77 for being transformed into a falcon of gold begins:

" I have appeared as a great falcon, having come forth from the egg; I have flown up and alighted as a falcon of four cubits along its back, who's wings are of green stone of Upper Egypt; I have gone up from the coffer into the Night bark, I have brought my heart from the eastern mountains, I have alighted in the Day-bark, there are brought to me those of ancient times bowing down, and they give me worship when I appear, having been reassembled as a fair falcon of gold upon the pointed stone."

The papyrus of Ani ends and is followed by a four page map key to the papyrus. In the next section we are on to the the chapters in the Theban recension not found in the papyrus. This section is definitely not for the average reader as informative as it is it also at times difficult to read as the spells become more and more abstract.

In the final section we are on to a commentary by Dr. Ogden Goelet of New York University who lays down the developments in religious texts leading up to the creation of the book of the dead as well as it's development up to the Roman period.

The concepts of gods and magic are dealt with excellent clarity with their being strong division between what in our modern world is termed religion dealing with the minds view of monotheism and what we perceive to be ancient Egypt's polytheistic values. In the final commentary by Dr. Goelet he explains the vignettes in Ani's Book of the Dead beautifully.

The Egyptian book of the dead is certainly not for kids though it would still be an interesting pictorial addition till the day they delve into the incredibly complex composition that is also probably not textually enjoyable to readers of any age unless the desire of the reader is to take on a challenging read in the study of this historically important document.

I began reading Ani's book of the dead in the middle of May and found something deep and so here I am relieved 7 months later to have read this incredible document certainly this book is an enhancement to the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

Ten Events Marking a Year of Strength and Sadness

2011-12-23T17:30:00.000-08:00

What a fantastic and tragic year for the Egyptian people a revolution that began in January threw out general Mubarak and the old guard though as the year ends we find the Egyptian people back in the streets throwing rocks and being beaten up and brutalized by their army under the control of the next wannabe Mubarak, field marshal Tantawi who has brought upon the Egyptian people an "annus horriblis" as he appears to be usurping the peoples revolution.

With all of this happening in Egypt Egyptology seems trivial and unimportant and took a back seat though a number of significant events did take place.

1. The dreadful burning of the Institute de Egypte in mid December must rank as Egypt's greatest cultural loss since the rise of the Aswan damn and lake Nasser in the late 1960's. Field marshal tantawi blames the protesters for the destruction of the library even though his men were in control of the building?

2. I am sure that most of my readers will know that I was no fan of Egypt's former culture minister and former long term head of Egypt's Supreme council of antiquities, Mubarak's mini me with all the threats and barking, now the science can be better served with hopefully the right of many opinions and not the singular opinion. So my list must include the departure of this and a brighter future for Egyptian's, Egyptologist and Egyptology.

3. Certainly as head of the Supreme council of antiquities must fall the break in of the Cairo museum in January and the lax security which allowed the loss of many of the smaller objects from particularly the Amarna collection but also other periods including most of Yuya and Thuyu's shabti's and the gilded figure of Tutankhamun from atop a statuette of a goddess as just a couple of examples of what's missing. Some of the missing items came back, in a couple of cases suspiciously and there was the sickening sight of returned objects badly damaged.

4. After the robbery of the Cairo museum the workers took many weeks to present a public listing while the head of the Supreme council of antiquities mislead the public of what was stolen and what they presented to the public was nothing short of a bad joke revealing the museums ledgers and pictures of the missing objects to be laughable they did not even have a picture of a vase so they presented a crude line drawing of it.

5. Many objects deemed stolen were returned to Egypt this year including from Australia came over 120 artifacts in November while even more notable must be the return in August of artifacts from king Tutankhamun's tomb collected by Howard Carter and returned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York whom also acquired a fragment of a red granite naos taken a century ago and returned it back to it's place in Egypt at Karnak.

6. In June the world of Egyptology lost the great Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt who wrote many books on Egypt and will be remembered for her work preserving Nubian temples from the rise of lake Nassar and also be remembered as the first woman to lead an archaeological excavation in 1938.

7. Over at the Ashmolean museum the new Egyptian galleries are receiving praise with many more mummies on display while Sir David Chipperdale won the prestigious Mies van der Rohe prize for his recreation of Berlin's Neues museum.

8. Another year of mummies being poked and prodded and put in machines with the result that heart disease has been found in the 3500 year old mummy of princess Meryetamun. There was also mummies that exhibited signs of ancient air pollution in them.

9. In April after 13 years of restoration the 4th century Coptic church known as the hanging church was finished and inaugurated for Coptic Easter.

10. The St. Louis Art Museum continues it's disgraceful fight to keep the19th dynasty cartonnage mask called Kha-Nefer-Nefer but this year American authorities got involved as the evidence clearly points to theft of the piece from Egypt.

Photo: Jonathan Rashad

Images of the Destroyed Library

2011-12-21T16:11:00.000-08:00

These are truly sad photographs from National Geographic of the destruction of the Institute de Egypte and the loss of it's library including rare and ancient books.

Photo: Amr Nabil

That Burned Library

2011-12-20T19:32:00.000-08:00

It is truly a tragedy that such a valuable record of Egypt and Egyptian history has been destroyed in the burning of the Institute de Egypte. Both sides are blaming each other though the army is in control and bares ultimate responsibility.

I seem to recall in the January revolution there was talk that the army used the Cairo museum to detain protesters and worse. In this case the military was in control of the institute and there is talk that the army was using the roof of the building to attack the crowd of protesters below.

Photo: Reuters

Egyptian Treasures: From the Collections of the Brooklyn Museum

2011-12-14T17:03:00.000-08:00

Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
New York
1978
ISBN 0-8109-2170-7

How I dislike over sized books this one though half a book shelf long is not thick and it's size is exploited beautifully with full page photographs by Seth Joel. Many beautiful objects in Brooklyn's collection of Egyptian art are represented though about half are mear trinkets only inches in size.

The book opens with a short introduction by Michael Botwinick then director of the museum with the commentaries of the chosen objects provided by Robert S. Bianchi.

The book is about 29 objects from the collection starting with an attractive small gneiss statuette of a god from the 3rd dynasty. I have some serious issues with number 2 in the book like 18 of the 29 pieces in the book are reportedly from or have no provenance at all.

The shawabti of the scribe Amenemhet is from tomb no. 82 in the Theban necropolis and still possesses much of it's paint. Whatever I think of the selection of pieces the photographs are stunning. The figure of the spoonbill found at the palace of Amenhotep III at Malkata is an extremely rare example in Egyptian art and new to me though not a beautiful object.

The just over 3 inch nude ivory figure of a lady reportedly from the tomb of Tutankhamun is present among the pieces though unfortunately its base is omitted in the picture. The tiny gold scarab inscribed with the name Mutnedjem wife of king Horemheb is a work of great beauty at less than an inch long and without provenance.

The cartonnage of the priest Nespaneterenpera is a lovely example of mummy cases that enveloped upper class mummies of the 21rst and 22nd dynasties in this case most probably from Thebes. Just over 6 inches tall the bronze of the god of the Ba of Pe is crafted in the austere elegance of the 26th dynasty and one of my favorites in the book.

As we approach the end of the book we come to the small schist head of Wesir-wer where we find one of the most interesting of the choices for the book. The mixed media head of the god Osiris dated to the Ptolemaic period is full of life in it's wonderful decay.

The silver and gilded wood ibis with rock crystal eyes is probably the finest example of it's kind that I know of. The Brooklyn museum also has one of the finest collections of faience and a number of fine examples are represented in the book.

The book is a short read of a couple of hours and suitable for persons of all ages to enjoy a small treasury of gems from one of America's great Egyptian collections at the same time a fine tribute to the Brooklyn museums Egyptian collections great patron Charles Edwin Wilbour who made it all possible.

Worlds of Forgeries

2011-12-11T18:58:00.000-08:00

The painting of the lady above was once believed to be by Goya but when studied further it was found to be not by the artist but rather an 18th century portrait of a woman that was painted over with materials not available till after Goya's death. Restorers of the painting decided the painting should be left in it's current state with both portraits showing.

Many factors play a part on the art and antiquities marketplace including fakes and forgeries. In articles I have published on occasion I have referred to a museums piece as a forgery or fake it is never a personal thing but an inevitability of collecting, seeing whats not there and what should not be.

As a collector of art myself every once in a while I unfortunately add a fake to my collections and hopefully discover which are which before to much embarrassment. Inevitably the object which looked so hopeful in the store/gallery comes home and is placed in a place of pride to be admired by myself and my guests but what happens on occasion is that it is not until I walk by it a number of times that my original thrill begins to wear and those things which are not right begin to stand out and gnaw at me and my original judgment of the piece.

No museum/gallery or personal collector can escape this fact of the life in any open collection.

In recent years the Bolton museum in the U.K. bought a forged statuette of an Amarna princess for more than L400 000 while the J. Paul Getty museum spent millions on a fake kouros. Where there is money to be made there will always be someone there to make it though even more insidious is those scholars who create fakes to make others look bad including Piltdown man.

The late Thomas Hoving on forgeries.

True when one finds out there piece is a forgery you better believe it's dead and how fast can I get rid of it. This is one thing in a work of art but much harder to ferreted out when it is a document posing as historical.

In the Salamander letter Joseph Smith the founder of Mormonism has a seer stone in which he sees the golden bible but when he goes to dig it up a Salamander appears and will not let Joseph take the bible until he shows up with his brother Alvin who unfortunately is dead and buried. There is a rumor that Joseph Smith and his family dug up Alvin to use his remains in a ceremony.

The letter along with many other anti-Mormon documents were created by a forger in an attempt to discredit Joseph Smith and the Church of Later Day Saints and he earned big money on a number of his many creations of which some may still be out there perverting history.

Excellent show from the Detroit Institute of Arts on fakes and forgeries I recommend all six episodes:

I have also come across the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology on forgeries in their Egyptian collection. I also found this site on fake Egyptian antiquities. Of note must be the auction prices for the real work and the fake pieces.

