‘Wonderful things,’ indeed

Wide fascination with ancient Egypt has long history, specialist says

By Alvin Powell, Harvard Staff Writer

Britain’s Lord Carnarvon asked famed archaeologist Howard Carter what he saw as he first peered into King Tut’s tomb.

“Wonderful things,” Carter supposedly replied.

Carter would eventually catalog thousands of objects from the tomb of Tutankhamun, the boy king, including some of archaeology’s most recognizable artifacts. The 1922 find sparked a craze for all things ancient Egypt, but that was just the latest wave of “Egyptomania” to wash over the world, according to Bob Brier, a Long Island University senior research fellow and Egyptologist with a particular expertise in mummies.

The phenomenon started in force more than 200 years ago, Brier says, with Napoleon Bonaparte’s 1798 invasion of Egypt, where he defeated a Mamluk army in a battle fought near Cairo, within sight of the pyramids. French rule of the country wouldn’t last long, collapsing after British Admiral Horatio Nelson destroyed the French fleet days later in the Battle of the Nile.

But Napoleon did not go away empty-handed. His gains included the records of more than 100 artists, engineers, and scientists who, as the fighting raged, collected, drew, and documented the natural and manmade wonders of Egypt. The publication of their work in France fed a curiosity that hasn’t faded. According to Brier, it flows largely from three spheres of interest: mummies, the mystery of hieroglyphics, and the allure of a lost civilization, epitomized by Carter’s discovery of Tut’s tomb.

Nefertiti as sensual goddess

Lecturer details research suggesting more complex role for Egyptian queen

By Valerie Vande Panne, Harvard Correspondent

In history, the Egyptian Queen Nefertiti is depicted as a powerful, independent woman. Her bust, on display at the Neues Museum in Berlin, is one of the most reproduced works of ancient Egypt.

But Jacquelyn Williamson, visiting lecturer on women’s studies and Near Eastern studies and women’s studies in religion program research associate at Harvard Divinity School (HDS), suggests that Nefertiti wasn’t quite who people imagine she was, and eventually was revered as something of a sex goddess.

Nefertiti is “often represented as a powerful and independent figure,” said Williamson, and has a “reputation as being a uniquely strong queen.”

“I expected images of her smiting the heads of the enemies of Egypt, an act usually reserved for the king,” said Williamson, who has identified a temple that she believes was the queen’s. “She is shown in the tombs of the elite at Amarna at a natural height to the king.”

Amenhotep IV became king when Egypt was wealthy and its empire was strong, covering territory from as far north as Syria to as far south as Sudan. He worshipped the sun god Re, whose visible manifestation in the daytime sky was known as the Aten. He gave this god prominence. When Amenhotep took the throne, he became Akhenaten, or “one who is effective for the Aten.”

Naukratis: Ancient Greeks in Egypt

How did ancient Egypt shape the development of Greek culture? What was the impact of the encounter with Greece on Egypt? How did these completely different cultures interact? These questions have been asked for more than a century. Excavations at the ancient city of Naukratis have been a key source of evidence for providing new answers.

Naukratis was situated on the Canopic branch of the Nile between the Mediterranean Sea and the city of Memphis. Greeks began to trade and settle here in the latter part of the seventh century BC, and it became the earliest Greek settlement in Egypt. Here, Greeks lived in close contact with Egyptians for centuries, long before the establishment of Alexandria. Naukratis became a gateway for trade and exchange between Egypt and the peoples of the Mediterranean.

History of Naukratis

According to the Classical Greek historian Herodotus, in the mid-sixth century BC the Egyptian Pharaoh Amasis gave the town of Naukratis to Greeks from 12 different cities to live in, including land where non-resident traders could erect sanctuaries. However, archaeology attests the site’s existence already under Pharaoh Psammetichus (Psamtek) I, from at least 620 BC. Furthermore, Naukratis was not just a Greek but also an Egyptian town.

Naukratis was frequented by traders from many Greek cities as well, no doubt, as by Phoenicians and Cypriots; it became famous for its elaborate symposia (dining parties) and beautiful hetairai (courtesans). Naukratis functioned as the main trading port in the Western Nile Delta until the foundation of Alexandria, and continued to be significant also throughout the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Officers (prostatai) appointed by the nine founding cities of the Hellenion administered the emporion (Greek trading post) at least from the time of Amasis. Imports into Egypt included wine, oil, and silver, and exports from Egypt included grain, flax, natron, papyrus, perfume and other semi-luxuries.

