Virtual autopsy of mummy at Walter Arts Museum
The Walters Art Museum and the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Diagnostic Radiology department joined forces to perform a virtual autopsy of the mummy of a woman who is the centerpiece of the museum’s exhibit “Mummified,” running from Nov. 15 through Nov. 8, 2009. The computerized tomography (CT) scan enables scholars and scientists to learn about the subject non-invasively and in a respectful manner.
Meri (meaning “Beloved”), the name given given to the lady whose real name remains unknown, was a petite woman living almost 3,000 years ago in Thebes. Her height is only 57 3/8 inches, short even for those distant days. Her mummy didn’t even fill her brightly-painted linen and plaster cartonnage (casing) and wooden coffin. She suffered from osteoarthritis and severe dental disease, which may in fact have led to her death somewhere between the ages of 50 and 60. Meri’s teeth were worn flat and she suffered from at least 16 abscesses (then incurable infections); her death may have resulted from the septicemia they caused.
Curators restore ancient Egyptian coffin smashed in 1969 student protest
Over the past three months, conservators at the Museum of Civilization have been painstakingly piecing together a few large pieces and hundreds of tiny fragments from the lid and the back of a rare 2,500-year-old Egyptian sarcophagus broken during a violent student protest in 1969 at the École des Beaux-Arts de Montreal, which received the coffin as a gift from the Cairo Museum in 1927.
The elaborately-painted Hetep-Bastet coffin and the mummy inside, a woman who was in her 60s when she died, likely in part due to a broken hip and abscessed cavity, are on loan to the museum, which plans to hand the ancient wooden coffin back to its owner, the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM), in far better condition than when it left.
As part of the restoration, curators are taking paint that has flaked off and reattaching it to the surface of the sarcophagus, gluing the broken wooden fragments together, and cleaning the coffin with a vacuum and soft brush to remove modern blue paint on the lid.
The public is invited to watch on Nov. 19, 20 and 25 as curators restore the coffin.
Once the work is complete, the coffin will be on display as part of the exhibit Tombs of Eternity: The Afterlife in Ancient Egypt, which opens Dec. 19.
Pyramids and mummies on National Geographic Channel
Image by Abe WORLD!!!! via Flickr
“Unlocking the Great Pyramid” (8 p.m. Sunday). So the Egyptians just used a giant ramp to cart those 2-ton stones up to the top, right? Actually, there’s no way that happened, despite what you saw in the movies.
In this program Nat Geo contributor Bob Brier teams up with French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin, who in early 2007 announced he had figured out how the Egyptians got their rocky mountains so high. Using sophisticated software, he could show how workers carted those stones to a height of nearly 500 feet above ground.
Brier — who has been Houdin’s biggest champion in the English-speaking world — is an eager co-conspirator and an enthusiastic guide. He’s able to turn this seemingly dry scientific story into one of those whodunits where the detective is personally invested in solving the case.
Other ancient mysteries airing later in “Expedition Week” are the mummy caper “Mystery of the Screaming Man” (8 p.m. Friday) and “Herod’s Lost Tomb” (8 p.m. Nov. 23; yes, the “Week” is actually eight days).
“Egypt’s Sunken Treasures” prolongs its stay in Madrid until the end of the year
The exhibit “Egypt’s Sunken Treasures” will remain until next December 30 at the Matadero de Legazpi given its huge success among the public of Madrid. More than 200,000 people have already visited the show since its inauguration on April 15.
Although its closing was supposed to happen on September 28, the organizers decided to extend the exhibit until Nov. 15, and now until the end of the year, according to sources from the organization.
“Egypt’s Sunken Treasures” showcases over 500 Egyptian antiquities rescued from the sea bed by the team of archaeologist leaded by Franck Goddio, including colossal statues some six meters in height and objects that have more than 2,000 years of history.
Translated from madridiario.es
Egypt: 4,300-year-old pyramid discovered
Image via Wikipedia
Archaeologists have discovered a new pyramid under the sands of Saqqara, an ancient burial site that remains largely unexplored and has yielded a string of unearthed pyramids in recent years. The 4,300-year-old monument most likely belonged to the queen mother of the founder of Egypt’s 6th Dynasty, several hundred years after the building of the famed Great Pyramids of Giza.
The discovery is part of the sprawling necropolis and burial site of the rulers of ancient Memphis, the capital of Egypt’s Old Kingdom, about 19 kilometers (12 miles) south of Giza.
All that remains of the pyramid is a square-shaped 16-foot (5-meter) tall structure that had been buried under 65 feet (25 meters) of sand.
