Tickets went on sale at the weekend for the premiere of Mummies of the World the largest single collection of mummies ever brought together in one exhibition, and the very first exhibition of its kind to be staged in the United States. Opening on July 1, itll take place at the California Science Centre in Los Angeles, and run for a limited time, before moving on to tour an as yet undisclosed string of museums around the US for up to three years. Organised by American Exhibitions Inc. (AEI), in association with Reiss-Engelhorn Museums (REM) of Mannheim Germany, the exhibition…
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The exhibition ‘Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt’ premired this weekend at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Blogs and major newspapers have been in awe about the exhibition, featuring the amazingphotographs from the underwater excavations by Franck Goddioand articles about Cleopatra’s glamour and quite disastrous – love life. There’s nothing but praise for the ‘beautiful queen’ and mass coverage on the two quests for her tomb, where she rests with lover Mark Antony. But a true must-read before visiting the exhibition is Rosemary Joyce’s critical blog entry on how we perceive the last Queen of Egypt. She…
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When you see Dr Bob Brier lecturing about mummies, there is no doubt he’s passionate about them. The same goes for Dr Salima Ikram and all kinds of animal mummies (watch the video). But actual love between an archaeologist and a mummy? That’s something reserved solely for B-movies, until now: Musician Josh Ritter chronicles the love between an archaeologist and a mummy she discovers in Egypt, on new album ‘So Runs the World Away’. Aptly named ‘the Curse’, the song is accompanied by an enchanting puppet music video. When they are on their way from Egypt to New York by…
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Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute plays host to the world premiere of Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt this Saturday (June 5). The exhibition, which runs until January 2 2011, promises to be a spectacular affair, combining over 150 artefacts relating to the famous queen, and visits the archaeology that is unearthing her amazing world day by day (click here for an interview with the Institute’s Troy Collins). The show is organised by National Geographic, the same brains behind the Terracotta Warriors’ recent trip across North America. The exhibition’s showcase treasures include statues, jewellery and everyday items from Cleopatra’s…
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Plato has a lot to answer for when he wrote about Atlantis. Its been the inspiration behind TV series and Hollywood films; some even made for reasonable entertainment (think Captain Nemo and Man from Atlantis), and some, well sank (think Kevin Costner in Waterworld). Even James Bond, in The Spy who Loved Me, had an Atlantis element. He saved the earth from arch-villain Karl Stromberg, a powerful shipping magnate whose scheme for world domination was to blow up the land leaving the chosen few living safely beneath the ocean. Atlantis has it all; an ancient thriving city with ambiguous plans…
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Kilmarnock’s Dick Institute is the latest museum to be hit by mummymania, as it welcomes the mummy and coffin of an ancient Egyptian High Priest to an otherworldly exhibition. ‘The Journey Beyond – Ancient Egypt and Prehistoric Ayrshire’ will compare attitudes to life and death in two very different corners of the world: Egypt and southwest Scotland. Local Neolithic, Iron Age and Bronze Age burial items from Ayrshire will show how Scotland’s early inhabitants held strong views about life after death. Yet the star of the show is bound to be the mummy and coffin of Iufenamun, a 21st –…
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It’s the kind of myth that has always had the power to fascinate people: a beautiful, wealthy and sophisticated ancient city is swallowed up by forces beyond man’s control, destroyed by the sea and earthquakes. There are examples around the world of these mythical submerged cities. We not only have Atlantis somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, but in Taiwan there’s the legend of the submerged Mudalu, in Wales there is a drowned city called Cantre’r Gwaelod and a similar story tells the tale of Ys, a drowned city off the coast of Brittany in France. They are all myths that…
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The University of Hamburg’s Egyptology department is facing a last-chance vote to avoid oblivion. The department, one of Germany’s most prestigious, is facing the axe for economic reasons. But a petition organised by protesters outside the city’s Tutankhamun: His Tomb and his Treasures exhibition has gathered over 66,000 signatures, meaning the department’s future is now in the hands of an internal vote. The department’s closure would be a body blow for Egyptology in Germany, which remains popular thanks to world-renowned museums like the Neues in Berlin, and great artefacts such as the Bust of Nefertiti, the home of which has…
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Prehistoric cave painters in the Sahara Desert gave rise to ancient Egyptian civilisation, according to a German archaeological team. The paintings in a caves in Gilf Kebir, a vast sandstone plateau near the Egyptian-Libyan border, may be over 400 miles from the River Nile. But the team claims it was once a thriving community which later spread east to create Egypt’s famous cities and landmarks. The plateau, a Martian landscape the size of Switzerland, is home to two famous caves, the ‘Cave of the Swimmers’ and the ‘Cave of the Beasts’ – Watch our amazing video of the caves and…
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Egypt announced today that a gold Umayyad coin was unearthed last Thursday during an excavation at the Monastery of St. John the Little, in the desert west of the Nile Delta. In a statement Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the SCA, said both sides of the well-preservedcoinare decorated with Kufic inscriptions, the oldest calligraphic form of the Arabic script. One side of the coin bears the name of Allah. The second side is inscribed: in the name of God the Merciful. The coin’s edge is decorated with the year it was minted. It dates to the year 103 of…