Tag: Scarab

Missing statue of Pharaoh Akhenaten returned to Cairo Museum

State of statue of Akhenaten after its return to the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Photo by Ahmed Amin Egypt’s Minister of Antiquities Affairs, Dr Zahi Hawass, announced today that the missing limestone statue of King Akhenaten, the likely father of Tutankhamun, has been returned to the Egyptian Museum, Cairo.

To date, four objects from the preliminary list of missing artefacts have been found; the Heart Scarab of Yuya, a shabti of Yuya, the statue of the goddess Menkaret carrying Tutankhamun, and now the statue of Akhenaten as an offering bearer.

Statue of Akhenaten returned

The statue of pharaoh Akhenaten is one of the unique statues from the Amarna Period on display at the Egyptian Museum. It is ~~seven~~ forty-three centimeters high and depicts the king standing, wearing a blue crown, and holding an offering table in his hands.

The statue is composed of limestone, with the exception of the calcite, or Egyptian Alabaster, base.

In a statement to the press, Dr. Hawass says that a sixteen-year-old male, one of the protestors at Tahrir Square, found the statue of Akhenaten beside a rubbish bin.

He brought the statue to his home and when his mother saw it she called her brother, Dr. Sabry Abdel Rahman, a professor at AUC. Dr. Rahman, in turn, called the Ministry of State for Antiquities Affairs to hand the statue over.

Last night, at the Antiquities and Tourism Police station at Cairo Opera House, an archaeological committee headed by Dr. Youssef Khalifa, head of a committee appointed by the Minister, accepted the returned statue of Akhenaten. The committee approved the authenticity of the statue and confirmed that it is in fact the statue of Akhenaten that was missing. The statue was returned to Dr. Khalifa intact, except for the offering table that was found separately inside the Egyptian Museum (photo showing the statue before the break-in).

Dr. Tarek El-Awady, Director General of the Egyptian Museum, said that both pieces of the statue are now in the conservation lab and would be subject to restoration before being returned to its permanent case in the Amarna Gallery.

Restorator working on the statue of Tutankhamun standing on a panther. Photo by Stephanie Sakoutis

Treasures missing from the Cairo Museum

From the preliminary list of missing objects released; four objects this includes the limestone statue of ‘heretic pharaoh’ Akhenaten as an offering bearer have been.

The missing Heart Scarab of Yuya was recovered on the west side of the Egyptian Museum’s gardens, as well as some wooden fragments belonging to the damaged New Kingdom coffin.

One of the eleven missing shabtis of Yuyawas found inside the museum, underneath a showcase, and fragments belonging to the statue of Tutankhamun being carried by the goddess Menkaret have been found as well. All the located fragments belong to the figure of Menkaret. The small figure of the boy king is still missing.

Other objects not yet retrieved are the torso and upper limbs of a gilded wood statue depicting King Tut harpooning, a statue of Nefertiti making offerings, a sandstone head of an Amarna princess, a stone statuette of an Amarna scribe and ten wooden shabtis from Yuya.

In the mean while, restoration works on the items damaged at the Cairo Museum break-inthe statue of King Tut standing on a panther, and the gilded cartonnage mummy bands of Thuya, amongst othersare ongoing.

Further break-ins and looting at Saqqara and Abusir

In a second statement to the press, Dr Hawass announced that several sites have been vandalized. Today, Dr. Sabry Abdel Aziz, head of the Pharaonic Sector of the Ministry of Statefor Antiquities Affairs, reported to the Minister that the tomb of Hetep-Ka, in Saqqara, was brokeninto, and the false door was stolen along with objects stored in the tomb.

In Abusir, a portion of the false door was stolen from the tomb of Re-Hotep. In addition, many magazines also suffered break-ins: magazines in Saqqara, including the one near the pyramid of Teti, and the magazine of Cairo University all had their seals broken.

The Egyptian Military caught, and dismissed, thieves attempting to loot the sites of Tell el Basta; the military also caught criminals trying to loot a tomb in Lischt. There have also been many reports of attacks on archaeological lands through the building of houses and illegal digging.

Egypt tourist sites set to reopen

Despite these troubles, in a bid to see tourists return to Egypt, it was announcedthat all of thePharaonic, Coptic, Islamic, and modern sites would reopen to the public on Sunday, 20 February2011.

