• sean-williams

    Zahi Hawass Visits London’s British Museum (and ‘Doesn’t’ Mention Rosetta Stone)

    The British Museum’s Egyptian Sculpture Gallery was packed last night, as hundreds of dignitaries flocked to see The World’s Most Famous Archaeologist (copyright all bloggers) Dr Zahi Hawass, speaking ahead of the release of his latest book A Secret Voyage. Cameras in hand, Heritage Key was there to witness Dr Hawass’ appearance, heralded more like the second coming than a book signing. Stood in front of the museum’s colossal head of Ramesses the Great, Dr Hawass boomed out at his fans like an emissary from the pharaoh himself. But as he spoke, you could sense he was looking longingly above…

  • meral-crifasi

    King Tut Virtual Photography Contest Extended

    Virtual Photography can be very stunning as you can see in the slide show above. Our Flickr Contest has a pool of some top notch photography so far and I have received great interest to extend the deadline to accommodate some late participants. We have decided to extend the submission deadline to 14th of December Monday midnight. We will then announce the winners on Friday the 18th of December. In the mean time if you would like some tricks on photography here is a nice blog in Virtual Photography From Graecyn you can find more tutorials in our Rezzable website…

  • sean-williams

    Guardian Reader Poll: Majority Wants Rosetta Stone to Stay in England

    Dr Zahi Hawass’ quest for the Rosetta Stone is gathering pace. And with the SCA chief set to visit the British Museum tonight to promote his latest book and holding a repatriation conference next March, it’s an issue which could become a lot more incendiary in the coming weeks. Hot on the tail of Heritage Key’s own survey to decide whether the BM should return some of its highest-prized artefacts, national newspaper the Guardian has probed its own readership on the Rosetta Stone’s repatriation. That’s not to say the Guardian’s poll is particularly far-reaching. Readers are simply given two options…

  • garry-shaw

    The King and I(deology)

    Although there is copious evidence for the Egyptian kings statues, huge depictions on temple walls, stelae the actual reality of the day-to-day work and personal authority of these individuals is often ignored in favour of discussions of divinity, art and ideology. There is good reason for this. Despite the extensive amount of evidence available to scholars, everything is shrouded in a thick layer of ideological presentation that masks the reality of the situation. This makes it difficult to separate fact from fiction: what are we to envision the king did every day? Initially, just for fun, it is interesting to…

  • sean-williams

    Dust, Damp and Doters Damaging King Tut’s Tomb, Say Getty Institute

    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…

  • images

    Sandro Vannini’s Photography – Tomb of Seti I (KV17): The Crypt’s Side Chamber

    In 2008, an archaeological team found that the Tomb of Seti I (KV17) was in fact larger than originally thought. Where the original discoverer,Giovanni Battista Belzoni had found the tomb to be 100 metres long when he entered in 1817, recent archaeological excavations overseen by the Supreme Council of Antiquities’ Director Dr Zahi Hawass (You can meet Sandro and Dr Hawass at the British Museum tonight, or meet Dr Zahi at his London book signing on Thursday) have uncovered a mysterious tunnel leading from the Crypt which further extends the tomb by another 36 metres at least (Watch a video…

  • veigapaula

    Why I Don’t Believe the Bust of Nefertiti is Fake

    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…

  • Ann

    King Tut’s Treasures Expensive for Australian Museum

    The blockbuster exhibition ‘King Tut and the Golden Age of the Pharoahs’ will not tour Australia because museums cannot afford it – not surprisingly if you look at the price tag. Egypt wants to prolong the world’s most successful tour of artefacts from the tomb of the boy-king but offers to host the exhibition have been underwhelming, to say the least. The Director of the Australian Museum, Frank Howarth, told the Sydney Morning Herald that the show’s $10 million price tag and its size were too big for Australian institutions to handle. Dr. Zahi Hawass said – despite earlier claims…

  • Ann

    Terracotta Army sets up camp in Chile

    Only weeks after a devision of Terracotta Warriors went on show National Geographic Museum in Washington DC– check out Graecyn’s splendid photographs here – another unit of the First Emperor’s Army “marched thousands of kilometers to Chile”. Last Friday Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet inaugurated the exhibition ‘The Ancient China and the Terracotta Army’ in the central hall of the Cultural Center La Moneda Palace in Chile’s capital Santiago. The exhibition, which will run for the next five months, includes 123 terracotta soldiers and horses. “This is one part of the globalization we need to boost. It means dialogue of cultures,…

  • helen-atkinson

    Astonishing News From Bulgaria – Women Fired Up Copper Age

    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…