At the opening of the new Neues Museum in Berlin this week, it seems that one question is on everybody’s mind – will Germany return the bust of Nefertiti to Egypt? Dr Hawass of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities may be feeling a little more confident after obtaining an agreement from the Musee du Louvre for the return of the fragments from Tetiki’s tomb recently. There’s not much chance that Egypt would have received that reassuring phone call from President Sarkozy had the Louvre’s access to excavations at Saqqara not been threatened. These tough tactics have worked in this case.…
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The Nefertiti’s Bust – attributed to the sculptor Thutmose from whom’s workshop it was recovered in 1912 – is world famous. Thutmose must have been one lucky sculptor, being asked to capture for eternity the ravishing face of the Queen who’s ancient name meant A Beautiful Woman Has Come. The Queen Nefertiti – wife of Akhenaten and known in Germany as Nofretete – Bust is an icon of the Amarna period art and one of the most valuable items in the collection of the gyptisches Museum Berlin (to much frustration of the Egypt, which demands its return). She first went…
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The Neues Museum will reopen on 17 October after being closed for more than 70 years. It will be a great moment in German history as well as a major milestone for world culture. The collection of ancient world objects is outstanding, and their presentation helps place them in the context of their original era, whilst adding to our understanding of the world in which we now live. The renovation of the 8,000 square meter museum cost about 220 million (about $328 million and a lot more than the brand new build the New Acropolis Museum, which reportedly cost $200…
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An unheralded Cretan quarry could be the site of the legendary labyrinth in which Theseus killed the Minotaur, says an Anglo-Greek team of experts. The group claims the stone quarry, located just outside the tiny town of Gortyn, is just as likey to be the scene for one of Greek mythology‘s most famous tales as the better-known Palace of Knossos 20 miles away. 600,000 people pass through the palace ruins each year; nearly all of whom are told it is the place where King Minos built his fabled maze to house the fearsome Minotaur, a half-man, half-bull creature who feasted…
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The Neues Museum (New Museum), the latest museum to benefit from the renovation programme on the Museumsinsel, first opened in Berlin in 1850. Built to display a collection of Egyptian artefacts as well as ethnographic, prehistoric and early historic collections, it was at the time the solution to a lack of storage space in the Altes Museum (Old Museum). Wartime damage and economic shortage kept the building shut for decades, until its long-awaited re-opening tomorrow. Frederick William IV ordered the construction of the museum in 1841. Like the other four museums on the Island, it is a model of neoclassicism…
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Attribution: tpholland Arles France Key People The theatre was constructed during the rule of Augustus, at the end of the first century BC. Emperor Augustus The Roman Theatre of Arles was constructed in the age of the emperor Augustus, at the end of the first century BC. It measures 102m in diameter, with 33 semi-circular rings of stone seats, most of which are lost today. Its exterior had three layers of arcades. The only remaining part of the stage wall are two tall marble columns. The stage background was originally highly decorated, with one of the statues found there currently…
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Who hasn’t watched Gladiatorand then wondered why you don’t meet men like that down the local pub? The same goes for those bulging muscles of antiquity that we see in classical art galleries they’ve often made me think that, well, they don’t make ’em like they used to. Now it turns out that what we thought all along that men in ancient times were a darn sight fitter than their modern descendants – is actually true. What’s more, it seems that ancient man was also better looking and more intelligent. This is the controversial argument that Australian author Peter McAllister…
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Footprints left by the artists and workers who made the largest and most beautiful Roman-era mosaic in Israel 1,700 years ago have been discovered in the plaster underneath the mosaic. Archaeologists were in the process of conserving the famous Lod Mosaic when they found the imprints of bare feet and sandals shown clearly in the plaster bed onto which the mosaic was later laid. The conservation experts from the Israel Antiquities Authority were detaching each piece of the 180 square-metre mosaic before taking it to conservation laboratories in Jerusalem. Jacques Neguer, head of the Israel Antiquities Authority’s conservation branch, said:…
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Senwosret III probably isnt the first person you think of when it comes to the Nobel Prize, but this ancient Egyptian Pharoah was making a significant contribution to future archaeology long before Barack Obama stole the show by scooping this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. The Egyptian pharaoh, who lived ca. 1870-1831 BC, launched several military campaigns into Nubia. As Egyptologist Gae Callender writes in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt these were brutal conquests. Nubian men were killed, their women and children enslaved, their fields burnt, and their wells poisoned. Not something Alfred Nobel would condone. Nevertheless, in an indirect…
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It doesn’t happen all that often that the battle over ‘mere tomb paintings’ makes headline news – why would they, when they have the highly debated return of the Elgin Marbles to the Acropolis Museum to write about? But the whole world was shocked last week, when Dr. Zahi Hawass accused France’s most famous museum of theft. Or at least, of purchasing looted artefacts and then refusing to return them to Egypt. Dr. Hawass hit back by refusing to let the Louvre’s Saqqara team dig in Egypt. The Louvre stated that it was forced to wait for permission to return…