Exhibition spotlight: ‘Before the Pyramids’ at the Oriental Institute
The following short article provides a virtual tour of some of the items on show in the recent exhibition from the Oriental Institute Museum’s 2011 exhibit, Before the Pyramids: The Origins of Egyptian Civilization, at the University of Chicago. [more…]
By Brian Alm
Tomb K64 in the Valley of the Kings – The Story as it Broke
This brief article was written on 15th January when the discovery of Tomb KV64 in the Valley of the Kings was formally announced. Please refer to the Addendum of 18th January for the latest news, which also corrects some of the orginal report. The tomb was announced in Luxor by Mansour Boraik in Luxor and [more…]
Paneb – “The All Round Bad Guy”
In Joyce Tyldesley’s Judgment of the Pharaohs, Tyldesley makes several references to an individual at Deir el-Medineh named Paneb, whom she describes evocatively as “the all round bad guy” (2000, p.127). In this short article, I have brought together some of the misdemeanours outlined in a letter known as Papyrus Salt 124 (BM 10055) for a closer look at this colourful character. [more…]
Lecture Review: Dancers, Donkeys, and Dirt: New Discoveries from the Time of the Black Pharaohs from South Asasif, Egypt
Dr Pischikova recently gave a fascinating lecture on the rediscovered Twenty-fifth Dynasty early Kushite tomb of Karakhamun (TT 223) in the South Asasif necropolis, situated in Luxor’s West Bank. The lecture took place on 24th November 2011 in the Friends of the Egypt Centre in Swansea, south Wales (U.K.). [more…]
Notes on the Goddess Pakhet
In her article on Hatshepsut in the December 2011 edition of the Magazine, Barbara O’Neill mentions the deity Pakhet. The following introduces what little is known about this elusive deity. Pakhet was represented in the form of a woman with a lion’s head (figure 1- click to see the bigger image). She looks very like leonine representations of Sekhmet and Bastet and was often associated with them. [more…]
Book Review: History of Ancient Egypt: Neolithic Period ot the Early Dynastic Period including Menes, Narmer, Hieroglyphs, Thinis and More.
By Andrea Byrnes. Published on Egyptological, 9th September 2011 History of Ancient Egypt: Neolithic Period ot the Early Dynastic Period including Menes, Narmer, Hieroglyphs, Thinis and More. Edited by Grace Windsor ISBN 9-781241314675 This is a self-published book, one in a series about Ancient Egypt, widely available on online book stores. Before I [more…]
Course Review: The SACE Beginner and Intermediate Hieroglyphs course 2011
The SACE Ancient World Summer School “Beginner and Intermediate Hieroglyphs” course ran for a week in August this year. Three of those attending the course offered to write up a summary of their experiences on the course. With different backgrounds and levels of confidence they have provided an insight into their perceptions on the value and challenges of the course. Our thanks to them for sharing their thoughts. [more…]
By Glynis Greaves, Pat Kennedy and Sue Drew
Book Review: The Life and Secrets of Almina Carnarvon by William Cross (The Carnarvon Years)
This is a review of the first half of William Cross’s book which deals with the first half of Almina’s life and her marriage to the Fifth Earl Carnarvon, George Herbert. The book continues on to document the second half of her life which is in many ways more interesting, but of little interest [more…]
Notes on the Osireion at Abydos
The Osireion was first excavated by Sir William Flinders Petrie, Margaret Murray and Petrie’s wife in the early 1900s. They found the tunnel and excavated towards what they called the “hypogeum.” It was full of sand and Roman filling when they began to clear it. Even before the full excavation of the site Murray speculated, convincingly, that “this was the building for the special worship of Osiris and the celebration of the Mysteries” [more…]
Book Review: Religion and Ritual in Ancient Egypt by Emily Teeter
If you’ve read Emily Teeter’s other books on Egyptology or her catalogues for the exhibits she manages at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute, you will expect this book to be full of great detail and thorough scholarship, delivered with ease in a flowing style that makes it a fast read and enjoyable throughout. If those are your expectations, you will be rewarded. [more…]
By Brian Alm
A few thoughts about duality and the desert
Brian Alm’s excellent introductory article on ancient Egyptian religion in Edition 1 of Egyptological, the first in a series of five articles on the topic, includes a section on duality. I have often pondered the extent to which the Egyptians segregated religious belief, which potentially formed an explanatory but idealized model of life, from everyday pragmatism. Duality is a good case in point. [more…]
The Geese of Meidum
This iconic painting from the Old Kingdom Mastaba of Nefermaat and Itet is in The Egyptian Museum in Cairo and consists of three pairs of birds on one register. The right-hand central pair are universally accepted as Red-breasted Goose, Branta ruficollis, and the left-hand central pair as Greater White-fronted Goose, Anser albifrons. [more…]
By Jackie Garner and John Wyatt
The Rekhyt
The hieroglyphs of the rekhyt, Gardiner sign G23 or G24 have previously only been identified as the “black”-backed Northern Lapwing Vanellus vanellus. However, apart from its colours, the Northern Lapwing has two other key identification features, a crest and a solid black breast. [more…]
By Jackie Garner and John Wyatt
Gantenbrink’s Door – Part I: the Orginal Discovery
Although we now know that there is chamber at the end of the shafts in the Queen’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid, I still remember first hearing in the late 1990s that something had been found. The whole affair was shrouded in secrecy, back in the days when Dr. Hawass was the Director in charge of the Giza Plateau rather than Minister of State, the position he holds today. [more…]
Television Review: Egypt’s Lost Cities
“Space Archaeology” is the new buzzword adopted by the BBC in its documentary “Egypt’s Lost Cities.” Not to be confused with the branch of archaeology studying orbiting space debris, it describes instead the use of satellite images to locate archaeological remains beneath the earth’s surface. [more…]
Studying Hieroglyphs Online – Some Observations
In 2009 I signed up to study the ancient Egyptian Language online through the Glyphstudy group. The Glyphstudy group is available, free of charge, to anyone interested in studying the grammar of ancient Egyptian. There are a number of groups under the Glyphstudy banner. [more…]
Book Review: Description de l’Egypte (Taschen 25th Anniversary Series)
Description de l’Egypte, Gilles Neret, Taschen 25th Anniversary Series (paperback edition), 2007. If you are interested in the images contained in Description de l’Egypte, the book produced by Napoleon’s “savants”, and particularly the illustrations of Pharaonic Egypt, this is a very good place to start. If you want an in-depth analysis of the background to Description, its purpose and a good sample of all the original sections and topics then you may be disappointed. [more…]
Book Review: Royal Women of Amarna
Although the Royal Women of Amarna is usually credited to Dorothea Arnold, it was in fact written by a panel of authors who each contributed a section: James P Allen’s contribution is a very short chapter on Atenism, The Religion of Amarna L Green wrote a somewhat longer Who’s Who? of the Amarna period Dorothy [more…]
Book Review: The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife
The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife by Erik Hornung (Translated by David Lorton) Cornell University Press ISBN-13: 978-0801485152 Originally written in German, this book is such a valuable source of information about ancient Egytian funerary texts that it was translated into English by David Lorton for publication by Cornell University Press. The funerary texts [more…]
Book Review: House of Eternity – The Tomb of Nefertari
House of Eternity - The Tomb of Nefertari by John K. McDonald Thames and Hudson ISBN: 9780500279243. The tomb of Nefertari, wife of Ramesses II, is arguably the most beautiful of the New Kingdom tombs in Egypt, with its glorious scenes painted in vivid and vibrant colours on a pure white background. The lovely queen, [more…]