Here is a fine list of antiquities auctions from recent years including prices realized. This site has excellent overview of forgeries.

Tomb of Seti I

2011-12-11T16:12:00.001-08:00

I loved this animation of the tomb of Seti I

Egypt's Military Rulers Must End Human Rights Abuses

2011-12-10T16:02:00.000-08:00

Please take action to show your support to the Egyptian people and for the correct decisions by the military rulers of Egypt for the better of the people to transition to an Egyptian democracy.

Egypt's Lost Resource

2011-12-06T21:00:00.000-08:00

In the world of ancient art collectors and galleries have to always be on guard for objects stolen from previous owners or illegally dug out of the ground as the two photo's above demonstrate the beauty of an object and the perverse transformation it underwent at the hands of a smuggler out of Egypt.

The Egyptian's who found the piece received reportedly $6000 for the head that in New York became a million dollar piece. A million dollars that the Egyptian government could have used! The question becomes is the prohibition on the export of antiquities really acting as a safeguard to the protection of archaeological material or is it in fact intellectual colonialism?

Often the finger is pointed at the collector and the market when in reality current international and nationalistic laws not only creates the problem of stolen art and lost provenances but also fuels the illegal export of these ancient countries national patrimony for next to nothing?

Many of the countries where ancient civilizations existed are developing countries with issues of poverty vs heritage as respect for ones heritage is made easier on a full stomach so the base problem is one of need not being provide and certainly motives of greed must be it`s kin. The Yin and the Yang of the peoples problem in the judgement call and the erasure of an objects provenance for convenience and profit.

Egypt may be better served by the example of the British Treasure act(1) which rewards the finder and provided the object is not wanted for the national collections at fair market value the finder can sell their discovery.

Most of the artifacts I will discuss in this article are in the tens or hundreds of thousand of dollars with many into the million dollar or even multi-million dollar range for authentic works of ancient art. When it comes to the sale of antiquities I will deal delve into the top of the market and to begin with the owner for the Royal Athena Galleries(2) Jerome Eisenberg, his website has many beautiful antiquities of artistic merit for sale from many different ancient civilizations.

The issue of antiquities for sale is a hot topic to many especially when talking about objects of artistic value. Mr. Eisenberg knows as well as any art collector that you have to deal with objects which come on the market with scepticism be aware that a provenance is easily manufactured but that fifty or hundred years ago ancestors of many of us went on trips to Egypt and Greece and brought home ancient souvenirs which are perfectly legal now to sell.

These antiquities often are forgotten as ancient and packed away for another generation to find, a shabti in the attic that the finder is often unable to believe or see that it is ancient. A number of these pieces have turned up on the Antiques Roadshow(3) over the years.

Having said that the pieces sold by Royal Athena are top of the market and thus objects which would have been very expensive fifty or one hundred years ago and less likely forgotten. In 2007 Mr. Eisenberg through his generosity returned to Italy eight pieces when he found they had been looted.(4)

Three of the bronzes had actually been stolen from Italian museums and found by Italian authorities when Mr. Eisenberg displayed them on his site. This is a fact of the life of an art collection whether that be in a museum or private, be it ancient or modern.

The guidelines to protect archaeological material must include the distribution of excavated and documented material in order to democratize the study of ancient civilizations and by doing so bring capital to the quality of life to the living society.

The black market in antiquities is a thriving business partly because of strict laws which prohibit the export of them and ironically the countries in question could all use further revenue sources not to mention the thrill of people to have the opportunity to buy history with a provenance and promote an interest in those civilizations with those objects and by doing so enhance and personalize the subject of Egyptology.

How can you maintain archaeological sites by stopping the export of antiquities which naturally makes the archaeological sites themselves more valuable and also more vulnerable to midnight excavations. More than likely we have our answer, the greater reward the greater risk though collectors would much rather have a piece with a solid provenance than without it may just be red tape that many will ignore and get away with.

With the economy in both Egypt and worse yet Greece faltering cut backs are going to have to be made and those archaeological sites guards will feel the pinch and it will become harder and harder to protect all the sites to stop looters and smugglers. Egypt is loosing it's national patrimony and receiving little to nothing for it.

Absolutely the greatest archaeological tragedy is when an important artifact appears on the market or in a private collection instead of in an excavation. Much of the time we see the mistaken purchases by museums in the 1980's or 1990's but just as often a person obtains an object in less than desirable ways and are caught during export or not.

The preservation of ancient art by private collectors is a safeguard against episodes where public collections are lost or damaged through disaster or theft. The list of these tragic museums includes Baghdad, Kabul, liverpool, Berlin, Beijing, Cairo this list can go on and on.

There are contributions that can be made by proper conservetorship of those private collections especially in an age of computers that will benefit of a larger encompassing study observed not only by institutions with thousands of objects but include those lone objects of ancient civilizations around the world into the greater study.

The private collector has the ability to publish their collection to the entire world if they have a computer and a website. So were at the meat of the issue which ignores this fact for a forgotten drawer at some intellectual institution.

There is a very important collection of middle kingdom bronzes belonging to George Ortiz in Switzerland including a bust believed to be the 12th dynasty Egyptian king Amenemhet III of unrivaled quality and a bronze kneeling king which is said to be the oldest known example of a king in that offering position. The collection also contains a large headless queen and two impressive viziers.

The find is unrecorded but likely came from the Fayum but whether such bronzes belonged to that king's mortuary temple is probably lost. Before Mr. Ortiz those bronzes belonged too one of America's elite persons Mr. Maurice Tempelsman, a wealthy New York diamond merchant perhaps most famous for his long term friendship with the late Jacklyn Kennedy Onassis.

Mr. Templesman was the seller to the Getty museum of a marble group of griffins for millions of dollars in 1985, (one of that museums star pieces).

A photo of the griffins later turned up showing the marble sculpture in the trunk of a car wrapped in newsprint proving the object was stolen and the Getty was forced to hand over the sculpture along with dozens of other pieces to Italy(5).

I noticed on George Ortiz's site,(6) that the date of purchase of the Fayum bronzes from Mr. Tempelsman was the following year after the Getty bought the griffins, in 1986 and if I am reading it right the bronzes were in Mr. Templesman`s collection since 1971 though oddly enough remained unpublished for the first dozen years in his collection with the first publications of them in 1983(7).

The bronzes are unlikely to be anything but what they are artistically as only the viziers are inscribed, unless of course if archaeologist find another similar cache or better yet the missing elements to the sculptures, such as the queens head or the missing left lapit from the believed Amenemhet bust.

The bronzes are only a few of the objects in George Ortiz`s important collection of over two hundred and ninety pieces online. Within the Ortiz collection we find a Bactrian silver and gold ceremonial axe of great beauty and allegedly from north Afghanistan, that word "allegedly" describes the find spot for almost half of the objects in the collection.

Among Mr. Ortiz's holdings are also pieces with very fine provenances including his rare middle kingdom blue glazed hippo found by John Garstang in tomb 416 at Abydos and into the William Macgregor collection from there. A bronze Corinthian helmet has no find spot but a prestigious modern history being in the collection of Lord Londesborough before Mr. Ortiz and in fact many of the objects in the collection have modern recorded histories before Mr. Ortiz.

Within the collection we find again that nearly half of the objects have no find spot combined with the pieces that are ``alleged to have come from" we find a total of around two hundred and fifty of the works of art in this collection are without provenance. Only around forty artifact in George Ortiz's collection have provenances including the lovely mirror stand of a lady from Magna Graecia and formerly in the collection of Count Afan di Rivera Capialbi.

You cannot dash the issue of provenances lost and how convenient that may be with the laws of the antiquities markets being what they are and the obvious beauty and importance of such art. So why a 1971 date for the bronzes in Mr. Templesman's collection and the publication of such an important collection in 1983?

I would think that bragging rites would not hold back publication for a dozen years? Perhaps the most we can hope for know is that some day photos of the bronzes in situ will turn up but until then they remain as enviable acquisitions by George Ortiz that any museum would love to have.

Clearly George Ortiz is not the sculptures original owner in modern history and is not responsible for the lost provenance merely he is a collector of the first rate and presents his collection as a free valuable published resource online and in museums.

Unlike Jerome Eisenberg of the Royal Athena Galleries who gave back the objects which he saw were stolen the St. Louis Art Museum(8) has fought tooth and nail to keep the 19th dynasty mask referred to as Ka Nefer Nefer(9), even though the evidence is clearly there that the mask has been stolen(10).

Collectors of antiquities cannot be painted with a broad brush just because of the irresponsibility of some including St. Louis' possession of this mask one of the most flagrant examples of theft in the world of ancient art and a disgrace to that collection.

On the St. Louis Art museums site we find the Egyptian collection represented by 27 pieces including the Ka Nefer Nefer mask which comes with the acknowledgement that Zakaria Goneim found the mask in his 1951-52 excavation season at Saqqara. The issue is one of "if" the piece was given to Mr. Goneim to sell or whether it was placed into a magazine at Saqqara and stolen from there.

It was not in the practice of Egypt's antiquities authority to give antiquities to archaeologist working on their behalf. As Mr. Goneim drowned in the Nile many decades ago he cannot answer nor defend himself from the distasteful implications St. Louis' case stands on.

Myself I am much more in the belief that the mask was stolen from it's magazine in the 1950's as Mr. Goneim is a man praised for his intelligence and integrity and doubtful he would have damaged his reputation and his discovery.

In this article I have tried to layout a market of the more high end artifacts including a seller of antiquities as well as a buyer and a public museum all currently involved in the world market of ancient art and in doing so set only an example of what protection of ancient art involves and just because an institution or individual can provide a home does not mean it can be a good home public or private.

The prohibition on the export of antiquities is designed to protect Egypt's national patrimony when in fact it is hurting it by encouraging the illegal export of antiquities and there by causing intellectual damage to the ancient history and depriving the Egyptian people and the Egyptian economy of revenue and taxation of a valuable resource worth untold millions and denied to the Egyptian people.