The queen and the sculptor

Egyptologist thinks he has found tomb of artist who created famed bust of Nefertiti

By Corydon Ireland, Harvard Staff Writer

For those of us aging fast, it is nice to know that one the most beautiful faces in the world is more than 3,300 years old.

That face is on the bust of Queen Nefertiti, the wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten, whose reign in Egypt spanned 1353–1336 BCE. This famous artifact, 44 pounds and life-size, has a layer of painted gypsum stucco over a full-featured limestone core. It was discovered a century ago in the ruins of an ancient artist’s studio in Amarna, south of Cairo. First made public in 1924, it fast became an icon of feminine beauty.

A slender, smooth neck gives way to skin the color of golden sand. Then come full, red lips; a dramatic, sloping nose; almond eyes; and arching, dark eyebrows. Above the face is a colorful, back-sweeping, cylindrical crown. It’s a lot for the eye to take in, especially since the work was likely just an artist’s model, and never intended for display.

Found scattered through the same studio were 22 plaster casts of faces. Some depict older women with every wrinkle and sag, an artistic anomaly in a culture that stylized women as slender and beautiful. (Nefertiti’s image beneath the stucco, recent CT scans show, was more realistic: a woman with lesser cheekbones, wrinkled cheeks, and a bump on the nose.)

But the world sees just the surface. The face “is part of our culture,” said French Egyptologist Alain Zivie in a Harvard lecture last Thursday, “like a picture of Che Guevara or Einstein or the Mona Lisa in Paris.”

Uncovered: Ritual public drunkenness and sex in ancient Egypt

By Melissa Healy April 29, 2013

I'll bet you that archaeologist Betsy Bryan's perspective on reality-show behavior is a little longer than most. Since 2001, Bryan has led the excavation of the temple complex of the Egyptian goddess Mut in modern-day Luxor, the site of the city of Thebes in ancient Egypt. And the ritual she has uncovered, which centers on binge drinking, thumping music and orgiastic public sex, probably makes "Jersey Shore" look pretty tame.

At least it was thought to serve a greater societal purpose.

Bryan, a specialist in the art, ritual and social hierarchy of Egypt's New Kingdom (roughly 1600 to 1000 BC),  has painstakingly pieced together the details of the Festivals of Drunkenness, which took place in homes, at temples and in makeshift desert shrines throughout ancient Egypt at least once and, in some places (including at the Temple of Mut), twice a year.

Bryan, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, presents her work in the second of a four-part lecture series tonight, under the auspices of the California Museum of Ancient Art. Under the title "Magic, Ritual and Healing in Ancient Egypt," Bryan's lecture (7:30 p.m. at Piness Auditorium inside Wilshire Boulevard Temple, 3663 Wilshire Blvd.) outlines the meaning and the mechanics of the Drunkenness Festivals.

Lectures Three and Four, on May 13 and 21, will feature two other acclaimed Egyptologists: Francesco Tiradritti of the University of Enna, Italy, and Dr. Benson Harer, past president of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Tiradritti will lecture on Isis, Osiris' wife, and her magical powers. Dr. Harer will lecture on women's health concerns in ancient Egypt.

Before her lecture Monday, Bryan chatted with the Los Angeles Times about these widely observed rituals.

The drama of Ancient Egypt’s 19th dynasty

by Thoraia Abou Bakr  /   April 4, 2013

Lecture explores the drama of Ancient Egypt’s New Kingdom and the convoluted schemes for the throne


Most people are aware of Ancient Egypt’s rich, compelling history and culture, but have no knowledge of the period’s fascinating political dramas. On Tuesday 2 April, Dr Aidan Dodson gave a lecture at the American University in Cairo on the royal family after the death of Ramses II. Therein lies a drama worthy of an Emmy and better than any soap opera.

Dr Dodson points out that before the 19th Dynasty little focus was put on members of the royal family other than the king and queen. Even their offspring did not appear on tomb and temple carvings. However, starting from the 19th Dynasty, Ramses II appeared with his sons in battle on the walls of Beit-Al-Wali.

After the death of Ramses II, his thirteenth son Merneptah ruled briefly, as all his elder brothers had died. He was followed by his son Seti II, who reportedly had two wives, Takhat and Twosret, whom he married before being overthrown.  It was then that particularly intense competition over the throne began. The competition was between Seti II and Amenmesse, believed to be the son of Merneptah and Takhat.

