Art Show Inspired by Ancient Egypt
I’m very pleased to announce the opening of my new art exhibition titled “Umbrales” in Spanish which translates to “Thresholds”. It is a series of paintings (acrylics on canvas) inspired by the Egyptian Book of Gates. If you happen to be in the San Juan Puerto Rico area you’re most welcomed to attend.
A review of the exhibit is posted on the local newspaper El Nuevo Día. For those of you lucky to speak Spanish the web address is: http://www.elnuevodia.com/diario/noticia/cultura/noticias/el_cambio_como_musa_pictorica/369711
Tourists injured in triple balloon crash
Three hot air balloons carrying 60 tourists crashed around the Egyptian Nile resort town of Luxor overnight, injuring seven passengers, a security offical said.
Six Colombians and a British national were injured.
“Three balloons, carrying a total of 60 tourists, crashed in three different locations,” the official said. “The injured were taken to hospital and some are being treated for broken bones,” the source said.
The tourists were on a popular balloon tour over some of Egypt’s most renowned archaeological sites near the Valley of the Kings.
“The reasons behind the crashes are unclear,” the official said.
http://www.news.com.au/travel/story/0,26058,23283629-5014090,00.html
Two of Egypt’s pyramids were conceived as a single project
A new study by Italian researchers has determined that two of the pyramids of Giza in Egypt were conceived as a single project.
According to Giulio Magli of the mathematics department at Milan’s Polytechnic University, astronomical alignments and the landscape indicate that the two main pyramids, those identified with the tombs of Khufu and Khafre, were planned as a single, grand project and not built in different stages.
Khufu planned the construction of two pyramids, exactly as his father, Snefru, did in Dahshur. Only later did Khafre claim for himself the slightly smaller pyramid.
http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=331263
Together in the Spirit of Ancient Egypt
Over the past year the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square has hosted several archaeological exhibitions commemorating the anniversaries of excavation work carried out by foreign archaeological institutes and missions all over Egypt and highlighting their contribution to preserving the national archaeological heritage. Among these were the German, Polish, French and American institutes in Egypt. The most recent exhibition was inaugurated early last week to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the foundation of the Australian Institute in Egypt.
Entitled Corroborree, a name that refers to a traditional Aboriginal Australian gathering for the lively exchange of friendship and information, the exhibition contains 31 key objects carefully selected from Australian excavations at Saqqara, Helwan, Luxor and Dakhla Oasis.
Among the most significant objects put on display for the first time, is a collection of glass bottles, jugs and jewelry unearthed during excavations at the Ismant Al-Kharab site in Dakhla Oasis.
According to the exhibition’s brochure, this anniversary not only allows a pause to reflect on the work carried out and achieved by Australian missions in the field of Egyptology and to highlight their collaboration with their Egyptian counterparts, but it also pays homage to those Australians who prior to the 1980s paved the ground for Australian archeological missions.
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/885/he2.htm
Al-Alamein Becomes Egypt Billionaire’s Resort Site
Egyptian billionaire Ibrahim Kamel plans to build a $500 million seaside resort near the World War II battlefield of Al-Alamein, where the Allies defeated General Irwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps in 1942. Kamel’s Kato Group will construct 4,000 hotel rooms, a golf course, mall and entertainment complex in Ghazala Bay on the Mediterranean within five years that will compete with Red Sea vacation sites in Egypt. The Red Sea is the main tourist destination, luring more than half of Egypt’s 11 million visitors each year.
Ancient warrior mummy found
Spanish archaeologists have discovered a well-preserved burial chamber in Dra Abul Naga, an ancient cemetery on Luxor’s west bank, which may contain the mummy of an ancient warrior. The surprise find happened during routine excavations in a courtyard of the tomb of Djehuty, a high-ranking official under Queen Hatshepsut whose burial site was built on top of graves dating to the Middle Kingdom, 2055 to 1650 B.C.
When the burial shaft was opened, experts found a closed wooden coffin inscribed with the name “Iker,” which translates to “excellent one” in ancient Egyptian. Near the coffin, the team also found five arrows made of reeds, three of them still feathered. The presence of bows and arrows means that Iker was likely a hired soldier in the service of a pharaoh, though the exact details are yet unclear.
Soldiers played an important role in society during the Middle Kingdom, when Egypt was reunified after years of civil war.
http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=328130
Mind blowing Egyptian pyramid building theory
Maureen Clemmons, president of the management consulting practice Transformations, is conducting an experiment along with Cal Poly Pomona University to demonstrate how ancient Egyptians might have built the pyramids.
Architecture students in the cement and masonry structure class will construct a 106-ton pyramid without modern tools. Instead, they will employ Clemmons techniques of compacting the soil with beer for a sturdy foundation and harnessing the wind force by means of sails and kites to move the mighty blocks.
Ancient Egyptians are credited with inventing the sail and beer was their drink of choice.
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/news/ci_8210252
Rare U.S. Coin Found in Egypt
A rare U.S. double eagle gold coin that could be worth up to $15 million has been found by an Egyptian couple as they cleaned out their flat, the Qatar Ar-Raya newspaper said on Monday.
The precious piece of gold was discovered in an old box that had once belonged to Mohammed Ismail’s grandfather while he and his wife, Fatima, were throwing old clothes and broken furniture out of a closet.
Mohammed subsequently sent the coin to experts, hoping that he would get a few dollars for it. However, the tailor was shocked when the experts told him that his grandfather had left him a unique coin of historical value.
Double eagle coins were first minted in 1850 and were used to settle accounts between banks and other financial institutions.
Specialists believe that the double eagle found in Egypt could be part of Theodore Roosevelt’s 1933 collection of coins redesigned by famed American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens and given to King Farouk of Egypt as a present.
http://mnweekly.ru/world/20080208/55308628.html
US Army pilot accused of selling stolen Egyptian antiquities
Chief Warrant Officer Edward George Johnson, a US Army helicopter pilot, was stationed in Cairo in September 2002 when about 370 artifacts dating to 3,000+ BC were stolen from the Ma’adi Museum. A year later he contacted an art dealer, claiming the antiquities, some of which has been consigned to galleries in New York, London, Zurich and Montreal, were acquired by his grandfather in the 1930s and 40s. Now he faces up to 15 years imprisonment.
http://www.keralanext.com/news/?id=1172670
Don’t let your child become an archaeologist
Lynn Barber’s tongue-in-cheek comment about taking your children on an Egypt vacation:
“Incidentally if you have children of an impressionable age, do not take them to Egypt because it will inevitably make them want to become archaeologists when they grow up and then they will spend their adult lives sorting shards in some dim county museum. Most of the tour guides in Egypt are fully trained Egyptologists who have done a four-year degree at Cairo university and often post-graduate research or an internship at the British Museum as well, and their fate is to end up lecturing idiots like me about the difference between papyrus and lotus columns or how to pronounce Hatshepsut. Egyptology is an incredibly alluring subject, but a disastrous career, I suspect. Nevertheless I can see why people get totally hooked, and why I will be going to Egypt again and again.”
Her full article on the Observer “Hooked on classics: how I fell for Egypt” is simply excellent and worth reading.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2008/feb/03/cairo.egypt
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By N2H