DOCUMENTS:
Header Photo: Archaeology Magazine
(1). British treasure act
(2). Royal Athena Galleries
(3). Antiques Roadshow
(4). Bloomberg.com
(5). New York Times
(6). George Ortiz Collection
(7). Royal Bronze Statuary from Ancient Egypt pg.12, ref.23
(8). St. Louis Art Museum
(9). Ka Nefer Nefer
(10). Riverfront Times
Photo of Griffins: Smithsonian.com
Photo of Ka Nefer Nefer: Riverfront Times

Tell Edfu Project

2011-12-06T19:44:00.000-08:00

I received this from the Oriental Institute on the latest update of the Tell Edfu Project.

Egypt Secret of the Pharaohs

2011-12-04T16:24:00.000-08:00

I found this oldie on Youtube and thought I would pass it along.

Should be good for a few laughs.

The New Egyptian Galleries at the Ashmolean

2011-11-25T11:42:00.000-08:00

Here we have from The Telegraph a video on the new Egyptian galleries at the Ashmolean museum. The video is interesting and displays some great objects in the collection collected over the last 300 years.

The museum now has double the mummies and coffins on display some of which have been in storage since the second world war.

The Brave and the Bold

2011-11-24T13:56:00.000-08:00

Egypt is in a state of unrest with crowds of tens of thousands of people are gathering in Tahrir square calling for the removal field marshal Tantawi. Clashes with the peaceful crowds and the Egyptian army have resulted in numerous arrests and dozens of deaths among the protesters.

Some wish to bring in the subject of the rise of the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt as a sort of threat that the military is the lesser of two evils? Until last January the west was content to have a dictator as a friend who along with Israel makeup one third of all United States foreign aid with Israel receiving $3,175,000,000US and Egypt coming in second received in 2010 from the United States taxpayers just over $1,550,000,000US. (1)

A full $1,300,000,000US of this money goes towards buying military supplies and weapons from the United States in order for Egypt to keep peace with Israel. Unfortunately those military gifts to Egypt are being used against the peoples democratic revolution going on in Egypt. Please contact your congressman or tell President Obama to stop military aid to Egypt and to put pressure on Egypt's military and particularly field marshall Tantawi to step aside for free party elections.

(1). Vaughns
(2). ProPublica

Photo: Al Ahram

The Curse of Artemisia

2011-11-20T14:57:00.000-08:00

In this papyrus from Ptolemaic Egypt in the 4th century bce Artemisia`s daughter is deprived of funeral rites and burial by her father. In revenge Artemisia appeals to the God Oserapis that he may be given the same respect at his death as well as his parents.

The papyrus is in the collection of the Austrian National Library and a part of the World Digital Library.

Egyptian Museum Safe

2011-11-20T12:01:00.000-08:00

There are rumours that the Cairo Museum has been looted again during the current unrest in Tahrir square. The museums Director Tarek El-Awady has said that the rumours are false and that the museum is open for business and has had 13, 000 visitors in the last few days.

The museum was targeted by a gang of thieves who took advantage of the revolution in Tahrir square to rob the museums Amarna collection. More than 50 objects were taken of which about half have been returned, some quit dubiously and convenient.

Still missing are most of Yuya and Thuyu`s shabtis several pieces of King Tutankhamun`s statues which were broken during the robbery including a tiny statuette of the king that use to rest on a goddess`head. Also missing are a number of pieces that occupied a cabinet in the Amarna gallery including a stone head of a princess.

Photo: BsOu10e01

Mummy Secrets of the Tomb

2011-11-20T11:23:00.000-08:00

Here we have a travelling American exhibition presented by the British Museum and opening in Richmond Virginia at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibition will run from November 19, 2011 through to March 11, 2012 and display more than a hundred objects including the beautiful 22nd dynasty mummy of Nesperennub which will follow his story in life and in the afterlife.

Nesperennub will not be the only mummy there will also be a cat mummy and artifacts including stone sarcophagus and statues, jewelry and parts of a book of the dead.

Photo: British Museum

Egypt's Golden Empire

2011-11-17T18:35:00.000-08:00

I found this interesting!

Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture of Ancient Egypt

2011-11-05T17:43:00.000-07:00

Wolfhart Westendorf
Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
New York
1968
Library of Congress: 68-28391

This book is one of eighteen volumes which under the common title of (The Panorama of World Art) explain the history of world art. The book opens with an introduction to Egypt's gods how they came to be and the influence they had on the developing civilization.

The author then lays down the foundations of Egyptian art including the materials available, the intention of the art and its function within the ideals of Egyptian society including the standardization of the art early on in ancient history.

Professor Westendorf begins a book which is filled with pictures on just about every page accompanied by a paragraph or two about the objects pictured beginning with the Brooklyn museums prehistoric female dancing figure of the Nagadah I culture which while simple contains great beauty.

Each object is given it's basic size, material, find spot and museum where the object resides as well as a couple of sentences of insight by the author. The large pictures and choice of objects from around the world is very interesting including many objects I have never seen.

Professor Westendorf imbues his subjects with moments of brilliant insight into the mind of the objects creators. The layout of the book makes for a quick read with wonderful connections created between the objects.

I liked that several of the Pre-dynastic to archaic period eye makeup palettes are present in the book demonstrating that at such an early period in Egyptian art that the royal craftsmen were producing works of sophisticated highly stylized iconography and for all the beauty the message they send is of aggression and destruction of the kings enemies.

The archaic alabaster baboon in Berlin is an unusual example of the art of period being in it's earliest stages of carving in the round with the end statue having it's arms awkwardly carved. Occasionally objects are given their biographical information while the author remains silent on the object, something I liked very much.

The Fourth dynasty statue of Nofret found next to the statue of prince Rahotep at Medum has defied time itself a rare object that has the same appearance with it's paint intact as it did the day it was finished more than 4500 years ago, she transcends time.

The subject of the book is not only of statues and objects but also the architecture including the hall of columns in Chephren's valley temple at Giza with it's alabaster floor with it's severe pink granite columns is an agreed highlight in Egyptian art history.

I liked that of the Fourth dynasty portrait heads found almost exclusively at Giza, (though one was found at Saqqara), that the choice picked was Cairo's head from which has had it's ears removed? The Fifth dynasty herd of cattle crossing a body of water from the tomb of Ti at Saqqara presents daily life of the ancient people of the Nile valley in great splendor of detail.

From Saqqara comes Cairo's Sixth dynasty relief of workmen working on statues while two men work with chisels on one statue two other workers are using polishing stones on another statue behind the first. A First intermediate period stele from the Royal Scottish Museum is something new to me though detailed it's provincialism lacks elegance.

Present is the beautiful seated Middle kingdom granite statue of the lady Senuwy found at Kerma in Nubia and now property of Boston's Museum of Fine Arts.The great thing about old books on Egypt is you get to see the Hatshepsut temple in so many different stages of reconstruction.

The acacia wood head of a king or prince in the Kofler-Truniger collection in Lucerne is a small masterpiece of the Eighteenth dynasty and new to me while also new to me are the austere musicians at a banquet in the tomb of Wah (no.22) at Thebes of which the author say's nothing.

Column 61 of the Eighteenth dynasty papyrus referred to as the Ebers medical papyrus was composed in hieratic by a confident hand and is an unusual choice from Leipzig`s University library. The 65ft. long papyrus contains 108 numbered columns of medical treatments of various illness` and was purchased by author George Ebers at Luxor in the early 1870`s.

Professor Westendorf then heads into a section on the tomb of Tutankhamun and it`s fabulous furniture though I myself have had too much Tut and was glad the section was brief. The Eighteenth dynasty limestone stele of Huy from the National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden is amazing as a voyeuristic view of dozens of people attending an afterlife party.

Always loved the carved wood statues of the nobles of the New Kingdom and the elegant Nineteenth dynasty lady in the Egyptian Museum in Turin is no exception. The lady is in the company of two other figures one of which is a girl wearing a collar and girdle while the other male figure wears a white kilt and is reminiscent of figures found in the Middle Kingdom tomb of Meseheti.

It is a travesty that in Florence's Archaeological museum a wall hacked out of the tomb of Seti I stands with king Seti in adoration of Hathor on a yellow ground. The detail of the god Ptah not in mummiform found in the Valley of Queens tomb No.55 for prince Amon-Khepshef is a rarely seen persona of the god.

The author brings great insight into not only the objects but the passing of time within Egyptian society. Interesting professor Westendorf predicts that the exquisite tomb of Ramesses II's chief queen Nofretari (No.66) " is being gradually destroyed, so that the paintings created for eternity will survive in the future only in reproductions."

From this point we are presented with three images on facing pages showing the deterioration of the quality of reliefs from the masterpieces of raised reliefs found in the temple of Seti I at Abydos to the inferior sunk relief in the temple of Ramesses II at Abydos and the even further deterioration in the reliefs in the mortuary temple of Ramesses III.

Very unusual picture of the end of the lid of the sarcophagus of Djed-Hor which displays the transfer of the sun from the day barge to the night barge with Djed-Hor in adoration of the sun god. A relief from the Cleveland Museum of Art of a drummer woman and a woman with a lyre from the Thirtieth dynasty tomb of Hap-iu has an interesting pose for the woman with the lyre.

Professor Westendorf closes the book with the evolution of Egyptian art into the Ptolemaic and Roman periods culminating in the art of the ancient Copt's. Berlin's statue of Horsanebenebef is a masterpiece of late Ptolemaic portraiture and though he is a foreboding figure he is beautifully rendered.

The book was a very easy read, certainly suitable for a 10 year old though Professor Westendorf's thoughts are deep but well explained by the accompanying photos. Start to finish "Painting, Sculpture and Architecture of Ancient Egypt" is an excellent telling of the evolution of Egyptian culture over more than 5000 years and exceeded my pessimistic expectations by far!

