The rich and famous people of ancient Egypt lived a decadent lifestyle with fine wine, sex, high fashion, and plenty of partying. How do they compare with their equivalents today – the modern western celebrity set? The main differences might be regarding who were the richest people then, and who are the richest people now. In ancient Egypt the pharaoh was at the top of the pyramid and his family, noble people who owned land, and the priests came after. Scribes, architects and doctors were well off, and skilled craftsmen also had many privileges. Peasants and unskilled workers were low…
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This Saturday the Victoria and Albert Museum in London will open a show that is all about a fake, in partnership with Scotland Yard. The exhibit, Metropolitan Police Service’s Investigation of Fakes and Forgeries, will explore the work of counterfeit mastermind Shaun Greenhalgh, and reveal some of the techniques used by the police to spot fakes. Over a 17 year period Greenhalgh created fake art pieces that fooled museum experts and sold for sums as high as six figures. Sentenced in 2007 he is currently serving a four year prison sentence. His parents Olive and George Greenhalgh, who assisted in…
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Ontarios Minister of Culture, Aileen Carroll, wastossed out of cabinet today as part of a larger shuffle.She will now become a backbench member of the legislature. The decision caught members of the media off-guard. The National Post said that, Ms. Carroll’s demotion is perhaps the most surprising. A former federal minister, the Barrie MPP was considered a high profile candidate in 2007. The Toronto Star writes that she may have made a decision not to run in the next general election. In Canadian politics it is not unusual for retiring ministers to get dumped from cabinet before they actually retire.…
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The remains of a temple of Queen Berenike – wife of King Ptolemy III – have been discovered by archaeologists in Alexandria, Egypt. Dr. Zahi Hawass said the remains discovered are 60 meters by 15 meters, and extend under Ismail Fahmy street. About 600 Ptolemaic statues – amongst which are beautiful depictions of the cat goddess Bastet – were also unearthed. Dr. Mohamed Abdel Maqsoud, Head of Antiquities of Lower Egypt, said that the mission excavating at Kom el Dikka on property of the Alexandria Security Forces included 18 skilled excavators and restorers. The large collection of Bastet statues indicates…
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Possibly one of the creepier Heritage Key Daily Flickr Finds that I’ve picked out from our Flickr pool, but this photograph of the remains of this Egyptian Mummy housed in the British Museum captivates me. The angle it’s taken at, looking at its profile as it stares upwards gives the impression that there’s still life in this millennia old corpse. The open jaw gives the mummy an eerie feeling, with the clarity of each tooth bared. The composition of the photograph is also intruiging. It’s an image where you’re interested in what’s not shown just as much as what is.…
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King Tut Virtual Photo Contest attracted almost 200 wonderful photos of Kig Tut Virtual. Taking good, quality, high-resolution photographs anywhere in the metaverse takes quite a bit of time, effort and creative genius, so now we have chosen the winners which receive 100$ for the most fabulous high resolution shots taken in King Tut Virtual. Loki Popinjay, a well known metaverse photographer had so many breath taking photos that we had seriously hard time to figure out which one to be the winner. The artefacts in King Tut Virtual are very real life like and still Loki has captured the…
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Discovered inside the Tomb of King Tutankhamun, inside black resin-covered wooden shrines which were accessible via double doors, were 34 ritual figures. Of significant importance during the ritual ceremony, these statuettes are believed to assist the King Tut’s passage to the afterlife. Upon discovering the shrines in KV62, the great explorer Howard Carter found only one of the boxes had been raided by tomb robbers, with the rest laying undisturbed since antiquity. The ritual figures are now housed inside Cairo’s Egyptian Museum and have been captured on film by Sandro Vannini, who has photographed Egypt’s greatest treasures including the famous…
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Gustave Flaubert – the author of ‘Madame Bovary’ – travelled through Egypt from October 1849 to July 1850. Together with his friend and photographer Maxime Du Camp he journeyed from Alexandria in the North to Sudan in the South and back. This journey is the focus of the exhibition ‘Het Egypte van Gustave Flaubert’ (Gustave Flaubert’s Egypt), which runs at the RMO in Holland until April 4th 2010. The expo follows the famous French writer on his journey through Egypt and takes its visitors from the amazing pyramids at Giza and the sanctuaries at Luxor to the gigantic pharaonic statues…
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Karnak is home to several temples and ruined chapels, and is the largest ancient site in the world. Within the site is the Great Hypostyle Hall, Karnak, which is a popular tourism hotspot. Located in the Precinct of Amun-Re, the hall covers an area of 5 square kilometres, and is composed of 134 columns divided within 16 rows. The composition and angle of this fantastic photograph by ktildsley inside the Great Hypostyle Hall is captivating, giving a sense of how high up the roof would have been. The tall columns appear almost intimidating, closing in the shot tightly and the…
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“There is a bit of an Indiana Jones style to that portrait of my great-grandfather, and it rather sums up his character.” George Herbert, 8th Earl of Carnarvon looks up at the image of his namesake forebear admiringly. A dashing 5th Earl of Carnarvon looks playfully down the barrel of a cigarette, rogueish grin etched upon his face. No wonder he’s smiling: George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon is an archaeological legend – the man who alongside Howard Carter unlocked the 3,200-year-old secrets of Tutankhamun, Egypt’s boy-king. Adventure, it seemed, was in Carnarvon’s blood. Born into immense…