Last week I visited the ‘Tutankhamun: His Tomb and His Treasures’ exhibition in Manchester with Mary-Ann Craig (video), and well… saw wonderful things, and everywhere, the glint of gold. The moment I marvelled at the recreation of the set-up used to remove Tutankhamun’s sarcophagi from his tomb, any doubts still left about the power of replicas disappeared, and I would strongly suggest you visit the touring exhibition before it leaves the UK.
As any good exhibition (especially one with many students, young and old, in its audience) should, ‘Tutankhamun: His Tomb and His Treasures’ starts by putting King Tut in context geographically, and most important on a timeline. Fast-forward to 1922, Valley of the Kings, where we join Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon for the most important archaeological discovery of all times KV62, or Tutankhamun’s tomb.
When Carter started clearing the tomb, he recorded each artefact (more than 5,000 in total), and made sure the most important treasures, and their location, were captured on glass plate (no film yet) by photographer Harry Burton. It is these detailed records and amazing black-and-white captures, that have allowed for ‘Tutankhamun: His Tomb and His Treasures’ to be produced, and when entering the recreation of Tut’s tomb chambers, you truly feel you are allowed a peek through Carter’s eyes. (See Burton’s images and the recreation of the chambers in the video below.)
Video: King Tut’s Replica Treasures with Bob Partridge & Mary-Ann Craig
To my surprise, it was not the reproduction of the tomb scenes ‘as was’ that fascinated me most. Most enthralling was the life-size depiction of how Carter managed to, despite the limited space in the tomb, lift the heavy, golden coffins out of the sarcophagus something that is terribly hard to convey in just images or text.
After the recreation of Harry Burton’s pictures as Bob points out, in full-colour and 3D you see high-quality replicas of the pharoah’s burial shrines, his coffins and golden death mask (see King Tut’s mask in 3D and take the quiz to test your knowledge), the canopic shrine and chest, one of Tutankhamun’s gilded chariots and many of the Boy King’s grave gifts the famous ones, as well as some very personal ones. From these, my favourite must be the tiny wooden chair used by the pharaoh when he was just a little child; an object I would have definitely overlooked, were it not for Bob.
Other often underappreciated treasures on display are the recreated coffins of two mummified foetuses (as they were found in his tomb, they are likely to be Tut’s), the trumpets and other music instruments, the beautiful miniature boats and a multitude of ritual figurines with their black, wooden coffins. Until I saw these statuettes all assembled, I did not realise just how many were amassed and repurposed for Tut’s burial.
There is more to be said for the exhibition than that it puts the discoveries made by Carter back in context. It is great to see Tut’s treasures, even if they are ‘mere’ recreations, given the space they deservewhich allows for looking at the artefacts from all angles, minus the annoyance of fingerprint-stained glass.
The impressive set-up does not only provide enough space for the boy king’s treasures, but also for their visitors. It is surprisingly pleasant to read* the detailed information signs without the breath of a dozen sweaty, smelly tourists on your neck.
Overall, a really gratifying visit (not the least thanks to Bob’s excellent tour), and if you are in charge of kids that need to be entertained or educated over the holiday season (or grown-up friends who could do with an introduction to ancient Egypt), DO take them to the Tutankhamun: His Tomb and His Treasures Manchester, rather than the Book of the Dead show currently on at the British Museum.
The journey through the afterlife is interesting, no doubt, but Tutankhamun’s replica treasures tell the story as well, with the addition of a personal touch and information and objects from the daily royal life in ancient Egypt.
For tickets, opening times and activity sheets for your kids to use, seetutankhamunmanchester.com. For the Christmas holidays, you can visit ‘Tut at Twilight’, have all your (ancient Egypt) questions answered by Egyptologists present in the galleries, and return home with your very own special Hieroglyphic exhibition mug.
