An Egyptian mission excavating at Kom el-Khilgan in Dakahlia Governorate has uncovered an ancient necropolis with evidence of use from the Predynastic Period through to the Graeco-Roman era. The earliest burials appear to be Maadi-Buto culture (c.4000-3500 BC), and are…
• An Egyptian mission at the Tell el-Deir site (Damietta Governorate) has uncovered 20 finely carved limestone stela, together with anthropoid pottery coffins, pottery lamps, and funerary amulets. • The hamadryas baboon (Papio hamadryas) and sacred ibis (Threskiornis aethiopicus) may…
An Egyptian mission has documented an unusual funerary practice in a newly discovered tomb at the Tell Quesna necropolis (Menoufia Governorate), in the central Delta. The team discovered several burials with pottery dishes placed beneath the arms and between the…
An Egyptian mission at Marina el-Alamein (the site of the Graeco-Roman city of Leukaspis) has discovered 11 deep rock-cut tombs and 7 limestone surface tombs, many of which are still sealed and well preserved. One of the burials was originally…
Campbell Price describes a small figurine dating to the Middle Kingdom.
REVIEW BY MIRANDA ALDHOUSE-GREEN This monograph examines the important, yet underestimated subject of the magical objects that form part of the archaeological footprint left by Roman Britons. It focuses on – so often neglected – small objects that form a…
Campbell Price describes a statuette in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and considers what it meant to its owner.
The team from the French-Egyptian Centre for the Study of the Temples of Karnak (CFEETK) has uncovered a large collection of gold jewellery and amulets, which was in a broken pot. The treasure, found during recent excavations at Karnak, is…
Thirteen mummies with golden tongues in their mouths have been discovered at el-Bahansa (Minya) by the Oxyrhynchus Archaeological Mission, a joint Spanish–Egyptian team led by the Institute of Ancient Near East Studies of the University of Barcelona. The mummies were…
A small white marble head of a Ptolemaic princess or queen has been discovered in a foundation deposit at the Taposiris Magna Temple by an Egyptian–Dominican mission. The team believes the queen, shown with a ‘melon’ hairstyle and wearing a…
An Egyptian mission has discovered a military fort at Tell el-Abqain (Beheira Governorate), in the north-west Delta. The fort was a key military outpost on the western military road, an area prone to attack by Libyan tribes, and later the…
Sixty-three burials dating to the Twenty-sixth Dynasty have been discovered by the Egyptian mission working at Tell el-Deir cemetery in New Damietta. Inside the simple graves and mud-brick tombs, the team found fragments of gold, amulets, and shabtis, as well…
Ancient Egypt owed many debts to the creatures that lived in and beside the Nile. Both wild and domesticated animals offered an abundance of food, raw materials, and inspiration. But just as animals helped shape ancient Egypt, so too humans had an impact on the species roaming the Nile valley, as Gina Criscenzo-Laycock and Juliet Spedding told Matthew Symonds.
Retired obstetrician W Benson Harer Jr explores the role of a special magic talisman in protecting pregnant women in ancient Egypt.
What was the purpose of this small disc of cartonnage, now in the British Museum? Dr Campbell Price explains.
What was the origin of the ankh hieroglyph and what did it mean to the ancient Egyptians?
A series of elegant female figurines, the subject of ongoing research, had been wrongly identified in the past as ‘brides of the dead’. W Benson Harer Jr proposes a new theory to explain their purpose.
REVIEW BY CAMPBELL PRICE The book’s introduction sets the scene by briefly describing the find, with a chronological sketch of the archaeological landscape of Saqqara the subject of the first chapter. The caching phenomenon – the deliberate gathering and deposition…
The American-Egyptian South Abydos Project team has completed the restoration of the Tetisheri Pyramid, the last such structure to be built for an Egyptian queen. It was erected as a memorial to the queen by her grandson Ahmose I, founder…
Finds included canopic jar stoppers, cartonnage fragments, and several woven baskets.
Many of the amulets are made of gold, including a golden tongue inside the mouth
What is it? This 2,100-year-old piece of bronze sheet cut into the shape of a life-size right hand has been dubbed the ‘Hand of Irulegi’, after the site in Spain where it was found. The hand is 143mm tall, 128mm…
The thin gold tongue-plates were placed in the mouth to help the deceased transform into a divine being in the afterlife.
The burials contained bodies that were covered with thin gold foils in the shapes of Isis, Bastet, and other deities.
The British Museum recently held a preview of their next exhibition, which is set to explore perceptions and depictions of women in mythology throughout history, across the globe. Carly Hilts reports on the upcoming displays, which will open next month.
A team of scientists have used CT (computed tomography) scans to ‘unwrap’ Amenhotep I digitally and learn more about the mummy and its contents.
A multidisciplinary project that uses a wide range of techniques to study ancient Egyptian mummies is shedding new light on the secrets hidden beneath their wrappings, as Marzena Oz.arek-Szilke, Marcin Jaworski, Wojciech Ejsmond, and Stanisl´aw Szilke explain.
Tests indicate that the woman was between 20 and 30 years old and was 26-28 weeks pregnant at the time of death.
As well as the coffins, which date to the Late Period (525-332 BC) and Ptolemaic Dynasty (323-30 BC), Egyptian archaeologists found shabtis, amulets, four gilded funerary masks, and 40 statues of Ptah Sokar, a prominent god of Saqqara.
As well as the coffins, archaeologists also unearthed 28 statues of Ptah Sokar, the main god of the Saqqara necropolis...
Last December, a metal-detectorist discovered this cast of a socketed axehead near Boynton in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Made of copper-alloy, it is perfectly complete but has been made in miniature, measuring only 23.9mm long. While it was probably…