The tomb of Tutankhamun is one of the world’s most famous ancient spots. Yet spots are precisely what are causing the decay of its beautiful wall paintings. The US-based Getty Conservation Institute have been drafted in to help mend the murals, but have been finding it an uphill struggle in the face of fierce desert weather and the onslaught of eager tourists. Dr Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s antiquities chief, has long bemoaned the damage tourists are doing to tombs at the Valley of theKings; the necropolis of ancient Thebes near modern Luxor. Dr Hawass has even mooted the idea of a…
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Following all the doubt and controversy surrounding claims that the Bust of Nefertiti is a fake, I would like to present my case and say why I believe the bust, now housed in the Neues Museum in Berlin, is an original. Let’s go back and look at the evidence, starting with a 2008 article in KMT magazine named ‘Why Nefertiti Went to Berlin’ written by Dr Rolf Krauss. The article includes some important transcripts and images. One photo shows Egyptologists looking at the bust of Nefertiti, held by an Egyptian workman, captioned: ‘The first presentation of the bust of Nefertiti…
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Women invented metallurgy! This extraordinary revelation was made in a lecture last night at New York University’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (which has an unfortune acronym pronounced eyesore) by David Anthony, Professor of Anthropology at Hartwick College and Guest Curator of the exhibition currently on view at ISAW until April 25, 2010: “The Lost World of Old Europe: The Danube Valley, 5000-3500 BC.” In his talk, entitled “The Rise and Fall of Old Europe,” Anthony delved into the mysteries of the highly sophisticated and populous culture that sprang up 7,000 years ago along the banks of…
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First of all google sent a man on a bicycle around Stonehenge to capture the ancient site in virtual mode for Street View. Now it’s the archaeological site of Pompeii that’s online, allowing Internet users to take a 360-degree tour of the ancient Roman town destroyed by Vesuvius’s eruption in 79 AD. The town’s statues, temples and theatres, as well as close-up views of individual houses and shops are all now visible on Street View, allowing armchair tourists – if that is you, did you try King Tut Virtual already? – to satisfy some of their curiosity about the site…
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The Rosetta Stone and the Behistun inscriptions are both key to the decipherment of ancient languages that co-existed in time. What’s also interesting is that they were both discovered in the middle of wars and by military personnel. There is something quite ironic about armies hell-bend on destruction and division instead finding these hidden codes to decipher ancient words, the study of which will go on to unite the world. Dr Campbell Thompson investigated Behistun on behalf of the British Museum and published his findings in 1937. He stated that: “Two of the most important events in the advancement of…
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The red carpet was rolled out yesterday at one of Rome’s more unusual archaeological sites, while a discreet police presence also surrounded the visit of the president of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano to Palazzo Valentini. President of the Province of Rome, Nicola Zingaretti, called it an historic day, as Palazzo Valentini prepared to open its doors to visitors to the Roman archaeological complex and multi-media museum beneath it opening today for a limited time to the public. Zingaretti said: It is a unique place, where cultural heritage comes together with a structure in every-day use. The occasion for Napolitano’s…
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We, sitting comfortably in front of our computers here in the 21st century, a mocha-choca-frappe-latte possibly close at hand, like to complain a lot about stress. Balancing the demands of work, family, health and the full range of entertainment offered our by multi-channel digital TV package, is after all a trying daily endeavour. Its blissful to believe that life was somehow calmer and simpler in the quaint days of ancient history. But the findings of some new studies have suggested that that firmly was not the case. High levels of the stress hormone cortisol have been detected in the hair…
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With the current King Tut exhibition on show in Toronto at the moment (check out our preview here) the city has been gripped by Egyptomania. Everybody’s talking about the Boy King, and the buzz permeates the whole city. But what is Egyptomania, and how did it start? Simply put Egyptomania is a fascination with ancient Egypt – its culture, artefacts, architecture, religion and language. The term tends to refer to activities that took place in the 19th and 20th centuries, but a careful look at history will reveal that the phenomenon dates from earlier times. Mummy Parties The first Egyptomaniacs…
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When Howard Carter said he spied wondrous things upon cracking open the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922, he wasnt joking. KV62 was filled with probably the most fantastic collection of ancient treasures ever discovered in one place all from beautiful golden coffins, to giant statues, canopic shrines and a golden throne. Tuts own body was literally stuffed with precious jewellery. In the third instalment of our four-part video series King Tut Revealed filmed by Nico Piazza, and featuring still photography by Sandro Vannini Dr Zahi Hawass, who you can watch in this video revealing the cause of Tuts death and…
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Driving through the desert in search of whales sounds counterproductive, but I had been assured that if I hired a jeep and drove seventy kilometres from Egypts Faiyum Oasis out into the Sahara this is indeed what I would find. If this was a ruse it was a clever one, and UNESCO were in on it. The cream coloured 4×4 arrived at nine AM. Perfectly on time a good sign. The driver, Mohammed, was a youngish man, perhaps in his early thirties, sporting a thick goatee beard and wearing a red and white chequered headscarf. He smiled and shook my…