Spurlock Museums Child Mummy

2011-11-04T14:20:00.000-07:00

Back in 1989 the Spurlock Museum of the University of Illinois received a donation of a child's mummy from Roman period Egypt. The mummy has been xrayed and now CT. scanned yet still the sex of the child's mummy remains unanswered as does cause of death.

Researchers have found a portrait in the wrappings which appears to be of a male also the mummy has expensive red pigment as part of it's decoration which may indicate the child was from a wealthy family.

Photo: Sarah Wisseman

Australia Hand Over More than 100 Artifacts

2011-11-04T14:00:00.000-07:00

Officials in Australia are set to hand back to Egypt more than 120 artifacts that were stolen from Egypt and were set to be auctioned off but has now the auction is off and the objects will be transferred back to Egypt. The artifacts range from the pre-dynastic to the Greco-Roman period.

Artifacts Siezed

2011-11-03T12:09:00.000-07:00

Authorities have arrested a 50 year old man as he attempted to smuggle ancient artifacts out of Egypt. The artifacts are said to be ancient Egyptian and Islamic and id determined to be authentic they will be sent to the Cairo museum.

The Style of Egyptian Art

2011-11-02T20:18:00.000-07:00

I found this short video on the style of Egyptian art and it's consistency over time and found it very interesting.

Masterpieces of Ancient Egypt

2011-10-27T16:37:00.000-07:00

Nigel Strudwick
The British Museum Press
2006
ISBN-10: 0-7141-1972-5

Masterpieces of Ancient Egypt opens with a standard run through of ancient Egyptian history through to the Arab conquest of 642ad with a particularly informative inclusion of the history of the kingdom of Kush to Egypt's south. The author includes an explanation of how the British Museum acquired it's collection and the provenances of the pieces.

Mr. Strudwick begins with the collections earliest pieces from the predynastic and earliest dynasties including the small ivory statuette of a king (EA 37996), perhaps first dynasty found by Flinderts Petrie in the ruins of an early temple at Abydos. The picture cannot do justice to this little piece as I found when I last stood in front of it in 2004 and for me a favorite piece in the collection.

The First or Second dynasty relief of two kings on limestone (EA 67153), is a rarely seen piece in pictures and may actually be a practice slab used be an artist to perfect his/her craft. The shame that today we can only see fragments of the first rate fresco's that once decorated the funerary chapel of Itet at Meydum.

I have always loved the old kingdom husband wife statues and the limestone statue of Kaitep and Hetepheres (EA 1181), is no exception.

Mr. Strudwick puts forth in his choice of an object from the first intermediate period the stela of Inyotef (EA1203). When I saw this piece last I did not like it in fact I was unable to appreciate it but my mind has now been changed with a better understanding of a complex piece of provincialism put forward by the author.

The brewery (EA40915), from tomb 3 in the temple of Mentuhotep II at Deir el Bahri is a gem of simple complexity containing 28 figures making bread and beer. From the island of Elephantine comes a royal stela of king Senwosret I (EA 963), ca.1940 bce of enormous importance in the middle kingdom collection.

Mr. Strudwick picks the colossal head of Amenemhet III (EA 1063), and I am in complete agreement an awe inspiring head, the eyes of which give it a ghostly presence. I have always been fond of the middle kingdom block statues and Mr. Strudwicks choice of the block statue of Sennefer (EA 48), is a fine addition to the book.

The simple wooden mummiform figures of Qenamun (EA 56929-30), are a rarely published gems from the reign of Amenhotep II in the last quarter of the fifteenth century bce. Qenamun is the owner of Theban tomb (TT93), and was a powerful official during that kings reign. The paintings from the tomb chapel of Sebekhotep(TT63), are sophisticated and posses great merit.

This point in the book Mr. Strudwick turns to the sculpture from the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III a king who's reign is viewed as an epoch of the eighteenth dynasty and possibly in Egyptian history. Clearly outside of Egypt the British museum's collection of statuary from this kings mortuary temple is unrivaled in the world being acquired very early in the nineteenth century by men like Belzoni and counsel general Salt,s first collection in 1823.

The authors choice of Amarna period objects for the book only included three picks and though the stela of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye (EA 57399), is a wonderful piece to stand in front of as is the glass tilapia fish (EA 55193), still I found myself wanting more.

The wooden protective figures from the kings tombs in the valley of kings capture a fearsome presence and the feeling of what the ancient burial party would have thought of such figures though I might imagine they were in black shrines and unseen by the mourners?I was glad to see the nineteenth dynasty unknown couple carved in limestone (EA 36), which sculptor Henry Moore liked so much and am in full agreement with him as they posses a real charm and dignity and are beautifully crafted.

While the silver cult image of Amun (EA 60006), I make a departure from the author in the reality the photographs always seem to make this piece look impressive but that in fact besides it's material of silver and gold the statuette is very cheap looking and wonky in his position. For me it is not good enough to be the actual cult figure but more likely a votive offering of the late period?

I loved the ostrakon bearing attendance of the workmen in the valley of kings (EA 5634), beside being very attractive the information is of an interesting personal nature of the workers responsible for the creation of the kings tombs. The seated statue of Seti II (EA 26), has taken a gentle journey through the millenniums it's excellent state of preservation and is impressive, the statue having been found by the famous Belzoni in the temple of Mut at Karnak in 1816.

A sketch on an ostrakon (EA 5620), said to have been found in the valley of kings of Ramesses IX with a prince and vizier is exquisite in detail of complexity. The author has chosen the museums 21rst dynasty mummy board (EA 22542), known as the "Unlucky mummy" . Though a fine work of art of the period of 950 bce., the mummy board is enhanced further by modern fantasies.

I love that the author goes on to the British museum's oracular shabti decree (EA 16672), which may have come from the royal cache of Db320 at Thebes. Mr. Strudwick follows this with the museums Third intermediate period receipt for a set of shabtis (EA 10800).

The late period coffin of Menkaure (EA 6647), which colonel R.W.H. Vyse found in the pyramid of that king in 1837 and of course the book has the museums star piece "The Rosetta stone" (EA 24).

The stela of Taimhotep (EA 147), is a wonderful example of autobiographical information complete with a prayer to Imhotep to bring her a son. I often complain in my reviews of Egyptian books which lack mummies this book is very different in that a good selection of mummies from the collection are represented.

The mummy portrait of an elite lady found at el-Rubayat (EA 65346), is a work of immense beauty so much so that when I saw her in the British museum show "Eternal Egypt" she hung in a corner of a gallery while the public formed a human whirlpool in that corner of the room as everyone tried to get close as they could to her while the rest of the objects in the room remained overlooked and unappreciated including the mask of Satdjehuty (EA 29770).

The mysterious Merotic stela (EA 1650), is of great interest and hopefully archaeology will one day bring it's language to life. The book ends with the fourteenth century AD iron cross removed from the body of bishop Timotheus at Qasr Ibrim (EA 71955).

As I expected from the start that a British Museum publication by Nigel Strudwick would be good I was right the book is a great edition to any one's library with particular notice that the book is suitable to those readers 10 years to 100 years and are interested in the Masterpieces of Ancient Egypt.

Prostate Cancer in Mummy

2011-10-27T11:15:00.000-07:00

A Ptolemaic mummy of a middle aged man known as M1 is being studied by an international team of researchers to see what ailed the man. Through CT scanning the team have found prostate cancer would have made his life miserable for years before he died.

The findings are the oldest known case of prostate cancer in Egypt and the second oldest in the world. The mummy is part of the collection of the National Archaeological museum in Lisbon and is one of three from the museum undergoing tests.

Catalogue of Petrie's Finds at Naukratis

2011-10-18T16:44:00.000-07:00

The British Museum is creating an online catalogue of Sir Flinders Petrie's finds from the ancient Egyptian Greek trading post of Naukratis. Petrie excavated the city in the mid 1880's and collected more than ten thousand artifacts from the smashed remains of the city.

The online searchable database is to include artifacts from not only The British Museum's collection but also 60 museums who sponsored Petrie's excavations including The Liverpool National Museum. Sir Flinders Petrie excavated in Egypt between 1880 and sometime after 1924 in the process he changed the entire field of archaeology including establishing a corpus of pottery to date the sites he was excavating.

Photo of Sir Petrie

Stolen Fifth Dynasty Reliefs Found

2011-10-17T12:22:00.000-07:00

Two reliefs stolen in 1986 from the Saqqara tomb of Hetepka the royal hairdresser have been discovered by police. The relief pictured contains the cartouches of the fifth dynasty kings Sahura and Neferirkare the kings which Hetepka served under while the other relief contains lines of hieroglyphs and four ducks.

Royal Mummies Hall at Gizeh?

2011-10-14T15:33:00.000-07:00

I believe that this photograph was taken when Egypt's national collection was in the Gizeh palace after 1890 and before 1902 when the collection was again transferred to the newly built Cairo museum.

The picture appears to be taken with the 21rst dynasty high priest's family coffins in the foreground though I can only make out about a dozen possible coffins. That would represent about one in three of the mummies found in the king's cache DB320 at Deir el-Bahri.

The Granville Mummy

2011-10-11T19:17:00.000-07:00

This is the mummy and its coffin which in 1825 the mummy was subject of the first ancient Egyptian mummy autopsy by Dr. Augustus Granville. The lady Irtyersenu lived somewhere around 600bce and the mummy is reported to have been found at Thebes.

The autopsy was presented before The Royal Society of London which caused a sensation at the time. Dr Granville found during the autopsy an ovarian tumor on Irtyersenu and surmised that she had died from it. Recent study has brought up that Irtyersenu also had Tuberculosis which is what more than likely what killed her.

The coffin and remains of Irtyersenu are kept in the British Museum though I have been unable to find them on the museums site.

Image: The Royal Society

The Mummies Royal

2011-10-10T19:33:00.000-07:00

This archaeological season is at work in Egypt but with the current political state of the country these operations seem insignificant in comparison. I decided it was time to once again to put forward G.E. Smith's classic 1912 book "The Mummies Royal".

