Wasabi Isn't Just For Sushi: It is an Innovative Solution for Preserving Ancient Papyrus
A new natural technique for cleaning and preserving priceless ancient Egyptian papyrus that are in danger from bacteria and fungi has been discovered by researchers. This new technique employs wasabi – yes, the pungent green paste accompanying your sushi – to combat the relentless threat of fungal damage on these precious historical documents.
The study, led by Hanadi Saada and her team, investigated the effectiveness of wasabi vapors in eliminating microbial growth that deteriorates papyrus artifacts, which have historical and cultural significance, particularly in ancient Egypt.
The techniques used up until now to clean and sanitize the papyri presented certain difficulties. Chemicals were employed that, while effectively eliminating microbes, sometimes damaged the papyrus fiber or altered the pigments of the illustrations. Other physical methods, such as ultraviolet rays or heat, did not always ensure the complete removal of biological agents without causing collateral damage. This is where wasabi comes into play.
The Grand Egyptian Museum's team has devised a 'green' solution that promises to protect these ancient texts without jeopardizing their integrity by generating vapors from wasabi paste.
Scientists simulated microbiological contamination on samples of papyrus with different pigments, including red, yellow, and blue.
In this experiment, treatment with wasabi vapors for 72 hours eradicated microbial growth in both painted and non-painted papyrus samples with a 100% inhibition efficiency. Notably, the treatment improved the tensile strength of the papyri by 26% without causing any noticeable change to the color or surface morphology of the artifacts. Furthermore, FT-IR and EDX analyses indicated negligible chemical changes, underscoring the non-invasive nature of the treatment.
In addition to providing a safer, more environmentally friendly option for preserving archaeological papyri, this cutting-edge technique guarantees the longevity of these priceless relics without sacrificing their integrity. The results of the study point to a dramatic shift in favor of environmentally friendly conservation techniques and highlight the significance of sustainable methods for the preservation of cultural heritage and archaeology.
The results of this study could have an impact on preservation methods for a variety of organic archaeological materials, going beyond papyri conservation. The archaeological community is keeping a close eye on the research in the hopes that this environmentally friendly solution will usher in a new era for the preservation of our world's cultural heritage.
100 years later: Will Egypt repatriate Nefertiti's bust from Germany?
By Inas Ramadan
Source: Al Mayadeen
27 Feb 2024 11:34
After Germany forged documents to take Nefertiti's bust, will Egypt succeed in repatriating it? And what of the renovation of the pyramids?
"A Beautiful Woman Has Come" is what Queen Nefertiti's name means, one of Ancient Egypt's most renowned queens and alledgedly the most beautiful queen to grace the world; however, that queen is thousands of miles away from home after she was taken from Egypt's Tell el-Amarna to Germany over 100 years ago.
100 years outside of Egypt
The bust of Nefertiti, wife of King Akhenaten, was unearthed in 1912 by a German archaeological expedition in the Minya Governorate of Egypt. The expedition was led by Ludwig Borchardt and funded by German national James Simon, the president of the German Oriental Society at the time.
Borchardt hid the bust at the time of its discovery from the Egyptian expedition, before forging its records during the division of the archeological finds so that Germany could acquire it.
Over the course of more than 100 years, successive Egyptian governments have demanded the return of the bust. Still, all attempts have failed, sometimes for political reasons and other times due to the intransigence of the German side.
However, Egyptologist Monica Hanna, who hails from Nefertiti's birthplace, reinstigated the quest to repatriate the bust, looking for documents dating back over 100 years that are expected to prove Egypt's right to regain it, which she documented in a doctoral dissertation she worked on since 2018 and published in theInternational Journal of Cultural Propertyin December 2023.
Why Nefertiti's bust?
Although the movement for the restitution of antiquities has been active since the 1970s, in the last ten years, Egyptians have become aware that more than 30% of their antiquities were smuggled to Europe and the US. Some of these pieces are sold at public auctions, and one of those precious pieces is the bust of Nefertiti.
In an interview forAl Mayadeen,Hanna says that she chose to research the restitution of the bust of Nefertiti because she considered it a symbol of Egyptian women, and that the belle should return to her country after being taken through fraud and deception. Egypt has been attempting to recover the statue since the 1920s, and there is an archive of documented and verified correspondence with several parties that Egypt keeps in the National Archives. Hanna dug through these documents, bringing them to light, and demanding the Egyptian antique once again.
