Keith Payne's blog

Heritage Key has premiered a new video with Dr. Zahi Hawass—The Riddle of KV63.  Again we are treated to the film work of Nico Piazza and Heritage Key’s exclusive access to the one person who has unfettered access to all of Egypt’s mysteries, Dr. Zahi Hawass.

How do you keep the Great Sphinx’s paws dry?  With a lot of work, that’s how!  The latest Heritage Key video clip of Dr Zahi Hawass highlights his collaborative effort with Dr Mark Lehner in protecting the Sphinx from the danger of rising ground water, an issue that is threatening Egyptian heritage sites from Nubia to the Giza Plateau.  The problem is as large as global warming and as local as sewage and agricultural runoff, but the insidious threat coming from below—the changing of the water tables—requires innovation as recent as cutting-edge mining technology and as ancient as divining water in the desert.

Heritage Key has posted a new video clip on the process of mummification. Mummification Featuring Zahi Hawass is a video by Nico Piazza, featuring still-photography by Sandro Vannini. In the video Dr. Hawass is examining an unidentified (in the video, at least) mummy found quite serendipitously in a tomb at Saqqara. Once the cover is removed, I can’t quite make out if we are looking at a mask and other protective covering, or if it is an internal coffin, but the paintwork is vivid and very beautiful.

Heritage Key has posted the latest video clip from Dr. Zahi Hawass regarding current excavations at the Valley of the Kings and surrounding areas.

In New Discoveries in Drabu el Naga, Dr. Hawass brings us up to date with his excavations at this promising site on the West Bank of the Nile, close to Luxor and directly across from Karnak. There are about 80 numbered tombs at Dra Abu el-Naga, some of which are royal tombs dating from the Seventeenth Dynasty, with other New Kingdom tombs belonging to Theban priests and privileged court officials.

Thirty years ago King Tutankhamun took the world by storm, and now Arts and Exhibitions International bring us another chance to see 50 objects from Tut’s tomb, along with another 80 artefacts from Egyptian rulers ranging from a statuette of Khafre to a colossal likeness of Akhenaton.  Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs is currently at the Indianapolis Children’s Museum at Indianapolis, IN, where the exhibition will remain until October 25, 2009, after which the exhibit will travel to the Art Gallery of Ontario at Toronto from November 24, 2009, through April 18, 2010.

In Zahi Hawass in the Valley of the Kings:  Part 1, Dr. Hawass caught us up on how excavations were progressing in the Central Valley area of the Valley of the Kings, particularly with the northern side, between the tombs of Ramesses II and Merneptah, and the area to the south of Tutankhamun’s tomb.  Watch part 2!

Heritage Key has posted a new video of Dr. Zahi Hawass by Sandro Vannini and Nico Piazza discussing the current excavations in the Central Valley area of the Valley of the Kings, or what we like to call the Quest for KV64. While the photography of Sandro Vannini alone makes the clip worth viewing, let’s face it—what we are looking for is news of the next tomb.

The designation KV is part of the naming convention used for tombs in the Valley of the Kings in the necropolis across the Nile from Luxor.  Tombs discovered in the King’s Valley are given a KV number, in the order of their discovery, and tombs found in the West Valley receive a WV number.  The most recent royal tomb, KV62, is that of King Tutankhamun, discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter.

First they perfected chocolate, then the penknife.  Now the Swiss are seeking to unlock the mysteries of mummification. 

According to a recent article in The Journal of Turkish Weekly ("Swiss Research Unlocks Mummy Secrets"), “A leading Swiss anatomy expert has managed to mummify a body part using the same salt drying process the ancient Egyptians employed.”  Frank Rühli, head of the Zurich University Institute of Anatomy, is attempting to mummify a human leg.  Having participated in the CT scan analysis of Tutankhamun and the Ötzi iceman, Rühli is no stranger to mummies.

In his August 7th, 2009, interview with Heritage Key, Zahi Hawass revealed that the Supreme Council of Antiquities was gathering evidence regarding the illegal appropriation of the bust of Nefertiti by the Altes Museum in Berlin.  “I will reveal [the evidence] in October when I write the letter to the Berlin Museum for the return of the piece, because it left Egypt illegally,” Dr. Hawass stated.