• Ann

    King Tut DNA Research and Cause of Death Finally Revealed?

    This Wednesday the long awaited results of the DNAresearch on King Tut’s mummy – and some of his possible family members – will be announced at a press conference with Egyptian Minister of Culture, FaroukHosni and Dr. Zahi Hawass. They will announce new discoveries surrounding the family of Tutankhamun and the cause of the young king’s death. The study on the family of Tutankhamun (keep an eye on all things Tut on our dedicated page) was conducted through the Egyptian Mummy Project (EMP) headed by Dr. Zahi Hawass, and a team composed of Egyptian scientists from the National Research Center,…

  • prad

    Daily Flickr Finds: Manju’s London Sphinx

    Two iron-cast faux-Egyptian Sphinxes flank the either side of Cleopatra’s Needle in the City of Westminster, London. Although the original intention of the Sphinxes would have been to appear to be guarding the needle, an installation error means they are both facing the needle instead. The right hand Sphinx is visibly damaged after an aerial bombing campaign during the First World War saw a bomb land near Cleopatra’s Needle. To commemorate the event, the shrapnel holes remain unrepaired on the Sphinx to this day. This beautiful photograph by Manju shows one of the Sphinxes were it rests alongside the River…

  • Ann

    Have an Ancient World-inspired Valentine’s Day and Win a Book!

    In need of some last-minute ‘background information’ on the history of Love and Romance, to spice up your Valentine’s Day (or impress a date with your knowledge)? Looking for some ancient Egyptian love poetry to go on the back of a card? After you’ve inceased your ‘Valentine Skills’, it’s time to join our Valentine’s competition:leave the best personal ad or declaration of love here in the comments, and get to choose your favourite book from the Thames &Hudson Spring collecti… errr.. catalogue. Browse our Valentine’s menu below for inspiration, or go win your book. On Heritage Key’s (historical) Valentine’s menu:…

  • nick-gilbert

    A History of Love – Romance and Relationships in Ancient Societies

    We’ve come a long way from the time when Ugg would mutter inanities to Uggetta in the cave, present her with a wad of crushed up flowers and move in for the kiss- and if she resisted he would reach for his club, gives it the old ‘knock on the head and drag away’ routine. Nowadays, for example, we do all the inanities on dating websites or in noisy bars. The rules of romance and courting have been shifting rapidly in the last 50 years and now many people are so clueless as to what they are supposed to do…

  • sean-williams

    AWiL Video Series: Visit to the London Stone

    The Ancient World in London is in full swing: we’ve got events, competitions, quests, articles and interviews going up by the day, packing your lucky brains with fascinating info and exciting adventures. And hot on the heels of all this is the Ancient World in London video series, the first episode of which you can see right here, right now. Each video will feature amazing places, strange artefacts and intriguing experts – as we take our three intrepid explorers on no fewer than 25 adventures in and around the capital. We’ll be meeting mysterious druid priests, famous historians and avid…

  • owenjarus

    Mysterious Ancient East Asian Body in Vagnari Could be the Son of a Concubine

    Who is the man in this picture? How did this fellow, whose maternal ancestry is East Asian, end up in a modest grave in southern Italy about 2000 years ago? Its an enticing question and one that has been in the news ever since Heritage Key announced the story of this mans discovery. Just a quick recap; a team of scientists based at McMaster University in Hamilton Canada have found that this man, buried in a Roman cemetery at Vagnari, in southern Italy, is of East Asian ancestry on this mothers side. They determined this through mitochondrial DNA testing. The…

  • images

    Sandro Vannini’s Photography – Archaeologists in the Theban Tomb of Montuemhat (TT34)

    Egyptology photographer Sandro Vannini has been busy photographing tombs across Thebes for his new book “The Lost Tombs of Thebes:Lost in Paradise” and you can watch him at work in a Heritage Key video which also features Dr Zahi Hawass and Dr Janice Kamrin (Watch the video). During his photo-spree in this Ancient Egyptian city, Sandro took images of archaeologists hard at work at the site of TT34 – The Tomb of Montuemhat. Described by the excavation lead Dr Farouk Gomaa as “one of the largest [tombs] in Thebes“, the University of Tbingen archaeologist and his team are searching for…

  • sean-williams

    Discovering Tut – Carnarvon Never Got to See the Golden Death Mask

    When you think of King Tut, do you see a young boy, struggling with the enormity of his power; a slender adolescent in control of the world’s greatest empire? Of course not, because you’re like me: you see the magnificent death mask, the coffins, shrines, shabtis, daggers, beds, decrepit mummy(with or without penis) et al. We ancient world-lovers are just magpies with laptops really. But do you ever wonder why, when Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvonburst into the tomb in 1922, they could see so many ‘wonderful things’? Why wasn’t Tutankhamun’s funerary procession made ancient swag, like those of nearly…

  • Ann

    Ancient Egyptian Artefact, Returned by Met Museum, to be Reunited with Statue at Karnak

    Egypt’s Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni and Dr. Zahi Hawass returned a piece of red granite belonging to an ancient Egyptian temple to its rightful place – the base of Amenemhat I’s naos. Both officials are on an inspection tour along the Avenue of Sphinxes that connects the Temple of Luxor with that of Karnak, home to the Ptah temple where the naos is to be found. The naos pieace was returned to Egypt last October by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, after it was purchased by the Museum from an antiquities collector in New York in…

  • Ann

    Restoring The Avenue of Sphinxes and Protecting it for the Future

    Egypts Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosni, and Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), along with the governor of Luxor, Samir Farag, will embark today on an inspection tour along the Avenue of Sphinxes that connects the Luxor and Karnak temples. During this visit, they will install the piece of red granite that was returned to Egypt by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in its original place at the Ptah temple at Karnak. Built by the 30th Dynasty king Nectanebo I (380-362 BC), the avenue is 2,700 meters long and 76 meters wide, and lined with…