Kilmarnock’s Dick Institute is the latest museum to be hit by mummymania, as it welcomes the mummy and coffin of an ancient Egyptian High Priest to an otherworldly exhibition. ‘The Journey Beyond – Ancient Egypt and Prehistoric Ayrshire’ will compare attitudes to life and death in two very different corners of the world: Egypt and southwest Scotland. Local Neolithic, Iron Age and Bronze Age burial items from Ayrshire will show how Scotland’s early inhabitants held strong views about life after death. Yet the star of the show is bound to be the mummy and coffin of Iufenamun, a 21st –…
-
-
The Houston Museum of Natural Science will be continuing the “Secrets of the Silk Road” exhibit currently being held at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, California. From August 27 to January 2 2011, visitors of the Houston Museum of Natural Science will be able to view the exhibit, which includes three Tarim mummies. 150 ancient artifacts from institutions in China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region will also be on display as well, reavling surprising details about the people who lived along the ancient Silk Road. The display of the Tarim mummies marks the first time they have been shown in America.…
-
Where is Atlantis? Ever since Plato mentioned the existence of the fabled island-city in the 4th century BC, archaeologists, historians and adventurers have spent much time and ink trying to chase down its origins. “Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, as well as over parts of the continent, and, besides these, subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia.” – From Plato’s Timaeus – Translation by Benjamin Jowett One of…
-
Dr Paul G Bahn Distinguished archaeologist and author Dr Paul G Bahn is a distinguished archaeologist, and a prolific writer and broadcaster on archaeology, prehistoric art and early man. In 2003 and 2004, he led the team that discovered Britain’s first Ice Age cave art at Creswell Crags in Nottinghamshire. He holds a PhD from Cambridge, conducting his thesis on the prehistory of the French Pyrénées. He is a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and a member of various international organisations, including the Société Préhistorique Française and a variety of rock art research associations. He is also a contributing…
-
Attribution: Martha Nell G Key Dates 1901 – The Phoebe A Hearst Museum of Anthropology was founded Berkeley United States Key People Phoebe A Hirst George Reisner The Museum was founded in 1901 by Phoebe Apperson Hearst, who also funded George Reisner’s exhibitions. Today, the Hearst houses the oldest and largest anthropological collection in the Western US, preserving and interpreting a global record of material culture as represented by more than 3.8 million catalogued objects, the largest of which are the California collections. The Hearst Museum has an extensive collection of approximately 20,000 ancient Egyptian artifacts, with a special emphasis on predynastic…
-
Historian Bettany Hughes will star in Timewatch Special ‘Atlantis: The Evidence’, to premire on BBC Two next week. She’ll be tracing the origins of the Atlantis myth and presenting evidence that the Thera eruption inspired Plato’s account of the mystical land. 2,400 years ago Greek philosopher Plato wrote of an ancient island civilisation of unparalleled wealth and splendour, which was struck by earthquakes and floods and was swallowed up by the sea in one grievous day and night. But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune all your warlike men in…
-
Prehistoric cave painters in the Sahara Desert gave rise to ancient Egyptian civilisation, according to a German archaeological team. The paintings in a caves in Gilf Kebir, a vast sandstone plateau near the Egyptian-Libyan border, may be over 400 miles from the River Nile. But the team claims it was once a thriving community which later spread east to create Egypt’s famous cities and landmarks. The plateau, a Martian landscape the size of Switzerland, is home to two famous caves, the ‘Cave of the Swimmers’ and the ‘Cave of the Beasts’ – Watch our amazing video of the caves and…
-
Whether it has been called Uluru, Ayers Rock, or simply the Rock, Australias giant monolith has been the countrys spiritual heart for many thousands of years. But the death of a tourist on the site last month has reignited a heated controversy that just refuses to go away. The traveller was a 54-year-old man from the Australian state of Victoria. He collapsed and died while on his way down from the top of Uluru a steep, one-hour climb which is permitted by Australian but not Aboriginal law. Many myself included would argue that the death should not have happened at…
-
Its confirmed the Terracotta Warriors show will be opening on June 26at the RoyalOntario Museum, inToronto rightat the startof a G20 summit. It will be the largest Terracotta Warriors show ever to hit North America. Featuring 250 artefacts, including 16 human terracotta figures. While the Terracotta Warriors show will be opening many other venues will be closing. The CN Tower will be closed, the University of Toronto campus (which surrounds the museum) will be shut down and even the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team have moved their weekend home games to Philadelphia. A security cordon will also be in place…
-
Are you a museum director, curator, employee, scholar, fan or friend of someone in the know? We want to hear from you! We’re working on an ambitious new project at Heritage Key to list the world’s top 100 ancient world museums by visitor and collection numbers. In the future we’ll have interactive maps, lists of the greatest artefacts in each museum and much more, as the list becomes the world’s most comprehensive chart of the planet’s biggest ancient world institutions. Why should I nominate my museum? Just look at others: the Art Newspaper’s art museums list and the Times’ 100…