Egypt

An Egyptian presence in Roman York?

A small glass bottle excavated at Tanner Row in York 40 years ago has been identified as a kohl bottle – a type of eye make-up container that was very common in Roman Egypt, but is extremely rare outside this…

Ancient Egypt and the dawn of literature: Revisiting the oldest book in the world

Among the many treasures recovered by archaeologists and antiquarian collectors from Egypt are papyrus copies of a remarkable text written more than 4,000 years ago: The Teaching of Ptahhatp. Bill Manley investigates this often-overlooked survival from ancient Egypt and one vizier’s contributions to the dawn of literature.

Severed hands found in ancient Egyptian palace offer evidence of a ritual custom

The discovery prompted a debate about whether they represented ritual trophy-taking or the amputation of limbs as punishment.

Left The Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza. Seeking to understand how this remarkable monument was constructed has long been a source of scholarly fascination. Here we see the west side of the pyramid, with the Western Cemetery, which contained officials and retainers, visible in the foreground.

Records of the pyramid builders: discovering eye-witness accounts of a legendary construction project

How did Egypt build the pyramids? It is a question that has excited the imagination of scholars and visitors for millennia. Now papyri documenting work on the Great Pyramid are revealing fresh insights into construction work. Pierre Tallet and Mark Lehner told Matthew Symonds how combining text and archaeology can expose the secrets of an extraordinary building project.

World news in brief: finds from Japan, Iraq, and Egypt

A round-up of some of the latest archaeological news from across the globe.

ABOVE This gilded mummy belonging to a woman called Isaious was discovered at Hawara in 1911. The mummy mask’s facial features and hairstyle are reminiscent of Ptolemaic ideals, while other elements of the cartonnage feature traditional Pharaonic iconography, reflecting the multiculturalism present in burial traditions in Egypt at the time.

Golden Mummies of Egypt

An internationally touring exhibition featuring mummies and artefacts from Graeco-Roman Egypt has opened in the UK for the first time at the newly refurbished Manchester Museum. Amy Brunskill visited to find out more.

The Mosaics of Alexandria: pavements of Greek and Roman Egypt

Review by Helen Whitehouse Originally published in French (Mosaïques d’Alexandrie: pavements d’Égypte grecque et romaine, 2019), this handsome volume now appears in an excellent English translation by Colin Clement. Excavations in Alexandria, on land and at sea, over the last…

ABOVE Excavations at Gerza have uncovered new examples of Roman era Fayum portraits in a large funerary building.

World news: discoveries at Fayum and Vulci

A round-up of some of latest archaeology news from around the world.

The Past

Face of Ramesses II reconstructed

3D reconstruction work has enabled researchers to put a face to Rameses II, one of Egpyt's most powerful pharaohs, 3,300 years after his death.

Funerary finds in Fayum

Inside the funerary structure, archaeologists found a number of rock-cut and stone-lined burial chambers containing a variety of burials, ranging from simple interments to examples of high-quality embalming.

ABOVE LEFT A fragment from the tomb of Sety I. When this was first discovered in 1817, it was believed to belong to Psamtek I. Champollion was able to correct this misattribution. ABOVE Casts from Karnak. The hieroglyphs reveal that the image shows Sety I trampling his Libyan foes. LEFT A mid 20th century medal showing Thomas Young.

The power of words: racing to read the lost secrets of Egypt

The beautiful and mysterious signs adorning ancient monuments across Egypt have excited speculation for centuries. The tale of how their meaning was finally rediscovered is just as long, and takes in many twists and turns. Success came 200 years ago, and with it a staggering insight into ancient Egyptian history, as Ilona Regulski told Matthew Symonds.

The Past

Previously unrecorded rituals identified at ancient Egyptian shrine

The remarkable discoveries of headless falcon skeletons and a stele depicting an Egyptian falcon deity have led researchers to dub the temple the 'Falcon Shrine'.

Recreating an ancient Egyptian perfume

Experimental archaeologists have recreated a famous ancient Egyptian perfume known as the Mendesian in a lab, using ingredients mentioned in Classical sources.

Egyptian afterlives: an interview with Salima Ikram

As shown by the excitement surrounding the discovery of Tutankhamun 100 years ago, mummies and Egyptian tombs have an impressive ability to capture our imagination. Richard Marranca speaks to Egyptologist Salima Ikram to find out more about these funerary finds, from early medicinal mummies to recent revelations at Saqqara.

World news in brief: underwater finds in Egypt, Mayan connections, and Pleistocene New Guinea

A look at the latest archaeology stories from across the globe, including a 4th century galley sunk off Egypt, evidence of social links between Mayan cities, and a study of Late Pleistocene husbandry.

Left Two offering bearers in the Chapel of Hatshepsut. The wig of the figure on the left seems to be executed by an apprentice, the wig on the right by a more experienced master.

Charting the creative process in an Egyptian chapel

On the north and south walls of the Chapel at the Temple of Hatshepsut, mirrored reliefs show a procession of figures bringing offerings to the enthroned female pharaoh

Throughout much of history, long term social, economic, and cultural change can be argued to have played a more significant role than individual people or events. Over a million years of prehistory are represented by the long lasting tradition of Acheulean stone tools (ABOVE), while the presence of an elite in ancient Egypt could be seen to

Making a difference?