* I am not a fan of audio guides. Although I consider a good narrative essential for an exhibition to be engaging, I do like to explore that storyline ‘at my own pace’, reading the information with objects I find interesting, skipping the parts (I believe) I already know off, or often return to a related object to take a better look. But Bob said the audio guide that accompanies the ‘Tutankhamun: His Tomb and His Treasures’ exhibition in Manchester is excellent, so please, don’t let my old fashioned ideas and inability to come to terms with new technology stop you from using it! 😉
The star of the show will doubtless be the beautifully illustrated papyrus and linen works depicting the journey from death to the afterlife, dating as far back as 3,500 years old. Though called a ‘book’, the Book of the Dead was in fact a compilation of spells which were designed to guide the deceased through to the afterlife, and spawned many theories at an Egyptological Colloquium held at the British Museum last year.
It seems the first time that the British Museum has offered a teaser video on Youtube, and hopefully won’t be the last!A glimpse into the behind the scenes work that goes on inside the British Museum is rarely seen by the public as they wander through the many galleries. I’m sure people will be as fascinated by the processes which keep these ancient artefacts looking their best as they are observing them inside the museum.
Video: Ancient Egyptian Coffin Mask of Nesbanebdjed
Egypt’s Cultural Minister Farouk Hosni announced today that the Austrian mission at Tell el-Daba has located the southern suburban quarters of the ancient city of Avaris, the capital of the Hyksos in the Second Intermediate Period (1664-1569 BC). The excavation team found this area using a combination of magnetometry and resistivity surveys.
Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), said that the computer-generated images of the city, which is still buried under the ground, show a very detailed layout of ancient Avaris. Several architectural features including houses, temples, streets, cemeteries and palaces can be seen. The team has also been able to make out the arrangement of neighborhoods and living quarters
Using such a special scientific survey to locate such a city is the only way to gain a better understanding of such a large area at one time, Hawass pointed out.
Tell-el Dab’ais strategically placed, giving whoever controls it access to the Sinai, Levant and southern Egypt. It was abandoned for a time, after the Hyksos were driven out of Egypt. It was rebuilt during the 18th dynasty of Egypt. It included three palaces, indicating that it was used by Egyptian royalty. The most astonishing finds so far were the Minoan frescoes that decorated two of the palaces. These depict bull-leaping scenes. They are similar in many respects to the frescoes painted at the Palace of Knossos in Crete.
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Dr. Irene Forstner-Mller, Director of the mission said that approximately 2.6 square kilometers have been investigated using a combination of geophysical survey and excavation.
She explained that the aim of the magnetometric and resistivity surveys were to define the borders of ancient Avaris. The team has succeeded in identifying a collection of houses and a possible harbor area. A series of pits of different sizes are also visible but their function has not yet been determined.
Magnetometry and resistance tomography form just two of the new techniques being employed by archaeologists when undertaking geophysical survey and sub-surface investigations who also implement topographic mapping, drill coring, GPR and laser scanning, indicating how technology is changing the trade.
An underground city discovered in the Nile Delta is the Hyksos capital city of Avaris, says Egypt’s Minister of Culture. Farouk Hosni made the claim to Chinese news agency Xinhua in the wake of the discovery at Tell El-Dab’a, in the Delta’s north eastern limits, by an Austrian archaeological team.
SCA Chief Zahi Hawass says radar imaging at the site shows the outlines of streets, temples and houses of the long-lost city, which became the capital of Egypt between 1664 and 1569 BC. (explore the image)
Austrian team leader Irene Mueller says a Nile river tributary which passed through the city, two buried islands, a port and different sized wells are also among the findings.
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 protests quite rightly against how Cleopatra is hardly recognized as historical subject because she ruled Egypt, but rather because of the mythology of her doomed love affair, and the breathless treatment of a ruler as a sex kitten.
Rosemary Joyce is professor of anthropology at UC Berkeley and author of the book ‘Ancient Bodies, Ancient Lives: Sex, Gender and Archaeology’ that I’m currently reading. In the book she accessibly explains how archaeology in the past, and today, focuses too much on a male / female division of society, which leads to simplified models and incorrect generalisations. She demonstrates that sex, nor gender, were necessarily how men and woman in ancient cultures distinguished themselves, and makes a good case for less generalisation and more individuality. A reoccurring theme in the book handles noble Maya woman, and the theory that their importance was not limited to producing future rulers, but thatthey had political influence and powerful roles in their society.
