The Glozel controversy
Janice Kinory looks back on the curious case of the clay tablets from Glozel.
history of archaeology
Crossing to Inis Cealtra
Firsts. I first went to Inis Cealtra – Holy Island in County Clare – with my first girlfriend, Leigh, in 1973. From County Antrim, a northerner, she had an esprit de vie that I always associate, like the constant drizzle,…
Picturing Pompeii
A 19th-century photograph sheds light on a forgotten part of Pompeii, as Janice Kinory describes.
A monumental legacy: Aubrey Burl and The Stone Circles of the British Isles
This year marks a century since the birth of the pioneering prehistorian Aubrey Burl, and the 50th anniversary of the publication of his landmark study The Stone Circles of the British Isles, which is often considered the foundational work on the subject. To reflect these milestones, Neil Mortimer offers an overview of how the book came into being – and the occasionally unconventional approach of its author.
Win a copy of Rewriting the History of the Great Sphinx by Colin D Reader
Where is this? If you know, email the Editor peter@ancientegyptmagazine.com before 30 June with your answer, giving your full name, address, and a contact phone number. One lucky reader’s name will be selected at random from all the correct answers…
Excavating Ancient Egypt: Fifty Years of Archaeological Memories
This is an unusual book that focuses not on excavation results and discoveries (although these are covered), but on life excavating in Egypt. Jeffrey Spencer, who directed many seasons of fieldwork for the British Museum and the Egypt Exploration Society,…
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.
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.
South-east England’s Saxon Shore forts: Excavating the CA archives
Following on from last month’s column, here I continue my survey of the Saxon Shore forts of south-east England: a series of fortifications on both sides of the English Channel thatwere established in the late 3rd century AD to defend Britain against the incursions of Saxon raiders
Colonial Intrigues and My Dismissal as Director of Antiquities: A Memoir of Cyprus in the 1930s
‘Journeys, like artists, are born and not made ’, Lawrence Durrell begins his encomium to Cyprus, Bitter Lemons. For millennia, this Mediterranean island was a staging post to the Middle East; then, in British imperial times, it was close to…
Two months on the Nile: Thomas Sandwith’s Nineteenth-Century Egyptian Journey
Thomas Sandwith was a British diplomat who served as consul in the Levant from 1855 to 1891. This is the second volume in a biography written by historian and former senior British civil servant Stephen Boys Smith, which covers Sandwith’s…
CA 432 Letters – February
Saving literary homes and cooling towers Chris Catling’s piece about threats to literary homes (CA 431) is nothing new to those of us in Derby. In 1906, we lost the birthplace of Joseph Wright ARA (1734-1797) – replaced by a…
Urban jungles
A little urbanism can be a dangerous thing. Sometimes all it takes is a patch. In the modern world, for all its cities, there are still many places where one does not need to travel far to meet landscapes of villages, fields, and farm animals.
Between Two Rivers: ancient Mesopotamia and the birth of history
REVIEW BY TIMOTHY MATNEY The academic world inhabited by Sumerologists and Assyriologists is highly specialised and largely inaccessible for even the hardiest lovers of history. The texts themselves are fragmentary, often pieced together from disparate copies, deliberately anachronistic, and range…
The dragon roars: Wales and Egyptology
Alan B Lloyd acknowledges the huge contribution to Egyptology made by people born in Wales.
Hilary Wilson on…The next best thing
Hilary Wilson explores the preservation of Egypt’s cultural heritage through replicas – the next best thing to visiting the monuments themselves.
Roman towns and cities: St Albans – Excavating the CA archive
To conclude my mini-series on the towns of Roman Britain, I will head to what may be the most famous Romano-British city of all: Verulamium, modern-day St Albans. With much of the city surviving, unexcavated, beneath modern-day park- and farmland, and upstanding elements visible alongside the award-winning museum that was founded by Tessa Verney Wheeler and Mortimer Wheeler in the 1930s .
Expanding frontiers: Celebrating the Mothers of Romano-British studies
The early days of Romano-British research are often thought to have been dominated by male excavators, but many female archaeologists also made vital contributions to the discipline, in spite of social and academic barriers that stood in their way. Tatiana Ivleva and Rebecca Jones highlight some of these heroines of heritage.
Hierakonpolis
Julian Maxwell Heath describes the excavation history of the Predynastic ‘City of the Falcon God’ and some of the important discoveries made there.
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…
Amelia B Edwards: The ‘Queen of Egyptology’
REVIEW BY HILARY FORREST Most Egyptology enthusiasts will be familiar with the name of Amelia B Edwards. This new biography sets out to reveal aspects of her life that have, although sometimes hinted at, hitherto been kept private. As the…
Aquila Dodgson 1829-1919: Collector and polymath
Continuing our occasional series focusing on people who have made a significant contribution to Egyptology, but are often forgotten, Hilary Forrest discusses the life of Aquila Dodgson.
Ashby and Strong: A golden partnership and its end
Dedicated to the memory of Amanda Claridge In 1925, thanks to Winston Churchill, Britain returned to the gold standard; Italy slipped into a dictatorship under Benito Mussolini after a speech to the Chamber of Deputies on 3 January; the USA…
What can ancient skulls tell us?
Rachel Cotton investigates why some early Egyptologists collected skulls, and shows how the analysis of one particular skull can reveal much about the deceased person’s life.
The exultation of discovery
‘The unknown town now had a name… All that day “Naukratis” rang in my mind, and I sprang over the mounds with that splendid exultation of a new discovery, long wished for and well found.’ The prospect of discovering ancient cities, lost for centuries in the depths of jungles or deserts, was part of the original lure (and original sin) of archaeology.
The First Egyptologists
Alan Lloyd considers the motives of certain individuals from antiquity for studying ancient Egypt. Were they Egyptologists?
Women in the Valley of the Kings: The untold story of women Egyptologists in the Gilded Age
REVIEW BY CAROLINE ARBUCKLE MACLEOD As a professional female Egyptologist and archaeologist, I have learned more than perhaps necessary about the so-called ‘Fathers of Egyptology’, including their discoveries, biases, and eating habits. Their stories are of great adventurers, braving the…
Ancient Egypt Letters 144
Your thoughts on issues raised by the magazine.
Flinders Petrie and the discovery of early Egypt
Petrie’s work at Naqada revealed for the first time the prehistoric past of Egypt.
Current Research in Egyptology: Kamal and Erman
Azza Ezzat and Ahmed Mansour highlight the achievements of two prestigious names in the history of Egyptology.
An intrepid lady traveller: Amelia Edwards ventures A Thousand Miles up the Nile in 1873.
Towards the end of the 19th century, when wives were regarded as the property of their husbands and not expected to have a university education or an independent career, several remarkable women emerged as influential in the field of Egyptology.…
X Marks the Spot: The story of archaeology in eight extraordinary discoveries
REVIEW BY AMARA THORNTON Popular histories of archaeology have been published, in one form or another, for centuries. These narratives, at least those produced for European and American readers, frequently lean heavily on adventures and derring-do, thrilling revelations of ancient…
The decipherment of hieroglyphs: A momentous achievement in Egyptology
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 elements, had tantalised explorers and scholars for centuries, their enigmatic…
Oxford Archaeology at 50: Exploring half a century of excavations
With one of the UK’s oldest commercial units recently celebrating its 50th birthday, Carly Hilts spoke to its founding director, Tom Hassall, and current CEO, Ken Welsh, about how the archaeological profession has changed over this period – and what the future might hold for the ways in which we engage with the past.
Excavating the CA archive
Joe Flatman explores over half a century of reports from the past.