The Egyptology professor believes that the restitution of the bust of Nefertiti would create a precedent that would enable Egypt to recover the remainder of its antiquities later. She sees that her doctoral dissertation "will change the narrative about the bust of Nefertiti, that of it being legally present in Germany," as claimed by Friederike Seyfried, director of the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, where the bust of the ancient Egyptian queen is currently located.
Repatriation to cause a headache
Hanna has documents that prove the correspondence between the director of the British Museum and the British ambassador in Berlin in the 1920s to stop and obstruct negotiations with Egypt and hinder the recovery of the bust of Nefertiti. This is because retrieving the bust would pave the way for Egypt to demand the restitution of all their antiquities, including the Rosetta Stone, which has been in the British Museum since 1802, and other antiquities acquired by the British after Napoleon's defeat.
The bust of Nefertiti was smuggled out by Borchardt when he hid it from the committee tasked with the division of the archeological finds, and claimed it was an unimportant statue of a princess from Tell el-Amarna made of gypsum. Despite the change in the political circumstances over the past century in Egypt and Europe, the colonial mentality, according to Monica Hanna, persists, as the former colonial power still refuses to return the bust. This remains the case despite Egypt's demands and threats to cease German excavations and declassify the correspondence related to the bust of Nefertiti exchanged between the Egyptian government and the Allied forces after Germany lost the war.
However, all these attempts were met with failure.
Different parties demand bust's return
The demands for the repatriation of the bust of Nefertiti did not stop, but what re-opened the old wound was the January 2011 revolution, when a campaign titled "Nefertiti Travels" came to be in 2012, launched by German cultural associations which handed out posters with a picture of the bust and the sentence "return to sender" written on them.
Former archaeologist and Egyptian Antiquities Minister Zahi Hawass believes the bust was stolen from Egypt because Borchardt forged the documents, as there was a law that stipulated that any royal piece of limestone may not leave Egypt. Therefore, the German scholar claimed the piece was made of gypsum, and then proceeded to hide it in his house for 10 years.
Hawass repeatedly the return of the bust of Nefertiti, so much so that in 2005 he asked UNESCO to return it, then in 2007 he threatened to ban Egyptian antiquities exhibitions in Germany if Berlin did not lend the bust of Nefertiti to Egypt, but to no avail. Hawass then renewed his demand again in 2012 so that Egypt would have the bust when the new Egyptian museum was opened near the Giza pyramids.
Although nothing could force the German side to return the statue, Monica Hanna believes that German public opinion, which has recently changed, especially among the young generation, may weigh in on this issue.
She also said Egypt would make political and diplomatic efforts in the near future, based on her dissertation, to pressure Germany and demand the repatriation of the bust.
Hanna believes that the efforts made by the public in Egypt and even in Germany will immensely help repatriate the head of the Egyptian queen, as diplomatic efforts alone are not enough.
Despite the effort that Hanna made in her dissertation, which was published on the website of the University of Cambridge, she believes one key issue that may hinder the return of the statue is the unstable political conditions in Egypt and the Arab world. Despite the fact that Egypt has had more powerful governments in the past 70 years, Germany, at the time, played a pivotal role in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Are the pyramids being tiled or renovated?
Just as Egyptian antiquities abroad receive attention, those in Egypt do, too. Egypt's pyramid hold a prestigious position, not only because they are one of the Wonders of the World, but also because they are a distinctive cultural and civilizational landmark that indicates the ancient Egyptians' skill in building, constructing, engineering, and more. But recently, and without prior warning, Egyptians were surprised by a government announcement of a new project to restore the Pyramid of Menkaure. The project was described by Hanna as "tiling the pyramid" or "encasing it".
Hanna did not see the significance of this project, especially since its prospects are not based on any scientific studies, and archaeologists have not been consulted about its feasibility.
Hanna argues there is no benefit to be expected from it, as there is nothing wrong with the pyramid's current state. However, she hopes that the discussion that took place on the issue will be the beginning of new legislation limiting the Ministry of Antiquities' authority to do whatever it pleases with Egyptian archeological artifacts without consulting with specialists.