Archaeological Work Resumes in Upper Egypt

2011-10-09T14:50:00.000-07:00

I laughed when I saw the title of the "Permanent Council of Antiquities", apparently it is led by whoever is the head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities on any given day? Anyhoo the secretary general of such organizations has approved some foreign archaeological missions to resume work in Upper Egypt including the Polish mission at Hatshepsut's temple and the German mission to Deir El-Medina.

Photo Courtesy: Steve F-E-Cameron

Twenty Sixth Dynasty Tomb Found

2011-10-08T13:21:00.000-07:00

Workers digging a foundation for a house in Ain Sham have accidentally discovered a carved wall from a 26th dynasty tomb further investigation has shown that the tomb was robbed in antiquity. The antiquities authority will remove the tomb and make sure that no artifacts are present and the land will be returned to the owner.

The Goldworker of Amun Sobekmose

2011-09-29T13:19:00.000-07:00

Here we have the Book of the dead of Sobekmose an 18th dynasty goldworker of Amun. Sobekmose lived within the reign of Thutmosis III to his son Amenhotep II, between 1479bce - 1400bce, At such a date it makes Sobekmose's one of the earliest Books of the dead and important example to the early part of the evolution of such texts.

Sobekmose's book contains about half of the known spells with a number of the spells being in common with the older coffin texts of the middle kingdom, unusually it is inscribed on both sides. Unfortunately the papyrus was in poor condition and has required a number of years of restoration at it's home in the Brooklyn Museum.

Visitors to the museum will now be able to view all three sections of the papyrus after the third and final parts restoration is finished. Sobekmose's book of the dead is currently part of Brooklyn's wonderful display called "The Mummy Chamber".

Photo:
Book of the Dead of the Goldworker of Amun, Sobekmose. Egypt, from Saqqara. New Kingdom, Dynasty 18, probably reign of Thutmose III to reign of Amunhotep II (circa 1479–1400 B.C.E.). Papyrus, ink, pigment, 14 x 288 2/3 in. (35.6 x 733.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 37.1777

The First Wonder

2011-09-22T17:41:00.001-07:00

First occurrence of Sed jubilee

Year 2 second month of the first season, day 3

This wonder which happened to his majesty : that the beasts of the highlands came down to him; there came a gazelle great with young, going with the face of the people before her, while her eyes looked backward; she did not turn back until she arrived at this august mountain, at this block, it still being in place, for this lid of this sarcophagus. She dropped her young upon it while the army of the king was looking. Then they cut off her neck before it and brought fire. It descended in safety.

Now, it was the majesty of this august god, lord of the highlands, who gave the offering to his son, Nibtowere, Mentuhotep IV, living forever, in order that his heart might be joyful, that he might live upon his throne forever and ever, that he might celebrate millions of Sed Jubilees.

The hereditary prince, count, governor of the city and vizier, chief of all nobles of judicial office, supervisor of everything in this whole land, the vizier Amenemhet.

James Breasted: The Documentary Sources of Egyptian history

The Second Wonder

2011-09-22T17:41:00.000-07:00

One set to work on this day on the block of the sarcophagus. The wonder was repeated. rain was made, the forms of this god appeared, his fame was shown to men and the highland was made a lake, the water went to the margin of the stone.

A well was found in the midst of the valley being 10 cubits by 10 cubits on its every side filled with fresh water to its edge, undefiled, kept pure and cleansed from gazelles, concealed from the troglodyte barbarians. Soldiers of old and kings who had lived in the aforetime went out and returned by its side, no eye had seen it, the face of man had not fallen upon it but to his majesty himself it was revealed...............

Those who were in Egypt heard it, the people who were in Egypt from the south to the north land they bowed their heads to the ground, they praised the goodness of his majesty forever and ever.

James Breasted: The Documentary Sources of Egyptian History

A Stolen Head

2011-09-17T18:57:00.000-07:00

This head is listed on Interpol as stolen from Egypt but unfortunately very little detail about when it was stolen and how?

Serapeum Stelea, 547bce

2011-09-17T18:38:00.000-07:00

Year 23 first month of the third season day 15 under the majesty of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Khem ibre given life forever.

The god was conducted in peace to the beautiful west, to let him assume his place in the necropolis, in the place which his majesty made for him, the like of which has never been done before; after there had been done for him all that is done in the pure house.

Lo his majesty had it in his remembrances how Horus did for his father, Osiris, and he made a great sarcophagus of granite. Behold, his majesty found it good to make it of costly stone more than all kings of all times. He made a shroud of Mysterious linen of Resenet and Mehenet, to attach to him his amulets and all his ornaments of gold, and every splendid costly stone. They were more beautiful than what was done before, for his majesty loved the Apis, Living Son more than any other king.

The majesty of this god went to heaven in the year 23, third month of the second season, day 6. He was born in the year 5 first month of the first season, day 7. He was installed in the house of Ptah in the second month of the third season, day 18. The beautiful lifetime of this god was 18 years, 1 month and 6 days.

Ahmose Sineit, given life forever, made for him.

James Breasted; The Documentary Sources of Egyptian History

Documenting Nefertiti

2011-09-09T15:33:00.000-07:00

There was a recent article in the German newspaper Der Spiegel about a 1924 document found by the German Oriental Association who's author implies that the archaeologist who found the famous bust of Nefertiti at Tell el Amarna in 1912, Ludwig Borchardt used deception to secure the bust for Germany. If this turns out to be true and not just somebodies opinion in 1924 it may help Cairo's call for the return of Nefertiti.

A part of me laughs at the size of that "if", yes it is a big word and one that I am very fond of myself however there has always been the issue that the official of Egypt's antiquities service in charge of the division of finds did not do the job properly. As for what statute of limitations exist in this case that may perhaps be the bigger issue? Whether those statutes are recognized by either party may be a nest of bureaucracy unto itself?

Add to this I can see the director of the Neues museums name being destroyed both academically and publicly scorned in Germany that the star was handed over on that persons watch? Which other museum would hire that director or would not other museums fear that if they hired that person they may do the same to their star pieces?

That is even a side point as to who is going to retrieve it on behalf of Cairo is another nest? Dr. Hawass may have difficulty receiving the proper documents to even enter Germany? So how about the head of UNESCO Irina Bokova of course after a smart caviar and champagne lunch.

There is little doubt to me it is unlikely that a small mismanaged country like Egypt can do anything to impress upon an economic giant like Germany.

So it seems that the 1924 document may not even hold any weight whatsoever even if it is valid and it appears unfortunate for Egypt that in the end laws are meant to be broken and as grotesque a message as that sends few care when they are standing in front of the beautiful Nefertiti in her beautiful room at the Neues museum!

The Grand Egyptian Museum

2011-09-05T19:29:00.000-07:00

This is an article concerning the third phase of the construction of Egypt's Grand Egyptian Museum which when completed will house 100 000 objects 10 000 of which are already present? The Museum is set to open in 2015?

Djoser's Pyramid

2011-09-05T19:08:00.000-07:00

I love the picture with this article about the restoration of what may be the worlds oldest pyramid. The pyramid created in the 3rd dynasty for king Djoser. I hate the idea of diagonally inserted steel rods knitting together a building that has withstood 5000 years without them.

The Mummy of Ramses

2011-09-04T17:56:00.000-07:00

This short video is mainly about the covering of the mummy of king Ramses V. Though this mummy is one of the most promoted of the kingly mummies in Cairo the video is still interesting. It would be even more interesting if the mummy being covered was Pinudgem I?

I certainly hope with the change over at the Supreme Council of Antiquities that a rotation of marketing of the royal mummies will take place, for me personally I feel the remains of king Sequenenre should be placed back into a coffin,(hopefully his coffin) and removed from display as it is hard dignify the brave king when he is represented in his last desperate moment, the work of his enemies?

He was not brave because he died, he was brave because he lived!

The exception perhaps is the mummy of Ramses the great?

Archaeological Work Resumes

2011-09-04T17:41:00.000-07:00

After a pause of many months due to the security situation in Egypt about a quarter of foreign archaeological expeditions are now back in the field. The last archaeological season showed little coming out of the valley of kings though there is an update on kv64. Also what appeared to be an intact shaft was found in one of the tombs on Luxor's west bank.

The unfinished avenue of rams linking Karnak with Luxor remains a dubious place to take a wiz or throw your garbage which has become a real focal issue not only at the avenue of rams but other places around Egypt particularly archaeological sites. I wonder how the temple of Ptah at Mit Rahina is doing on this issue?

At Giza once again the great pyramid has caught the public imagination particularly with robots ascending that pyramids shafts and current technology being used with great effect on solving the pyramids construction. Herodotus might be off on this one?

At Saqqara the worlds oldest pyramid is in process of a multi million dollar restoration including removing the debris covering the sarcophagus and over at the Supreme Council of Antiquities there is a new Secretary-General Mohammed Abdel Fattah and I think it is a perfect time for a fresh start.

Akhenaten: The Rebel Pharaoh

2011-08-31T18:44:00.000-07:00

Here we have a six part program hosted by Dr. Bob Brier on Akhenaten and the world he created. Most interesting to me were the rare images of the mummy of Amenhotep III though it was only one of the highlights of the program.

Nefertiti and the Lost Dynasty

2011-08-30T17:03:00.000-07:00

Here we have the show from a couple of years ago based on searching for Nefertiti. As I recall the show was in reaction partially to confront the theory put forward a few years earlier in 2003 by Dr. Joann Fletcher who had published her book "In search of Nefertiti" which had not pleased Dr Hawass who felt that Ms. Fletcher should have made Dr. Hawass aware of her findings before she went to the media as was protocol and so no Joann Fletcher in Egypt.

Some great access to the Amarna royal mummies in this show though I wish the show was not broken into ten pieces.

Breaking protocol is one thing but hey the book was also successful and a great read. Hopefully now that the winds of change have come that Dr. Fletcher will be able to do research in Egypt again.

