“OMG you’re an Egyptologist!” Dr. Kara Cooney explains why
Dr. Kara Cooney is an Egyptian art and archaeology expert. She earned her PhD in Near Eastern Studies from Johns Hopkins University in 2002. She has been part of major archaeological excavations in Egypt at the royal temple site of Dahshur, elite Theban tombs and the craftsmen’s village of Deir el Medina. She is published under the name Kathlyn M. Cooney, but called Kara Cooney by everyone.
In the fall of 2007, Kara appeared as the team archaeology expert on Digging for the Truth, season IV, airing on The History Channel.
From www.karacooney.com
See video of an interview of Dr. Kara Cooney on the Late Late Show
Ancient Christian “Holy Wine” Factory Found in Egypt
Two wine presses found in Egypt were likely part of the area’s earliest winery, producing holy wine for export to Christians abroad.
Egyptian archaeologists discovered the two presses with large crosses carved across them near St. Catherine’s Monastery, a sixth-century A.D. complex near Mount Sinai on the Sinai Peninsula. Although the presses have not yet been conclusively dated, archaeologists believe the tools were made between the fourth and sixth centuries A.D. Several gold coins picturing the Roman Emperor Valens, who ruled from A.D. 364 to 378, were also found near the presses. The wine presses could date to the same period, archaeologists say. Similar coins have been found in Lebanon and Syria—the areas of origin for many of the grape varieties used for wine in ancient Egypt.
The wine made near Sinai was stored in the amphorae, standard vessels of the time for shipping wine, olive oil, grain, fish, and other items. It would have been considered to be from a holy site and used in religious ceremonies—such as the Christian Eucharist—at St. Catherine’s Monastery and abroad. Early Christians likely managed to grow grapevines and palm trees at the winery site because—at more than 5,000 feet (1,524 meters) above sea level—it would have been cooler than the surrounding desert.
The wine presses have 4-foot-square (1.2-meter-square) basins, where monks would have used their feet to smash grapes. A hole at one end of each press likely fed into a lower basin, which caught the pressed juice. The structures are similar to presses used by ancient Egyptians, beginning as early as 3,000 B.C., when pharaohs started a royal winemaking industry in the fertile Nile Delta.
There is no evidence, however, that ancient Egyptians produced wine in this part of the Sinai Peninsula.
The Battle of “Berrow”
Atlantic Productions will turn the sand dunes of Berrow Beach into a desert location to recreate a chariot scene from an ancient battle involving Ramses the Great.
The filming is for a National Geographic program about the famous Battle of Kadesh, a military engagement that resulted in a draw and produced as a result the first peace treaty between two nations.
Berrow Beach, in England’s South West, is a six mile length of beach with sand dunes and firm sand, the second longest stretch of sand in Europe. The southern end of the beach will be cordoned off during the filming, June 25th and June 26th.
All About Egypt: How much you know?
Here are two games to test your knowledge about our favorite subject. Have fun!
Hangaroo with an Egyptian Twist!
He deserves to be hanged, but with your knowledge of Ancient Egypt you can still save the loud and obnoxious kangaroo from the gallows.
King Tut Trivia: How much you know?
Ancient Egyptian official building uncovered in Edfu
Cairo - A US archaeological team uncovered an ancient Egyptian administrative building and silos dating back to the 17th dynasty (ca. 1665-1569 BC) along with an older columned hall in the southern Egyptian town of Edfu, Egypt’s antiquities department announced Tuesday. With sixteen wooden columns, the layout of the mud-brick hall shows that it might been part of a governor’s palace, Egypt’s antiquities chief, Zahi Hawas said.
The hall, which predates the silos, had been used by scribes for accounting, opening and receiving letters, Hawas explained.
Pottery and seals that date back to the 13th dynasty (c. 1786-1665 BC) were discovered in the hall.
A US archeological team from the University of Chicago carried out the excavation work.
“Scarab seals found inside the hall are decorated with spiral patterns and hieroglyphic symbols including ankh sign, also known as key of life,” said head of the American mission, Nadine Moeller.
The discovery reflects the Egyptian political situation at the time when the small kingdom of Thebes controlled Upper Egypt, Moeller said.
Alcohol banned at Grand Hyatt Cairo
The owner of Cairo’s luxury Grand Hyatt hotel flushed $300,000 down the toilet.
Abdel Aziz Ibrahim, a member of the Saudi royal family decided to get rid of 2,500 bottles of alcoholic beverages in stock by ordering their content drained into the sewers, without providing any notice to the American hotel chain managing the property, Hyatt International.
Fathi Nur, president of the Egyptian Hotel Association, is threatening to drop the hotel rating from five to two stars by July 2.
Drinking alcohol is considered contrary to Islam but it is not banned by Egyptian law. Hotel rules dictate that any hotel above two stars must serve alcohol. An owner is also not allowed to interfere in the running of affairs when there is a managing company.
Grand Hyatt spokeswoman Sally Khattab said the two parties were currently in talks to resolve the issue.
I welcome comments from someone who knows the consequences of flushing 2,500 bottles of alcoholic beverages into the Nile.