Treasures of King Tut – Tutankhamun’s Jewellery and the Love of a Queen

When Howard Carter said he spied wondrous things upon cracking open the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922, he wasnt joking. KV62 was filled with probably the most fantastic collection of ancient treasures ever discovered in one place all from beautiful golden coffins, to giant statues, canopic shrines and a golden throne. Tuts own body was literally stuffed with precious jewellery.

In the third instalment of our four-part video series King Tut Revealed filmed by Nico Piazza, and featuring still photography by Sandro Vannini Dr Zahi Hawass, who you can watch in this video revealing the cause of Tuts death and sharing his thoughts on the curse of Tutankhamun(Watch this video by clicking here), tells us about his personal favourites among the many treasures of King Tuts tomb, a large number of which are currently on display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

The Golden Death Mask and the Coffins

I believe it is something that will never be repeated, says Hawass of his first selection, the golden death mask probably the most famous and iconic of all the artefacts found in Tutankhamuns tomb. No artist in the world will be ever be able to repeat it, he says, as were shown some of Sandro Vanninis wonderfully vivid shots of the radiant, enchanting 11kg likeness of the boy king, which was found laid over his face. It is a masterpiece of art, in my opinion, Hawass adds.

Tuts body was discovered lying inside a large nest of coffins. Seven coffins total were found in the tomb (all except one have been removed) its these that Hawass next selects among his favourite treasures. Each coffin can give you amazing and beautiful art, he says, before pointing out how the engravings upon them dont all necessarily portray Tutankhamun as he really looked some of them show Tut as he perhaps wished he looked (he wasn’t the prettiest of chaps, it must be said). Some of what you discover in the tomb is the idealistic life of what he wanted to be, Hawass explains, it is not really realistic art.

The Golden Throne

The most amazing thing they showed in that statue is the love between the king and the queen.

When Hawass himself visits the Cairo Museum, whats the first artefact he goes to look at? I go to the golden throne, he reveals, another masterpiece. Why? Because, beneath that gruff exterior, Dr Zahis a big old romantic at heart. The most amazing thing they showed in that statue, he explains, a small tear possibly forming in the corner of his eye, is the love between the king and the queen.

The eagle-eyed viewer will observe that, in the detailed raised image set on the back-panel of the golden throne, showing the boy king and his bride Queen Ankhesenamun relaxing in a garden pavilion, both figures are only wearing one sandal. So they both got dressed in a rush that morning, right? Wrong: Theyre wearing one sandal only to show that they are sharing everything, explains Hawass. The love was between them, and this is why when King Tut died, Queen Ankhesenamun was so upset. She put a flower it was discovered on his mummy. Sniff pass the Kleenex!

This winged scarab necklace is one of Dr Hawass' favourite King Tut artefacts. Image Copyright - Sandro Vannini.

The Jewellery

The jewellery is amazing, says Hawass, of his final selection among the treasure of King Tuts tomb. Over 104 individual pieces of jewellery including beads, bracelets, rings, amulets and necklaces were found crammed inside the mummy of Tut, as well as strewn around his treasury. They were made from combinations of the most valuable materials the kingdom of Egypt had to offer. The opulence of this pharaohs burial is not to be underestimated.

Hawasss favourite piece is a necklace with a winged scarab (some parts of which, it’s been speculated, come from glass created by a meteor), made from gold, silver, glass and semi-precious stones. Holding the Horus eye and this is a symbol of Osiris are the two cobras, he describes, protecting the king in between. And down, look at the lotus flower. This is in my opinion, a masterpiece. Such tiny, meticulous details in a jewellery item reveal a much larger picture about what inspired artists in ancient Egypt. Art in ancient Egypt was for the sake of religion, according to Dr Hawass.

Coming soon: the final instalment of King Tut Revealed, in which Hawass talks about why King Tuts tomb avoided robbery as others were plundered.

HD Video: King Tut Revealed (Part 3/4) The Treasure

(Click here for the transcript of this video)

Be it insights into the search for the tomb of Cleopatra, sneak peeks at the treasures of King Tuts tomb or new revelations on the riddle of KV63, were videos crazy here at Heritage Key. Sign-up to our RSS feed and get new clips delivered straight to your inbox as soon as they go online. Alternatively, keep an eye on our videos page, where you can take a look at all of our videos to date.

Is King Tut’s Necklace from Outer Space?