Also check out "Do we have the mummy of Nefertiti" by Marianne Luban

My Review of "The Search for Nefertiti"

The Eternal Hairdo

2011-08-30T14:49:00.000-07:00

The ancient Egyptians loved their hair styles and wished to be coiffed well for eternity this included the use of fats and resin to set their curls for the afterlife. Unfortunately eternity is a long time and most ended up with severe cases of bedhead not to mention the crudely mannered intruder over the millenniums who for some reason wants to see if they can pull out your hair?

There is mention in the article of scented fat cones we see on the heads of women in tomb paintings though one has never been found to my knowledge?

The Continuing Story of Ka-nefer-nefer

2011-08-23T16:32:00.000-07:00

The story of the mask called Ka-nefer-nefer in the St. Louis Art Museum appears to be turning on St. Louis in favour of Cairo as the mask clearly is the same mask excavated and shown in excavation photo's of the early 1950's.

Lawyers for the museum are trying anything they can to of course resolve the situation best for the museum but unfortunately the argument of statutes of limitations admits the masks correct provenance but rewards it to the museum anyway because it took too long to discover the crime.

Not likely to happen with the American authorities now involved and The St. Louis Art Museum should expect a visit in the future to hand over the mask. St. Louis' lawyers might spend their time better by suing the art dealer they bought the mask from.

The issue at present appears to be based on what kind of "contraband" the mask is, and what laws apply? St Louis' position gets weaker and weaker. The St. Louis Art museum admits the masks provenance, please go to their site to see the masks provenance according to St. Louis' acquisition.

Here is the background information on the mask: The Battle for Ka-nefer-nefer

Source of update: Looting Matters

The Silver Pharaoh

2011-08-21T14:55:00.000-07:00

I just found this on You Tube from the television program "Secrets of the Dead" and I quite enjoyed it when I saw it first time around and thought you will too. It is a program on the discovery of the untouched burial of king Psusennes I of the twenty first dynasty by Pierre Montet.

The discovery fell at the beginning of the second world war and as such did not receive the publicity or sensationalism of Tutankhamun's discovery decades earlier. The program includes a rare examination of the Psusennes remains.

Hatshepsut Poisoned?

2011-08-19T13:46:00.000-07:00

There is a study going on at the University of Bonn on a lovely little bottle bearing cartouches of king Hatshepsut. The researchers have discovered from the dried residue inside the bottle that it contains a carcinogenic hydrocarbon which may have poisoned Hatshepsut?

I have heard of the bottle before but have no idea of it's provenance, I would think that just because Hatshepsut's cartouches are on the bottle that it is highly unlikely that it actually belonged to the king? I would think that putting the reigning kings cartouches on objects was how it was probably done at the workshops where objects were created and that it is not necessarily a personal possession of the king?

Very interesting findings though as the ointment in the bottle may have been a product produced for the population and not just the king? It would be interesting to see if residue of the hydrocarbon can be found in any of the royal mummies in Cairo?

To learn more about Hatshepsut check out Stuart Tyler's Hatshepsut Project

Image: Associated Press

Dreams for The Grand Egyptian Museum

2011-08-16T17:00:00.000-07:00

Recently Mohamed Saleh, the man in charge of Egypt's coming Grand Egyptian Museum talked about the possibility of Boston's bust of prince Ankh haf returning to Egypt to be a part of the opening of the new museum in 2013? The bust is at the center of an ongoing controversy that I thought I would review the saga as it stands.

The former Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme council of antiquities Dr. Zahi Hawass gave a speech a few of years ago in Paris to members of UNESCO's Intergovernmental committee for the return of cultural heritage. Dr. Hawass' speech was about the return of five objects to Egypt this speech did not help his cause and probably left five museums thinking, I lend my piece to Dr.Hawass and I will never see it again.

The five objects in question are the British museums "Rosetta stone", The Hildesheim's statue of the fourth dynasty architect Hemiunu, the bust of prince Ankh haf in the Boston Museum of fine arts, the zodiac from the roof of the small temple on the roof of the Ptolemaic temple at Dendera now in the Louvre and of course the bust of Nefertiti in Berlin.

The idea that the British museum would ship its biggest draw anywhere is unlikely also the stone was acquired in an era before antiquity laws and there is a fear among some that if the Rosetta stone was sent that when it comes time to return the authorities of Egypt would not allow it to leave.

Then there is the Dendera zodiac in the Louvre which was violently removed from the little temple in a despicable act of vandalism but in the early nineteenth century when the antiquity laws were weak to non existent.

The Hildesheim museum agreed that their statue of Hemiunu would be loaned for the opening of Egypt's Grand Egyptian museum whenever that finally happens but then Dr. Hawass was reported as saying that after the loan the statue of Hemiunu would then remain in Egypt?

Sadly the bust of Ankh haf in Boston is caught up in this as the bust has no equivalent in Egypt's national collection and was given to the Harvard-Boston expedition in 1927 in honor of the three years work done on the excavation of the tomb of King Khufu's mother Hetepheres.

The biggest fight has been over the bust of Nefertiti in Berlin the museums star attraction and obtained by the museum in dubious circumstances. Dr. Hawass has irritated its director with repeated requests followed by Berlin's denial saying the bust is too fragile to travel. These denials have infuriated Dr.Hawass who clearly sees the bust as stolen.

Soon however in a bizarre and perhaps irresponsible publicity stunt the 3300 year old bust was placed on a modern bronze body giving the Secretary general more fodder for the return of the bust to Egypt. At this point there is a strong belief among some that Egypt's Supreme council of antiquities will just steal it back, if it ever gets its hands on it.

In a childish tit for tat game Berlin offered to return ninety pharaonic period mummies to which Dr. Hawass responded that the mummies were not royal and of no importance, ouch. Perhaps Berlin should had offered to pay for their burial also!

This of course was no environment for intellectual sharing which should be the backbone Egyptology but rather Dr. Hawass created an environment where he thought he could intimidate these museums to his end. Instead he created an insurmountable wall which his demands were never going to be able to be met.

Hopefully with the ending of Dr. Hawass' reign over the Supreme council of antiquities the temperature of this argument can be toned down and some day a couple of these objects may appear in display cases in Egypt.

Metropolitan Returns Tutankhamun Objects to Egypt

2011-08-11T11:17:00.000-07:00

This article on the return of objects from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art back to Egypt. The artifacts are believed to have been taken by Howard Carter from the tomb of Tutankhamun.

The objects removed by Carter were termed by the late Thomas Hoving as a "pocket collection" as all the artifacts easily fit into a pocket and were thus removed from the boy kings tomb . The article has two pictures.

Here you will find background information to the story.

The Carter/Carnarvon Connection

Ancient Building Uncovered at Meroe

2011-08-06T11:31:00.000-07:00

The site of the ancient city of Meroe in the Sudan was originally discovered before world war one by famous archaeologist John Garstang who unfortunately never published his findings. Now archaeologist working on behalf of the Royal Ontario Museum have found what they believe to be the oldest building found so far, the newly discovered building may be a royal palace located beneath the ruins of a newer palace.

Reading the Oxyrhynchus Papyri

2011-08-06T11:21:00.000-07:00

This is an article on the huge dicsovery of the Oxyrhynchus papyri which contained thousands of fragment from Egypt's Greco-Roman period. The collection is so huge that it has been impossible to translate the hoard of documents.

Among the documents found contain many famous lost works by authors like Euripides, Herotudos and Plato.

Oldest Known Image of King in White Crown

2011-08-06T11:12:00.000-07:00

The image probably carved around 3200 bc and was discovered about a half century ago at the site of Nag el Hamdulab by archaeologist Labib Habachi. It is believed to be the oldest representation of a king of Egypt wearing the white crown.

Awful Artifacts Reappear

2011-08-03T19:30:00.000-07:00

The fine folks at Egypt's Cairo museum are a little more relieved today from finding two objects believed stolen during the break in at the end of January. The drawing of the Heset vase really does sum up a broken antiquities department including mismanagement of the national museums ledgers, they could have at least whipped out a box of crayons and coloured it.

Who in the world would break into the Cairo museum and of all it's treasures steal that awful clay bed when the robber could have made more money by stealing one of the museums garbage cans? Now that the Heset vase has been located I imagine it might be a good time to take a proper picture of it, in colour and not blurry.

Certainly the real price paid for the loss of these pieces was the exposure of the museums ledgers to the public eye and particularly the vulnerability of the museums security with the display that Dr. Zahi Hawass was unable to guarantee security for Neues Nefertiti should she have been present, thankfully she stayed in Berlin and missed the robbery of Cairo's Amarna collection.

In all fairness the museum is 109 years old and though it has pulled in untold millions the museum does not appear to be benefited by it. I am not surprised that these two objects have turned up in the museum and based on their appreciative value would suspect that they might have been better off lost!

Vincent at Talking Pyramids has pictures of items recovered.

Metropolitan Returns Tutankhamun Objects

2011-08-01T12:04:00.000-07:00

It has long been known about objects being in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York which came to the museum via Howard Carter and his associates as well as other museums. Mr. Carter appears to have created a collection of pocket sized objects from the tomb of Tutankhamun.

This week the Metropolitan will be handing over more of the pieces acquired by Carter for his as well as his patron Lord Carnarvon's collections.

The Carter/Carnarvon Connection

Rosetta Stone in Context

2011-08-01T11:34:00.000-07:00

This coming week on August 4 British Museum Curator Richard Parkinson will be discussing the world famous stelea created in 196 bc for the first anniversary of the coronation of Ptolemy V. The stone and it's inscription as well as it's context will be discussed.

Kha's Protractor

2011-07-29T15:26:00.000-07:00

This is an article on a mysterious object found in the tomb of the 18th dynasty royal architect Kha who's tomb was found intact in 1906 at Deir el Medina in the cemetery of the workman's village who carved and decorated "The Valley of Kings.

