This year’s Egyptological Colloquium, held in the British Museum‘s fantastic BP Lecture Theatre, was roundly applauded as a great success. No fewer than eighteen gifted minds took to the lectern, as a glut of opinions, theories, excavations and discoveries were explored to a large audience’s enthralment. Some of the speeches were incredibly specialist; others not so. But what is certain is that the past week has seen some of the most compelling and intriguing axioms on one of Ancient Egypt’s greatest pieces of iconography, the Book of the Dead. From colours to kingdoms, magic bricks to evil demons; the colloquium…
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18 to 20 year old male, Caucasoid, cause of death: unknown. It’s a brief that wouldn’t have sounded unfamiliar to Jean-Noël Vignal – a forensic anthropologist who works with police to create likenesses of murder victims at the Centre Technique de la Gendarmerie Nationale in France – when it landed on his desk in 2005. Yet the tragic young man in question on this particular occasion was no ordinary subject – he was the most legendary ancient Egyptian that ever lived. Tutankhamun, a Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty, died mysteriously in 1323 BC. His body lay undisturbed for over 3,200…
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Queen Tiye was known primarily as the wife of Amenhotep III and the mother of Akhenaten. She was also the mother of Sitamun, who also eventually married Amenhotep III, as well as at least 4 other children. Amenhotep III thought highly of his wife, and Tiye was similarly devoted to her husband. Several statues and stelas depict the royal couple together, and in many of them Tiye is portrayed as being as tall as Amenhotep III. Her husband also devoted many shrines and temple, as well as an artificial lake, to her. Tiye was considered a chief, albeit unofficial, advisor…
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Egypt hasn’t always been controlled from Cairo – in fact the city only took on its capital city mantle in 969 AD. The ancient Egyptian empire went through over a dozen capital cities in its history, the most notable being Memphis, Thebes, Amarna and Alexandria. But how did power shift between these bustling ancient hubs? And what was life like as a resident of an ancient Egyptian capital? A Divided Land Before the empire was united in 3118 BC, it consisted of two separate kingdoms: Upper and Lower Egypt. Upper Egypt consisted of the valley regions of the south, taking…
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Saqqara, located 40km south of Cairo, was a vast, 6km-long necropolis for the ancient capital of Memphis during the 1st and 2nd dynasties. It is most famously recognised for its step pyramid, built for the 3rd Dynasty pharaoh Djoser (2635 – 2610 BC) – but houses thousands of ancient burial sites, with many more submerged beneath the unerring depths of the desert. It stands as not only a memoriam to the time in which it was developed, but also as a yardstick against which all future Egyptian funerary ceremony would be placed. The City of the Dead Saqqara was originally…
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Signs O’ The Times Egyptian hieroglyphs – streams of sometimes heavily stylised pictograms and letters, carved into stone or drawn onto papyrus parchment – are instantly recognisable relics of one of the world’s oldest and most famous ancient civilizations. But what on earth do they mean? And what of their place in the development of the Egyptian language, written and spoken, as a whole? Origins and Development Examples of written Egyptian date back more than 3,400 years, making it one of the earliest known languages in human history. The oldest bands of script discovered to date comprise a primitive system…
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The pyramids of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs have long stood proud as some of the world’s greatest architectural achievements. The heralded leaders to whom they were devoted are known throughout the world, yet the stories of the men who built them have remained hidden until recent times. Who were these people, how did they construct these massive mausoleums – and why did they devote their lives to such a breathtaking task? Modern archaeology and ancient testament may hold the key to these questions. Who Were They? Age-old storytelling, myth and the mysticism of the structures themselves, has led many in…
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Few events in the history of archaeology have stirred so much interest or had such an impact as the discovery of the tomb of the boy king, Tutankhamun in 1922. For the first time since serious exploration of the Valley of the Kings began in the early 1800s an intact tomb had been found. The finding unearthed the mummified remains of a king of Egypt interred many thousands of years ago, and revealed to the world the true wonder and artistry of the ancient Egyptians. The treasures uncovered at King Tut’s tomb stunned the world, and even today we stare…
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The burial chamber is the only room of Tutankhamun’s tomb which was decorated. The early and unexpected death of the young king left little time for preparation and, from the modest size and arrangement it is clear that this is a hastily converted commoner’s tomb not intended for a royal burial. Despite the sparsity of mural paintings in King Tut’s tomb, they are an essential part of the funerary process, and should not be overlooked. Funerary Rituals For a Pharaoh, and indeed for Egyptians in general, life was a preparation for death, the Afterlife and immortality. The ceremonies of burial…
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Empire Fuel The Roman interest in conquering Egypt around two millennia ago was far more than the love interest of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony in Cleopatra VII (Cleopatra). Egypt’s location as the gateway to the Middle East and Asia, together with its extremely productive agricultural sector and educated populace, satisfied some of the most pressing issues facing the Roman Empire in around 30BC. During the resulting 680 years or so of Roman rule before Egyptians once again ruled themselves, the country become predominantly Christian and lose most of its ‘old’ religious temples. It also enjoyed economic growth and played…