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Thursday, December 30, 2021
Northern California ARCE Lecture Jan 9: Living and Dying in Ancient Nubia
Wednesday, December 29, 2021
'Digitally unwrapped' Egyptian mummy was a healthy Pharaoh with 'beautiful teeth' 3,500 years ago | Euronews
'Digitally unwrapped' Egyptian mummy was a healthy Pharaoh with 'beautiful teeth' 3,500 years ago
Egyptian scientists have digitally unwrapped the 3,500-year-old mummy of pharaoh Amenhotep I, finally revealing some of its secrets after the remains of the king were discovered in 1881 in southern Egypt.
The non-invasive research enabled scientists to reveal Amenhotep's face and work out his age and health at the time of his death.
The remains of the pharaoh, who ruled approximately between 1525-1504 BC, were discovered in Deir Al Bahari in 1881 and had remained unwrapped until Egyptologist Zahi Hawass and Cairo University professor Sahar Saleem launched an in-depth study in 2019.
Decorated with flower garlands and a wooden face mask, Amenhotep's mummy was so fragile that archaeologists had never dared to expose the remains before, making it the only royal Egyptian mummy found in the 19th and 20th centuries that was not yet opened for study.
Hawass and Saleem used advanced X-ray technology, computed tomography scans, and digital software to map out the mummy in great detail, without stripping it of any of its strips.
The team also discovered that the king had been the first ruler to be embalmed with his forearms crossed in the so-called Osiris position.
In addition, they found amulets and a girdle festooned with gold beads under the mummy's wrapping.
'A major important discovery'
Talking about the study, Hawass said the findings were a "major important discovery".
"He died at the age of 35. We found the brain inside the mummy, and this has never happened with other mummies. We also discovered that the mummy had been mummified in the manner of Osiris. This is the first time, but all subsequent mummies are in the same position," Hawass revealed.
"It shows how technology could help unravel the secrets of Egypt's past," the famed archaeologist added.
"We started the process with computed tomography-scanning in May 2019, a scanner that you usually use for people, for humans, and we have one in the garden of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The process was to take the mummy from the museum and a few metres to the garden to be CT-scanned for a very short time," Saleem told Euronews.
We got to know his age at death — he was about 35 years old, and we got to know that he was a healthy man. He had beautiful, good teeth.
"The mummy returned back to the museum and I worked on the thousands of images taken by the X-ray. I put them together, processed them, used software to put them in 2D and 3D to be able to digitally remove the mask and all the layers from the king — and we were able to look at the king's face and have more information that had been hidden for more than 3000 years," she explained.
The Cairo University professor revealed that the king, who ruled for 21 years, was a "healthy man", with "beautiful, good teeth".
"We had a look at the way he was mummified and we now know for sure that he was the first king from ancient Egypt to start the 'tendency' of the royal mummification with the arms crossed, also known as 'the manner of Osiris'. He was then followed by other kings. We also know that he is wearing 30 amulets in between the wrappings and inside his body, as well as a golden belt at his lower back," Saleem added.
Thanks to the thousands of images taken by the X-ray, Saleem was able to look at the face of Amenhotep for the first time, and discover that he had an oval face with a narrow chin and even "a little bit of an overbite, which he probably inherited from his father King Ahmose I."
"So to look at the resemblance in the official features of the king and of his father, it's just like knowing the family very well now," she shared.
The respect of the mummy as a person is very important ethically, in our sense.
Leaving the mummy intact while they worked on it was really important for Hawass and Saleem, as the outside environment could have disturbed and destroyed the "inside environment" trapped inside the strips for millennia, had they decided to unwrap the remains.
"This is a very important heritage, and he was a human being, he was a king. The respect of the mummy as a person is very important ethically, in our sense," Saleem revealed.
According to egyptologists, Amenhotep I was the last pharaoh whose brain was not removed from his skull at the time of his mummification.
Researchers were unable to find any injury or disease that could have caused the death of Amenhotep and speculate that he may have died of a heart attack.