The beautifully carved 3400 year old object is being proposed by a scientist to be the oldest known protractor. There is debate about this but the argument is interesting as is the picture of the object shown.

Known and Unknown Kings

2011-07-28T17:10:00.000-07:00

As my readers will know I have been silent through the latest ins and outs of Egypt's antiquities service if it is still legal to be referred as, probably more a sense of irritation than deafness finding my amusements in another direction.

I had almost completed another book review that I was working on last winter but then the revolution took place and my book review became completely inappropriate, not the best time to do reviews on colonialism. Very poor timing?

Certainly this downtime is a good time for little to nothing to happen in the field of Egyptian archaeology except preservation and security of those zones until the nations people determine their destiny in the fall., though filling back in a certain restored avenue to protect it from becoming a sewer sounds a little amusing if not entirely irresponsible or appropriate!

I have found myself this summer clearing out my cupboards one of which is where I keep my print outs of online books and bulletins, (I imagine a certain doctor might be doing the same thing), and getting rid of most of them but then I came to an old favorite from "The Giza Archives Project", Museum of Fine Arts Bulletin Vol. XVI, No. 97, October, 1918, "Known and Unknown Kings of Ethiopia" by George Reisner.

The bulletin contains wonderful images of pyramids still filled with numerous artifacts belonging to the royal dynasties of Ethiopia and told by the great man.

This bulletin I will be keeping in my collection!

The Death of a King

2011-07-21T14:23:00.000-07:00

Ever since the butchered remains of the mummy of king Sequenenre II was unrolled on June 9, 1886 by Gaston Maspero the mummy has been a strong subject for archaeologists to see the results of wounds inflicted by a number of ancient weapons.

Sequenenre the prince of Thebes declared war upon the foreign ruler of Egypt the Hyksos king Apophis after a threat was sent to Sequenenre by Apophis who complained that the snoring of the hippopotamus' in the sacred lake was keeping Apophis awake. Apophis at his capital of Avaris in the delta was much to far away to hear the hippo's snoring instead Apophis was telling Sequenenre that he knew the prince of Thebes was conspiring with others to overthrow him.

Within a few years in about 1560 bc. Sequenenre was dead assassinated by two or more assailants with there being some evidence that the king may have received four of his five head wounds while he was lying on the ground unconscious after the first blow to his head. From his head wounds it can be surmised that at least two or more weapons were used including an axe, a spear, possibly a sword and a blunt object maybe the but end of the axe.

To Sequenenre's credit he acquired the moniker of Sequenenre the Brave with his descendants driving the foreign kings out of Egypt and the prince's of Thebes became kings of Upper and Lower Egypt.

Tomb of Nefertari ca. 1920's

2011-07-20T22:27:00.000-07:00

Here we have a short video from the Valley of Queens in the tomb of Nefertari wife of Ramses II. The black and white film gives the tomb a bit of a dark eerie feel.

My Support to the Egyptian People

2011-07-18T13:38:00.000-07:00

Allot of things are going on in Egypt these days including in the antiquities portfolio who's minister Dr. Zahi Hawass has apparently resigned though a major reshuffling of government ministers is taking place to answer protest which are taking place. The minister Dr. Hawass was chased through the streets by angry archaeologists who want a chance to practice their chosen profession.

Dr. Hawass will hopefully move on with his life either in retirement or by going abroad to work for any number of museums that may want him, having said that I do not think the doctor will be dropping off a resume in Berlin.

I want to extend my support to the Egyptian people during this time of revolution and pray that the peoples courage brings prosperity, more freedoms and a brighter future for their children.

Peace

Timothy Reid

The Destruction of a Temple Monument

2011-07-15T20:08:00.000-07:00

This slab is one of five known examples which may have once been a screen wall in a temple though the location of that temple is vague. The slab was found reused in Alexandria and appears to be one of the British Museum's earliest Egyptian objects entered in its collection as a gift of king George III in 1766, (EA22).

When I saw the slab in the "Eternal Egypt" exhibition at the Royal British Columbia Museum it was really a most gorgeous object and the wall must have been a remarkable site in which ever temple it once stood. On the more damaged side is a crude inscription in Greek relating to a restoration in the Roman period.(1a)

Three of these slabs are inscribed for the first king of the 30th dynasty king Nectanebo I and two are inscribed for earlier kings of the 26th dynasty including the first king of the dynasty Psamtik I and Psamtik II.(2) On the British Museum's slab the decoration of the more damaged side includes an offering scene with the king kneeling before a god and to the right another standing god belonging to another part of an offering scene the completion of the scene belonging on an adjoining block.

The cornices on both sides have been attacked with a chisel the cornice on the better preserved side shows a row of frontal facing falcons, the feet of which still are present. On the more damaged side there is little sign of the cornice except that the slab in Vienna(213), dedicated to Psamtik II shows a row of erect cobras (3). The Vienna slab cornice goes around one end of the stone indicating this slab was the beginning or end of the wall with no further elements at that end.

The inscriptions of the blocks indicate the wall might have been erected at Sais in the delta, ancient Heliopolis. The Vienna stone differs from the later Nectanebo slab in that king Psamtik is shown in a much more prostrate position with both legs showing and side view of both feet while the British museum's slab shows king Nectanebo with only one leg and more than one toe.

At least part of the monument was present at the beginning of Egypt's 26th dynasty and in good enough condition 300 years later for Nectanebo I to have his name inscribed on some of the slabs. The wall may have become badly damaged in the earthquake of 27bc which destroyed the remains of the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III or in the 365 ad. earthquake(4) which destroyed much of Alexandria after which the rough largely illegible(1b),heretic inscription on the British Museum slab may have been hacked into the top of the slab during the reuse of the block.

When the drilled holes were added to the blocks is not known but may well indicate a further reuse after the Roman period? Since the block was found at Alexandria it may indicate the stone was taken to that city after the 365ad earthquake to be reused in the rebuilding of Alexandria and thus eventually found there?

Perhaps someday more of the stone slabs in the wall will turn up and tell us more about what happened to the wall in between Psamtik II and Nectanebo I and hopefully why and when the beautiful wall was dismantled and used as filler in a later construction?

1(a,b). Many thanks to Elizabeth R. O'Connell Assistant Keeper (curator) Roman and late Antique Egypt at the British Museum for her help in the interpretation of the text.

2. Eternal Egypt: Masterworks of Ancient Art From The British Museum, Edna R. Russmann, 2001, #134 pgs. 244-247

3. Global Egyptian Museum

4. Timelines: Earthquakes

Photo Courtesy of Michael Harding

Smuggling Ring Broken

2011-07-15T16:01:00.000-07:00

United states authorities have broken up a smuggling ring which involved a dealer in Dubai and a Greco-Roman sarcophagus. Federal agents found the sarcophagus in Manhattan antiques dealers Virginia home.

The New york dealer was released on $250 000 bail.

The Hawass Sphinx

2011-07-10T15:37:00.000-07:00

I guess the really big story in Egyptology these days must certainly be Dr. Hawass' remaking of his image from ill tempered threats and demeaning remarks of old to the international heroic revolutionary of new.

I think the state of Egyptology speaks well to what has not been found particularly in Dr. Hawass' excavations in the Valley of Kings this is after all a great time for a great discovery to draw tourists back?

I know lack of evidence is not evidence though if something had been found in the Valley of Kings, beside the end of Seti I's tomb. I find it impossible to imagine Dr. Hawass allowing his successor to take credit for the discovery now that Dr. Hawass is a bureaucrat?

I would love to see the excavation records as far as is complete for the avenue of rams at Luxor though that may have been tossed when the bulldozers moved in. In all fairness Dr. Hawass and his team do have five years to publish.

This talk about revolutionary exhibitions and museums is a little premature no doubt the best choice would be the Amarna museum at Tel el Amarna which could be quickly converted and out of the way or perhaps it could be a floating exhibit on the nile?

Though I wonder what the Minister of Antiquities has to do with modern exhibitions, except his own?

I guess if you say glory to the revolution enough everyone will forget all that bowing and kissing up Dr. Hawass exuded upon the former president and first lady, particularly the first lady. Including the phone call from the former President telling Dr. Hawass he didn't have to retire, so know we have proof as to who's to blame, well at least more proof!

Allas with all this ambition the only thing one could hope for is that someday we won't see Dr. Hawass' face on the money or the sphinx but all credit to Indiana Hawass if anybody can survive free party elections it is he!

Five Best Books for a Hot Summer or a Cold Winter, depending!

2011-07-08T17:10:00.000-07:00

I picked these five books because they will all be fairly easy to obtain and included the two extra books because they belong in my top five but will be more difficult to find.
1. Ancient Lives: The Story of Pharaohs' Tombmakers
2. Ancient Egypt; The Great Discoveries
3. Tutankhamun: The Untold Story
4. Unwrapping a Mummy
5. Archaic Egypt

A. Pyramids and Progress
B. Egypt by H.H. Powers

The last being particularly funny!

Roman Era Basilica Found

2011-07-07T11:40:00.000-07:00

Archaeologists working on behalf of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities have discovered the remains of a Roman period basilica built over a Ptolemaic building. Some images of Isis and Serapis were found during excavation.

Burial Chamber of Ramses IX in Valley of Kings

2011-07-05T17:59:00.000-07:00

Here we have a short interesting video taken in the burial chamber of Ramses IX In the valley of kings. The tomb was visited as early as 1737-1738 by Richard Pococke though it has been open since antiquity.

Mummies from Akhmim

2011-07-02T19:35:00.000-07:00

Here we have two coffins from a group of coffins found in a family tomb at Akhmim, Egypt and acquired for the British museum by Wallace Budge between 1897-98. The museum appears to have seven members of the family though the actual bodies were left in Egypt and based on the inscriptions dates the coffins to the Roman period, 50 bc - 50 Ad.

I must also point out that I have a 1965 Chicago Natural History museum publication titled " Mummies" at the back of the publication presented in Plate 8 another female mummy case which belongs to the same period and stylistically perhaps the same tomb, though the picture is black and white?