Though Joyce hardly mentions Egypt in her book, the parallels are definitely there: we talk about Pharaohs and the rulers as male, and the princesses and wives as hardly worth mentioning, unless to figure out who was King Tut’s mummy… err.. mommy.
Discussions of ancient queens almost always display a concern with how they came to power that assumes women ruling were abnormal. This in turn leads to an emphasis on their relations with powerful men the fathers they succeed, the sons for whom they serve as regents, or as in Cleopatras case the men with whom they were sexually involved.
There are a few ‘exceptions’ to the fact that women in Ancient Egypt are forgettable: Nefertiti, known for her beauty, Hatshepsut, known for dressing up like a man and Cleopatra, known for seducing two Roman rulers. Still, all three of them have achieved more than that, and in their times were probably not just regarded as ‘mother of’, ‘wife of’ or ‘lover of’. Joyce on Cleopatra during her reign:
She was regarded asa ruler: the political leader whose strategies make her an excellent example of how independent kingdoms tried to contain the expansion of the Roman empire. Because she cannot be reduced to a type a generic woman she serves as a possible way into the thorny thicket of treating women (and men) in the past as actors with their own motivations, not reducible to generic categories.
Personally, I wonder why were are still ‘romancing Cleopatra’. Surely as an aspiring sole ruler she must have realised how advantageous an affair with the most powerful Roman alive would be? And with him gone, she needed protection once more. Pure political choices, rather than genuine love and romance? Although Antony may not have been the best bet, should Queen Cleopatra not be given more credit for being a cunning political strategist, and less pity for her doomed love affairs?
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 their paintings here. The former was discovered by Hungarian explorer Lszl Almsy and immortalised in the novel and Academy Award-winning movie The English Patient. But it is the latter which the team believe could unlock the secrets of how ancient Egypt began.
Rudolf Kuper, of Kln’s Heinrich Barth Institute, believes the Cave of the Beasts’ detail dates it back around 8,000 years. He claims its artists’ descendents would eventually emigrate to the Nile Valley to create pharaonic Egypt. “It is the most amazing cave … in North Africa and Egypt,” German expert Karin Kindermann tells AP. “You take a piece of the puzzle and see where it could fit. This is an important piece.”
“You take a piece of the puzzle and see where it could fit. This is an important piece.”
The Eastern Sahara is the world’s largest warm dry desert. Modern Egyptians refer to it as the ‘Great Barrier’, known further afield as the Great Sand Sea. Yet at around 8,500 BC the region enjoyed seasonal rainfall and became a fertile savannah. By contrast the Nile Valley was an inhospitable swampland. Settlements sprang up across Gilf Kebir, but the rainfall slowly subsided. By 5,300 BC it has stopped altogether, and by 3,500 BC the settlements had disappeared completely. Ancient Egypt would appear along the now-bountiful Nile just a couple of hundred years later.
“After 3 – 4,000 years of savanna life environment in the Sahara, the desert returned and people were forced to move eastwards to the Nile Valley, contributing to the foundation of Egyptian civilisation, and southwards to the African continent,” says Kuper. “It was a movement, I think, step-by-step, because the desert didn’t rush in. The rains would withdraw, then return, and so on. But step by step it became more dry, and people moved toward the Nile Valley or toward the south.”
Kuper and his team are conducting tests on the geological, botanical and archaeological evidence at the cave, and will compare it to other sites in the region. They have already discovered more drawings in the cave, which extend up to 80cm below the sand. “It seems that the paintings of the Cave of the Beasts pre-date the introduction of domesticated animals,” Kuper told AP. “That means they predate 6000 BC. That is what we dare to say.”
The Eastern Sahara has been home to some of archaeology’s strangest stories in recent years, including the theory that a necklace belonging to Tutankhamun came from outer space. A pair of Italian brothers also claimed to have discovered a lost Persian army who made a fateful detour through the area, yet the discovery has come under intense scrutiny. Kuper claims his team’s work is further enhancing the area’s profile as a key prehistoric site. “Now we have increasing evidence how rich the prehistoric culture in the Eastern Sahara was,” he says.