Watch the full interview with Cairo University professor Sahar Saleem by clicking on the link at the top of this email.
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IN PHOTOS: Egypt's museums put on show Artefacts of the Month - Museums - Antiquities - Ahram Online
IN PHOTOS: Egypt's museums put on show Artefacts of the Month
Nevine El-Aref , Wednesday 29 Dec 2021
Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities has selected the Artefacts of the Month to be put on display at different museums.
Artefacts of the Month is a poll-based tradition where antiquity enthusiasts select on Facebook their favourite pieces before they are highlighted in a special display in their museum.
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The tradition is meant to raise the awareness of Egyptian and foreigner antiquity aficionados about Egyptian heritage and treasures.
The Museum of Islamic Art selected a Fatimid glass bottle ornamented with geometric decorations.
The Coptic Museum in Old Cairo is displaying the four Gospel Manuscripts of Saints Mark, John, Luca and Matthew. The manuscripts are written in Arabic, showing Jesus sitting between Virgin Mary and Saint Josef with the angels above them.
The National Museum of Alexandria exhibits a Mameluke dinar. On one of its sides are inscribed five lines bearing the name of Qalawoun Al-Salehy; the other "There is no God but God, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God."
The Jewellery Museum puts on show a decorated golden cigarettes box with a locker made of ruby, while the Gayer Anderson Museum displays a wooden backgammon board from the Mameluke era made of wood and ivory and decorated with floral motifs.
The Imhotep Museum exhibits a late-period bronze statue of a standing Anubis. The Cairo International Airport Museums displays a gold broch decorated with precious stones belonging to the Mohamed Aly Family and a clay head from the Graeco-Roman period.
The Helwan Corner Museum put on show a photo of king Farouk, the Military Museum in the Citadel a modern gun made of wood and copper that was once used in calling for help for sea vessels.
The Mummification Museum in Luxor displays a surgical needle to sew the abdominal wounds after the mummification process was completed. The Matrouh Museum exhibits an iron sword with a handle covered with velour on which are written inscriptions in Arabic and Persian.
The Suez and Ismailia National Museum displays a book from the Ottoman Period and a Roman funerary mask for a woman made of limestone.
The Tanta Museum displays a Middle Kingdom ushabti figurine made of wood, while the Tel Basta Museum in Sharqiya displays a Graeco-Roman human-shaped clay lamp. Kafr El-Sheikh Museum exhibits a Coptic icon made of wood with a gold frame showing the bust of Saint Stiliyanos holding a cross in his right hand and a baby in his left hand with a golden aura around his head.
The Kom Oshim Museum in Fayoum displays a limestone statue of Aphrodite coming out of a shell. It goes back to the third century AD.
The Malawi, Sohag, and the New Valley museums are showing, respectively, a Graeco-Roman ostraca with Roman writing in black, a kohl container made of ivory, and a Roman wooden statue of god Osiris wearing a crown of a feather and two corns.
The Sharm El-Sheikh Museum is showing a wooden statue of a cat with black decorations.
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Tuesday, December 28, 2021
Ancient Egypt: Pharaoh’s mummy digitally unwrapped for first time | New Scientist
The mummy of Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep I has been digitally unwrapped
Amenhotep I ruled Egypt from around 1525 to 1504 BC and his pristine mummy has never been unwrapped, but CT scans have now allowed us to peer inside
By Alex Wilkins
One of the last remaining unwrapped royal Egyptian mummies has been scanned in detail for the first time.
Amenhotep I, who ruled Egypt from around 1525 to 1504 BC in an era known as the New Kingdom, was found in 1881 by a French Egyptologist. But the king's mummy was left untouched due to a highly preserved wrapping and ornate face mask. It has remained sealed in its sarcophagus ever since.
Now, Sahar Saleem and Zahi Hawass at the University of Cairo in Egypt have "digitally unwrapped" Amenhotep I's mummy with computed tomography (CT), using hundreds of high resolution X-ray slices to map out the ancient king's skeleton and soft tissue.
