Petrie found this burial in 1908 in Thebes. The artefacts came to Scotland in 1909; a queen and a child, presumably her own. The symbols on the unidentified coffin stop at the point where the person’s name would be given, due to erosion of the plaster dating from thousands of years ago.
Dr. Bill Manley from National Museum of Scotland believes that, thanks to work with a range of other experts, he has discovered the likely identity of the woman. By looking at the shape of the coffin and studying the grave gifts academics have been able to date the burial to around 1550BC. A visit to Egypt in 2003 allowed Manley to use Petrie’s notes and maps to help pinpoint the location of the burial site further, but he failed to find the actual spot. Manley says:
Submitted by Meral Crifasi on Mon, 03/08/2010 - 15:36
Photographers - thank you for getting your cameras out in support of our photography competition 'Ancient Spotted Photo Contest'.
There were a lot of really great photos submitted, and it has been incredibly hard to choose a winner. But after a lot of consideration we have decided on the winner of the first photo competition of the Ancient World in London series of quests.
5,398 artefacts were found inside King Tut's tomb - so many that it took Carter over 10 years to research and catalogue them all. But where can you see them now? Well, the vast majority are kept by the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, with the best and most famous pieces on permanent display there. A smaller collection is kept by the Luxor Museum, while more still can be found criss-crossing the globe as part of touring exhibitions.
To help you sniff out as many Tut artefacts as possible, we’ve put together this handy guide to finding King Tut around the world – be it sites of relevance, key artefacts on display, or even quality replicas.
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“Carter was actually outraged by the original exhibition of these pieces, claiming breach of copyright, and demanded they be destroyed.”
Safari operators in Africa realised several years ago that there were people who wanted to see the wildlife, but not shake dirt out of a sleeping bag and take a shovel to dig a loo at the end of the day. Now London-based Ancient World Tours, who specialise in ancient sites, is amongst a growing number of companies capitalising on this growing market, and offering camping holidays with a twist of glamour: glamping. I spoke to Managing Director Peter Allingham about the changing face of cultural tourism.
Although the name sounds like something a dodgy pop star would do, ‘glamping’ (glamour camping) is giving some tour operators the edge in a competitive market. Having gained popularity in parts of Europe, America and Australia, glamping is rapidly becoming a part of a tour’s itinerary in countries such as Egypt and Jordan.
Cleopatra, the legendary Egyptian pharaoh and one of the most powerful, seductive and captivating characters in all of history, is coming to Philadelphia. "Cleopatra: the Search for the Last Queen of Egypt" at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia will display 250 artifacts from ongoing excavations in the search for the tomb of Antony and Cleopatra. Many of the featured relics from the excavation, which is led by High Priest Zahi Hawass, will be on display for the first time. Additionally, visitors will be treated to a hi-def multimedia experience of the underwater excavations led by Franck Goddio, the underwater archaeologist who has unearthed Cleopatra's sunken royal palace and two ancient cities off the Egyptian coast.
The Book of The Dead of ancient Egypt is not really a book. It is really called in ancient Egyptian "spells to go forth in the day". It is a compilation of texts written for the deceased and placed in funerary contexts. First carved in pyramid walls (The Pyramid Texts) in the Old Kingdom, then written all over the sides and inside walls of sarcophagi (Coffin texts) in the Middle Kingdom, and much more proliferating texts appeared in the New Kingdom and Late Period, accompanying the deceased in rolls of papyrus inside their coffins.
These texts are instructions for the deceased, abling him or her in the passage through eternity, how to avoid dangers and monsters, revealing secret names of guardians, insuring the deceased will pass all the phases of the judgement and that his herat does not betray him or her, instructing shuabtis and uschebtis on how to farm and crop in the fields of the afterlife, praising gods who help the deceased and identify with them like Osiris, a travelling or traversing eternity, going forth, is a proof that the individual is alive forever.
18th Dynasty boxwood carving of a nude Nubian servant girl, carrying a large jar. A container for cosmetics from the New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, ca. 1350 B.C.
On display at the Durham University, Oriental Museum, EG 3568
Algernon Percy, 4th Duke of Northumberland, kept the statue in his collection of Ancient Egyptian objects at Alnwick Castle, in Northumberland, before it came to Durham with the rest of the collection after World War II. To support the weight of the jar the girl has to thrust out her hip to one side. A somewhat different pose not usually depicted in Ancient Egyptian art.
The statue displays the particular style of the Amarna period. The girl wears a black striated wig, with curls carved in great detail in the wood. The right arm is bent in front of the stomach, the other arm is pendent along the body. Both hands originally held attributes.
Takabuti was analysed in Manchester by Professor Rosalie David and a team of scientists from The KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology, from the samples retrieved in May 2008 and also macroscopic analysis. Show Me The Mummy: The Face Of Takabuti, was a documentary filmed by BBC at that time, when she was being analysed and it has aired already in 2009 on UK TV.
Quoting Prof. David: "Our research at the University of Manchester specializes in applying scientific methods to examining Egyptian mummies, which preserve evidence of disease, diet, lifestyle, lifespan, status and religious practices. We were delighted to be invited to contribute to the investigation of Takabuti, and this film will show how the mummy was brought across to Manchester where she was x-rayed and CT-scanned; minute samples taken from the inside of the mummy were examined microscopically for evidence of disease; the teeth were studied; and tiny pieces of the hair were analyzed to see if it had been dyed or if she was a natural blonde."
Caroline Wilkinson from the University of Dundee created a 3D reconstruction of the mummy.
Safari operators in Africa realised several years ago that there were people who wanted to see the wildlife, but not shake dirt out of a sleeping bag and take a shovel to dig a loo at the end of the day. Now London-based 
