The Luxor Museum is a small, purpose-built museum in the Egyptian city of Luxor (ancient Thebes). Inaugurated in 1975, it stands on the corniche, overlooking the west bank of the River Nile in the city centre.
After the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the Luxor Museum holds the largest collection of items from Tutankhamun's tomb, KV62, in the world. These include his hunting chariot, and various votive weapons. Other key pieces include 26 well-preserved New Kingdom statues, found buried in a cache at Luxor Temple in 1989, the royal mummies of Ahmose I and Ramesses I, and a calcite double statue of the crocodile god Sobek and pharaoh Amenhotep III. Another major attractions is a reconstruction of one of the walls of Akhenaten's temple at Karnak.
The Luxor Museum features a far smaller collection than the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, but this is intentional - the Luxor Museum prides itself on showing a limited number of important pieces in a clear and uncluttered way, with multi-lingual labelling, that does them the best possible justice. The museum is regularly complemented by tourists as presenting a pleasant contrast to the clamour of the over-crowded Egyptian Museum.
Interest in Tut – fuelled by the various mysteries surrounding him, including his untimely death, and the curse that supposedly afflicts all who tamper with his tomb – continues to run high, as proven by the abundance of videos dedicated to the boy king on the web. They range from lengthy investigations into his early demise, to examinations of some of the incredible treasures and ritual objects found in his tomb, plus one performance of a memorable comedy song and dance routine.
“There is no other site like it,” states the introductory paragraph on the website of the Amarna Project – the body which, since 2005, has been responsible for excavations and research at Tell el-Amarna, the short-lived capital city of the “heretic pharaoh” Akhenaten (who may well have been King Tut's dad) in the 14th century BC. As a living site, Tell el-Amarna is perhaps unparalleled in all of Egypt in terms of scale, ready accessibility and quality of preservation.
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"It does seem to me perverse that the Bust of Nefertiti is not in Egypt. But I doubt if its return is imminent."
Luxor, Egypt is one of the most culturally rich parts of the world and is often described as the "World's Greatest Open Air Museum" for all the various tombs, temples and monuments in the area. Luxor is close to the site of the ancient city of Thebes, the capital of the New Kingdom and famed for its luxurious standards of living and high social order. The city served as an important trading route, and the base of political power in Egypt which made it a favourable destination for Pharaohs and nobles to be buried in tombs.
Memphis was the capital of Egypt throughout the Old Kingdom and during parts of the New Kingdom, and remained an important administrative centre throughout the full span of ancient Egyptian history. It was positioned strategically between the upper and lower parts of Egypt, and had a population of as many as 30,000 people at its peak during the Sixth Dynasty - making it the largest settlement worldwide from the time of its foundation until around 2250 BC, then again from 1557 to 1400 BC.
French archaeologist Dr Alain Zivie shows some of the findings from the Tomb of the vizier Aper-el, which dates from the latter part of the 18th Dynasty, around 1353-1335 BC and are now stored at the Imhotep Museum at Saqqara. Dr Zivie explains that the difficulty in accessing the tomb meant that it was never raided in modern times, and only in ancient times when the thieves were not seeking antiquities.
Dr Zivie also explains what archaeology means to him, and stresses that he's "looking for history, for facts, for better understanding of this civilization, of this culture and this period".
On a journey through the Tombs of Thebes, Dr Zahi Hawass and Dr Janice Kamrin explain the ongoing discoveries being made in the area, and how there are thousands upon thousands of "Lost Tombs" just waiting to be found! In the video, Dr Kamrin shows us around one of the new discoveries to have been excavated, while Dr Hawass explains who really was behind the Golden Age of Egypt. How does on capture the splendour of such an ancient tomb? Heritage Expert photographer Sandro Vannini explains.
A selection of the superb photographs by Sandro Vannini from the Theban Necropolis - accompagnied by text provided by the renowned Egyptologist Dr. Zahi Hawass - is now available in the book 'The Lost Tombs of Thebes: Life in Paradise' published by Thames & Hudson in English and in German as 'Die Verbotenen Gräber in Theben' by Philipp Von Zabern.
Some of the chat-up lines going around today might seem a little, well, old. It turns out that some of them are older than you think. Even the favourite cheesy chat-up lines could have been lifted from Egyptian New Kingdom Egyptian Love Poetry and tweaked to fit the modern age.
Is “Get your coat, Love! You’ve pulled” much different to “Don your wig! Let us spend a happy hour”?
Is the alluring come-on “I'll just slip into something more comfortable.” a million miles away from “Let me braid my hair. I will be ready in a moment”?
The New Kingdom Love Poetry is a fantastic collection of poems recorded on four papyri; the Chester Beatty I, Papyrus Harris 500, a fragment from Turin and a fragment of a vase now in Cairo. Despite these few examples they have truly captured the imagination. Scholars believe that as the poems are so well written they must have been the works of professional scribes, rather than love-struck couples, who were practising grammar, word play and couplets.
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