Doctor Philippe Collombert is the head of the French mission which is currently working at Saqqara, a vast, ancient burial ground in Egypt, serving as the necropolis for the Ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis. The team has recently uncovered the burial chamber of Queen Behenu whilst they were working within the necropolis of Pepi I.
Collombert attained his diploma in museology from the Ecole du Louvre in Paris in 1991 and was a graduate of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris in 1994. He was also formerly a scientific member of the French Archaeological Institute in Cairo from 2000-2003.
Submitted by Nick Gilbert on Wed, 02/10/2010 - 20:07
Valentine's day is approaching and those of us who are still single are being bombarded from all sides with pressure to find a soulmate in time for the weekend. I thought I'd pile the misery on a bit more with a list of some of the great romantic couples of ancient history. Some are known to us all, others are little known stories with sometimes touching and sometimes sordid details. Over the years these relationships have been dramatised and become legendary. They are the templates for modern fictional romance, and stories that will live forever in their own right.
In Greek Mythology Paris was the son of Priam, king of Troy and Queen Hecuba. He is best-known for his elopement or abduction (the legend changes depending on which varient one reads) of Helen, queen of Sparta. When Menelaus, King of Sparta and husband to Helen discovered the betrayal a great Greek army was amassed and sailed to Troy to reclaim her. This started the Trojan War. Paris is said to have been saved by being killed by Menelaus by Aphrodite, it was also Aphrodite who helped him kill Achilles by blowing his arrow into the hero's mortal heel. Paris was however killed in the battle with an arrow from Philoctetes.
In Greek Mythology the extremely beautiful Helen, otherwise known as Helen of Troy and earlier Helen of Sparta, was the daughter of Zeus and Leda and wife of King Menelaus of Sparta. Paris came to Sparta, the home of Helen and Menelaus, visiting as a royal guest. Paris abducted Helen and took her with him to Troy. Whether Helen was taken against her will, or consented to go with Paris depends on which variant one reads. When Menelaus discovered the betrayal a great Greek army was amassed and sailed to Troy to reclaim Helen. So began the Trojan War. The war lasted ten years which ended the lives of many heroes. The Greeks won with a little trickery and Helen and Menelaus were reunited.
Meroë – situated on the Nile in Sudan, two hundred kilometers north of present-day Khartoum – was an important royal capital where African, Egyptian and Greco-Roman influences mingled fascinatingly between 270 BC and 350 AD. The Louvre will for the very first time present an exhibition dedicated exclusively to this ancient seat of regional power, comprising loans mainly from the Museum of Khartoum as well as the British Museum in London, the World and Garstang museums in Liverpool, and other institutions in Munich, Berlin and Leiden. Highlights will include a celebrated gilt bronze statue of an archer-king, and a special focus on the discovery of the ruins of the Meroë pyramids by Frédéric Cailliaud in 1821.
Art and Illusions. Masterpieces of trompe l'œil from antiquity to the present day traces the fascinating history of trompe l'oeil or 'deceiving the eye'. The exhibition breaks out of the formal confines of art in the same way as the boy in the painting chosen to symbolise the exhibition breaks out of a picture frame to explore new ways of experimenting with reality.
The Palais du Luxembourg was originally built for Marie de Médicis in 1615 by the architect Salomon de Brosse. The design featured two galleries to hold 24 paintings by Rubens. In 1750, France's first public museum for paintings was opened in the East Wing, housing painting from the King's Chambers, including works by Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Veronese, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Poussin, and Raphael.
Construction on the current building ran from 1884-1886, and was later bequeathed a collection by Caillebotte. Picasso, Pissaro, Bonnard, Degas, Gauguin, and Renoir were all exhibited until 1937, when the new modern art museum opened. Since 1937 the museum has been used for exhibitions devoted to presenting the artistic heritage of France.
Submitted by Jon Himoff on Fri, 11/13/2009 - 19:49
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 Chronicle of the Kingdom of Scotland – a list of Scotland’s first royal family, the 12 kings of the House of Alpin – has been called the “birth certificate of Scotland,” since it contains the first ever mention of Albanium, a Latinised version of the Gaelic name for Scotland. It was writtin, in Hiberno-Latin, in the 11th century AD, not long after the death of Kenneth II in 995 AD.
Since the 17th century, it’s been in the hands of the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, the national library of France. A campaign for the Chronicles of the Kings of Alba’s repatriation to Scotland was launched by Scottish politicians and historians in 2008.
A gallery talk by art historian Ronald Freyberger on Stately Mansions of Eighteenth-Century Paris - specifically gilded and painted boiserie (wood paneling) from the most elegant Parisian townhouses.