My generation has grown up almost exclusively exposed to war in the Middle East. Two wars in Iraq, one in Afghanistan and countless battles between neighbouring nations in the region. The Middle East has been a battleground since time began – and now you can see exactly who has conquered it through the ages with mapsofwar.com‘s great-looking 90 second walkthrough.
The Byzantines and Sassanids then conquered various parts of the Middle East, until the rise of Islam resulted in the Caliphate around the 6th and 7th centuries AD. Great leaders such as Saladin and, of course, Genghis Khan, then stamped their mark on the continent before the Middle East moved out of the ancient period. The map is a great way to see how the world’s greatest empires have evolved over time. Let’s face it: there are much worse ways to spend 90 seconds!
Fearless globetrotters or carpetbagging looters? Whatever your opinion, Britain’s adventurers during the Age of Exploration, from the opening of the world’s first museum in Oxford to the King Tut tomb raid, changed ancient history forever. The Ancient World in London is reaching its climax, and over the course of our video series I’ve seen most of the city’s stunning treasures, from the Knidos Lion to the Assyrian Lion Hunt. So here’s a top ten greatest Age of Exploration personalities. If you think I’ve done well, or if you think I’m more inept than a boxer’s tear ducts, have your say in the comments box below.
Amelia Edwards represents so much about the Age of Exploration. A talented writer from the tender age of seven, she led the suffragette movement back in Britain whilst founding two of the nation’s most important archaeological societies. Fascinated from a young age by ancient Egypt Edwards set off for Cairo, without male company, in 1873 aged 42. She would soon witness the glamour and history of the Nile, chronicling her adventures in a number of books including A Thousand Miles up the Nile, in 1877.
Edwards became distressed at the lack of care given to Egypt’s ancient monuments, some of which she had had a hand in excavating such as the temple of Ramesses II at Abu Simbel. So in 1882 she brought together archaeologists like Flinders Petrie and Gaston Maspero to form the EEF Egypt Exploration Fund (now society). Her influence over the fund weakened over the following decade thanks in part to rows with the British Museum. Yet Edwards was keen to help still, and founded a new museum at University College, London, installing Flinders Petrie as its first professor, whose name the museum would later take. Edwards died later that year, yet her contribution to Egyptology is one of the most vital in history.
8. Charles Newton
Newton’s name might not feature in many top ten lists of famous archaeologists, but his greatest discovery propels him rightly into the big-time. After working at the British Museum for over a decade, Newton spread his wings and became vice-consul at Mitylene, capital of the Greek island of Lesbos in 1852 and tasked with exploring the coasts of Asia Minor. After excavating at Knidos Newton stumbled across his greatest achievement in 1856-7 by discovering the remains of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world(play a seven wonders quiz here).
Newton’s later legacy would be played out back in Britain, where he had a key role in founding the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies (known as the Hellenic Society), the British School at Athens and the Egypt Exploration Fund. Newton was later instated as professor of classical archaeology at University College, London for eight years between 1880 and 1888.
Leonard Woolley is one of Mesopotamia’s greatest archaeologists, having excavated many of its most illustrious sites. Woolley became assistant keeper of the Ashmolean Museum in 1905, yet found his calling several years later when he teamed up with T.E. Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia, to explore the Hittite city of Carchemish. Woolley’s adventurous life would then see him incarcerated as a POW in Turkey from 1916 – 18 during a British Museum expedition to Palestine. The BM and Penn Museum then commissioned Woolley for his greatest expedition, to the ancient Sumerian city of Ur in modern Iraq. Woolley excavated several royal cemeteries, the most glittering of which was that of Queen Pu-Abi. He took his bounty back to Britain, where most of it can be found in the British Museum.
Woolley soon had a knighthood under his belt, and shifted his sights to the Syrian city of Al-Mina, exploring links between the empires of the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas. A number of books then cemented his place in archaeological history, and Agatha Christie even based Murder in Mesopotamia on Woolley’s work.
