Hes the most famous figure in ancient Egyptian history, but theres still plenty of mystery surrounding King Tut. Who better to clear up a few of them for us than Dr Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities? In part one of King Tut Revealed a four part video interview exclusive by Sandro Vannini Dr Hawass broaches the tricky and controversial subject of how the Boy King, whose tomb KV62 was famously discovered in the Valley of the Kings by Howard Carter in 1922, met his premature end in 1323 BC at just 19 years of…
-
-
Want to know how to mummify a body but don’t know where to start?Well, you’ve come to the right place. Following on from our video featuring Dr Zahi Hawass, in which he gives Heritage Key a fascinating insight into how mummies are made (see the video embedded below), and an enlightening interview with Bob ‘Mr Mummy’ Briers on mummification, we’ve condensed millenia of wisdom into 7 not-so-easy and certainly not pleasant steps. Egyptian embalmers were masters of their craft, and while we possess a lot of clues about the long and laborious procedure they went through in order to ensure…
-
The Lewis Hnefataflmen: doesnt quite have the same ring to it as the Lewis Chessmen, does it? But if what a new paper by a trio of heritage experts is saying is true, the famous 900-year-old set of ivory-carved pieces discovered on a Scottish island in 1831 may not be from a chess set at all, but rather an ancient Viking board game. The study also questions the popular notion of how the hoard came to end up on Lewis, and calls for new excavations at a site near to where they were reportedly found. Hnefatafl, which was popular in…
-
As blogged by Sean yesterday, a precious hoard of Iron Age gold treasures worth an estimated 1 million has been discovered by a first-time metal detector enthusiast near Stirling. It was unveiled to the media at an event at the National Museum of Scotland this morning. The collection was described as the most important hoard of Iron Age gold found in Scotland to date. The Stirling Hoard: Gold Iron Age Torcs The artefacts four neck ornaments of European significance, dating from between the 1st and 3rd centuries BC were discovered by a local man, David Booth, on private land back…
-
The tomb is one of the largest in Thebes, says Dr Farouk Gomaa, the highly-respected archaeologist from the University of Tbingen in Germany who is leading the exploration of the burial monument of Montuemhat, in a new video interview for Heritage Key by Nico Piazza. Clearly, Montuemhat was a powerful and influential figure in ancient Egypt if he was able to carve out such a substantial resting place for himself in the necropolis of the pharaohs. Yet you wont find him on any Egyptian king lists. In this latest ArchaeoVideo from the Theban tombs, from where Sandro Vannini has been…
-
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…
-
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…
-
A team of palaeontologists from New York, writing in the journal Nature, have provoked the first exchange of blows in what may prove an almighty scientific sparring match. The subject thats got them so heated? Ida: a tiny $1 million, 47-million-year-old fossil, who has been trumpeted as the missing link between humans and animals. Shes the eighth wonder of the world, our Mona Lisa and evolutions Rosetta Stone, according to the researchers who discovered her, or rather purchased her for $1 million from a private dealer in a vodka bar in Hamburg in a scene that sounds like it could…
-
French archaeologistDr Alain Zivie, Director of Research at the French National Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS), has devoted many years to investigating the 18th dynasty rock-cut tomb of Aper-el an Egyptian New Kingdom high priest and vizier from the Amarna Period, who served both Amenhotep III and the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten. Zivie discovered it at Saqqara in 1987. In an exclusive video interview, shot by Nico Piazza, he shows Heritage Key some of the abundant treasures hes found there. As Zivie explains, since the tomb which dates from the latter part of the 18th Dynasty, around 1353-1335 BC is so…
-
A week after Egypt announced it was suspending archaeological cooperation with The Louvre in Paris in an argument over the return of fragments of a Theban Tomb, Iran has threatened to sever archaeological relations with Britain unless an agreement by the British Museum in London to loan out the Cyrus Cylinder is honoured within the next two months. The artefact a 6th century BC Babylonian cuneiform-inscribed clay cylinder, which has been described as the first charter of human rights was due to arrive in Iran in September. But the British Museum have cited the political situation in post-election Iran which…