Fort Rashid: The find-spot of the Rosetta stone.
Geoffrey Lenox-Smith visits the site where the Rosetta Stone was discovered in 1799.
Islamic & Medieval Egypt
Medieval death on the Nile
Thomas Smith relates the saga of the remarkable crusade on the Nile that came close to reshaping the Near East.
The Fifth Crusade: A History of the Epic Campaign to Conquer Egypt
The medieval Crusades in the Middle East were a series of expeditions from AD 1097 to 1291. The First Crusade had, against the odds, succeeded in capturing Jerusalem and the Holy Land for the Latin Christians in 1099. Holding the…
Roadside caravanserai in North Sinai
Egyptian excavations at the site of another lost city – ‘Asila’ – in northern Sinai have revealed the remains of an Islamic structure thought to be a caravanserai (roadside inn), on the Darb el-Sultani (‘Sultan’s Road’). Also known as the…
Heritage mismanagement
Recent research at several heritage sites in Tanzania suggests that they may
be under threat from the very organisations tasked with protecting them.
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…
Win a copy of Amelia B Edwards: The ‘Queen of Egyptology’ by Carl Graves, published by the Egypt Exploration Society
Where is this? If you know, email the Editor peter@ancientegyptmagazine.com before 30 October with your answer, giving your full name, address, and a contact phone number. One lucky reader will have their name selected at random from all the correct…
Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean World: From Constantinople to Baghdad, 500-1000 CE
REVIEW BY MICHAEL TUNNICLIFFE This series of 15 essays covers the final years of Byzantine control of Egypt, and the first 300 years of Muslim rule: first that of the Umayyads based in Damascus, and then the Abbasids in Baghdad.…
ERC grant awarded to project researching the Nubian metropolis of Tungul
The European Research Council has awarded an ERC Consolidator grant of nearly $2 million to Dr Artur Obłuski, director of the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, University of Warsaw (PCMA UW), for a project exploring the site of Tungul (or…
An archbishop’s apse?
In the latest season of fieldwork this year, a team led by Artur Obłuski, director of the PCMA UW, cleaned the dome of a large tomb and the wall of the church’s apse, revealing paintings with two rows of monumental figures, possibly apostles.
The lost city of al-Qata’i‘
Just decades after it was founded, ibn Tulun’s capital al-Qata’i‘ was razed to the ground. The Great Mosque of ibn Tulun, the oldest mosque in Africa to survive in its original form, still stands in Cairo today, and through its magnificent architecture offers a chance to encounter the former glory of al-Qata’i‘. Nigel Fletcher-Jones is our guide to this lost city.