Arthur Evans has to go down as a true great of archaeology: not only did he discover one of the most famous sites in ancient mythology, but he also rediscovered an entire civilization and its two languages. Evans was well educated in England before adventuring in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1875, where he and his brother Lewis were imprisoned for making sketches in politically sensitive areas. 25 years later Evans would satisfy his love of travel and history when he purchased the archaeological site of Knossos in Crete. Evans had soon excavated the site’s famous palace, whose maze-like structure has led it to be suggested as the home of the mythological labyrinth in which King Minos held his deadly minotaur.
Evans concluded from Knossos that there must have been a culture on Crete even earlier than fellow great Heinrich Schliemann had claimed, creating the concept of the Minoan Civilization. And 3,000 tablets Evans excavated from the area became his next focus, as he began trying to decode their strange languages, which he noticed bore more than a passing resemblance to the Phoenician alphabet. These languages became Linear A and Linear B, great examples of which can be found in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.
Lord Carnarvon was a hedonistic English aristocrat who, amid his love for travel and fast cars, managed to spare a few moments to become one of Egyptology’s biggest names. Badly injured in a car crash in Germany, Carnarvon was ordered to eschew the cold winters of Britain for Cairo’s arid heat. But whilst in Egypt, he developed a taste for its history, and was soon spending his fortunes excavating some of the country’s greatest treasures.
It was Carnarvon’s meeting Howard Carter that changed his legacy in Egypt. Together the pair would form a close bond: Carter the avid archaeologist, Carnarvon the immeasurably wealthy adventurer. Carnarvon would fritter away his fortune in the desert, selling country manors (not Highclere Castle, mercifully) to fund houses for himself and Carter and an army of local workers. But the gamble paid off in 1922 when he and his friend discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun, the most famous archaeological breakthrough in history. Carnarvon would soon be dead, the victim of the ‘Curse of the Mummy’, aka a mosquito bite. Yet his posterity was secured: Lord Carnarvon was the epitome of an English adventurer.
Another gallavanting eccentric, it seems Henry Layard was born to live out a dramatic life. His family were immensely rich and powerful, allowing young Henry a platform to pursue his passion for travel and culture. He studied in Italy, France, England and Switzerland before qualifying as an attorney in 1839, aged 22. Layard wasn’t overly interested in law though, and trapsed off towards Ceylon, modern Sri Lanka, where he could use his father’s contacts to get a job working for the civil service. YetLayard’s love of ancient history got the better of him, and he spent several years exploring the Near East with friend Edward Mitford. Soon the pair had reached the Iraqi city of Mosul, where Layard noticed a suspiciously man-made protrusion coming from a mound.
Work in Constantinople followed, yet Layard could not take his mind off the mound and convinced diplomat Sir Stratford Canning to fund a Mosul excavation in 1845. Canning’s gamble paid off asLayard pulled hundreds of reliefs, statues and other treasures from the site, which he would later announce as the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud. Layard’s name was made, and subsequent missions saw him unearth the fabled Assyrian capital Nineveh, where he found the amazing Lion Hunt reliefs. Every find was recorded in minute detail with accompanying line drawings, and later work for the British Museum saw Layard trying to decipher cuneiform, the first ever written language.
It’s difficult to think Carter without mentioning Tutankhamun, and it’s admittedly thanks to the discovery of the boy king’s tomb in November 1922 that Howard Carter makes it so high up this list. But there was much more to the man than KV62: Carter had been an archaeologist for over 30 years before his fateful collaboration with Lord Carnarvon. Carter began his career in Egypt in 1891 aged just 17 as a tracer and artist for the EEF, drafted in primarily to draw animal images found on tombs. Yet his reputation for a studious individual soon saw him one of Flinders Petrie’s apprentices at Amarna, learning the skills of the trade and discovering the wonder of ancient Egypt.
By 1899 Carter has become First Chief Inspector General of Monuments for Upper Egypt, a title given by the Director of the Egyptian Antiquities Service, Gaston Maspero. Yet this position lasted only a short while, and Carter found himself frozen out of affairs after an incident with a drunken French tourist. Carter’s career was in tatters, and he made a living drawing pictures for tourists on the Nile. It wouldn’t be for another decade until Maspero introduced Carter to Carnarvon and the Tutankhamun saga began, ending in the greatest discovery of all time. The rest, as they say, is history, and Carter died in London a hero in 1939.
