The second day of Moscow’s ‘Achievements and Problems of Modern Egyptology‘ was characterised by a biting cold, thanks to heating problems. But the topics being discussed certainly helped warm up proceedings. The first lecture of the day was given by the British Museum‘s Nigel Strudwick, who focused on the interaction of of tourists and local inhabitants at Luxor and the main historical monuments at Thebes, and the challenges facing archaeologists to carry out meaningful research in a modern environment. Dr Strudwick attempted to resolve some of the issues facing the city, and to reconcile the necessity of tourism to the…
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The first day of the ‘Achievements and Problems of Modern Egyptology‘ conference was full of new discoveries, though it started on a typically soggy Moscow day. After participants arrived at the Presidium of Russian Academy of Sciences on comfortable buses, they went in and received a slightly altered conference program – containing lecture lists and ‘Return to Egypt’; a book about the history of Russian Egyptology. The conference started with an opening speech by vise-president of Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander D. Nekipelov, dedicated to the history, development and achievements of Russian archaeology in Egypt, from the research of Vladimir…
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This week the ‘Achievements and Problems of Modern Egyptology’ conference takes place in Moscow, Russia. The colloquium – organized by the Centre for Egyptological Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences – is the first international Egyptological conference ever held in Russia, organized by the Centre for Egyptological Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It is organized to celebrate the centenary of acquiring the Egyptian collection of the famous Russian Egyptologist Vladimir Golenischev by the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts and spans all ranges of Egyptology but also has a clear focus on new methods and technologies in…
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The Museo delle Antichit Egizie (Museo Egizio) in Turin is currently undergoing a makeover that is set to change the layout and design of the venue that is home to the biggest collection of Egyptian artefacts outside Egypt. In an interview yesterday, Alain Elkann, president of the Fondazione Museo delle Antichit Egizie, gave Quotidiano Arte a idea of what we can expect to see at the new-look museum. A Trip up the Nile One of the innovations is that visitors can expect to be taken through a reconstruction of a Nile environment by an escalator linking the four floors of…
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Unrolling a papyrus (without destroying it) is an expensive and complicated process. How do you do it without causing the whole thing to crumble into unintelligable flakes? Well, last year the Royal Ontario Museum unrolled a Book of the Dead that had long been in their collection, which dated back to ca. 320 BC, the early Ptolemaic period. And they also made a cool video about how it was done. A group at the ROM called, Friends of Egypt, financed the project. A language expert and specialized conservators were brought in. The book was mounted, and, at the beginning of…
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For many years, people said the Valley of the Kings had revealed all its secrets.. but then came KV63. In 2006, a team from the University of Memphis, headed by Dr Otto Schaden, were excavating the Tomb of King Amenmesse (KV10) when they accidentally uncovered something new. Noticing white stone fragments near where material was being removed, the team uncovered the first tomb to have been found in the last 80 years, since Howard Carter’s startling discovery of KV62 – the tomb of King Tutankhamun. Excavations at the tomb continue to this day, as does the hunt for KV64, and…
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As any true seeker of ancient wisdom knows, it ain’t found in a Dan Brown novel. This is despite the bold claim in the preface to his latest epic, The Lost Symbol: “FACT: In 1991, a document was locked in the safe of the director of the CIA. The document is still there today. Its cryptic text includes references to an ancient portal and an unknown location underground. The document also contains the phrase ‘It’s buried out there somewhere.’ “All organizations in this novel exist, including the Freemasons, the Invisible College, the Office of Security, the SMSC, and the Institute…
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When Egyptologist Kei Yamamoto excavated The Terrace of the Great God at Abydos he came across a collection of curiously-fashioned goblets. Were these bottomless vessels evidence of the builders’ reverence to a remarkable place of ancient worship? 3,800 years ago, during the Middle Kingdom period in Egypts history, there was a temple to Osiris at Abydos. Nothing of it survives today, but based on the location of later temples, archaeologists have a rough idea of where it would have stood. They also know that just in front of the Osiris templewas an area known in the Middle Kingdom as the…
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Salima Ikram Leading Expert on Animals in Ancient Egypt Professor Salima Ikram is one of the world’s leading authorities on animals in Ancient Egypt, and has published several books about the culture, which she has loved since childhood. Dr Ikram currently holds the post of Professor of Egyptology at Cairo’s American University, and frequently appears in magazines and on television to discuss Egypt. She is also a grantee of the National Geographic Society’s Committee for Research and Exploration. Born in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1965, Dr Ikram studies Egyptology and Archaeology at Pennsylvania’s Bryn Mawr College. She then earned a M.Phil.…
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Heritage Key has posted the latest video clip from Dr. Zahi Hawass regarding current excavations at the Valley of the Kings and surrounding areas. In New Discoveries in Drabu el Naga, Dr. Hawass brings us up to date with his excavations at this promising site on the West Bank of the Nile, close to Luxor and directly across from Karnak.There are about 80 numbered tombs at Dra Abu el-Naga, some of which are royal tombs dating from the Seventeenth Dynasty, with other New Kingdom tombs belonging to Theban priests and privileged court officials. The site suffers from modern encroachment, with…