A nightmare dig among the secrets of archaeologists

A golden horde of attackers disguised behind the masks of ancient Egypt’s gods and goddesses…

”Divine gate-crashers at a dinner party of the world’s top Egyptologists aboard a luxury Nile cruise boat…

Suddenly a rich US entrepreneur and sponsor of archaeology, Thompson Rush, finds himself facing an intervention – an ancient Egyptian style judgement… or is it a reckoning for all of Egyptology?

Who are the invaders? Criminals? Fundamentalist ideologues? Neo-pagans? Some secret masonic-style conspirators with ancient Egypt and the mystery religions as their inspiration?

And what is the secret discovery that the masked interrogators are so desperate to unearth, ‘a golden monument to stand in its glory beside the sphinx and the pyramid’? Could the revelation have consequences for all of humanity?

Anson Hunter, rogue Egyptologist, must go on a nightmare dig at gunpoint. A ‘black ops’ style dig in search of Egypt’s lost treasures… a lost pyramid pinpointed by satellite… a second Great Sphinx in the underworld… and a cataclysmic revelation for all of humankind. He must try desperately to save a boatload of souls, including his friends, the glamorous Egyptologist Dr Melinda Skilling, the young high-tech Space Archaeologist Dr Katy Parkinson and the mysterious collector known as The Diplomat.

Fourth story in the Anson Hunter series, ‘The Anubis Intervention’, crackles with the mystery of the numinous – and with high tension.

A taut, fast moving mystery adventure with a startling twist, it brings nightmare echoes of the ancient Egyptian underworld to life today.

New on Amazon Kindle. It follows The Smiting Texts, The Hathor Holocaust and The Ibis Apocalypse

The Animal Mummy Database is a searchable database of Ancient Egyptian animal mummies. Animal mummies were created by the millions during the Late-Roman Periods in Egypt, mostly to be used as votive offerings at temples of gods associated with those animals. Some were extravagantly made with decorations and colorful wrappings to be sold at high prices at the temples.

During early excavations in Egypt, many animal mummies were dug up and discarded. Very few examples were saved and sent to museums. This has resulted in only a small sampling of these objects being studied. Animal mummies, however, provide important insight into the lives and religion of Ancient Egyptians during a crucial point in their history and deserve to be studied in-depth.

The site was created as a resource for both scholars and the interested public in the hopes that it may become a collaborative project to help gather information on animal mummies.

http://www.animalmummies.net/

Napoleon took 167 scholars with him when he invaded Egypt in 1798. He was there to undermine British global power by establishing a French colonial presence.

The 167 scholars were not there as a publicity stunt. They included architects, mathematicians, civil engineers, writers, artists and printers. Napoleon ordered them to discover the remains of ancient Egypt, which he called the “cradle of the science and art of all humanity”.

Nelson wrecked Napoleon’s military plans in Egypt, but the scholars did produce their Description.

The French team journeyed to all the great archaeological sites of Egypt and made the first precise studies of them. This book is a monument to human curiosity and reason. Out of it came a new understanding of the legacy of one of the world’s most charismatic civilizations. Yet the French also studied the modern Egypt of their time, the natural history of the Nile, the Islamic architecture of Cairo, even agricultural techniques and industries.

Excerpted from an article by Jonathan Jones for The Guardian

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High-resolution images of the famed Amarna letters, the ancient 14th-century B.C. diplomatic correspondence between the New Kingdom pharaohs of Egypt and the kings of various Canannnite city-states, among others, have been placed online by Berlin’s Vorderasiatisches Museum, which houses more than 200 of the total of over 300 tablets that define the ancient corpus.

Among the images are those representing letters written by Abdi-Heba, king of Canaanite Jerusalem, to the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten. In that correspondence the Canaanite king, allied with Egypt, requests the Pharaoh to send troops to Jerusalem for the defense of the city against other threatening Canaanite kings. In other correspondence, King Biridiya of Megiddo complains about the King of Gezer’s attacks on his territory and attempts to improve his status with the Pharaoh. Although these events are but a small portion of the variety of issues and events presented through the ancient writings, they have represented a tantalizing window on the political affairs and times of 14th-century rulers in the ancient Middle East.

