For me, the press preview of the Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs exhibition, which opened in New York today, was a momentous event because I’ve never met Dr. Zahi Hawass before, and I got to look him in the eye and shake his hand and even ask him a question. I’ll come to all that in a minute. The exhibition is impressive. I can’t deny that. There was a moment when I actually stopped dead in my tracks, mouth open (soon to be hustled out of the way by a pushy New York journo). This happened when…
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Heritage Key reported recently that mummified baboons in the British Museum could reveal the location of the land of Punt – a place to which pharaohsorganized trading expeditions. To theEgyptians, Punt was a placeof fragrances, giraffes, electrum and other exotic goods. It was sometimes referred to as Ta-netjer ‘Gods land’ a huge compliment given that the Ancient Egyptians tended to view outside cultures with disdain. Although Egyptians record voyaging to it until the end of the New Kingdom, 3,000 years ago, scholars do not know where Punt was. Ancient texts offer only vagueallusions to its location and no ‘Puntite’ civilization…
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Dr. Zahi Hawass, the charismatic Secretary General of Eygpt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, and chief bodyguard of Egypt’s ancient treasures, likes to make revelations to the media -and he didn’t disappoint atWednesday’s press preview of the final leg of ‘Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs’, set to open at the Discovery Times Square Exposition onApril 23th. He announced, with a typical flourish of portentousness, that King Tut’s chariot will be arriving in about a month to augment the exhibition, which has already toured 7 cities and attracted 7 million visitors. “It is a masterpiece that has never travelled,”…
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Thirty years after the wonders of King Tut first toured the world, an even bigger exhibition Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs will make its appearance at the Pacific Science Center starting May 24th, 2012. With an almost entirely different selection of treasures and more than twice the number of artefacts than were displayed in the 1978 exhibition, Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs features more than 100 remarkable objects from the tomb of King Tut and ancient sites representing some of the most important rulers throughout 2,000 years of ancient Egyptian history. This is really…
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Anubis is the jackal-headed god for the afterlife and mummification, who is seen as a key figure for a Pharaoh to pass into the afterlife. The jackal was associated with associated with death and burials in Ancient Egyptian time for their reputation of scavenging human corpses and eating their flesh. It was common practice to place a figure of Anubis near the entrance of a tomb, and for the priest to don an Anubis mask during the embalming process. This is also one of the reasons the Anubis was selected to sail into New York’s harbour to promote the upcoming…
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As volcanic ash from Iceland’s volcano continues to cause chaos, there is news that access to Iran‘s ancient sites could soon become easier. From June to October this year, IranAir plans to operate a weekly non-stop flight from London Heathrow to Shiraz. The Saturday service will operate alongside the airlines existing three-day-a-week London-Tehran service, and see a return Shiraz-London flight offered every Sunday. Internal flights already operate from Tehran to Isafahan, Mashhad and Tabriz, as well as to Shiraz. The news comes at a time when Iraq is also opening up to tourists. When the ash clears, adventurous travellers will…
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I’m pretty sure that this is probably the worst intro written to a blogpost ever, but: ‘W00t!’ Alejandro Amenbar’s big film Agora on the life (and death) of philosopher and mathematician Hypatia of Alexandria will (finally) be released ‘at cinemas nationwide’ (that’s UK) on April 23. I’ve been saying (and typing) for the last nine months that I want to really, really see this English-language movie by Amenbar. Meanwhile, Ive been forced to (not) watch it being released in Spain – where the historical drama earned over $10.3million in four days, becoming 2009’s highest-grossing local film – and the USA…
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A large new church, monastic burials and a vaulted room filled with Coptic wall paintings – new excavation work at the Monastery of Saint Apollo at Bawit is yielding a wealth of remarkable finds. One of the team members, Dr. Ramez Boutros of the University of Toronto, discussed some of the finds at a recent lecture and Heritage Key followed up with an interview. The Monastery of Saint Apollo was founded by the saint around 385-390 AD. Its slightly north to the site of Asyut, which can be seen on the map below. Saint Apollo was a hermit of sorts…
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The original excavation of TT34 – The Tomb of Montuemhat – was carried out by archaeologist Zakaria Gomein, upon the pressure unfortunately got the better of him and resulted in suidcide in a fascinating tale recounted by Dr Zahi Hawass (Watch the video).The project lead is now Dr Farouk Gomaa who is searching TT34 for the burial chamber of the diplomat Montuemhat, and explains his progress in a Heritage Key video (Watch the video). Egyptology photographer has been busy across Thebes, and TT34 has been just one of many of the tombs in the area where he has taken his…
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At first glance, Boudica, Agrippinna, Cleopatra and Olympias (Alexander the Great’s mother) dont seem to have much in common other than being strong women accountable for a few deaths along the way. However, recently they have been joined together by a unique series of photographs entitled The Regal Twelve. Depicting 12 diverse women from across the ages, the series of stunning, provocative, images celebrates the famous, infamous and the obscure. Award-winning Australian fine art photographer and digital artist Alexia Sinclair embarked on the project when she was studying for her Masters and was awarded a travelling arts scholarship and two…