Recently, the Egyptian government temporarily suspended work on the pyramid restoration project, pending a decision by a specialized committee that includes Egyptian and foreign archaeologists that will issue a report on whether or not to proceed with the project.
Call for Applications: Sixth Annual ARCE-NC Eugene Cruz-Uribe Memorial Student Grant
The Board of Directors of the Northern California Chapter of the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE-NC) is offering one grant of $1,500 to a qualified undergraduate or graduate student during the 2023-24 academic year.
Deadline for applications is Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024. The recipient will be recognized at the ARCE Northern California chapter's March meeting.
Applicants must either be enrolled at a Northern California college or university (Monterey to the Oregon border) or come from a hometown within that area. They must be pursuing a degree that incorporates Egyptian anthropology, archaeology, art, history, museum studies or language, or Coptic or Arabic studies in any period. Proof of enrollment may be required.
Past applicants for our chapter's student grants who have not yet received an award are encouraged to re-apply.
The grant honors a beloved chapter member, the late Professor Eugene Cruz-Uribe, an Egyptologist specializing in the Greco-Roman period who died following a bicycle accident in 2018. A recently retired professor of history at Indiana University East at the time of his death, Prof. Cruz-Uribe taught at California State University, Monterey Bay from 2007 to 2013.
To apply, send a CV and a brief (under 400 words) description of how you will use the grant to ARCENorCal@gmail.com.
This ancient diary reveals how Egyptians built the Great Pyramids
The Pyramids of Giza are an architectural feat, and long thought a mystery. But the Red Sea Scrolls give an unprecedented look at who built the ancient wonder.
Arid conditions at the Wadi al-Jarf site in Egypt helped preserve the ancient Merer papyri, which were discovered there by a French-led team of archaeologists.
With thanks to Pierre Tallet/Archaeological Mission to Wadi al-Jarf
ByJosé Miguel Parra
Published February 22, 2024
Located on the Egyptian coast of the Red Sea, Wadi al-Jarf is a quiet, unassuming place today. Dry desert sands and placid blue water stretch out as far as the eye can see; across the water one can spy the Sinai Peninsula. This seeming tranquility masks the busy hub it once was more than 4,000 years ago. Wadi al-Jarf's historical importance was cemented in 2013 when 30 papyri, the world's oldest, were found hidden away in manmade limestone caves there.
Aside from their age, the so-called Red Sea Scrolls are remarkable for their contents. Not only do they reveal Wadial-Jarf's distant past as a bustling port, they also contain eyewitness accounts of a man named Merer who took part in the building of the Great Pyramid of Pharaoh Khufu.
The Wadi al-Jarf site was first discovered in 1823 by an English traveler and antiquarian, John Gardner Wilkinson, who believed its ruins to be a Greco-Roman necropolis. Then, in the 1950s, two archaeology-loving French pilots, François Bissey and René Chabot-Morisseau, stumbled upon the site again. They suggested that it had once been a center for metal production. But the 1956 Suez crisis delayed further investigation.
It wasn't until 2008 that work at the site resumed. French Egyptologist Pierre Tallet led a series of excavations that definitively identified Wadi al-Jarf as an important port that dated back some 4,500 years to the reign of Khufu and the building of the Great Pyramid. Tallet's teams revealed that Wadi al-Jarf was a vibrant economic hub at the center of the trade in materials used to build the pyramids, some 150 miles away. Supporting the archaeology was the landmark find of Merer's diary among the papyri.
The Wadi al-Jarf site consists of several different areas, spread over several miles between the Nile and the Red Sea. From the direction of the Nile, the first area, about three miles from the coast, contains some 30 large limestone chambers used for storage. It was in these caves that the papyri were discovered.
Continuing east toward the sea for another 500 yards, a series of camps appears, and after those, a large stone building divided into 13 parallel sections. Archaeologists surmised that the building was used as a residence. Finally, on the coast is the harbor itself with dwellings and more storage spaces. Using pottery and inscriptions found at the site, archaeologists have been able to date the harbor complex to Egypt's 4th dynasty, some 4,500 years ago. They believe the harbor was inaugurated in the time of Pharaoh Sneferu and abandoned around the end of his son Khufu's reign. It was active for a short period, but during that time the port was devoted to building Khufu's tomb, known then as Akhet-Khufu, meaning "Horizon of Khufu."
