AE154

Ancient Egypt April listings

A BESTIARY OF ANCIENT NUBIA A Bestiary of Ancient Nubia reveals the animal world of ancient Nubia from the A-Group culture to the medieval period, including lions, crocodiles, birds, cattle, and insects depicted in statues, paintings, and other artefacts. INSTITUTE…

Rewriting the History of the Great Sphinx

Colin Reader is a geologist by profession, but became fascinated by ancient Egypt, particularly the earliest phases of the civilisation. He has studied the Great Sphinx of Giza for nearly 30 years, applying his professional expertise to all the available…

W A Stewart’s reconstruction of Hetepheres’ furniture

In the last issue, AE 153, Peter Lacovara celebrated the meticulous work of Dows Dunham in excavating the Fourth Dynasty (c.2613-2494 BC) Tomb of Queen Hetepheres I at Giza. In this issue, marking the 100th anniversary of the tomb’s discovery, Geoffrey Killen explains how William Arnold Stewart reconstructed the furniture found in the tomb.

The Temple of Esna restored to splendour

Once hidden beneath layers of soot and bird faeces, the stunningly colourful painted scenes and elaborately carved columns adorning the Temple of Khnum at Esna (Latopolis) can now be seen in all their glory following decades of painstaking work by…

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Ancient Egypt news in brief

• Researchers at the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, have spotted an ancient form of ‘Tipp-Ex’ in a Book of the Dead vignette, where a white fluid was used to make the figure of a jackal slimmer. • An Egyptian-Chinese…

Aswan tombs

A group of rock-cut Old Kingdom tombs has been uncovered by an Egyptian mission working at Qubbet el-Hawa, near Aswan. The tombs contained burial chambers that were reused in the First Intermediate Period and the Middle Kingdom. More than 160…

Oldest bow drill

A joint British-Austrian team has identified Egypt’s oldest known rotary tool. The small metal drill was found at Badari more than 100 years ago, and had attracted little attention until now. The tool, measuring 63mm (2.5in) in length and weighing…

Sinai rock art

A new archaeological site has been declared in South Sinai, at the Umm Arak Plateau – about 5km (3 miles) north-east of the Serabit el-Khadim temple and the copper and turquoise mining areas. An Egyptian mission discovered a large number…

Early ‘smiting’

Another rock inscription at Sinai has recently been interpreted by researchers at the University of Bonn in Germany. The 5,000-year-old inscription at Wadi Khamila, in south-west Sinai, depicts a large man with his arms raised over another figure. The smaller…

Coffin cache at Qurna

A cache of 22 Third Intermediate Period painted coffins containing mummies has been discovered by an Egyptian mission at Qurna, on Luxor’s West Bank. During excavation work in the courtyard of the Tomb of Seneb, a rectangular rock-cut chamber was…

Reassembling Tutankhamun’s Tomb

The discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922 produced one of the most detailed archaeological archives ever created. Daniela Rosenow describes a new digital platform, the Tutankhamun Spatial Archive, developed by the University of Oxford’s Griffith Institute, which brings together this vast body of records, allowing researchers and the public alike to explore the tomb, its contents, and its excavation in entirely new ways.

August Mariette

Our series highlighting often overlooked Egyptologists continues with the legacy of a founder of the discipline, reassessed by Amandine Marshall.