Zahi Hawass and his team has been excavating at the location for two years, but it was only two months ago when they determined the structure, with sides about 72 feet (22 meters) long, was the base of a pyramid. They also found parts of the pyramid’s white limestone casing — believed to have once covered the entire structure — which enabled them to calculate that the complete pyramid was once 45 feet (14 meters) high. Hawass said he believes the pyramid belongs to Queen Sesheshet, who is thought to have played a significant role in establishing the 6th Dynasty and uniting two branches of the feuding royal family. Her son, Teti, is believed to have ruled for around 20 years until he was possibly assassinated, a sign of the time’s turbulence.
The find is important because it adds to the understanding of the 6th Dynasty, which lasted from 2,322 B.C. to 2,151 B.C. It was the last dynasty of the Old Kingdom, which spanned the 3rd millennium B.C. and was the first peak of pharaonic civilization.
The pyramid is the 118th discovered so far in Egypt. The last new pyramid found in Saqqara three years ago is thought to belong to the wife of Teti’s successor, Pepi I.
“Wonderful Things”
Wonderful Things: The Harry Burton Photographs and the Discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun, sister exhibition to Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs
Opening Friday 14 November at the Michael C. Carlos Museum in Atlanta
Trained in the fine arts, Harry Burton was working as a photographer for the Metropolitan Museum of Art when he joined the Howard Carter team. In his eight years with the expedition, he shot a breathtaking 1,400 negatives that bring the viewer into the realm of discovery and the world of ancient Egypt.
Burton romanticizes the expedition, and he is keenly aware of how he could control the public’s perceptions of it through images. But he is also a masterful storyteller, and his artistic eye is really what’s on display here.
The way Burton transfers the lustre of gold to black-and-white film is spectacular. The soft, warm light emanating from the photo of a chariot brings up that universal and unmistakable wonder of gold.
Burton’s deft use of light reaches its greatest in his photos of statues. The light hits the statues’ faces at the right spot to bring each depiction of King Tut to life.
What sets the photographs of King Tut apart is that these were of the first well-photographed, National Geographic-style excavation. Many photographs show objects that don’t even exist anymore, underscoring the importance of historical documentation.
An interesting addition to Burton’s photos are the newspaper clippings from the 1920s covering the excavation. Lord Carnarvon, the chief financier of the expedition, gave exclusive photos and news rights to The Times of London. He was a savvy celeb way ahead of his time.
Excerpted from an article by Bridget Riley for emorywheel.com
Virtual Nile planned for Turin Egyptian Museum
A virtual recreation of the river Nile will soon greet visitors arriving at Turin’s world-renowned Egyptian Museum as part of a sweeping makeover. The virtual waters will flow alongside the escalator leading up to the museum, thanks to the technical wizardry of Oscar-winning set designer Dante Ferretti.
The idea is for visitors to get the feeling of actually traveling the Nile as they get to witness one of the most astounding collections of ancient Egyptian antiquities anywhere in the world. The entire layout of the museum’s exhibition space will be restructured and reorganized, increasing the available space from 6,000 to 10,000m2, allowing for a more fitting display of the Turin museum’s most valuable possessions, such as the Tomb of Kha and the full figure statue of the young Ramses II enthroned.
The Egyptian Museum in Turin houses more ancient Egyptian objects than any other in the world save the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. It currently draws around 600,000 visitors each year. Of the museum’s 26,000 pieces, just 6,500 are actually on public display. Its collection includes priceless papyri, among them one of the best specimens of the “Book of Coming Forth by Day” (The Book of the Dead), the oldest ever written evidence of a workers strike, the Erotic Papyrus and history’s first map.
The first phase of the project will get under way in September 2009 and conclude in January 2011 as Italy begins its celebrations of 150 years of unity, with Turin as the country’s first capital. This will be followed by a second phase due for completion in 2013.
Book Review: Egyptology Today by Richard H. Wilkinson
Reviewed by L. R. Siddall, School of Oriental and African Studies, the University of London
This is a superb book. Wilkinson has brought together some of the current leading Egyptologists to produce a single volume work that introduces the reader to the methods and theories used in the study of ancient Egypt. All aspects of Egyptology are covered from the Egyptian language and medical research to the way archaeologists survey sites and the conservation of artefacts. The book is organized thematically into four parts (approaches, monuments, art and artifacts, and texts), with each part comprising three chapters. Wonderfully illustrated, this book will make excellent reading for students of the ancient world and the interested public.
The volume opens and closes with succinct essays by the editor on the past, current, and future status of Egyptological research. Wilkinson introduces the reader to the reality of modern Egyptological practice and research, pointing out that the latter part of the twentieth century has seen the study of Egyptology benefit from broader methods of scholarship taken from the arts and humanities, and the natural and medical sciences. Egyptology is now very much an interdisciplinary field.