Along with the papyri, many other important archaeological finds there have revealed the importance of the port. Large structures, like the 600-foot-long stone jetty, show deep material investment in the area. Tallet and his team uncovered some 130 anchors, whose presence implies a busy harbor.
From the harbor, called "The Bush" by the ancient Egyptians, the pharaoh's ships would sail across the Red Sea to the copper-rich Sinai Peninsula. Copper was the hardest metal then available, and the Egyptians needed it to cut the stones for their pharaoh's massive pyramid. When Egyptian ships returned to port, they were loaded with copper. Between voyages, the ships were stored in the limestone chambers.
After the Wadi al-Jarf harbor was decommissioned around Khufu's death, records show that a team was sent from Giza to close the storage spaces carved into the limestone. They were known as the Escort Team of "the Uraeus of Khufu Is Its Prow," which most likely refers to a ship bearing the Uraeus (protective cobra) on its prow. During the process of blocking up the limestone caves, Merer's now obsolete papyrus documents likely became lodged among the stone blocks.
They remained in the desert air for some four and a half millennia until their discovery during an excavation by Tallet in 2013. The first batch of Red Sea Scrolls was found on March 24 that year near the entrance to the storage space designated G2. The second and largest set of documents was found 10 days later, wedged between blocks in storage space G1.
There are several types of documents among the Red Sea Scrolls, but the writings of Merer caused the most excitement. The leader of a working party, Merer kept records of its activities in his diary. It is a daily record of the work his team carried out over a three-month period during the construction of the Great Pyramid.
Merer's team consisted of some 200 workers who traveled across Egypt and were responsible for carrying out all tasks related to the construction of the Great Pyramid. Among the most interesting were the limestone blocks used for the pyramid's cladding. Merer recorded in great detail how the team retrieved them from the quarries of Tura and brought them by boat to Giza.
Merer's men would load the limestone blocks onto boats, transport them up the Nile, and watch when they were tallied in an administrative area before being taken to Giza. A fragment from the diary records the three-day journey from the quarry to the pyramid's site:
Day 25: Inspector Merer spends the day with his za [team] hauling stones in south Tura; spends the night in south Tura. Day 26: Inspector Merer sets sail with his za from south Tura, laden with stone blocks, to Akhet-Khufu [the Great Pyramid]; spends the night in She-Khufu [administrative area with storage space for the ashlars, just before Giza]. Day 27: Embark at She-Khufu, sail to Akhet-Khufu laden with stones, spend the night at Akhet-Khufu.
The next day, Merer and his workers returned to the quarry to pick up a new shipment of stones:
Day 28: Set sail from Akhet-Khufu in the morning; navigate up the river towards south Tura. Day 29: Inspector Merer spends the day with his za hauling stones in south Tura; spends the night in south Tura. Day 30: Inspector Merer spends the day with his za hauling stones in south Tura; spends the night in south Tura.
Merer's diary even gives a glimpse of one of the pyramid's architects. Ankhhaf, Khufu's half brother, held the position of "head of all the king's works." One of the papyrus fragments states: "Day 24: Inspector Merer spends the day with his za hauling [text missing] with people in elite positions, aper-teams, and the noble Ankh-haf, director of Ro-She Khufu."
A 3D model made by Rebekah Miracle based on a topographical reconstruction by Mark Lehner.
Materials used to build the Great Pyramid came from all over Egypt: limestone from the Tura quarries near Cairo, basalt from Fayyum, granite from Aswan, and copper from the Sinai Peninsula. In order to transport these materials swiftly and smoothly, artificial waterways were built at Giza so that goods could travel by boat as much as possible. The waterways flooded in the summer, and included "The Mouth of the Lake of Khufu," which was an access to two inner lakes close to the pyramid construction site; the "Lake of Khufu" opposite the main site; and "The Lake of the Horizon of Khufu," a smaller body of water that probably served smaller vessels. For further convenience, a quarry for the stone blocks used in the inner structure was built near the pyramid site.