Yes, the ‘Father of modern Archaeology’ only makes it to second on my list; roll on the dissent. Flinders Petrie, born in Charlton in 1853, was afforded a good education and from an early age thought logically and meticulously about his interests. Upon hearing the Brading Roman Villa had been excavated with shovels, Petrie was horrified and vowed to install his own methodology to archaeology. His sights were turned first to Stonehenge, then to the famous Giza Plateau, where Petrie became the first person to properly record the pyramids’ geometry and study minute details to explore how they were built.
His reputation already growing, Petrie set out for the delta city of Tanis, where Amelia Edwards and the Egypt Exploration Fund allowed him 170 workmen. Petrie didn’t disappoint, and though he didn’t make any huge discoveries his precise methodology allowed him to recover thousands of smaller everyday items, which would have likely been lost otherwise. Further groundbreaking work was carried out at Sehel, Fayum and Palestine until Petrie made arguably his greatest discovery: that of the Merneptah Stele, aka the Israel Stele, at Luxor. It is the oldest mention of Israel by far, and proves Israel was a culture over 3,000 years ago. Petrie may not have made the same headline-grabbing finds as his contemporaries, but his acute way of working revolutionalised archaeology, and made people interested in the daily life of ancient Egypt.
You might wonder why a circus strongman-cum-archaeologist who graffitied his name on Egypt’s greatest landmarks is ahead of all these famous names. But read that sentence back and I’m confident you’ll agree with me: Giovanni Belzoni is one of archaeology’s oddest characters, and his life story needs no hyperbole.
Ok hold your breath: Belzoni was born in Padua in 1778, yet left home for a monastic order in Rome aged 16. But to avoid arrest after a revolution in Italy he fled first to the Netherlands, then to England in 1803 where he met his wife Sarah Bane. At 6ft 7inches Belzoni found work in London as a circus strongman, named the ‘Patagonian Samson’, before working for antiquarian Henry Salt moving objects in Spain, Portugal and Sicily. Belzoni became obsessed with ancient culture, and after meeting an Ottoman emissary in Malta, travelled to Egypt where he met Salt again, who employed him to remove artefacts like the Colossal Bust of Ramesses II. Yet Belzoni wanted to make discoveries himself and began excavating.
It was at this time that Belzoni, now enamored with Egypt and growing his beard and wearing local clothing, made his biggest discovery: the tomb of Seti I, with its sarcophagus. The tomb is one of Thebes’ most beautiful, and the sarcophagus would eventually make its way to London’s Soane Museum. Belzoni continued to work as both an archaeologist and a ‘fixer’ in Egypt, helping to bring monuments like Cleopatra’s Needle to London. His second great discovery was the inner chambers of the Pyramid of Khafre at Giza, in which he wrote his name in huge lettering. Belzoni’s life of adventure came to an end in Benin in 1823, after a terminal case of dysentry. Yet his legacy remains in the hundreds of great artefacts he brought to the west. Do you still not think he should top this list?
Channel 4’s digital channel More4 has kicked off a juicy seven-week series of documentaries fronted by historian Bettany Hughes. The Ancient World began on Wednesday 24 March with a new film about Alexandria, the city founded by Alexander the Great in 332BC. Hughes travelled to Egypt in search of the city’s ancient origins, delved beneath the streets and explored the sunken ruins that are all that remain of what was once the largest city in the world.
Alexandria is one of the world’s greatest ancient cities. It’s a hugely fascinating place and a topic ripe for exploration. For centuries it was a centre of science and learning. Its lighthouse was once one of the SevenWonders of the World (see if you can pinpoint where the others are in this fun online game), and was even taller than the Great Pyramid.
As Hughes explains in her film, Alexandrian scientists were the first to accurately chart the movements of the planets and suggest that the Earth travelled around the sun. They measured the circumference of the Earth using nothing more than pure mathematical theory and a bunch of sticks, and developed the astrolabe, which interpreted the movements of the stars for navigation.
The cast of characters in the documentary reads like a whos who of the ancient world, from famous figures such as Julius Caesar and Cleopatra, to the Greek general Ptolemy and the female mathematician and philosopher Hypatia played by Rachel Weisz in the upcoming feature film Agora, which also charts the rise of St Cyril and the eventual downfall of Alexandria, culminating in the destruction of its legendary library.
