Jon Himoff's blog

Zahi Hawass tells BusinessWeek that the touring exhibits including the King Tut and the Golden Age of the Pharoahs exhibition have netted Egypt $100 million USD since 2005. Considering that none of the major coffins or the ultimate, iconic piece the Death Mask are included in these shows (click here to see where they're hiding) it is quite an impressive yield for brand Tut and Egypt Inc. (King Tut's contracts are worth about as much as the world's most highly paid footballer Cristiano Ronaldo).

Heritage Key is off to a busy start in 2010 and we are pleased to announce our exciting new web event and content series the Ancient World in London. Starting at the end of January 2010, the project is sponsored exclusively by Addison Lee, London's largest minicab service. During 3 months online we will inspire people to set out for adventures and make their own great historical discoveries either live in London or online. 

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

Sometimes getting lost in the museum is the most interesting way to find something. Notwithstanding the Louvre in Paris being an expansive, vast area, wandering the rooms in search of a specific place you may not find (read more about the long walk here)  is a good way to discover something--even if that something wasn't what you had planned to find.

Below is short slideshow of some of the objects we ran across in our short visit to the Louvre. It is a fairly random collection of artefacts from Assyria, Greece, Crete and Egypt.  Mainly these photos are the images that were better lit. I hope I got all the titles right, even haven taken photos of the tags didn't make it that easy to figure out what is what now that I am back in front of the computer. It is a bit of a wonder why they place these incredible things around the museum with such care, but don't bother much helping you understand what you are looking. Is the purpose of a museum just to show stuff or to make sense of things? Anyway, these objects are certainly beautiful and proof that the ancient world continues to reach across time and mesmerize us.

I had a great break last weekend and made a one-day shot London/Paris/London via the Eurostar (which is best way to travel this itinerary) to join some family for a special celebration. After lunch we also had (not enough) time to make a quick visit to the Louvre Museum. Given the recent incident where the Louvre was busted by Zahi Hawass for taking "hot" artefacts from Egypt, we decided to go have a look at the Egyptian Collection.  The Louvre is even bigger than I had remembered it. Getting to the Egyptian area was not very easy. 

The Neues Museum re-establishes itself as one of the premier ancient world destination in Europe--and the world really-- after being closed since 1939. The collection combined with the restored/re-imagined building delivers an experience that every real ancient world explorer needs to embrace.

You need to get straight to the Main Stairs to start your exploration of the Neues. Feel the vibrations of history from the not so old Soviet bullet holes that still pepper the structural walls nearest the windows to the romanesque columns and classical castings from the Parthenon. Use the modern stairs to transport yourself across time and history at the Neues.

The Neues Museum will reopen on 17 October after being closed for more than 70 years. It will be a great moment in German history as well as a major milestone for world culture. The collection of ancient world objects is outstanding, and their presentation helps place them in the context of their original era, whilst adding to our understanding of the world in which we now live.

The renovation of the 8,000 square meter museum cost about €220 million (about $328 million and a lot more than the brand new build the New Acropolis Museum, which reportedly cost $200 million).

I am making a short expedition to Berlin's Museum Island which is establishing itself firmly as a major destination in Europe for Ancient World artefacts. This week the Neues Museum is re-opening to the public after a massive renovation project. The place looks amazing and is as much about the modern world as the ancient. I will be traveling over there to learn more about the design of this impressive building and complex of museums as well as to get a good look at one of the most iconic artefacts on display anywhere in the world -- the Nefertiti Bust (Nofretete in german).

It is already out in the US and now it is coming to our part of the globe here in UK on the 19th of  October. Already you can find a few on Amazon. This new Eye-fi wi-fi + geotag memory card just looks amazing; 2 gigabites of memory and integrated geotagging. Sadly, my Nikon D70 won't take an SD card.

Update: The issue is resolved. We can access our account again, all information is still there, and embeds still working. Yet, no word of explanation from YouTube.

I walked into the office this morning and our Youtube account was shut down. Why? No idea. We have about 20 videos up on our channel which were commissioned or created directly by Heritage Key, many from Sandro Vannini. A few of the videos we posted only after getting permission from the creators. All the content was credited. We made captions for most files as well.  We have the entire transcripts posted on our site. If we made some mistake we certainly would have addressed immediately. Our many popular Heritage Key videos including King Tut's Death Mask, Animal Mummies Explained or Zahi Hawass Discovers New Tombs in the Valley of Kings are not available on Youtube right now.