We all get a bit ticked off when someone else uses our favourite coffee mug. But for the Jews in ancient Jerusalem, keeping their best cups sacred was apparently a matter of the gravest importance. A stone drinking receptacle dating from around the time of Jesus Christ, found recently on historic Mount Zion, has shed light on strict religious ritual when it came to mugs in Biblical times. It bears tens lines of strange script scratched into its side, which while not yet deciphered are nevertheless believed to indicate that the cup wasnt to be casually used by just anybody.…
-
-
The literary world is waiting for a bombshell. Controversial Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown is about to release his latest historical fantasy tale – The Lost Symbol – on the public. But what does this mean for the history books industry at large, and should the work of Dan Brown be considered historical fiction at all, or merely fantasy? Judging by the healthy state of historical fiction at the moment, it could be that history pulp has helped stimulate readers’ and writers’ interest in proper historical fiction. In his review of Ben Kanes The Forgotten Legion, Roger Michael Kean…
-
Nazi Egyptology is a complex subject. As Professor Thomas Schneider said, there is no uniform ‘Nazi Egyptology’ discipline. Instead there are a number of German Egyptologists who were thrown into the academic hole of the Third Reich – who each reacted to it in their own way. An interesting story that I didnt put into the article The Real Story of Nazi Egyptology, forbrevity reasons, is that of Friedrich Wilhelm von Bissing. Bissing was a professor at Munich. He is perhaps most noted for his work at Abu Ghurab, done at the turn of the century, where he excavated the…
-
Three Roman-era figurines of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, have been unearthed at an archaeological site east of the sea of Galilee in Israel. Sussita, known as Hippos to the Greeks on account of the horse’s head-shaped hill on which it was built, was a Greco-Roman town that became one of the 10 cities (the Decapolis) in Coele-Syria that were granted some independence when Pompey conquered in 63 BC. (Other Decapolis cities include Qanawat and Jerash.) It is thought that the figurines, measuring 23cm high, date from the fourth century AD a time when Constantine the Great laid out the…
-
One of the most impressive and startling structures in the world is the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, yet the construction of it remains the subject of much debate and discussion to this very day. Dr Mark Lehner, an archaeologist at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, and Harvard Semitic Museum, has given an exclusive video interview to Heritage Key in which he explains what he and his team are doing in their latest excavation. Dr Lehner wants to know the answer to a question that rarely gets asked – Where and how did the workers who…
-
One of the best preserved and most decorated tombs in the Valley of the Kings is that of Seti I, adorned with hieroglyphics and colourful paintings on every passageway and chamber wall. In this first post on the Seti I tomb, we look at stunning photography by Sandro Vannini taken in the First Pillared Hall section of the tomb. Years of archaeological excavations have damaged the tomb and as a result, it has now been closed to the public. That means the only way to enjoy the beauty of Tomb KV17 is through photography, and who better to send down…
-
Attribution: Mollow2 Anuradhapura Sri Lanka Key Dates Singhalese capital by 380 BC Abandoned after invasion in 993 AD The Sacred City of Anuradhapura was established around a cutting from the “tree of enlightenment” and was the Singhalese capital by 380 BC. At its heart is the Sacred Bo tree which is said to date back to 245 BC. It was a flourishing religious capital for 1300 years until it was abandoned in 993. Anuradhapura is said to be the capital of the Rakshasa King Ravana in the Hindue epic Ramayana. The ruins of Anuradhapura consist of bell-shaped dagobas, monastic buildings and pokunas…
-
Another carved stone figurine has been discovered at the Neolithic site of atalhyk in Turkey, adding to an already large collection of over 2,000 pieces that has raised conflicting theories among scholars about their prehistoric purpose. The find, made last week, is of a six inch-tall reclining man with a large beard and oversized nose. Back in the 1960s, it was speculated that the prevalence among the carvings of females with big breasts and bellies (similar to the likes of the much older Venus of Hohle Fels, found recently in Germany) were indicative of a cult of worshipping mother goddesses…
-
Tourists are taking the piss quite literally when it comes to Uluru, the sacred Aboriginal ‘rock’ in the middle of the Australian desert. Andrew Simpson is the general manager of Anangu Waai, an Aboriginal-owned company that runs culturally sensitive tours of the World Heritage-listed Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. He claims that tourists are not only disrespecting local heritage and beliefs by climbing Uluru in the first place, but they are “shitting on a sacred site” when they get to the top. Waiting half an hour to get to the bottom again, he says, is just too much of an effort…
-
The Brooklyn Museum holds 7 human and over 60 animal mummies in their collection. We know already quite a lot about their human mummies, but now Lisa Bruno tells us more about the animal mummy research project at the Museum in an informal presentation for the Museum’s ‘1stfans’. The Brooklyn Museum’s conservator Lisa Bruno talks about what an object conservator exactly is (and how to become one), the travelling exhibition ‘To Live Forever’ which is coming to the Brooklyn Museum February 2010 and the research the Getty Institute did on the ‘red mummy’ Demetrios – once thought to be a…