A Spinning Statue

This video is about a 10-inch statue of an Egyptian nobleman of Egypt's Third Intermediate Period named Neb-Sanu, which is moving on its own in the Manchester Museum.

Cute!

Source

Devices for Freedom

"While my workmen were clearing the tomb, they noticed among the rubbish which they were moving a piece of the arm of a mummy in its wrappings. It lay in a broken hole in the north wall of the tomb.", "On seeing it Mr Mace told them to bring it to our huts intact, and I received it quite undisturbed," " I then cut open the linen bandages,  and found, to our great surprise, the four bracelets of gold and jewelry. The verification of the exact order of threading occupied an hour or two, with a magnifier, my wife and Mr. Mace assisting. When recorded, the gold was put on a scale and weighed against sovereigns, before the workmen, who saw everything." (1)

Professor Petrie's previous words understood the value in paying a fair wage to his workers, as this would help to secure any objects found, especially if the item was historically significant, as in the case of this arm. Today, that lesson has become a relic of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Egypt, where you are just as likely to end up in jail for finding something and not reporting it.

We pray that in the current environment that an intact historically significant person does not come to light at the hands of those untrained Egyptian's who should be working on behalf of their country with the aid of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, but as it stands today, the finder will not be paid for their discovery.

Thankfully for the finder, if it is gold or silver, it can be quickly disguised by melting the pot or jewel down. Objects of less intrinsic value will rarely be seen by the Egyptian authorities, or at least they may pass through corrupt officials who themselves need money and will gladly allow the trinket to leave Egypt for the betterment of their children.

Human nature is not a recent habit, but the current antiquities authority ignores the obvious. I hate to say it, but as we stand by today, a priceless and hopefully redundant history is shoveled out the back door, and Egypt gets nothing, not even a false sense of security, though perhaps that false security is what the revolution left behind, or tried to overthrow. The antiquities laws need to be reversed and returned to a more pragmatic era.

 Professor Petrie giving an assessment on the value of excavating at Abydos;

"after it was abandoned by Mission Amelineau that at last, on my fourth application for it. I was permitted to rescue for historical study the results that are here shown." "and worse of all for history, came the active search in the last for years for everything that could have a value in the eyes of purchasers, or to be sold for profit regardless of its source; a search in which whatever was not removed was deliberately avowedly destroyed in order to enhance the intended profits". (2)

Two gold falcons -That is about $10,000 U.S., imagine what could be done with that kind of money, how many guards or restorers or site managers could be hired for that, or given raises, all that in just two tiny late period amulets.  Though many lesser objects in faience can be had for as little as $100.

"In July 1884, Professor Maspero secured permission from the Egyptian government to buy from the natives the property which they held on the site of the Great Temple at Luxor, " (3)

In a past article in 2011, I gave the example of the British Treasure Act, where the finder receives the finds or the value of the finds, not unreasonable! That does not mean that Egypt's archaeological sites become fair game, only that the Egyptian government and its vendors could sell what is redundant to raise funds for the workers of one of Egypt's most valuable resources.

All this said is without speaking about those artifacts which are unique coming out of the ground and being lost to the national collection in Cairo to be sold to some foreign millionaire and exported by ingenious people. These are the types of finds that the common digger can point out to the antiquities authorities without the need to destroy, as the reward would be greater to the digger's continued income, with a prestigious well-handled find.

The bust of Nefertiti, pictured above in 1912, is one of the leading reasons that division of finds no longer occurs in Egypt. To this day, the bust sits in Berlin as a continuing thorn in the side of the issue, though it must be remembered that the piece was discovered and acquired for an intellectual institution with the proper permits and not by a poor Egyptian..

The looting issue is unfix-able with current Egyptian law and saddest of all it is intellectualism backed up by foreign cash which helped create the police state of the former regime, a system which still holds strong leading to the present chaos of looting and depriving the living residents along the Nile freedom and opportunity to live legal lives not only unburdened by Egypt's history but lives which can be actually enhanced by it!

