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The second phase of Madinet Madi development project in Fayoum will be inaugurated Sunday with the opening of its visitor center. This new project aims to preserve the monuments and make it a more tourist friendly destination.

Madinet Madi is one of the most important archaeological sites in the Fayoum region. It was founded during the reigns of Amenemhat III (c 1981-1952 BC) and Amenemhat IV (c 1814-1805 BC) of the 12th Dynasty (c 1981-1802 BC). It contains the ruins of the only Middle Kingdom (c 2030-1802 BC) temple in Egypt. This temple was dedicated to the cobra-headed goddess, Renenutet, and the crocodile-headed god, Sobek of Scedet, patron god of the region and its capitol, Scedet. During the Ptolemaic period (332-30 BC), the temple was enlarged and the city enhanced.

Since 1978, the University of Pisa has carried out exploration work at Medinet Madi. Ten Coptic churches dating to the 5th-7th centuries AD have been discovered, as have a Ptolemaic temple dedicated to two crocodiles and a Roman period fortified camp dating to the reign of Diocletian (284-305 AD).

Excerpted from an article by Nevine El-Aref for Ahram Online

The temple features a long avenue lined with sphinxes and lions, plus an incubation room for hatching the eggs of sacred crocodiles. They were mummified and sold to pilgrims.

Sobek was one of the most important gods of ancient Egypt. He’s generally pictured with the body of a man and the head of a crocodile. He’s said to have created the Earth when he laid eggs in the primordial waters, and the Nile is supposed to be his sweat. He’s the god of the Nile, the Fayum, and of course crocodiles.

In ancient times the Nile and the lush wetlands of the Fayum were full of crocodiles. The people prayed to Sobek to appease them. Because he was a fierce god, he was one of the patrons of the ancient Egyptian army.

The temple is also dedicated to the cobra-headed goddess Renenutet, who in some traditions was Sobek’s wife. Despite her appearance, she was a much kinder deity than Sobek, a sort of mother goddess who nursed babies and gave them their magical True Name. Farmers liked her because cobras ate the rats that would eat their crops.

This week, Italian and Egyptian excavators under the direction of Mario Capasso, from Università del Salento, were busy brushing the sand off a large collection of 150 roman ostraca engraved with demotic text. Each ostracon is inscribed with the name of a priest who served in the Soknopaios Nesos Temple in Fayum.

The newly discovered ostraca were originally kept in a storeroom situated in a courtyard in front of the temple.

Further studies on the newly discovered ostraca will reveal more of the site’s history and religious aspects. Soknopaiou Nesos is a very important site for the understanding of Greco-Roman society in Egypt because of its excellent state of preservation and the amount of papyri and other inscribed material found at the site.

Civilization at the site reached its peak during the first and second century AD.

Ahram Online

On October 14, 2010 the SCA will hold a conference entitled: Medinet Madi: The Past, the Present and the Future –Shedding Light on the Scientific Work in the Archaeological Site of Medinet Madi at the Ahmed Pasha Kamel Hall at the Supreme Council of Antiquities. The event will be hosted by the Supreme Council of Antiquities, the Italian Embassy and the UTL Office in Cairo. Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities and Vice Minister of Culture, and HE Claudio Pacifico, Ambassador of Italy, will give opening speeches.

This conference is being organized under the ISSEMM Project (Institutional Support to Supreme Council of Antiquities for Environmental Monitoring and Management of the Cultural Heritage Sites).

The ruins of Medinet Madi contain a considerable number of monuments, including the only temple of the Middle Kingdom – with texts and engraved scenes – still remaining in Egypt.

Medinet Madi was founded in the Middle Kingdom as an agricultural village called Dja. The temple was constructed during the reigns of Amenemaht III and Amenemaht IV, and was dedicated to the cobra goddess, Renenutet, and the crocodile god “Sobek of Scedet” – patron of the entire region and the capitol, Scedet. During the Ptolemaic period, Dja became known as Narmouthis, a Greek name meaning “the city of Renenutet-Hermouthis.” Its temple flourished and more monuments were built north and south of the 12th Dynasty temple.

Medinet Madi saw intense settlement during the Coptic period and life continued on the site into the 9th century. The Arabs called it Medinet Madi “the city of the past” and this is the name that still identifies the archaeological site today.

drhawass.com

“Faces”, a group exhibition gathering 76 artists at the Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum’s Horizon One Gallery in Giza, takes as its theme the human face, each artist giving his or her point of view in depicting Egyptian faces.

