Statues of Akhenaten at Karnak
In 1925, two colossal statues of Akhenaten were discovered in an unpromising area outside the eastern enclosure wall of Karnak Temple. Since then, many more have been found.
Ancient Egypt
The Egyptian Book of the Dead
REVIEW BY ANDREW FULTON This volume is part of a series of books of ancient texts that Amber Books are publishing in hardback using traditional Chinese bookbinding methods that were first developed in the Ming Dynasty. The results are impressive…
Contemporary Art and the Display of Ancient Egypt
REVIEW BY HILARY FORREST This thoroughly researched book contains a wealth of material, and covers the frequently discussed question of how Egyptological displays should be planned and designed, both culturally and ethically. The main focus is on the place of…
The Amarna Letters: The Syro-Levantine Correspondence
REVIEW BY MICHAEL TUNNICLIFFE This important work claims to be the first authoritative edition to combine both transliteration and translation of the Amarna Letters since their publication by Norwegian linguist J A Knudtzon in 1915. The 1992 volume by W…
Getting a Job in Old Kingdom Egypt: Rites of Passage to Promotion
REVIEW BY ROGER FORSHAW Michelle Middleman’s new book presents a well-structured and perceptive exploration of how individuals attained administrative positions during Egypt’s early dynastic era. Focusing primarily on tomb biographies from the Sixth Dynasty, Middleman uses these inscriptions as a…
Brief Histories: Ancient Egypt – Everything you wanted to know but forgot to ask
REVIEW BY HILARY WILSON Any author might be daunted by the ambitious subtitle of the ‘Brief Histories’ format, but Campbell Price has risen to the challenge. In little more than 100 smaller-than-A5 text pages, with only three randomly placed photographic…
The temple of Qasr el-Sagha
Geoffrey Lenox-Smith visits an isolated temple in the desert north of the Fayum.
New Graeco-Roman tombs in Aswan
A joint Egyptian–Italian archaeological mission (University of Milan) has discovered more rock-cut Graeco-Roman tombs in the necropolis surrounding the Aga Khan Mausoleum on Aswan’s West Bank (for previous finds, see AE 144). The most impressive tomb to be found so…
Tell Nabasha
The remains of large multistorey tower houses have been discovered at the ancient Delta city of Imet (modern-day Tell Nabasha) in the eastern Delta by an Egyptian–British team from the Universities of Sadat City (Cairo) and Manchester. Such buildings, which…
More news from Aswan
Three rock-cut tombs from the Old Kingdom, reused during the Middle Kingdom, have been found by the Egyptian team working at the Qubbet el Hawa necropolis opposite Aswan. Two of the tombs have similar features and contained wooden coffins with…
Luxor discoveries
A massive mud-brick enclosure wall has been found near Karnak by an Egyptian team working at Nagaa Abu Asba. Blocks from the wall bear stamps with the name of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty king Menkheperra Necho I (c.672-664 BC). The team…
Karnak developments
A residential settlement dating to the Middle Kingdom has been uncovered at Karnak by an Egyptian–French mission. The ‘city’ is in the south-east corner of the complex, dated to the reign of Nectanebo I (c.380- 362 BC), within its outer…
Restoration work
The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities has completed the conservation of a Roman Period tomb at Athribis (Naga‘a el-Sheikh Hamad, west of Sohag). The brightly painted tomb, consisting of a square antechamber leading to a triangular burial chamber, belonged to…
Coptic building in Asyut
A mud-brick building dating to the 6th to 7th centuries AD has been found by an Egyptian mission at Minqab in Asyut. The two-storey building, which was clad in white mortar, contained a number of Coptic-era murals. One of these…
Gene sequencing
A 4,500-year-old Egyptian skeleton from a rock-cut tomb in Nuwayrat, near Beni Hasan, has provided the first biological evidence for links between ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in the early Old Kingdom. The man’s unusual burial – in a sealed pottery…
Hatshepsut’s statues
A new study by Jun Yi Wong of the University of Toronto suggests that damage to Hatshepsut’s statues may not have been an act of animosity by Thutmose III. The examination of previously unpublished documents shows that many of the…
Alignment and ritual
French researchers using AI to analyse more than 500 intact early graves at the cemetery of Adaïma (8km south of Esna) have revealed an evolution in funerary practices that helped to shape early Egyptian statehood. The earliest First Dynasty burials…
Ancient Egypt news in brief
• UNESCO has removed the Abu Mena archaeological site in Alexandria – an ancient location for Christian pilgrimage – from the World Heritage in Danger List following work to reinforce key structures and the installation of a groundwater management system.…
Hierakonpolis
Julian Maxwell Heath describes the excavation history of the Predynastic ‘City of the Falcon God’ and some of the important discoveries made there.
The Nile Mosaic at Palestrina
Robert R Frost explores Graeco-Roman Egypt through the scenes in a stunning Nilotic mosaic.