Working men
Merer also carefully kept track of how his crew was paid. Since there was no currency in pharaonic Egypt, salary payments were made generally in measures of grain. There was a basic unit, the "ration," and the worker received more or less according to their category on the administrative ladder. According to the papyri, the workers' basic diet was hedj (leavened bread), pesem (flat bread), various meats, dates, honey, and legumes, all washed down with beer.
It has been long accepted that a large labor force built the Great Pyramid, but historians have long debated the status of this workforce. Many have argued that the workers must have been enslaved, but the Red Sea Scrolls contradict this notion. Merer's detailed payment records demonstrate that those who built the pyramids were skilled workers who received compensation for their services.
There is something even more extraordinary in the lines of the frail papyri. In the words of Merer, there is a firsthand account of a person who not only witnessed the building of the pyramids but whose team was also a crucial part of the everyday business of getting the job done. Because of this discovery, Egyptologists have a detailed (and somewhat prosaic) snapshot of the final stages of the Great Pyramid's construction.
This 2,200-year-old slab bears the world's first mention of leap year
Evidence dating back to 238 B.C. shows that ancient Egyptians recognized the need for a leap year to correct the slow drift of the seasons.
A detail of a 3rd-century B.C. copy of the Canopus Decree written in Egyptian hieroglyphs and Demotic script, with an ancient Greek translation beneath. It provides the world's first record of a leap year.
Photograph by G. Dagli Orti, NPL - DeA Picture Library/ Bridgeman Images
ByIndi Bains
Published February 21, 2024
Every four years we add an extra day to the calendar to account for the solar year being roughly 365 and a quarter days, rather than 365. But how long has the leap year actually been around for? At least 2,262 years, according to a spectacular find from the Egyptian desert.
The Tanis Stele is a limestone slab (stele) more than seven feet tall and nearly three feet wide that was discovered in 1866 by a group of German scholars visiting the site of the ancient Egyptian city of Tanis in the Nile Delta. Like the more-famous Rosetta Stone, it bears an inscription in two languages, Egyptian (written in both hieroglyphs and Demotic script) and ancient Greek. The inscription, dated to 238 B.C., records a decree of pharaoh Ptolemy III that follows the standard of the time, including praise for the pharaoh, a description of military campaigns, and the stipulation that a copy of the decree should be erected in every major temple.
What is entirely original about this decree—known as the Canopus Decree for the ancient Egyptian city it was issued in—are its instructions regarding the calendar:
"And so that the seasons should always correspond to the established order of the universe, and that it should not happen that some of the public festivals which take place in winter are celebrated in summer, as the sun changes by one day in the course of four years… (it was resolved) to add from now onwards one festival day in honor of the gods…every four years to the five additional days, before the new year, so that all may now know that the former defect in the arrangement of the seasons…"
Why we need a leap year
The first references to a 365-day calendar, which specify a year of twelve 30-day months and 5 epagomenal days ('monthless days' added to the calendar to make it approximately equal to the solar year) are found in the records of Egypt's Fourth and Fifth Dynasties around 2600 B.C., according to Adrienn Almàsy-Martin, an Egyptologist at the University of Oxford. The inaccuracy this introduces is sufficient to cause a slow drift of the seasons through the calendar.
The ancient Egyptians noticed a celestial coincidence that occurred annually at the same time as the flooding of the Nile—the appearance of Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. In the same way that some constellations are not visible all year, Sirius was not visible to the ancient Egyptians for the same 70 contiguous days of every year because it was too close to the sun. Annually after this absence, Sirius would reappear on the eastern horizon in the dawn sky, rising close to and just before the sun—a phenomenon known as "heliacal rising."
Egyptian civilization depended upon the Nile floods to bring the rich silt that fertilized its farmlands. The reappearance of Sirius, linked as it was to the crucial Nile inundation, and which also occurred at the summer solstice, was keenly observed, and heralded the beginning of the ancient Egyptian new year. By measuring the elapsed time between each annual heliacal rising of Sirius, astronomers eventually realized the solar year was a quarter-day longer than 365 days. While this realization likely happened earlier in history, the Canopus Decree of 238 B.C. is our earliest recorded evidence for the leap year.
