• Ann

    New Face for 5,300-year-old Otzi the Iceman

    About 5,300 years ago, a man travelling the Alps was hit by an arrow. Roughly 5,280 years later, two German tourists exploring the Italian-Austrian border discover the world’s oldest and best preserved mummy. Since, Ötzi has been examined by innumerable scientists and has received almost three million visitors. To celebrate the natural mummy’s twentieth year as a global sensation,  the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano is dedicating a special exhibition to the Iceman. The show’s highlight – besides a peek at Ötzi’s refrigerated corpse – is a new, naturalistic reconstruction of how Ötzi would have looked, based on…

  • Ann

    Egyptian Museum Cairo: Royal mummies unharmed & King Tut’s treasures to be restored

    During a short inspection tour of the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, Dr. Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s newly appointed Minister of Antiquities, has announced that the restoration of seventy objects, damaged during the failed looting attempt on January 28, has begun and will be completed within five days. The restoration project includes the statue of Tutankhamun standing on the back of a panther and a New Kingdom wooden sarcophagus, both damaged by the criminals. “One showcase in the Ahkenatengalleries was smashed; it contained a standing statue of the king carrying an offering tray. While the showcase is badly damaged, the statue sustained very…

  • prad

    Dr Zahi Hawass Appointed to Egypt President Mubarak’s New Cabinet as Minister for Antiquities

    Dr Zahi Hawass, has been promoted in the shake up of Egyptian President’s Hosni Mubarak’s new cabinet according to a report from AP. Formerly the Vice Minister for Culture, and the Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), Dr Hawass will now take the role as Minister of a newly created department – the State Ministry for Antiquities. Literary critic Dr Gaber Asfour has been named the new Minister of Culture, replacing the long-serving Farouk Hosni. The cabinet shake up comes in the wake of political turmoil across Egypt, which saw a lack of police protection for key…

  • prad

    Egypt Protests Sees Cairo Museum Looted as Artefacts and Mummies Are Damaged

    As the protests in Egypt gained momentum over the weekend, reports came out that the ruling National Democratic Party headquarters were ablaze, a building which is next door to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, where looters damaged several priceless artefacts and mummies, including contents of King Tutankhamun’s Tomb. When a curfew was declared at 6pm in Cairo, all but three police officers abandoned their posts at the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square, the heart of the capital where protesters are focussing their anger against President Hosni Mubarak. Like many famous Egyptian attractions such as the Pyramids of Giza, the Egyptian…

  • Ann

    Egypt issues official repatriation request for famous Berlin bust of Queen Nefertiti

    The Supreme Council of Antiquities announced today that Secretary General Dr. Zahi Hawass has sent an official request for the famous bust of Queen Nefertiti to be returned to Egypt. This request was approved by the Prime Minister of Egypt, Dr. Ahmed Nazif, and Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosny, after four years of research by a legal committee composed of legal personnel and Egyptologists. Update: Response from the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which states the letter was _not_ signed by Egypt’s Prime Minister, and thus is not official, in the comments. The request letter was send to Dr. Hermann Parzinger,…

  • Ann

    Six missing pieces of Pharaoh Amenhotep III & Queen Tiye statue found at king’s funerary temple

    Egyptian Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosny announced today that six missing pieces from the colossal double statue of the 18th Dynasty King Amenhotep III and his wife Queen Tiye, have been discovered at the kings mortuary temple on Luxors west bank. The fragments were found during excavation work by an Egyptian team under the direction of Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA). The pieces from Amenhotep III‘s statue that were recovered come from the right side of his chest, nemes headdress, and leg. Statue fragments of Queen Tiye that were uncovered include a section…

  • General

    Esther Jacobson-Tepfer

    Esther Jacobson-Tepfer Professor of Asian Art at the University of Oregon, Expert on the Archaeology of Mongolia Esther Jacobson-Tepfer is Maude I Kerns Professor Emeritus of Asian Art at the University of Oregon, where she taught undergraduate courses in the History of Indian Art, Art of the Silk Road, and Nomadic Art of Eurasia, and undergraduate and graduate courses in Scythian Gold, North Asian Rock Art, and Judaic Art. Dr Jacobson-Tepfer is a past recipient of the Ersted Award for Distinguished Teaching, and was the first director of the University’s Center for Asian and Pacific Studies. Dr Jacobson-Tepfer received her…

  • site

    Athens

    Key Dates Athens has been inhabited continuously for over 7,000 years. It became ancient Greece’s leading city in the 5th century BC, and went on to enjoy a period of cultural richness beyond parallel, before experiencing mixed fortunes in the Byzantine, Crusader and Ottoman periods. It became the capital of an independent Greek state in 19th century. Athens Greece Key People Athens is named after the Greek goddess Athena, daughter of Zeus. It’s associated with almost every great name from classical Greece and beyond: philosphers such as Socrates, Aristotle and Plato, dramatists such as Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Euripides and Sophocles, statesmen…

  • Ann

    Unique Crown suggests Arsinoë II ruled as King of Lower Egypt

    A unique queens crown with ancient symbols combined with a new method of studying status in Egyptian reliefs forms the basis for a re-interpretation of historical developments in Egypt in the period following the death of Alexander the Great. In the thesis ‘The Crown of Arsino II’, Maria Nilsson shows that Cleopatra VII was not the only Ptolemaic female pharaoh Queen Arsino II came first, 200 years earlier. Nilsson argues that Arsino (316-270 BC) should be included in the official pharaonic king list as Ptolemy II’s co-regent; her royal authority should be considered equivalent to Hatshepsut, Tawosret and Amenirdis II,…

  • Ann - Articles & Blogs

    Unique Crown suggests Arsinoë II ruled as King of Lower Egypt

    A unique queen’s crown with ancient symbols combined with a new method of studying status in Egyptian reliefs forms the basis for a re-interpretation of historical developments in Egypt in the period following the death of Alexander the Great. In the thesis ‘The Crown of Arsinoë II’, Maria Nilsson shows that Cleopatra VII was not the only Ptolemaic female pharaoh – Queen Arsinoë II came first, 200 years earlier.   Nilsson argues that Arsinoë (316-270 BC) should be included in the official pharaonic king list as Ptolemy II’s co-regent; her royal authority should be considered equivalent to Hatshepsut, Tawosret and Amenirdis…