The only existing statue, a bust of Amenmesse, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The rest of the statue is believed to be at Karnak. The name of Takhat is engraved on it, accompanied by a symbol of a vulture, meaning mother. It is believed that Amenmesse was the viceroy of Nubia. The symbol was then altered to read “wife” when Seti II reinstated himself as king.

Dimensions of ancient Egypt

Karnak project a cutting-edge approach to antiquity


By Aaron Lester
Harvard Correspondent
Friday, March 8, 2013


The Temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak isn’t the most famous ancient site in Egypt — that honor goes to the Pyramids at Giza — but newly developed reconstructions using 3-D virtual reality modeling make clear its architectural importance and rich history.

Elaine Sullivan, a visiting assistant professor, worked with her colleagues from the University of California, Los Angeles, to digitize 100 years of analyses and excavation records to create an interactive historical document of the architectural phases of the Karnak temple.

Sullivan presented her work Wednesday in a Science Center lecture titled “The Temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak: 2000 Years of Rituals and Renovations in 3-D.”

“You can’t go back in time,” Sullivan said. “You can’t remove monuments that are still standing. But we can simulate it. We can reconstruct the objects and buildings that have been completely lost or destroyed to history.”

The Amun-Ra temple, which was active for more than 1,500 years, is a mega-temple, Sullivan said. “It was so extensive, and was added to by so many different kings, that it provides us with examples of structures not normally seen in every other temple in Egypt.”

Archeologist Reeves Reveals Tutankhamun’s Last Secret

by Philippa Kiraly on October 3, 2012

Revelations: Tutankhamun’s famous death mask wasn’t really his. It just got co-opted from someone else after the boy king died unexpectedly. Same with many of the artefacts in his tomb.

This was the thrust, then carefully proved—as best one can after 3,000 years—by archeologist Nicholas Reeves, Ph.D., Tuesday night at Town Hall. Titled Tutankhamun’s Last Secret, this was the first of a series of seven in the Ancient Egypt Distinguished Speakers Lecture Series presented this fall atTown Hall by the Pacific Science Center in conjunction with its ongoing exhibition Tutankhamun, The Golden King and the Great Pharoahs (through January 6, 2013).

Dr Reeves is associate curator in the Department of Egyptian Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The content of his hour-long lecture was so absorbing and the slides so fascinating that his unemphatic delivery and his reading of his lecture didn’t matter much.

Reeves put Tutankhamun’s tomb into context by describing the discovery by Howard Carter, his team, and his patron, the Earl of Caernarvon, on Sunday November 26, 1922, after years of dedicated and enthusiastic tomb exploration in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings had failed to find anything new which had not already been vandalized by tomb robbers over the past millenia. This tomb had never been found, as was shown by the unbroken seals on the entrance.

Tutankhamun was a shortlived pharoah who died in his teens. The puzzle is that his tomb is small, just four rooms, but in it was found a multitude of every item a king could need on his funerary journey, much of it sublime works of art in gold.

Reeves showed some of these, but zeroed in on the gold death mask, a gorgeous item which weighs in at ten-plus kilos. Pointing out that just before Tutankhamun’s reign it had recently been turbulent times in Egypt, and that the king had apparently died suddenly, he described some of the discrepancies in the mask. The gold of the surrounding headpiece is better quality than that of the face. The blue stripes in the head piece are glass, in the face (such as the eyebrows) the blue is lapis lazuli. The entire mask is made up of eight pieces riveted together and maybe it was originally built for a woman, maybe Nefertiti, as decided by tiny holes for earrings which had been covered up with gold leaf, with just the face replaced with Tut’s. Nefertiti’s tomb has never been found.

It’s history and mystery together, with science playing an increasing role in deciphering the mysteries.

Reeves’ talk ended with question time and in each answer he brought out more fascinating details. The last question came from a small boy, who wanted to know how the brain got removed in embalming. Reeves informed the child and the audience that the Egyptians didn’t consider the brain of any importance or realize it had anything to do with thinking, that to them the heart was the center of every thought. Then he described the messy procedure of how they extracted the brain after death without damaging skull or face.

The audience was not large for this first lecture in the series, but will likely increase as word gets around. They are all on Tuesdays, with three more in October, and after a two-week hiatus, three more in November.

Source: http://thesunbreak.com/2012/10/03/archeologist-reeves-reveals-tutankhamuns-last-secret/

Note: for more info about the lectures check the Agenda section at this site: http://amun-ra-egyptology.blogspot.nl/p/agenda.html

And check out the Video section at this site for another lecture by Nicholas Reeves: http://amun-ra-egyptology.blogspot.nl/p/videos_25.html