An alien necklace in King Tut‘s tomb? Too right, and it’s no myth or quackery. A pectoral found during Howard Carter‘s 1922 expedition to the boy-king’s funerary masterpiece is thought to contain the remnants of a meteor impact in the desert, thousands of years before the first stones were laid in Saqqara. The amazing story began 77 years after Carter’s discovery, when Italian geologist noticed something odd about a yellow-green scarab in the pectoral’s centre. Subsequent tests proved the lump of glass was older than any Egyptian civilization – a lot older, in fact.

After much research, experts traced the scarab back to the Great Sand Sea, 500 miles southwest of Cairo, in which there are huge lumps of glass poking out of the dunes. The general opinion is that a meteor hit the desert thousands of years ago, heating the sand enough to create lumps of glass. To give you an idea of the magnitude of this supposed impact, the first atomic bomb test created a thin layer of glass in the New Mexico desert – chunks of glass the size of human heads can be picked up in the Great Sand Sea.

Experts had long been put off the scarab’s extraterrestrial scent by Carter‘s own definition. In his records, the great explorer describes the jewel as being “greenish yellow chalcedony”. However, Vincenzo de Michele spotted that the gem was in fact natural desert glass in 1999, shooting him to the centre of one of Egypt’s great mysteries: a mystery not least because there’s no evidence a meteor has ever struck the desert.

“If this glass is of meteoric origin then there should be a crater of that age” – Farouk El-Baz

“If this glass is of meteoric origin then there should be a crater of that age,” says Boston University’s Farouk El-Baz. “But we did not find a smoking gun for silica (glass) there.” Chunks of glass were found in the Great Sand Sea by British surveyor Patrick Clayton, in 1932. “He ran into this funny area with this glistening stuff all over the place,” says son Peter. Could the scarab have come from some aliens who crash landed into our planet? There’s certainly no shortage of crackpot theorists who think Egyptians, Mesopotamians and Mayans traveled to the stars – could Tutankhamun have been one of Earth’s earliest cosmonauts? After all, we’ve got RoboScarabs roaming the pyramids!

RoboScarab – The Next Generation of Robot Pyramid Explorers

RoboScarab Logo There are currently two* ‘explorer robots’ active in Egypt:the Japanese robot researching the Osiris Shaft – it got as far as it could though, and a ‘snake robot’ might be needed to explore further – and the Leeds robot taking a more thorough look at the shafts in the the Great Pyramid of Cheops. Although the ‘Leeds robot’ just began the actual investigation of the secret doors last week, Dr. Hawass revealed at his lecture that on the 31th of July the Leeds team already had a major breakthrough. But that was all information Dr. Zahi was willing to share (except that they’ll be taking a look at the other shafts also). No hint at what kind of ‘major breakthrough’ this could be, nor did he share any photographs, video or even just 3D sketches of the robot.

Equipped with our Mysterious Shaft technology, these trained pioneers are ready to get the ball rolling.

As I’m quite impatient – I love ‘live reporting’ Brooklyn Museum-style – and quite curious as to what a new generation of ‘pyramid explorer’ robots would look like, I decided not to wait until December 2009 to get the the full picture (although I’d be happy to see just one image) on the pyramid robot developed by the University of Leeds.

Looking at the most recent developments in robotics, bio-tech, electronics and surveillance technology, and taking into account the recent trend to focus more on ‘Egyptian Egyptology’ – basing the draft on one of the symbols associated with ancient Egyptian culture, the scarab – any design for a 21st century robot archaeologist should look somewhat like this:

(No Dung Beetles were hurt during the design of the RoboScarab.)

There are two slightly different editions of the RoboScarab. The male version is equipped with a USB 2.0 connection cable so data can be easily retrieved whilst the beetle is being recharged. The female version runs on solar power, and still has some communication issues as it seems to generate random strings of data. An added bonus to the use of dung beetles, is that outside of the field season, they can still be easily put to use for recycling. But the most important feature in this form of versioning is that if you have both a female and a male RoboScarab, you can breed – and thus sell – little RoboScarabs yourself. For those that consider this a lousy business plan, do note that one can still charge for maintenance and training of RoboScarabs as well as support.

Is this close to the actual design for the robot explorer created with the help of the Leeds University? We won’t know until Dr. Zahi reveals the Leeds robots and it’s discoveries: “In this coming December, Im promising all of you that the secrets of the pyramid will be revealed for the first time.” In the meantime, I’ll return to the drawing board to do some suggestions for the ‘snake robot’. 😉

*We’re not taking the Transformers into account, and the UPUAUT robots as well as the ‘robe climber’ have since long retired from their pyramid research job.