Multiple copies of the Canopus Decree would have existed in ancient times, according to Almàsy-Martin, and six complete or fragmented versions of the decree have survived to this day. The two best-preserved examples—from Tanis in 1866 and the site of Kom el-Hisn, in 1881—are in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. While they were discovered after the decipherment of the Rosetta Stone in 1822, the better-preserved examples of the Canopus Decree feature a greater number of hieroglyphs and their study ended all remaining doubt about the Rosetta's decipherment. For this reason, their inscription is considered second only to the Rosetta's in significance for understanding ancient Egyptian.
We know Ptolemy III's directive in the Canopus Decree to add an additional day to the calendar every four years was ultimately unsuccessful, but not when or why his directions were ignored. It is possible the priests controlling the calendar didn't want to change their traditions, or perhaps they thought the drift of the seasons through the calendar was unnoticeable within a typical 40-year lifetime.
What we do know is that when the Romans annexed Egypt in 30 B.C., the Egyptians were again using a 365-day calendar, and by 22 B.C—a few years after the Egyptian-inspired Julian calendar had been implemented in Rome—Emperor Augustus had reintroduced the leap day back to the Egyptians.
Historical towers in Egypt's Saladin Citadel open to visitors after restoration
Source: Xinhua
Editor: huaxia
2024-02-19 04:35:00
People visit a restored tower at the Saladin Citadel in Cairo, Egypt, Feb. 18, 2024. Two towers at the Saladin Citadel, one of Cairo's most famous landmarks, opened to the public on Sunday after restoration. (Xinhua/Sui Xiankai)
CAIRO, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- Two towers at the Saladin Citadel, one of Cairo's most famous landmarks, opened to the public on Sunday after restoration.
Egyptian Tourism and Antiquities Minister Ahmed Issa said at the inauguration ceremony that the opening of the Ramla and Al-Haddad towers, together with other newly opened attractions, would extend the time of a tour at the citadel from one hour to three hours and contribute to increasing the number of nights spent by visitors in Cairo by one, according to a statement released by the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.
Mustafa Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the two towers would be added to the citadel's itinerary and visitors could access them with the citadel's entry ticket.
He said the restoration works included cleaning and replacing stones, maintaining stone stairs and floors, building walls for safety and protecting shrines.
The Ramla Tower stands 20.8 meters tall, and the Al-Haddad Tower is one of the largest towers of the citadel, which was built by Salah El-Din in 1176 and served as the seat of power for most of Egypt's rulers for 700 years. ■
People visit a restored tower at the Saladin Citadel in Cairo, Egypt, Feb. 18, 2024. Two towers at the Saladin Citadel, one of Cairo's most famous landmarks, opened to the public on Sunday after restoration. (Xinhua/Sui Xiankai)
People visit a restored tower at the Saladin Citadel in Cairo, Egypt, Feb. 18, 2024. Two towers at the Saladin Citadel, one of Cairo's most famous landmarks, opened to the public on Sunday after restoration. (Xinhua/Sui Xiankai)
This photo taken on Feb. 18, 2024 shows the two restored towers at the Saladin Citadel in Cairo, Egypt. Two towers at the Saladin Citadel, one of Cairo's most famous landmarks, opened to the public on Sunday after restoration. (Xinhua/Sui Xiankai)
Call for Applications: Sixth Annual ARCE-NC Eugene Cruz-Uribe Memorial Student Grant
The Board of Directors of the Northern California Chapter of the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE-NC) is offering one grant of $1,500 to a qualified undergraduate or graduate student during the 2023-24 academic year.
Deadline for applications is Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024. The recipient will be recognized at the ARCE Northern California chapter's March meeting.
Applicants must either be enrolled at a Northern California college or university (Monterey to the Oregon border) or come from a hometown within that area. They must be pursuing a degree that incorporates Egyptian anthropology, archaeology, art, history, museum studies or language, or Coptic or Arabic studies in any period. Proof of enrollment may be required.
Past applicants for our chapter's student grants who have not yet received an award are encouraged to re-apply.
The grant honors a beloved chapter member, the late Professor Eugene Cruz-Uribe, an Egyptologist specializing in the Greco-Roman period who died following a bicycle accident in 2018. A recently retired professor of history at Indiana University East at the time of his death, Prof. Cruz-Uribe taught at California State University, Monterey Bay from 2007 to 2013.
To apply, send a CV and a brief (under 400 words) description of how you will use the grant to ARCENorCal@gmail.com.