Bettany Hughes – The Face of TV History
Channel 4/More4 excel at these types of documentaries and Bettany Hughes has emerged in recent years as the face of ancient world programming. Previous credits include The Seven Ages of Britain, which screened on Channel 4 in 2003.
Oxford-educated Hughes is currently a research fellow at Kings College London. Her enthusiastic and thoughtful presenting style makes her an ideal tour guide to the ancient world (her brother, incidentally, is TV cricket pundit Simon Hughes who brings a similarly insightful perspective to his field of interest).
The Ancient World is more a season, rather than a series. If you havent caught Bettany Hughess programmes before, it helpfully brings them together for the first time. The run includes her 2004 series The Minoans, charting the history of Bronze Age society on Crete, and her 2005 film Helen of Troy, which accompanied her critically acclaimed book of the same name.
Fans of the bloody sword-and-sandals caper 300, starring Gerard Butler, might also want to check out Hughess three-part film The Spartans. Director Zack Snyder has cited this documentary as a key inspiration for 300, and Hughes was interviewed for the making of feature on the 300 DVD.
Other programmes in the Ancient World Season include Athens: The Truth about Democracy and When the Moors Ruled in Europe, covering Islamic rule in Spain and Portugal.
In total, the seven-week season spans around 3,000 years of history no mean feat for one historian and constitutes pretty much required viewed for anyone with a passing interest in the ancient world. Which, if youre reading this, is probably you…
Let us know in the comment box below what you think of the series as it progresses, and check our publications section for more books and DVDs about the ancient world. If you’d like to review these programmes or any books or films for us, contact us and let us know.
You can also join our debate about edutainment, and take part in our Bloggers Challenge on the subject of sex, guns and education (do you need the first two to persuade kids to engage in the latter?)
A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to take part in the scanning of a female mummy from ancient Egypt, and to take photos to document the experience. This young girl was only around 25 at the age of death, and survived in relative peace for thousands of years. In the last century, however, she’s been used as a bargaining tool by the Germans, survived attacks by torpedos and fires, and even suffered physical traumas. I discovered that the scientific analysis of a young mummy can show us a lot about the life in ancient Egypt, but tell us even more about her afterlife, in our custody.
Swaps With Germany
The mummy in question was brought to Porto after some exchanging of merchandise between Portugal and Germany in the years following the First World War. The cargo of the ship Cheruskia consisted of pieces found by German excavations from 1903 to 1914 in Assur by Walter Andrae, an eminent German Assyriologist of the early 20th century. As part of an agreement made with Great Britain, Portugal imprisoned 70 German ships anchored at Portuguese ports in 1916. But Germany declared war on Portugal on March 9th. Cheruskia was seized at Lisbon by Portuguese authorities in April 1916, and, while interned at Lisbon, renamed Leixes. But the ship wasn’t safe yet – after the war, in 1918,it was torpedoed by the German submarine U-155 south of Newfoundland.
It stayed at Lisbons docks, in the Tagus river, for some years, and its cargo was sent to Portos Faculty of Letters to be identified and studied by a team of French Assyriologists. The valuable Assur artefacts were returned to Germany after they insisted on their repatriation. Some Egyptian Artefacts were given to Portugal as a gift in exchange. The documents read: ‘Offered to Portugal in 1926 by German authorities in exchange for the spoil brought from Assur by the Germans that was imprisoned by Porto University’.
These Egyptian artefacts came as part of a mixed bag of ancient objects from Berlin’s collection. They went to Portos Faculty of Letters where they stayed until 1928, when they were passed on to the Faculty of Sciences. The collection was transferred to Museum Mendes Corra where it stayed from 1940 onwards. In 1996, the Natural History Museum of the Sciences in Porto integrated the Egyptian Collection displayed at the Mendes Corra Archaeology and Pre-History Room. This collection has been housed in the Faculty of Sciences Museum since 1996, but the Museum suffered a fire, and so the collection is now stored to be exhibited at what will be the new Mendes Correa Anthropology Museum in 2011.