Egypt fire damages church of ‘Jesus footprint’
An electrical fault is blamed for a fire that destroyed the altar and an historic icon at the Sanctuary of the Church of the Virgin Mary in Sakha, just outside Kafr el-Sheikh, north of Cairo.
The town of Sakha is known to Copts as Pekha-Issous (Jesus foot) for the Holy Child’s foot-print was marked, here, in bas-relief on a rock. The rock was preserved, but hidden for centuries for fear of robbery, and only unearthed again 13 years ago and put on display at the church. The stone was not damaged by the fire.
The information from Associated Press is scant at this moment. More information and photos about Christianity in Egypt and the Coptic Church can be found here.
Anti smoking campaign to be launched in Egypt
Egyptians, among the heaviest smokers in the world, will be faced with the consequences of smoking in a new campaign. Starting next August, cigarette packs will feature graphic images about the dangers of smoking; death, lung disease and impotence. Twelve countries, among them Canada, Jordan, Brazil and Thailand, already use this model as a way to deter smoking or raise awareness.
Egypt is one of the top fifteen countries with smoking problems - nearly 60% of its adult male population smoke. The female population data is not so clearly available, on account of social taboos, but it might not be significantly lower. American brands billboards abound, and gathering around a water pipe or shisha for social occasions is a widespread custom.
Some curious facts found during the pre testing of the campaign: Egyptians are not generally that much concerned about the link of smoking to death, since death is already an unavoidable event. On the other hand, they did respond to images showing the harmful effects of smoking on children, pregnancy and impotence.
Lack of education also contributes to the anti smoking message confusion. Early this year, a state-owned cigarette manufacturing company voluntarily placed pictures of diseased lungs on some packs. Smokers just figured those packs were the ones that were harmful and switched to other brands.
THE LOST COMMON SENSE: When one World Wonder isn’t enough
Lately, it seems that something transcendental has been lost in Egypt, only to be found by the Supreme Council of Antiquities under the direction of Zahi Hawass, with the aid, of course, of the producers of TV mega documentaries from the Discovery Channel and National Geographic.
According to Hawass, only one third of ancient Egypt’s archaeological legacy has been found, leaving room for plenty of new discoveries. Strangely, though, these “new” discoveries inevitably involve someone or something extraordinary and widely known, such as “The Lost Tomb”, “The Lost Queen”, “Nefertiti Resurrected”, you get the picture.
The latest amazing discovery is nothing less than a pyramid mightier than “The Horizon of Khufu”.
History Channel will soon introduce us to the Fourth Pyramid of Giza, “The Lost Pyramid” of King Djedefre, a monumental structure that according to the show’s computer-generated reconstruction, must have astonished the ancient world beyond the Great Pyramid, already regarded in its time as one of the Wonders of the World.
The “lost pyramid” is today a pile of rocks located about five miles of the Giza plateau. The existence of this structure is known since the 19th century, but archaeologists have not been able to properly investigate it, since it is presently located in a military security zone.
What we may surmise from the trailer is that the “lost pyramid” shall be exalted as a structure even higher than Khufu’s, with no emphasis on the fact that the supposed pyramid, whose category has been questioned by Egyptologist Vassil Dobrev of Cairo’s French Institute of Archaeology, is built upon a hill that contributes to its height advantage, and that its absolute size is about half of that of its much more famous “relative”.
No doubt History Channel’s “The Lost Pyramid” will be cleared of its sands by those gust winds sound effects that give expectators an exciting rush that inevitably leaves us cold and hungry for the facts. Certainly, Zahi Hawass’s interventions will provide the carefully measured dose of credibility to this megalomaniac tale of fanciful technology and royal family intrigues.
Safeguarding our cultural heritage at antiquities auctions
A policy advisory issued by the U.S. Association of Art Museum Directors that museums “normally should not acquire a work unless solid proof exists that the object was outside its country of probable modern discovery before 1970, or was legally exported from its probable country of modern discovery after 1970″ is making an effect on the antiquities trade because it makes it that much less tempting to museums and wealthy donors alike to acquire objects of ill-defined provenance.
As the overwhelming majority of objects knocking about the art market come from countries that do not permit the export of antiquities, the U.S. museums advisory amounts to underwriting, if only unofficially, the 1970 Unesco convention banning the acquisition of objects illicitly dug up.
At Christie’s, a sale of antiquities held on June 4 opened with sundry sculptures and other works of art from Ancient Egypt collected by the Swiss Egyptologist Gustave Jéquier, who died in 1946. Extraordinary prices were achieved for the greatest rarities from a collection that did not raise provenance questions.
The auction was only into its second lot when a limestone carving of a coiled snake, 19 centimeters, or 7½ inches, across, shot up to $338,500. This was more than 15 times the high estimate. Executed in the late 3rd to mid-2nd millennium B.C., the sculpture carries a royal dedication inscription to the god Osiris that enhanced its importance, and the Jéquier provenance guaranteed that any institution could acquire it without fear of being faced one day with a restitution lawsuit.
Even if the museum association’s decision lacks the force of law, its psychological impact is bound to bring about much of the desired effect and will one day be hailed as a turning point in the safeguard of our world’s cultural history.
