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…
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Renowned photographer Sandro Vannini has spent several years capturing beautiful images of the treasures held at the Cairo Museum in Egypt, and Heritage Key brings the results exclusively on the internet. Although it was the Golden Mask of Tutankhamun which captivated the world when KV62 was discovered by Howard Carter in 1922, Tutankhamun’s tomb was adorned with several thousands of other artefacts including the External Trappings of the Mummy, sewn into the linen bandages. But why make that expensive trip to Cairo when you can see Sandro’s beautiful photography of them, or even view them in 3D in our King…
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The way animals were worshipped in Ancient Egypt has long been one of the empire’s most vivid features. Cats, crocs and even goldfish got the mummification treatment – and the culture’s myriad gods plied their divine trade in the image of some of the region’s most iconic creatures. In this exclusive video, the American University at Cairo’s Salima Ikram shares the secrets of Egypt’s enduring animal adoration. The divinity of animals was a key part of religious belief in Egypt. Evidence of it appears as far back as the First Dynasty – some feel it started even before then –…
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Workmen may just have downed tools after laser scanning the Sphinx, but a new Egyptian-Japanese venture aims to seek out even more archaeological hotspots along the Nile, using technology at the bleeding egde of science. The far-flung team, headed by Egypt’s National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences, hopes to reach areas in the river’s western Delta and nearby El-Beheira governorate, whose geography has resisted conventional techniques thus far. The team has already employed satellite imaging and remote sensing devices to map heritage sites in the area, and experts are confident more will appear when a second phase gets…
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BRITISH WRITER DISCOVERS THE PHARAOHS LOST UNDERGROUND Wednesday, 16 September 2009 A British writer has staked claim to finally finding the lost underground of the Pharaohs which has been rumoured to exist since the construction of the Great Pyramid nearly 5,000 years ago, creating a stir that is set to rock the Egyptological world. Armed only with the forgotten memoirs of a nineteenth century British engineer, history and science writer Andre Coolings, tracked down the entrance to this forgotten tunnel system and was the first to explore it in modern times. Is it possible that Coolings has beaten the Egyptologists…
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In Zahi Hawass in the Valley of the Kings: Part 1, Dr. Hawass caught us up on how excavations were progressing in the Central Valley area of the Valley of the Kings, particularly with the northern side, between the tombs of Ramesses II and Merneptah, and the area to the south of Tutankhamuns tomb. Watch part 2! In my analysis of what the Part 1 said – and left unsaid – I pointed out that theWestern Valley dig was conspicuously absent from the discussion. Well, it remains such. The second video makes no mention of KV64 at all, much less…