The wealth produced by Egyptian peasants was spent on warfare, monuments, and luxury. Egyptian artisans were despised as manual labourers. So Egyptian civilisation looked essentially the same in 30 BC as it had done in 3000 BC.

Above A possible cathedral in Adulis, Eritrea. Photogrammetry has been used to create a 3D model of the excavated remains of an important place of worship. Various different architectural and decorative influences can be detected in the structure, emphasising that this port city lies at a key maritime crossroads.

A crossroads between the seas: the origins of early Christianity

Excavations in Eritrea are revealing early Christian sites from the Kingdom of Aksum. What can these places of worship reveal about cultural connections in the 6th century AD? Gabriele Castiglia, Philippe Pergola, Stefano Bertoldi, Marco Ciliberti, Elie Essa Kas Hanna, Božana Maletic´, and Matteo Pola share the secrets of an extraordinary ecclesiastical complex.

Taking a new look at life and death in Giza: how the pyramids built Egypt

The ancient Egyptian necropolis at Giza is one of the most celebrated archaeological sites in the world. Although the iconic pyramids dominating the plateau continue to excite awe and curiosity, these royal tombs are only one aspect of an extraordinary site. A new book reveals how the rich and poor, and the living and dead, rubbed shoulders at Giza, as Mark Lehner and Zahi Hawass told CWA's Matthew Symonds.

The Warsaw Mummy Project

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.

Above Among the discoveries made at Tal Ganoub Qasr al Agouz are several walls with inscriptions of biblical and early Christian texts. left The site is exceptionally well preserved, with many buildings still standing with their walls, and sometimes roofs,

Earliest Christian monastery found in Egypt

Inscriptions were also found on the walls of several buildings, with passages from biblical and early Christian texts written in Greek.

The Past

Graeco-Roman settlement and artefacts unearthed at Alexandria

The most exciting discovery was that of an intricately sculpted and well-preserved alabaster bust of Alexander the Great.

BELOW LEFT Imported Greek ceramics, including the lidded vessel and lamp seen here, were among the funerary offerings found at the burial mound in the city, in use at the end of the 5th / beginning of the 4th century BC.

Ship-shape finds from a sunken city

The newly discovered Ptolemaic galley was found under 5m of dense Nile clay and building remains.

World News

• Glass beads shed light on Pre-Columbian trade
• X-ray of a pregnant mummy
• Constantine the Great reunited with a messing finger

War on Film: The Desert Rats (1953)

The battle scenes are, in the main, well made, especially in showing what it was like for men hiding in dugouts and wadis in the desert under intense artillery-fire.

BELOW An official ban on climbing Uluru, which is a site of great spiritual significance for the Aboriginal people of Australia, was passed in 2017 and came into force in 2019.

Protected places and prehistoric pints

Abydos was not only the earliest brewery and the forerunner of the great royal cemeteries... it was also the birthplace of the funeral wake and possibly too of the mass hangover.

ABOVE The animals represented at the cemetery include both local species and those imported from as far away as India.

Ancient Egyptian animal cemetery

Excavations at an animal burial ground in the Egyptian port of Berenice have uncovered evidence of cats, dogs, and monkeys being kept as pets.

World News: Egypt, China, Eurasia

News touching on CT scans of the mummified remains of Pharaoh Seqenenre-Taa-II (c.1558-1553 BC), a mistake uncovered on 800-year-old wall paintings in a cave in China, and a new theory concerning the domestication of dogs by early humans in Eurasia.

Above A hand drawn and coloured page from Jean François Champollion’s notebooks.

Rosetta Stone: paper, paste, and prepositions

The Rosetta Stone was the key to unlocking the secrets of Egyptian hieroglyphs. The results of Jean-François Champollion’s work on the Stone’s inscription may be well known, but other scholars – with different attitudes towards ancient Egypt – also took up the challenge. Jed Buchwald and Diane Greco Josefowicz examine what forgotten manuscripts can tell us about the decipherment of the ancient scripts. examines what forgotten manuscripts can tell us about the decipherment of the ancient scripts.

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.

CT scanning of the mummy of Pharaoh Seqenenre revealed new information about the head

CT scans reveal a pharaoh’s violent death

Detailed study of the injuries to Seqenenre’s head has indicated that they were caused by several different weapons, suggesting that he was killed by multiple attackers

Penn Museum: a museum for the coming decades

The symbol of the new Penn Museum is in the refurbished main entrance hall. On a prominent podium behind the ticket desks sits the Museum’s celebrated sphinx. Richard Hodges reports.

Nefertari: into the Valley of the Queens

The Great Royal Wife of Ramesses II, Nefertari, was buried in one of the most spectacular tombs of Egypt’s Valley of the Queens. Well-educated and well-travelled, Nefertari played a crucial part in the political life of the pharaoh, and her importance was reflected through her magnificently decorated tomb. Minerva's Lucia Marchini speaks to Jennifer Casler Price to find out more.