The University of Hamburg’s Egyptology department is facing a last-chance vote to avoid oblivion. The department, one of Germany’s most prestigious, is facing the axe for economic reasons. But a petition organised by protesters outside the city’s Tutankhamun: His Tomb and his Treasures exhibition has gathered over 66,000 signatures, meaning the department’s future is now in the hands of an internal vote. The department’s closure would be a body blow for Egyptology in Germany, which remains popular thanks to world-renowned museums like the Neues in Berlin, and great artefacts such as the Bust of Nefertiti, the home of which has…
-
-
Historian Bettany Hughes will star in Timewatch Special ‘Atlantis: The Evidence’, to premire on BBC Two next week. She’ll be tracing the origins of the Atlantis myth and presenting evidence that the Thera eruption inspired Plato’s account of the mystical land. 2,400 years ago Greek philosopher Plato wrote of an ancient island civilisation of unparalleled wealth and splendour, which was struck by earthquakes and floods and was swallowed up by the sea in one grievous day and night. But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune all your warlike men in…
-
One of the biggest archaeological discoveries ever made in China landed in America earlier this year. A trio of Tarim Mummies was brought to the United States for the first time in a special exhibit at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, California. The mummies are renowned for their unique appearance: while the ancient bodies were found well-preserved in Chinas western region, some of them bear more of a physical resemblance to early Europeans. People will have until July 25 to view the ancient bodies, but the American public will have two more chances to view the exhibit later this…
-
Prehistoric cave painters in the Sahara Desert gave rise to ancient Egyptian civilisation, according to a German archaeological team. The paintings in a caves in Gilf Kebir, a vast sandstone plateau near the Egyptian-Libyan border, may be over 400 miles from the River Nile. But the team claims it was once a thriving community which later spread east to create Egypt’s famous cities and landmarks. The plateau, a Martian landscape the size of Switzerland, is home to two famous caves, the ‘Cave of the Swimmers’ and the ‘Cave of the Beasts’ – Watch our amazing video of the caves and…
-
Whether it has been called Uluru, Ayers Rock, or simply the Rock, Australias giant monolith has been the countrys spiritual heart for many thousands of years. But the death of a tourist on the site last month has reignited a heated controversy that just refuses to go away. The traveller was a 54-year-old man from the Australian state of Victoria. He collapsed and died while on his way down from the top of Uluru a steep, one-hour climb which is permitted by Australian but not Aboriginal law. Many myself included would argue that the death should not have happened at…
-
Its confirmed the Terracotta Warriors show will be opening on June 26at the RoyalOntario Museum, inToronto rightat the startof a G20 summit. It will be the largest Terracotta Warriors show ever to hit North America. Featuring 250 artefacts, including 16 human terracotta figures. While the Terracotta Warriors show will be opening many other venues will be closing. The CN Tower will be closed, the University of Toronto campus (which surrounds the museum) will be shut down and even the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team have moved their weekend home games to Philadelphia. A security cordon will also be in place…
-
Are you a museum director, curator, employee, scholar, fan or friend of someone in the know? We want to hear from you! We’re working on an ambitious new project at Heritage Key to list the world’s top 100 ancient world museums by visitor and collection numbers. In the future we’ll have interactive maps, lists of the greatest artefacts in each museum and much more, as the list becomes the world’s most comprehensive chart of the planet’s biggest ancient world institutions. Why should I nominate my museum? Just look at others: the Art Newspaper’s art museums list and the Times’ 100…
-
Archaeologists last week discovered 45 ancient Egyptian tombs at the site of El-Lahoun, in the Fayum. In a statement issued by the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni claims that a sarcophagus holding a mummy has been found in in each of the tombs, located about 70 miles from Cairo. One of the tombs unearthed during the dig is from the 18th dynasty (1550-1295 BC), and contains at least 12 wooden sarcophagi stacked on top of each other. Each of these sarcophagi is thought to hold a mummy covered in cartonnage. The mummies are decorated with religious…
-
On June 26the Terracotta Warriors will be coming to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada. Curated by the museums own Dr. Chen Shen,the showincludes 16 human terracotta figures, a terracotta horse and, yes, a terracotta dog (albeit from the Han period). In total there are about 250 artefacts -making it the largest warriors show ever to come to North America. Accompanyingtheexhibitionwill be a lecture series, the details of which the museum has just announced. Therewill be14 lectures in total, allof whichstart at7pm in the Eaton theatre, inside the museum itself. The price for one lecture is $28, going down…
-
We all know that a surely proud couple from a village populated by irreducible Gauls still resisting the Roman invaders in 50BC gave birth to Asterix. But where do the Smurfs smurf from? Are they all Peyo’s imagination, or did a tribe of small, little blue men ever exist? One is inclined to think that those cute creatures, dated to the early Spiroe Age, are just a silly invention of a genius comic book writer. Or are they? Their primitive grammar seems to suggest a more ancient origin, and new evidence recently surfaced that Smurfs started smurfing back in ancient…