"Royal mummies of the New Kingdom were the most well-preserved ancient bodies ever found, so these mummies are considered a time capsule," says Saleem.
"They can tell us about what the ancient kings and queens looked like, their health, ancient diseases, mummification techniques and manufacturing methods of funerary objects."
Amenhotep I's mummy has been examined using simple X-ray scans in the past, but the detailed CT scan reveals several new facts: his bone structure indicates that he was 35 years old and 168.5 centimetres tall when he died.
The study also seems to answer a long-standing mystery: previous scans had revealed that Amenhotep I had been embalmed by Egyptian priests for a second time 300 years after he was first entombed, after graverobbers apparently plundered his coffin. Saleem had theorised that the priests used this occasion to pilfer precious jewels placed on the body and in the bandages for themselves before re-embalming him.
But the plentiful jewellery revealed in the scan reveals that the priests "lovingly" re-embalmed Amenhotep I, according to Saleem. It was because the priests' handiwork was so impressive and the mummy's appearance was so pristine more than 3000 years later that 19th century archaeologists were convinced to leave him permanently unwrapped.
Journal reference: Frontiers in Medicine, DOI: 10.3389/fmed.2021.778498
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Sunday, December 26, 2021
Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities releases the 88th volume of Annals du Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte - Ancient Egypt - Antiquities - Ahram Online
Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities releases the 88th volume of Annals du Service des Antiquités de l'Égypte
Nevine El-Aref , Sunday 26 Dec 2021
Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities released the 88th volume of the Annals du Service des Antiquités de l'Égypte (ASAE), which was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the ministry on Sunday, the volume includes eight reports on work conducted at archaeological sites such as Kom El-Dikka, Elkab and Hagr Edfu, the Avenue of Sphinxes in Luxor, the Mortuary Temples of Thutmose III and Amenhotep III on the West Bank of Luxor, Giza and Heliopolis.
The volume also contains six articles on diverse topics, ranging from religion to philology, art and architecture, in addition to two book reviews.
ASAE 88 is dedicated to the late Egyptologist Attia Radwan, who passed away in 2012 after a long, illustrious career at the Supreme Council of Antiquities.
In 2022 the Ministry will launch two special issues of the ASAE.
The first one will be issued in commemoration of 200 years since the deciphering of the hieroglyphic script and the birth of Egyptology as a science while the other will be issued in celebration of the centennial of the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun.
The ASAE is the definitive source for the findings of archaeological excavations undertaken in Egypt, according to the AUC Press.
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Northern California ARCE's Upcoming Egyptology Lectures
American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE)
Northern California Chapter
Upcoming Lectures
ARCE's Northern California Chapter is pleased to present the following lectures by renowned Egyptologists. Until further notice, all lectures are virtual, at 3 p.m. Pacific Time. Registration instructions will appear in upcoming posts. In normal times, most lectures take place on the University of California Berkeley campus.
Living and Dying in Ancient Nubia
January 9, 2022
Dr. Brenda Baker, Arizona State University
The Human Remains from the First Dynasty Subsidiary Burials at Abydos
February 6, 2022
Dr. Roselyn Campbell, Getty Research Institute
Visions of Ancient Egypt in Athenaeus' Deipnosophistae
March 13, 2022
Dr. Carly Maris, University of San Diego
Making Millions of Pots: How the Cult in Ancient Egypt Met its Demand for Pottery
April 10, 2022
Dr. Meredith Brand, Cal State University San Bernardino
Saturday, December 25, 2021
Northern California ARCE Lecture Jan 9: Living and Dying in Ancient Nubia
The American Research Center in Egypt, Northern California Chapter, and the Near Eastern Studies Department, University of California, Berkeley, invite you to attend a virtual lecture by Dr. Brenda J. Baker, Arizona State University: Living and Dying in Ancient Nubia |
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