Egypts Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosni, and Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), along with the governor of Luxor, Samir Farag, will embark today on an inspection tour along the Avenue of Sphinxes that connects the Luxor and Karnak temples. During this visit, they will install the piece of red granite that was returned to Egypt by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in its original place at the Ptah temple at Karnak. Built by the 30th Dynasty king Nectanebo I (380-362 BC), the avenue is 2,700 meters long and 76 meters wide, and lined with…
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On March 13, Hadrian’s Wall all of it will be lit by gas beacons, a once-in-a-lifetime event called Illuminating Hadrian’s Wall. From Wallsend in the east, to Bowness on Solway, approximately 500 beaconsspaced every 250 metres will cover the 84 miles of the Hadrian’s Wall. The first beacon will be lit at Wallsend at approximately 5.35pm (sunset is at 6.11pm), and lighting will progress in sequence east to west with a six-second delay between each beacon firing up; 50 minutes later, the last beacon in Bowness should be lit. The beacons will be 6-8ft tall with a 2-3 foot flame.…
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Like any major western city, modern London encourages its residents to live a lifestyle focussed upon the secular. On the surface, finance, business, fashion, the career and socialising outwardly seem to be the major concerns of Londoners as they rush around town. However, one does not need to look far to be reminded of the fact London is very much a religious centre, on top of being the hub for so many other preoccupations of British lives. St. Paul’s Cathedral has been dominant in the city skyline, in one form or another, for nearly a thousand years. Westminster Cathedral and…
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Four Senet boards were found inside the tomb of King Tutankhamun and suggests that the boy king was a keen player of the ancient game. In Ancient Egyptian society, senet was regarded as much more than just a game, however – it was a matter of life or death. The game involves throwing casting sticks or knucklebones, and over time became regarded as talismans for the journey into the afterlife with luck being a key deciding factor in the game. Those who would win games of senet were believed to be blessed by powerful gods such as Osiris, Ra and…
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Blue aliens with cat-like faces might first come to mind when one hears the word avatar, now that James Camerons latest sci-fi flick has become the top grossing movie of all time. But the box-office hit film is just the latest medium to popularize the word avatar, an ancient religious term thats taken on a new meaning in modern times. Aside from the movie, many people are likely familiar with the word avatar as an expression of the self (or the alter ego) in a virtual world. Participation in video games, internet forums and Heritage Keys own King Tut Virtual…
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Black and White photography is an artform unto itself – it’s so much more than just clicking “Greyscale” in Photoshop, which will oftentimes just give a bland result. Several adjustments and the right lighting is required to make a black and white image work, and in Robinho’s image of Roman ruins in Apamea, Syria we see a fantastic, dramatic shot. The city of Apamea was adjacent to the Orontes River as served as a treasure city of the Seleucid. It was annexed and formed part of the Roman Empire from 64BC, and it is from the Roman era that many…
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A trip to India with my photographer husband, Tim, found us celebrating the New Year in Varanasi, India. There’s actually almost nothing physically ancient in what claims to be the oldest continually inhabited city on earth. The city was once ruled by King Ashoka, but the Moguls, who invaded from the North and ruled India for nearly two hundred years ending 1707, made rubble of the place, and so you look in vain for anything built before the 18th century (although check out the ancient Dhamek Stupa – one of the few surviving ancient sites – if you visit). However,…
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News of this exhibit has been leaking out in bits and pieces for weeks. But today the official announcement of it was made and full details have been released. The exhibit will be hitting the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto Canada starting in late June. The precise exhibition start/end dates are being arranged. As reported earlier the exhibit will be stopping at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary and the Royal BC Museum in Victoria BC. A stop in Montreal was announced several months back. Also, as hk previously reported, this will be the biggest Terracotta Warriors exhibition ever to hit…
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Dr Simon Corcoran and Dr Benet Salway of the history department at University College London have found fragments of an important Roman law code that previously had been thought lost forever. Its believed to be the only original evidence yet discovered of the Gregorian Codex a collection of constitutions upon which a substantial part of most modern European civil law systems are built. They made their remarkable find by painstakingly linking 17 pieces of seemingly incomprehensible parchment. Together they form, according to Dr Salway, a page or pages from a late antique codex book rather than a scroll or a…
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After a recent visit to Rome, Jon dropped off some images to me from the Museo della Civilt Romana in EUR (Esposizione Universale Roma) of one of the most beautifully crafted architectural models I’ve ever seen of Ancient Rome. As a bit of an architecture buff, and having spent 5 years studying it, I’ve developed a small addiction to UHU Glue and can’t really look at balsa wood anymore without my hand subconsciouslly reaching out for a craft knife. Model making was the fun part of studies when I would attempt to use a variety of materials including foamboard, tin…