The total of 102 pieces was listed in 1996, sponsored by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, but nothing – catalogue or study report – was ever published. Two mummies came with this gift collection, and they are dated probably from the Late Period or Ptolemaic Period; a male mummy, completely wrapped (scanned and analyzed in November 2007 with some evaluation still in progress) and a female mummy, completely unwrapped – this is the mummy that I got the chance to see.
State of the Mummy
So how did our mummy fare throughout this?Well, remarkably well, in general, but one particular part of the mummy was showing excessive wear and tear – her teeth. This presented a dilemma – she appeared to have the constitution of a young adult, but the teeth of somebody at least ten years older.
Teeth are one of the most reliable sources of information regarding the determination of age-at-death, along with the pubic symphysis, the midline cartilaginous joint uniting the superior rami of the left and right illiacs. In this case doubt had arisen between the members of the team at the hospital, as the teeth showed extensive abrasive texture and couldn’t be indicative of the real age.
The abrasion in teeth of ancient Egyptians was caused primarily by their diet; bread and other food was prepared in open air and caught sand particles. This made chewing very hard and besides caries, periodontal disease and premature tooth loss, it also made many ancient Egyptians suffer from temporomandibular disfunction (this articulation connects the skull to the mandible allowing the mouth to open and close).
Infections like gengivitis and rotten teeth were common, but this one only missed a couple of teeth or so, so she was in pretty good shape for an ancient Egyptian.
The accuracy of these scans is very high and we can get proof of her exact real age from her teeth. In fact, all we need is one tooth – or even just a bit of a root. Scientists use a process called ‘dentin translucency’ to determine the age of the mummy from the teeth. This involves microscopic examination of the root’s dentin. A proposal to do this test was indicated by an odontologist present at the scanning. Let’s hope this project gets the funding to do all the tests needed…
The mummy also showed signs of stress marks on the atlas, and we discussed whether she might have carried weights on her head.
Evidence of Trauma
Our mummy did have evidence of trauma in the 5th and 6th cervical vertebrae, and three lumbar vertebrae show trauma resulting from the impact of different objects (one perforating object and another cutting one). These didn’t seem to have killed our sturdy young lady, and were probably inflicted after her death. Any of the following might have caused the injury:
An apprentice mummification professional, not really sure where to pierce, maybe tryied to cut the kidneys out of the body
Tomb robbers looking for jewellry in the thoracic/pelvic areas tryied to extract the amulets and gemstones, piercing the body and causing the damage seen on the vertebrae.
The body was mishandled some way while still in Egypt, perhaps while changing sarcophagi, or moving from the tomb to the market/seller/warehouse
The body was damaged in Germany while moving the mummy – she has no case and I believe she arrived in Portugal in a simple wood box; maybe the one she is still in.
This is an ongoing project but I know everyone is curious about Egyptian mummies’ mysteries and the paradoxes science unveils today with the help of new technologies. Looking at a single mummy in detail like this helps us to see that they are human and, like us, subject to trauma, accidents, disease, and aging. But they are all beautiful. At least to me.
Last week I visited the ‘Tutankhamun: His Tomb and His Treasures’ exhibition in Manchester with Mary-Ann Craig (video), and well… saw wonderful things, and everywhere, the glint of gold. The moment I marvelled at the recreation of the set-up used to remove Tutankhamun’s sarcophagi from his tomb, any doubts still left about the power of replicas disappeared, and I would strongly suggest you visit the touring exhibition before it leaves the UK.
Newton’s name might not feature in many top ten lists of famous archaeologists, but his greatest discovery propels him rightly into the big-time. After working at the British Museum for over a decade, Newton spread his wings and became vice-consul at Mitylene, capital of the Greek island of Lesbos in 1852 and tasked with exploring the coasts of Asia Minor. 
You might wonder why a circus strongman-cum-archaeologist who graffitied his name on Egypt’s greatest landmarks is ahead of all these famous names. But read that sentence back and I’m confident you’ll agree with me: Giovanni Belzoni is one of archaeology’s oddest characters, and 
Channel 4’s digital channel More4 has kicked off a juicy 