The letters, consisting of baked clay cuneiform tablets written primarily in Akkadian (the language of diplomacy for this period), were initially discovered in 1887 in the ruins of Tell el-Amarna (ancient Akhetaten, the capital city founded by the “heretic” Pharaoh Akhenaten), by local Egyptians who secretly dug and then sold them on the antiquities market. The first controlled excavation of the site by archaeologist William Matthew Flinders Petrie in 1891–92 recovered 21 more fragments. Later, additional tablets or tablet fragments were recovered from various sources. The Amarna letters are now scattered among museums in Cairo, the United States, and Europe, although the majority of them are in the possession of the Vorderasiatisches Museum. Spanning a correspondence period of fifteen to thirty years, the tablets have been dated to the period between about 1388 to 1332 B.C.E., which included the reigns of Amenhotep III, Akhenaten, and the first year or two of Tutankhamun’s reign. Dating is still a matter of some scholarly debate.

Popular Archaeology

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The catalogue will contain the complete body of the 13,000 surviving objects from British Egyptologist Flinders Petrie’s early excavations at Naukratis. A wide variety of artefacts were found, including painted Greek pottery, Greek Cypriot and Phoenician transport amphorae, stone sculptures, terracotta figurines, faience scarabs and amulets, coins, jewellery, alabaster vases, coins, iron tools and bronze figurines.

The artefacts will be published as a British Museum Online searchable database catalogue. It will not only list every artefact, but will also analyze the site’s history, archaeology and influence in the development of Greek-Egyptian relations.

The British Museum is also cataloguing another 16,000 Egyptian artefacts from Petrie’s excavations that are now part of the museum’s collection.

Ahram Online

The museum’s collection is “basically public domain,” said Dylan Kinnett, manager of web and social media at the Walters. “Something like this would be less likely at a museum with contemporary art, where the artist is still alive or the estate is still active.”

The free online accessibility, which complements the Walters’ free admission policy, allows viewers to see works spanning several eras, from ancient Egypt and the Americas to 18th- and 19th-century Europe. Objects from Asian and Islamic cultures are also included. Many of the downloadable art works are not currently on display at the museum.

The Baltimore Sun

• Reveals how to create meaning from one’s life experiences and manifest new destinies through spiritual writing

• Contains meditations and creative writing exercises exploring sacred themes in the Egyptian Book of the Dead and other hieroglyphic texts of ancient Egypt

• Shares transformative and inspiring pieces written by those who’ve attended the authors’ Egyptian sacred tours

Within each of us is a story, a sacred story that needs to be told, of our heroic efforts and of our losses. The scribes of ancient Egypt devoted their lives to the writing of sacred stories. These technicians of the sacred were masters of hieroglyphic thinking, or heka–the proper words, in the proper sequence, with the proper intonation and the proper intent. Learning heka provided scribes with the power to invoke and create worlds through their words and thoughts. To the writer, heka is a magical way to create meaning from experience. Through heka we manifest new visions and new relationships to ourselves and to others. We can make new art filled with beauty and light.

Invoking the Scribes of Ancient Egypt: The Initiatory Path of Spiritual Journaling

The site is looking for new contributors interested in writing and/or adding photographs.

The home page links to a general history of the organization and its current structure and divisions.

The website features lists of sites, museums and exhibitions overseen by the SCA, all accompanied by their respective rules and permissions. A page for the SCA Store names all the publications and artifact replicas available for sale at the SCA headquarters in Zamalek, Cairo. The SCA also sponsors a series of Monday-night lectures, information for which can be found in Lectures and Events. Future events will be posted on the “SCA Events” page as they are scheduled.

Breaking News section – features current and archived columns by Dr. Hawass and provides a link to the SCA Press Office archives

Monthly Column – Dr. Hawass’ highlights of his recent work

Media Resources – PDFs outlining filming and photography regulations for media professionals

Press Office’s page – housed under Media Resources includes current and archived press releases of discoveries, initiatives, and conferences in which the SCA has been involved

Foreign Mission Resources – titles of current and recent projects undertaken by foreign excavators or heritage professionals, with the members of each project listed below the project title

Download Forms page – SCA regulations, application, security form and ASAE publication guidelines

Finally, Recovering Stolen Treasures outlines one of the most concerted initiatives of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in the post-imperial era, reintroducing into Egypt’s possession the thousands of artifacts taken illegally out of the country.

Visit the SCA website at http://www.sca-egypt.org/