What is a World Heritage Site, anyway?
The Unesco World Heritage Committee, elected by nation states every four years, meets once a year to choose the world’s natural or human-made wonders in the greatest need of protection. Any country is eligible to send in a list of nominees for protection. Each site must meet at least one of 10 criteria, among them:
• represent a “masterpiece of human creative genius”
• be “an important interchange of human values”
• “bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to civilisation” past or present
• be an outstanding example of a type of building or settlement which illustrates a significant stage in human history
• “contain superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance”
• be outstanding examples of major stages of Earth’s history or ecological and biological processes in evolution
• house threatened species “of outstanding universal value”
Image via Wikipedia
There are currently 878 world heritage sites which include 678 listed for cultural reasons and 174 lauded as wonders of nature. These include the Great Barrier Reef, the Serengeti Desert, the Pyramids of Giza, the Statue of Liberty, the Great Wall of China, Mount Kenya, Edinburgh’s Old and New Towns, Hadrian’s Wall, Stonehenge, Memphis and its Necropolis, Persepolis, the Palace of Westminster, the centre of St Petersburg, the Banaue rice terraces in the Philippines and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station in Mumbai. The country with the biggest number of sites is Italy, which has 43.
EGYPT WORLD HERITAGE SITES
• Abu Mena (1979)
• Cultural site Ancient Thebes with its Necropolis (1979)
• Cultural site Historic Cairo (1979)
• Cultural site Memphis and its Necropolis – the Pyramid Fields from Giza to Dahshur (1979)
• Cultural site Nubian Monuments from Abu Simbel to Philae (1979)
• Cultural site Saint Catherine Area (2002)
• Natural site Wadi Al-Hitan (Whale Valley) (2005)
This year, the committee met in Quebec City, Canada, and added an extra 27 places across the globe to its list of “endangered species”. Among them were more than 100 monumental tombs at Al-Hijr in Saudi Arabia, built by the Nabataean people between the first century BC and AD100. Another was the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Mexico, where one billion butterflies overwinter each year. The committee also added the island of Surtsey, which appeared 20 miles south of Iceland as a result of volcanic eruptions between 1963 and 1967, and is a pristine natural laboratory for the study of plant and animal colonisation.
Does it help to have World Heritage status?
Yes…
• It brings extra funds to poor countries to help conserve places of universal value
• It draws attention to the world’s most neglected treasures and places of historic interest or natural beauty
• It can save places from total destruction by natural or human forces
No…
• It brings in floods of extra tourists whose footprint can do more harm than good
• It can have the effect of preserving a living place in aspic and stifling innovation
• It can undermine a country’s right to make decisions about its own heritage
Source: Paul Vallely for The Independent
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Mystery of the screaming mummy
Some academics believe that Man E, as the screaming mummy is named, is the body of an Hittite prince summoned to Egypt by Tutankhamen’s widow Ankhesenamen, who did not bear heirs to the throne of Egypt. Others that he was an Egyptian governor who had died abroad and been returned to his homeland for burial. According to this report, the mummy belongs to Prince Pentewere, elder son of Ramses III, who, with his mother, Tiy, had evolved a plan to assassinate the pharaoh and ascend to the throne.
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On a scorching hot day at the end of June 1886, Gaston Maspero, head of the Egyptian Antiquities Service, was unwrapping the mummies of the 40 kings and queens found a few years earlier in an astonishing hidden cache near the Valley of the Kings.
There, wrapped in a sheep or goatskin - a ritually unclean object for ancient Egyptians - lay the body of a young man, his face locked in an eternal blood-curdling scream. It was a spine-tingling sight, and one that posed even more troubling questions: here was a mummy, carefully preserved, yet caught in the moment of death in apparently excrutiating pain.
He had been buried in exalted company, yet been left without an inscription, ensuring he would be consigned to eternal damnation, as the ancient Egyptians believed identity was the key to entering the afterlife. Moreover, his hands and feet had been so tightly bound that marks still remained on the bones.
Who could he be, this screaming man, assigned the anonymous label ‘Man E’ in the absence of a proper name?
Today, nearly 130 years after his body was first uncovered, a team of scientists has brought the wonders of modern forensic techniques to bear on the enigma.
Using sophisticated-technology, including CT scanning, Xraysand facial reconstruction, to examine the mummy, they uncovered tantalising new clues that could reveal his identity, all under the watchful eye of Five’s TV crew, who are making a series of documentaries hoping to unravel some of Egypt’s great secrets.
Their findings suggest that Man E is indeed Prince Pentewere, elder son of Rameses III, who, with his mother, Tiy, had evolved a plan to assassinate the pharaoh and ascend to the throne.
Excerpted from an article by Kathryn Night for Mail Online
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