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…
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Everyone makes them (some of us more compulsively than others): scribbled on post-it notes, or kept mentally in our imaginations we all make lists. And we’re not the only ones either; lists have been around for a long time possibly since the first writing systems and certainly since Sumerian scribes began to keep accounts in the fourth millennium BC in Mesopotamia. So what is it about the beauty of a list its numerical order, hierarchy, completeness that makes them such a part of how we like to categorise, order and understand the world? An exhibition opening at the Louvre on…
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A lighter chapter to the ongoing issue of repatriating Egypt’s treasures will close today, as an ancient shrine fragment touches down on Egyptian soil after a year of international co-operation. The red granite chunk, part of a shrine, or ‘naos’, was bought by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art from a private collector last October, with the sole intent to send it back to its home nation. Today sees the fragment of the shrine, which commemorates King Amenemhat I, the first pharaoh of the 12th Dynasty (1991 – 1962 BC), finally return to Egypt after a combined effort between the…
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18th dynasty pharaoh Amenhotep III was the king of Egyptian kings. Under his rule, from around 1391 to 1353 BC, Egyptian civilization reached its very apex all powerful, influential beyond compare, rich beyond dreams and basking in opulent artistic splendour. In a list compiled by American business and financial bible Forbes in 2008, Amenhotep was ranked as the 12th richest person in human history. His funerary temple was therefore never going to be a modest affair. As we discover in a new video interview shot by Nico Piazza with the highly-respected German-Armenian archaeologist leading the excavation of the site, Dr…
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The Antechamber of the Tomb of Seti I (KV17) is a small room which precedes the burial chamber, and features on its tomb walls scenes depicted from the Book of the Dead. The renown photographer in the field of Egyptology, Sandro Vannini took several photographs throughout KV17, including the First Pillared Room which we featured recently. This week we look at the tomb engravings of the Antechamber, and who they depict. Sandro’s photography is the finest way to see Seti I’s tomb, after years of excavation have left it in a poor state of disrepair and leading to its closure…
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When you come across an ancient Egyptian woman in Heritage Key Virtual, you will notice that there is one very popular style of fashion: a pale belted kilt or kalasiris (simple dress) brightened with gold and lapis collars, bracelets and belts, and finished off with a chic slash of kohl to each eye. Its an iconic image that was universal for ladies of early Egypt and, as with most areas of ancient Egyptian life, there was a reason behind every facet of the look. The types and colours of fabrics were very limited in the earlier dynasties. The linen flax…
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Heritage Key has just returned from a blustery, biting morning trip to legendary writer John Julius Norwich‘s house, beside the pretty canals of London’s Little Venice. It was a great interview, and one which we’ll be following up with articles, videos and photos right here – see below for tips on how to keep up with our content! A brisk wind whips up dervishes of crooked caramel and crimson leaves; whistling cold signals the city’s slide from autumn to winter. Yet a firm handshake and sincere smile minutes later leaves HK as warm as ever, as we enter Lord Norwich’s…