Featuring some of the most important names in modern and contemporary Egyptian art, the exhibition brings together work by artists such as Gamil Shafiq, Samir Fouad, Mustafa El-Razzaz, Mohamed Abla, Adel El-Sewi, Farghali Abdel-Hafez and sculptors Abdel-Hadi El-Weshahi and Adam Henein. Among the younger artists represented are Haitham Nawwar, Fatema Abdel-Rahman, Hend Adnan and Nadine Hammam and sculptors Essam Darwish, Hassan Kamel and Hani Faisal.

Ancient Egyptian portraitists were admired for their craftsmanship and technique, one famous example being the portrait bust of Queen Nefertiti.

An important chapter in the history of portraiture in Egypt unfolded after the discovery of the Fayoum portraits, which were painted during the first to third century AD in Egypt. With their direct, full gaze and strong presence, these portraits bring the inhabitants of Graeco-Roman Egypt before us with compelling intimacy.

Excerpted from an article by Reham El-Adawi for Al-Ahram

The J. Paul Getty Museum recently launched on its Web site The Mummification Process, a cutting-edge animation that illustrates virtually the ancient Egyptian embalming process.

With a running time of 2:43, the feature uses the Roman Egyptian Mummy of Herakleides (100-150 A.D.) as its subject. CT (computerized thermography) scans of the Mummy of Herakleides were employed in the creation of the Getty’s sophisticated animation.

Herakleides’ portrait is characteristic of those produced in Roman Egypt’s Fayum region.

Art Museum Journal

The “Louvre – DNP Museum Lab” is a joint project, begun by the musée du Louvre and Dai Nippon Printing (DNP) in 2006, which seeks to offer new approaches to artworks. Three portraits of women from Roman-Egyptian antiquity (2nd century A.D.) will be on show for the final presentation in the first phase of this project. Alongside original works, multimedia mediation using digital information and communication technology will allow viewers to discover the specific features of these paintings, as well as of the portrait art developed by Egyptian artisans in the 2nd century A.D. at a time when three civilizations were coming together. The insights provided will enable visitors to gain an in-depth understanding of the works exhibited.

The artworks that are displayed in this presentation are Ancient Egyptian portraits created in the 2nd century A.D. during the period of Roman domination. They belong to a group commonly known as “Fayum portraits”. Painted on wood during the models’ lifetimes, they were fixed to their mummies when they died. Around a thousand images of this type are known to exist to date, found buried among grave goods and protected by Egypt’s dry climate; today they are among the oldest known examples of portraits painted on wood using the encaustic* technique. These works, the fruit of a hybridization of Egyptian funerary rites, the Greek technique of encaustic painting, and the Roman tradition of realistic portraits, reflect the cultural blend prevalent in Egypt at the time. Among the three works on display, the portrait known as “L’Européenne” is one of the major artworks in the Louvre’s collection in the quality of its execution and the beauty of the woman’s features.

artdaily.org

On April 9, Russian archeologists announced the uncovering of a number of mummies wearing golden masks, as well as other artifacts of historical value during excavations at the Deir Al-Banat necropolis.

On April 13, the SCA reported a discovery by Egyptian archaeologists of a necropolis containing dozens of brightly painted mummies dating back to the 22nd Dynasty (931 to 725 BC).

It is unclear whether the Egyptian and Russian announcements are two discoveries or one.

“The mission found dozens of mummies in 53 rock-hewn tombs dating to the Middle Kingdom” from 2061-1786 BC, Zahi Hawass told AFP.

“Four of the mummies date back to the 22nd Dynasty (931 to 725 BC) and are considered some of the most beautiful mummies found,” he said.

The linen-wrapped mummies are painted in the still-bright traditional ancient Egyptian colours of turquoise, terracotta and gold.

The necropolis was uncovered near the Ilahun pyramid in Fayoum oasis south of Cairo.

AFP

The Deir Al-Banat necropolis contains burial sites from three periods of Egyptian history – Ancient Egypt, Roman Egypt and Christian Egypt. Apart from traditional Egyptian mummies, scientists have also found several so-called Fayoum mummy portraits from the Roman Egyptian period, realistic portraits of a deceased person made on a piece of wood and attached to a mummy.

Alexei Krol, deputy chief of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Egyptology center pointed out that several findings made at the necropolis challenged the existing theory, based on early Christian literature, that pagans and Christians in Egypt had a long and bitter feud at the dawn of the religion.

RIA Novosti