The Nubians get short shrift when it comes to recognition of significant ancient cultures. A new exhibition at the Clay Center in West Virginia, US, hopes to rectify that. It is cleverly entitled: Lost Kingdoms of the Nile, but the artefacts are all Nubian, not Egyptian. (The subtitle is: Nubian Treasures from the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.) The exhibition runs from Sept. 12, 2009 to April 11, 2010. Part of the problem for the Nubians, of course, is the rock-star quality of their neighbors, the Ancient Egyptians, who persistently dominate the imaginative landscape when it comes to ancient things.…
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Ever wondered what ancient histories might be waiting to be discovered underwater, or dreamed about diving in the Nile and looking for treasures? Well, check out this new video from Heritage Key, featuring Dr. Hawass and teams of Egyptian divers excavating underwater relics near Aswan, Egypt. Experience almost first-hand that feeling of adventure that surrounds Zahi Hawass and his team as they search in the greenish basin of the Nile for precious items. The success of Mediterranean underwater archaeology has led divers and Egyptologists to re-consider the the Nile as an attractive archaeological site. Already, the river has yielded some…
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The rest house of Howard Carter, discoverer of King Tutankhamun‘s tomb, has reopened to the public today as a museum. The mud-brick building, near the Valley of the Kings on Luxor‘s West Bank, was one of the projects earmarked by Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities three months ago, as costly facelifts to Luxor were undertaken – including renovations to Luxor Temple and the Deir el-Bahritemple of Queen Hatshepsut. The house, from where Carter made his greatest discovery in 1922 with the backing of Lord Carnarvon, allows visitors to see the office and tools which made Carter an overnight celebrity 87…
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Attribution: jaywaykay Cairo Egypt Key Dates The museum was established in 1835. It moved to Boulaq in 1858. However the Boulaq building was destroyed in 1878. The museum moved to its current location in 1902. The Royal Mummy Room was closed in 1981, yet reopened in 1985. Key People President Anwar Sadat closed the Royal Mummy Room in 1981. The treasures of King Tutankhamun are held in the museum. Tutankhamun The Egyptian Museum of Antiquities, to give it its full name, is home to some 120,000 of the most treasured Egyptian artifacts in the country. The museum was founded in…
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Calcite was a popular material used in ancient Egyptian times as the stone’s cool surfaces meant that the contents, such as perfumed fats and unguents, would be better preserved. However, perfumed fats were a luxury item and popular with grave-robbers in ancient times as they were easy to carry, and difficult to identify as being from a tomb. The Tomb of King Tutankhamun (KV62) was believed to have been raided of about 350 litres of perfumed fats and unguents, according to an estimate by the famous explorer Howard Carter! One of the most beautiful artefacts from King Tutankhamun’s tomb was…
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The tomb is one of the largest in Thebes, says Dr Farouk Gomaa, the highly-respected archaeologist from the University of Tbingen in Germany who is leading the exploration of the burial monument of Montuemhat, in a new video interview for Heritage Key by Nico Piazza. Clearly, Montuemhat was a powerful and influential figure in ancient Egypt if he was able to carve out such a substantial resting place for himself in the necropolis of the pharaohs. Yet you wont find him on any Egyptian king lists. In this latest ArchaeoVideo from the Theban tombs, from where Sandro Vannini has been…
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Toronto is a good place to be for Egyptian lovers this month. While the weather in Toronto isnt exactly like Cairo (snowfall is common during November), there is going to be lots of important Egyptian activities happening. First the big event King Tut is coming to town! The North American show, which made its last stop in Indianapolis, is opening at the Art Gallery of Ontario on November 24. Advance tickets are on sale now. The show is going to go beyond King Tuts tomb to explore Egypt as it was during the Amarna period. One of the most important…
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Heritage Key loves the tales woven by the archives of the Egypt Exploration Society, as mentioned at their fundraising afternoon earlier this month. So much were we interested in the project, which aims to preserve and digitise the society’s rich recorded history, that we decided to take a look for ourselves. Spread over three separate mews in a backstreet of central London, the only indicator you’ve reached EES HQ is a tiny plaque on the door and some obscured old relics in the window. Yet the minimal decoration and creeping vines embody an eccentricity of EES’ earliest explorers, looking more…
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It is not only at excavation sites that amazing artefacts can be discovered, but the archives of previous digs as well as the artefacts already in museums can still surprise us. Or what about the basement of the Cairo museum? Thousands of pieces, hidden away from both scholars and public. At least for now. Plans are under way to do a thorough ‘clean up’of the gigantic basement and who knows what will come to light when all items are eventually moved to the Grand Egyptian Museum? In the mean while, Dr. Zahi Hawass tells us about how a recent ‘re-discovery’…
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With the recent reopening of the Neues Museum on Berlin’s Museum Island, the argument over ownership of the Bust of Nefertiti has once again been stoked. The Germans have made the priceless, beautiful, 3,400-year-old sculpture of the famous Egyptian Queen one of the centerpiece attractions of the 200-million Neues. It seems to have only caused the Egyptians to become more resolute in their efforts to get her back. Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities Zahi Hawass stated recently that he would send a letter in October to Neues Museum directors containing irrefutable evidence in support of the…