Photo Courtesy: Michael Harding

Egyptological Magazine Vol. 1

2011-07-02T17:36:00.000-07:00

After a ton of work Andrea Byrnes of Egyptology News and Kate Phizackerley from News from the Valley of Kings have published their first free online magazine Egyptological Vol. 1. The magazine includes a number of interesting articles including one by Barbara O'Neill on Egyptian mirrors.

Avenue of Sphinx's

2011-06-28T11:25:00.000-07:00

Well after the evictions and the bulldozers the long sought avenue of sphinx's is about to be open to tourists to walk in October. The highly controversial excavation has been ongoing at the cost of the Egyptian people who lived in the area who were displaced and had their homes torn down

Mummification of Heracleides

2011-06-27T16:41:00.000-07:00

This is a video on the mummification of Heracleides in The Getty Museum with the mummy dated to 150 A.D.

Blocks of Osorkon II

2011-06-27T15:28:00.000-07:00

Archaeologists have found more than one hundred painted limestone blocks which originally came from a temple constructed for the 22nd dynasty king Osorkon II. The blocks were reused as fill in a enclosed wall surrounding the lake of the goddess Mut during the late period or Ptolemaic dynasty.

Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt Dies, 1913-2011

2011-06-24T20:41:00.000-07:00

After a brilliant career Egyptologist Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt has died at the age of 97.

Cleopatra ca.1917

2011-06-23T10:37:00.000-07:00

In the years between 1914 and 1926 Theda Bara made more than forty films of which only six of her films have been found complete. She was promoted to the public as a mysterious figure known as the "Serpent of the Nile" and she is cited as the first sex symbol of the Hollywood movie era.

Of Theda Bara's 1917 film "Cleopatra" only about forty seconds is preserved while two of her earliest films from 1914 "The Stain" and 1915 "A Fool There Was" are preserved complete so also are her last three films from 1925 "The Unchastened Woman" and 1926 "Madam Mystery" and "45 Minutes From Hollywood". Theda's 1916 film "East Lynne" is the only other complete film preserved of the repertoire of the "Serpent of the Nile".

Displaying Human Remains

2011-06-20T16:55:00.000-07:00

Here we have the British Museum's display of a first dynasty burial ca. 3000 bc the museums site picture shows the skeleton inside the box which makes me wonder if perhaps that's where it should be? True the display outside the box is very interesting but perhaps the display should posses a photograph of the current presented image and the skeleton with it's equipment should be placed back in it's box with dignity and be seen through the missing slat as the museum's current online photograph displays?
The issue was explored particularly a year or two ago but the issue of the presentation of ancient human remains is yet always going to be controversial though this is probably something to which the answers lye in grey areas. This may well be true of mummies like the unknown late period woman in the museums public website display in which is naked, perhaps not what she herself may have wanted.

Certainly the pre dynastic mummy referred in the museum as "Ginger" is another example of a display perhaps not what the man represented would have wanted for his earthly remains. So the question becomes how much does a persons values play when they are represented in a museums display? How can the museum display be honest when it potentially violates the wishes and values of the deceased?

How much of this is deceptive museology or fragmentary display which violates human dignity and how much is the desire for the viewer to be thrilled? Of the mummy of "Ginger" it must be acknowledged that similar displays exist in museums all over the world. I myself particularly like the pre dynastic burial in Chicago's Field museum which is still almost completely enshrouded.
How does this person rank as a humanitarian display, the mummy is not exposed and appears to be with much of it's funerary equipment? Is this glass display case a suitable tomb for this individual?

The answers can probably not be ever fixed in stone though I have to wonder how much we view human remains within a context of what is considered the norm rather than by the values once held by those displays long dead.

Photo's Courtesy: Michael Harding

Nefertari's Tomb

2011-06-17T17:57:00.001-07:00

Here we have a video of Ramses II Great Royal wife Nefertari's tomb Qv66 in the Valley of Queens.

UNESCO Director General Tours Cairo Museum

2011-06-14T11:03:00.000-07:00

UNESCO's Director General Irina Bokovo has toured the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and say's all is well and that the museum was safe. She also thanked the Egyptian's who protected the museum as well as the library at Alexandria during the recent unfinished revolution.

Sounds like a very useful and worth while trip for UNESCO's Director General whom perhaps she would better spend her time in Jerusalem's Mamilla cemetery than touring the halls of the Cairo museum?

Relief of Goddess Returned

2011-06-12T17:57:00.000-07:00

The pictures from Luxor Times article reminded me immediately of the site from a paper I had read years ago. The relief of the Goddess Akht was mauled back in 1990 with her head being chipped off a block found at the site of the 30th dynasty temple of Isis in Bahbit Al hegara.

The relief came up at auction in London and was spotted and now is back in Egypt.

Historic Tell el Amarna Excavation

2011-06-11T20:10:00.000-07:00

Excavating Berenike

2011-06-09T18:32:00.000-07:00

The ancient Red sea port of Berenike founded by Ptolemy II Philidephius has been excavated for the last two decades by Steven Sidebotham of the University of Delaware. The findings have included a pet cemetery as well as a Roman period trash dump and various harbor materials such as timbers.

Robbery of Cairo U Archaeology Museum

2011-06-05T10:47:00.000-07:00

This is an article on a robbery of the museum of Cairo University apparently a month ago. The collection of artifacts at the museum contains 1950 objects from the Pharaonic, Coptic and Muslim era's held in two halls. The museum has been closed since February because of instability following the recent unfinished revolution.

Air Pollution in Mummies

2011-06-03T17:42:00.000-07:00

Here we have an article on mummies and air pollutions effects on their lives interesting indeed however I particularly liked the accompanying photo gallery. It is a rare view of the mummy of Hatiay

Loan for Grand Egyptian Museum

2011-06-03T16:41:00.000-07:00

The Japanese government is loaning Egypt LE300 000 000to complete the Grand Egyptian museum in 2015. The museum will hopefully keep Egypt's national collection secure for another hundred years. The Egyptian Supreme council of antiquities have plans to house 100 000 artifacts in the G.E.M.

Interior of the Sarcophagus of Nectanebo II

2011-05-31T20:47:00.000-07:00

This is the left side interior looking towards the foot of the sarcophagus of Nectanebo II which was later drilled to be a ritual bath at the Attarin Mosque in Alexandria. The sarcophagus came to the British Museum as a gift of king George III who attained it from the Napoleon expedition through the Treaty of Alexandria.

Photo: Many thanks to Michael.

Discoveries at the Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III

2011-05-31T14:18:00.000-07:00

Here we have an article of recent discoveries made by archaeologists at the site of the 18th dynasty mortuary temple of Amenhotep III ca. 1390-1352B.C.. The recent finds include a rare colossal alabaster statue of the king and a granodiorite head of a diety.

The kings temple of millions of years was likely destroyed by an earthquake little more than a hundred years after it's completion with many of its stones removed and reused for the mortuary temple of the 19th dynasty king Merenptah ca. 1213-1203B.C..

The temple was built in the inundation zone next to the Nile which meant the temple would have been flooded during that period of the year destabilizing its foundations.

Seeing Pyramids Through Clumsy Protocol

2011-05-28T12:11:00.000-07:00

Here we have an article from Dr. Hawass on the recent BBC article on infrared satellite images which were advertised as showing seventeen unexcavated pyramids and thousands of archaeological sites. Dr. Hawass is displeased as the article went out without his approval which is proper protocol and he disputes the findings published.

Unseen Markings in Great Pyramid

2011-05-26T12:00:00.000-07:00

A robot travelling up the so called air shaft of the great pyramid has found red builders markings behind a door with metal pins in it in the shaft. The robot was built by engineer Rob Richardson from the University of Leeds as part of the Djedi project with Dr. Zahi Hawass, Egypt's minister of state for antiquities affairs is the director of the project.

The pyramid was built for the old kingdom king Khufu about 2600bc probably as his tomb. Project Djedi is named after a magician who king Khufu consulted on the building of his tomb.

Haremhab: The General Who Became King

2011-05-25T12:21:00.000-07:00

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will be ending their Haremhab: The General Who Became King exhibition on July 4, 2011.

Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Title Fragment of wall painting from the Tomb of Sebekhotpe
Period New Kingdom
Dynasty 18 reign of Thutmose IV
Date ca. 1550–1295 B.C.
Geography Egypt, Upper Egypt; Thebes, Ilwet el-Sheikh Abdel-Qurna, Tomb of Sebekhotep (TT 63)
Medium Tempera paint on mud plaster
Dimensions. 53.5 cm (21 1/16 in); w. 73.5 cm (28 15/16 in)
Credit Line Rogers Fund, 1930
Accession Number30.2.1

Egyptological: Favorite blogs

2011-05-25T12:15:00.000-07:00

As my readers will already know that Andrea of Egyptology News and Kate of News from the Valley of the Kings have recently launched their Egyptological site which now includes a Favorite Blogs page which highlights articles on a number of sites including Em Hotep, Talking Pyramids, Hatshepsut Project and yes yours truly.

Seeing Pyramids

2011-05-25T11:37:00.000-07:00

Infrared images of Egypt from a satellites orbiting some 700 kilometers above the earth have revealed thousands of archaeological sites including the discovering of 17 lost pyramids. A year long study has been done by researchers from the University of Alabama which claims to have found more than 1000 tombs and 3000 archaeological sites.

Nubian Mummies Tell a Tale

2011-05-23T22:24:00.000-07:00

A tale of disease in 1500 year old Nubian mummies shows a sizable percent of the mummies had schistosomiasis with the studies hopes to find ways of curing the disease in modern times. The fascinating subject is being studied in two ancient Nubian populations with different environments.

The Kulbnarti people existed about 1200 years ago when the Nile flooding was at an extreme and the Wadi Halfa population 1500 years ago when the level of the Nile was much lower.

Photo: Dennis Van Gerven