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…
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A hat-trick of victories have been won around the world this week in the global fight against the theft and sale of archaeological artefacts a multi-million dollar international industry. The arrest of three men in Bulgaria in connection with their possession of a number of precious Roman coins and other items is particularly heartening, since it offers some sign that the tide might be turning in the struggle against a black-market industry that has been destroying the countrys rich ancient heritage. In the US on Wednesday, the former head of Long Island Universitys Hillwood Museum Barry Stern, was arrested and…
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The literary world is waiting for a bombshell. Controversial Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown is about to release his latest historical fantasy tale – The Lost Symbol – on the public. But what does this mean for the history books industry at large, and should the work of Dan Brown be considered historical fiction at all, or merely fantasy? Judging by the healthy state of historical fiction at the moment, it could be that history pulp has helped stimulate readers’ and writers’ interest in proper historical fiction. In his review of Ben Kanes The Forgotten Legion, Roger Michael Kean…
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Andrew Collins’ book ‘Beneath the Pyramids’ in which he claims to have (re)discovered the Lost Underworld of the Pharaohs starts with the assumption that the cave complex was last explorered in 1817 by Henry Salt and sadly forgotton or ignored after this; only an obscure reference in Salt’s memories references to the ‘catacombs’, which might even be the mythical Hall of Records. Dr. Zahi Hawass – Secretary General of the SCA – did already issue a statement saying the tomb’s location is well known to the SCA (thus the opposite of ‘lost’) and that there is no underground cave complex…
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Nazi Egyptology is a complex subject. As Professor Thomas Schneider said, there is no uniform ‘Nazi Egyptology’ discipline. Instead there are a number of German Egyptologists who were thrown into the academic hole of the Third Reich – who each reacted to it in their own way. An interesting story that I didnt put into the article The Real Story of Nazi Egyptology, forbrevity reasons, is that of Friedrich Wilhelm von Bissing. Bissing was a professor at Munich. He is perhaps most noted for his work at Abu Ghurab, done at the turn of the century, where he excavated the…
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One of the most impressive and startling structures in the world is the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, yet the construction of it remains the subject of much debate and discussion to this very day. Dr Mark Lehner, an archaeologist at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, and Harvard Semitic Museum, has given an exclusive video interview to Heritage Key in which he explains what he and his team are doing in their latest excavation. Dr Lehner wants to know the answer to a question that rarely gets asked – Where and how did the workers who…