Cover Story
The celestial harmonies at Dendera José María Barrera describes the beautifully restored ceiling of the pronaos of the Temple of Hathor at Dendera. Features
A Tawaret talisman for perilous pregnancy Retired obstetrician W Benson Harer Jr explores the role of a special magic talisman in protecting pregnant women in ancient Egypt. 
Rome versus the Egyptian priesthood Sean P Rigby explores Roman influence on the post-pharaonic religious life of Egypt. 
The great of dread in the foreign lands: Tiye, wife of Amenhotep III Robert G Morkot tells us about the life and achievements of one of the most remarkable and influential characters of the New Kingdom. 
Hilary Wilson on… Party Time Just like us, ancient Egyptians enjoyed a good party with plenty of food and drink! 
The modern resurrection of the Kushite kings of Egypt Aidan Dodson explores how the history of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty has been pieced together over the past two centuries, emerging only recently from the racist views of early Egyptology scholars. News
Gold tongues and Isis-Aphrodite Fragments of figurines depicting Isis-Aphrodite, the first to be found at the ancient site of Oxyrhynchus. The Spanish mission that is excavating a series of rock-cut tombs at the ancient… 
Mummy with twins CT-scans of a female mummy from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History have revealed the teenaged girl was pregnant with twins, and she may have died in childbirth. One… 
New finds at Saqqara The Second Dynasty burial recently discovered at Saqqara, with the remains of an adult in crouching position next to the remains of a wooden box. A joint Egyptian-Japanese team working… 
Tiny coins reshape monetary history A study of a collection of previously ignored tiny coins has led to a re-evaluation of Egypt’s monetary history. A study of ‘insignificant’ tiny coins known as nummi minimi has… 
Deprived sacred baboons Baboons played an important role in ancient Egyptian ritual and were considered sacred, but their treatment when alive was poor according to new research from the Royal Belgian Institute of… 
Lost Nubian records Grafton Elliot Smith’s lost recording cards detailing his excavations near Aswan in 1907-1912 have been discovered in an archive at the University of Cambridge, and published as part of a… Views
Ancient Egypt February listings Museum, What's on SCULPTED PORTRAITS FROM ANCIENT EGYPT Sculpted Portraits explores revival and renewal during Egypt’s Twenty-sixth Dynasty, through a series of sculpted portraits of court officials and priests, created for display in… 
Win a copy of The Nubian Pharaohs of Egypt: Their Lives and Afterlives by Aidan Dodson Competitions Do you recognise this place? 
Athribis: The Temple of Ptolemy XII Travel Geoffrey Lenox-Smith explores the ruined Graeco-Roman temple at Athribis in Upper Egypt. 
The false door of Neferiu Objects Dr Campbell Price describes an architectural portal between the realms of the living and the dead. 
The decipherment of hieroglyphs: A momentous achievement in Egyptology The Picture Desk The intricate symbols that adorn Egyptian monuments and papyri stood mute for millennia, their secrets locked away in a forgotten language. Hieroglyphs, with their captivating blend of pictorial and phonetic… Reviews
Ancient Egypt February listings SCULPTED PORTRAITS FROM ANCIENT EGYPT Sculpted Portraits explores revival and renewal during Egypt’s Twenty-sixth Dynasty, through a series of sculpted portraits of court officials and priests, created for display in… Athribis: The Temple of Ptolemy XII Geoffrey Lenox-Smith explores the ruined Graeco-Roman temple at Athribis in Upper Egypt. 
Descendants of a Lesser God: Provincial Power in Old and Middle Kingdom Egypt REVIEW BY HILARY WILSON Histories of ancient Egypt have traditionally been written from a royal perspective, due largely to the availability of source material. This approach underestimates the role of… 
The Nubian Pharaohs of Egypt: Their lives and afterlives REVIEW BY SARAH GRIFFITHS Aidan Dodson’s Lives and Afterlives series continues with the often-neglected Twenty-fifth Dynasty: the Kushite kings who ruled Egypt for nearly a hundred years (c.755-656 BC). Nubia… 
Famine and Feast in Ancient Egypt REVIEW BY ANNA GARNETT The Cambridge Elements: Ancient Egypt series delves into wider Egyptological themes and debates in fresh ways, beyond traditional approaches. Specialist authors collate primary source materials to… 
From the editor
Not all the superstitions of the ancient world are so different from our own. The signs of the zodiac used in newspaper and magazine horoscopes were already familiar to ancient Egyptians. They can be seen in the scenes on the ceiling of the pronaos of the Temple of Hathor at Dendera, captured by José María Barrera in his remarkable photographs, one of which appears on the cover of this issue.
Although we must all be aware of how different our modern multicultural, diverse world is from that in which previous generations lived, it comes as a shock to read the quotations in Aidan Dodson’s article in this issue. Many respected Egyptologists, whose works are still studied as foundation texts, held racist views that are totally abhorrent. As such, their interpretation of the civilisation of ancient Nubia and its interaction with the neighbouring Egyptian civilisation is fatally awed and needs to be re evaluated, especially following more recent discoveries.
Ancient Nubia also features in Robert Morkot’s article about Tiye, Amenhotep III’s principal queen and chief adviser. If she resembled her small statuette now in the Neues Museum in Berlin, she was not a person to be crossed, and probably merited the epithet ‘great of dread of the foreign lands’.
To alleviate the harshness of their lives, ancient Egyptians took every opportunity to have a party, as Hilary Wilson tells us, and believed in the power of magical talismans like the one described by W Benson Harer. Objects like it were in regular use for many centuries, and certainly under Roman rule, despite the reduction in power of the ancient Egyptian priesthood which is catalogued by Sean Rigby.
