Renovated Christian rock painting from Sudan exhibited
A unique mural dating back to the 9th/10th century, which was discovered during excavations on the outskirts of the Sudanese village Banganarti, representing the “Descent of Christ into Hell” has been restored and displayed at Poznań Archaeological Museum. The depiction of Christ among sinners, descending into hell to redeem them is painted on a piece of plaster measuring 1.2 metres by 2 metres. It can be viewed in Poznań over the coming year. read more »
Travel: The Nile in even more style
Times Online (Bettany Hughes)
Sunbathing with two sub-machineguns near by is a curious experience. There I was, lazing along the Nile, when our luxurious liner was boarded by armed tourist police. Docked, things got even more exciting. Special operations officers, dressed in black, drove us in convoy, horns blaring, through roadblocks to the Temple of Dendara.
Essential security or showing off? Whichever – the original occupants would have approved: the Pharaohs loved a grand entrance. read more »
Travel: Downtown Cairo hotels
Al Ahram Weekly (Nagal Nkrumah)
A downtown Cairo hotel might not be the place to put down new roots, but there are notable exceptions. Most of the hotels in this part of Cairo have seen better days and are run-down, dilapidated lodges that house rucksack European and East Asian tourists stopping over in Cairo for a week or so. They hark back to the good old days of Khedive Ismail’s belle époque. He tried to construct a “Paris along the Nile” fashioned in the unique style of the Parisian architect Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann, commissioned by Napoleon III to revamp the French capital. read more »
Saturday Trivia
This will be the last Saturday Trivia - a necessary cut-back due to shortages in time! I will cover Egyptomania (interesting modern takes on ancient Egypt) in the main blog as and when I find articles.
Review: First thoughts re The Lost Tomb
Wired Online read more »
Daily Photo - The Giza Pyramids
These were taken in November 2006 from Le Meridien Pyramids hotel. read more »
Desert art in danger at Egypt’s new tourism frontier
Middle East Online (Charles Onians)
I have been nagging recently about the impact of irresponsible tourists on the Egyptian deserts. I am delighted to say that this has been excellently highlighted by the article on the above page, which points explicitly to the problems being experienced in Egypt, Libya and the Sudan. I have quoted from it more than I would usually, but there is a lot more to read on the above page.
A rising tide of travellers seeking out the new frontier of Egyptian tourism is threatening priceless rock art preserved for millennia in one of the most-isolated reaches of the Sahara. read more »
Archive photographs of the discovery of Tutankhamun
17 terrific photographs taken during the excavations of the tomb. You will need to scroll down the page, and the slideshow is about half way down (indicated by a black and white photograph). You’ll probably have seen some of these images before, but its nice to see them all in one place.
Summary of Tutankhamun and related subjects in London
Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El-Aref)
A comprehensive overview of the Tutankhamun exhibition and related issues by Nevine El-Aref. She includes the responses to Hawass’s claim that none of the income from the 1970s exhibition went to help Egypt’s heritage:“Egypt previously gave a lot of free meals,” Hawass declared, adding that when the Tutankhamun exhibition came to London 35 years ago, Egypt received nothing in return. “We didn’t get a penny and the British Museum is still making money,” he says. read more »
More from George Hart on hieroglyphs
Why a tadpole means a great deal
Times Online
No prizes to those of you who have studied hieroglyphs at even the most basic level for guessing that this title refers to ancient Egyptian numbering! George Hart is taking a look at the subject in this short article: read more »
Daily Photo - Mons Claudianus, Eastern Desert I am a bit up to my ears in thing
Daily Photo - Mons Claudianus, Eastern Desert
I am a bit up to my ears in things today, but if you’d like to know more about Mons Claudianus, a Roman quarrying site and settlement in the Eastern Desert, have a look at this page on one of my other sites, where there is a section about Mons Claudianus (followed by one on Mons Porphyrites). read more »Domesticated cat remains in Egypt date to 3700BC
Belgium researcher Veerle Linseele, of the Center for Archaeological Sciences at Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, and fellow-colleagues found a cat skeleton in a cemetery in Hierakonpolis. The ancient gravesite in southern Egypt contained the remains of the cat species thought to be Felis silvestris, also called the Wild Cat, the ancestor of the domestic cat. It is a member of the family of cats called Felidae, a hunter of small mammals, birds, and other such creatures.
Deciphering Hieroglyphs
Times Online (George Hart)
Another new page has been added to the Times Online website, this time by George Hart (who was an absolute hit at the Bloomsbury Summer School in London this last summer).
Egyptian hieroglyphs are visually the most appealing way of writing yet devised. Their origins can be traced to a royal necropolis in southern Egypt, where archaeologists found the earliest signs incised on ivory tags more than 5,000 years old. read more »
London in the grip of archaeological fever
Times Online (Dalya Alberge and Yepoka Yeebo)
It is really good to see that archaeology, even in the form of blockbuster exhibitions, still has the power to move people. At the moment London has two archaeological exhibitions which are drawing people from far and wide, generating queues, and leaving online ticket purchasers with the prospect of purchasing tickets for timeslots which aren’t available for a couple of months.It is several thousand years since they were in their prime but, like ageing rockers on a comeback tour, they can certainly pull in the crowds. read more »
New Egyptology resource
David Petersen, who set up the Worthy Science Sources site to provide an encyclopaedic resource completely free of charge, is considering the addition of a dedicated Egyptology section. He is therefore on the lookout for graduate papers, dissertations etc which would begin to build up this part of his website. If you feel that you can contribute, please let him know by email: prof.daveed@gmail.com
Here’s the introduction to the site:
This is a website devoted to making available free historical and current texts and monographs and posting relevant essays on science and the philosophy of science read more »
The rise of blockbuster art shows
BBC News (Ray Furlong)
An interesting behind the scenes look at the world of blockbuster art shows.
When the Tutankhamun exhibition opens at London’s O2 arena on 15 November, it will face much more competition than it did the last time it came to the UK in 1972.
Since then, the phenomenon of blockbuster art show has exploded. read more »
Blog Update - and Weekly Websites
Regular visitors may have spotted that I am having a bit of a nightmare trying to update the blog on a daily basis. I have absolutely no plans to stop, but please bear with me if I miss a day here or there - I will always backdate it. The weekly slots on Saturdays and Sundays have been sporadic and may well continue to be unreliable. The fact that I keep going at all is mainly down to Kat Newkirk, with invaluable help from Chris Townsend and David Petersen, and a strong input from Google Alerts. Thanks SO much to them all. read more »
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