Getting into a museum for half price is not an enhancement; it is a piece of political propaganda!

"Egypt’s economic freedom score is 54.8, making its economy the 125th freest in the 2013 Index. Its overall score is 3.1 points lower than last year, reflecting declines in seven of the 10 economic freedoms, especially investment freedom and labor freedom. Egypt is ranked 13th out of 15 countries in the Middle East/North Africa region, and its overall score is below the world and regional averages."(4)


Notes:

(1). History of Egypt, Rappoport, Volume XII, The Grolier Society, London, 1904, pgs. 369-70
(2). History of Egypt, Rappoport, Volume XII, The Grolier Society, London, 1904, pg. 358
(3). History of Egypt, Rappoport, Volume XII, The Grolier Society, London, 1904, pg. 335
(4). The 2013 Index of Economic Freedom

Cleopatra: From History to Legend

Edith Flamarion
Thames and Hudson
New York
1997
ISBN 0-500-30073-9

This small 159-page book is filled with numerous colored pictures of Cleopatra and her time, including 8 full pages at the start of the book. I must first admit I know only a basic rundown that most people know of this Egyptian queen, Cleopatra VII, and so I decided this book was a good place to start. Also, my copy was bought at the British Museum, so it couldn't be that far off.


The book opens with a breakdown of Cleopatra's immediate family, including her brother/husband Ptolemy XIII and the city of Alexandria. Certainly, the array of images is very nice, with some amazing objects and settings to enhance the author's words. Pages 42-43 are printed with a red background, which made them impossible to read without my magnifying glass; perhaps I should take that to mean the book may be suited for a younger reader than myself.


The story is put well forward and the read is enjoyable, though a single two-page contain often contains more than one train of thought, making the side-script somewhat confusing to the original read. With the 3rd chapter, we find Cleopatra with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, the royal intrigues, the players of the game, and the fates that guided the course of history.


The color pictures certainly are what this book is about, and though the story of Cleopatra is well known, the author has imbued it with great detail. Then again, are those pages of colored background and writing so small that I couldn't see?


      "There is a harbour...where a bay lulls the roar of the Ionian sea.... Hither came to battle the forces of the world.... On the one side stood a fleet doomed... and Roman javelins shamefully grasped in a woman's hand."


A beautiful 2-page picture of a 17th-century Italian painting of this event, recounted above, accompanies the incredibly small text of its author, Sextus Propertius. In a moment of poor judgment, Antony whacks himself because he believes Cleopatra has whacked herself; however, she had not.


So brings us to the final act, the grief of Cleopatra for her lost love and empire, unwilling to be marched through Rome bound in silver chains as her captive sister Arsinoe had been. Octavian, victorious, hauled away from the Ptolemaic royal treasury huge quantities of gold and silver, subjugated the Egyptian people, but failed to display the prisoner of the hated Egyptian queen through the streets of Rome, as Cleopatra was already pushing up daisies.


I am actually surprised at how much I actually know about Cleopatra, but this fine read has added a lot more detail to the story. The Roman Emperor Octavian takes over and reorganizes Egypt into a Roman province.


With this, the first part of the book ends, the glossy colored pictures replaced by yellow matte paper with black and white images, a section marked as "Documents" occupying the last third of the book. This section includes the opinions and sentiments of Cleopatra by an extensive list of historical chroniclers and writers, including, of course, Shakespeare.


This section contained an impressive array of literature, which I found incredibly boring, and it took me...., well, at this point the book turned into work. I think what happened for me with this book, and the reason I have been avoiding all my books on Cleopatra, the subject does not interest me.


I found no real flaw anywhere and would consider it suitable for young people, but a little older for the "Documents" section, and not appropriate for those who should not be straining their eyes seeing the tiniest print I ever did almost see!

Discoveries by Egyptian Mission to Hyksos fortress

New discoveries have been made by an Egyptian mission in the delta at the Hyksos fortress of Tell el Yahodia. The article contains several pictures of the discoveries