By Owen Jarus, Live Science Contributor | July 18, 2016
A logbook that contains records detailing the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza has been put on public display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
The Great Pyramid of Giza was built in honor of the pharaoh Khufu (reign ca. 2551 B.C.-2528 B.C.) and is the largest of the three pyramids constructed on the Giza plateau in Egypt. Considered a "wonder of the world" by ancient writers, the Great Pyramid was 481 feet (146 meters) tall when it was first constructed. Today it stands 455 feet (138 meters) high.
The logbook was written in hieroglyphic letters on pieces of papyri. Its author was an inspector named Merer, who was "in charge of a team of about 200 men," archaeologists Pierre Tallet and Gregory Marouard wrote in an article published in 2014 in the journal Near Eastern Archaeology.
Tallet and Marouard are leaders of an archaeological team from France and Egypt that discovered the logbook at the Red Sea harbor of Wadi al-Jarfin 2013. It dates back about 4,500 years, making it the oldest papyrus document ever discovered in Egypt.
"Over a period of several months, [the logbook] reports — in [the] form of a timetable with two columns per day — many operations related to the construction of the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza and the work at the limestone quarries on the opposite bank of the Nile," Tallet and Marouard wrote.
Showing posts with label Papyri. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Papyri. Show all posts
Thursday, July 21, 2016
Thursday, January 21, 2016
X-Rays Reveal The Secrets of Egyptian Scrolls
By Megan Gannon ON 1/17/16
“Usually, in this area, no visitor gets in,” Verena Lepper tells me on a gray Friday morning in Berlin. She gently closed a set of double doors behind us, careful not to create any vibrations in the walls. We were standing in a room that was white from floor to ceiling, without a single scuff. It felt more like an airlock on a spaceship than a vestibule in the city’s Archaeological Center, completed just four years ago. There, I would sign my third guestbook of the day.
The procedure was not just a German reflex for meticulous record-keeping but also a security policy: Inside was the nation’s largest collection of papyri, among the four largest in the world, two floors crammed with scrolls that were pressed between glass and tucked away in metal drawers. Although academics hesitate to put a price tag on research material they consider priceless, any one of these scraps of paper would sell for thousands of dollars on the antiquities market.
Among the manuscripts was a section of The Ahiqar, a proverb-loaded narrative about a betrayed chancellor of the Assyrian King Sennacherib. The 2,500-year-old text was written in Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, and one of the 15 that Lepper, a curator at the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection in Berlin, knows herself. “Literary studies people claim this is the first novel ever to be written,” she says. But for Lepper what is most interesting about this first copy of The Ahiqar is where it came from: Elephantine Island, a narrow patch of land less than a square mile large in the middle of the Nile River, opposite Aswan in southern Egypt.
The hundreds of documents that have turned up at Elephantine include 10 different languages and range four continuous millennia, from Egypt’s Old Kingdom around 2500 B.C. to the Middle Ages. “I’m not aware of any other place in the world where you have 4,000 years covered by textural resources from one single place,” Lepper says. And yet most of the texts from the island haven’t been studied or published—and many haven’t even been unfurled because they're so delicate.
“Usually, in this area, no visitor gets in,” Verena Lepper tells me on a gray Friday morning in Berlin. She gently closed a set of double doors behind us, careful not to create any vibrations in the walls. We were standing in a room that was white from floor to ceiling, without a single scuff. It felt more like an airlock on a spaceship than a vestibule in the city’s Archaeological Center, completed just four years ago. There, I would sign my third guestbook of the day.
The procedure was not just a German reflex for meticulous record-keeping but also a security policy: Inside was the nation’s largest collection of papyri, among the four largest in the world, two floors crammed with scrolls that were pressed between glass and tucked away in metal drawers. Although academics hesitate to put a price tag on research material they consider priceless, any one of these scraps of paper would sell for thousands of dollars on the antiquities market.
Among the manuscripts was a section of The Ahiqar, a proverb-loaded narrative about a betrayed chancellor of the Assyrian King Sennacherib. The 2,500-year-old text was written in Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, and one of the 15 that Lepper, a curator at the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection in Berlin, knows herself. “Literary studies people claim this is the first novel ever to be written,” she says. But for Lepper what is most interesting about this first copy of The Ahiqar is where it came from: Elephantine Island, a narrow patch of land less than a square mile large in the middle of the Nile River, opposite Aswan in southern Egypt.
The hundreds of documents that have turned up at Elephantine include 10 different languages and range four continuous millennia, from Egypt’s Old Kingdom around 2500 B.C. to the Middle Ages. “I’m not aware of any other place in the world where you have 4,000 years covered by textural resources from one single place,” Lepper says. And yet most of the texts from the island haven’t been studied or published—and many haven’t even been unfurled because they're so delicate.
Thursday, September 24, 2015
The World's Oldest Papyrus and What It Can Tell Us About the Great Pyramids
Ancient Egyptians leveraged a massive shipping, mining and farming economy to propel their civilization forward
By Alexander Stille for SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE
Following notes written by an English traveler in the early 19th century and two French pilots in the 1950s, Pierre Tallet made a stunning discovery: a set of 30 caves honeycombed into limestone hills but sealed up and hidden from view in a remote part of the Egyptian desert, a few miles inland from the Red Sea, far from any city, ancient or modern. During his first digging season, in 2011, he established that the caves had served as a kind of boat storage depot during the fourth dynasty of the Old Kingdom, about 4,600 years ago. Then, in 2013, during his third digging season, he came upon something quite unexpected: entire rolls of papyrus, some a few feet long and still relatively intact, written in hieroglyphics as well as hieratic, the cursive script the ancient Egyptians used for everyday communication. Tallet realized that he was dealing with the oldest known papyri in the world.
Astonishingly, the papyri were written by men who participated in the building of the Great Pyramid, the tomb of the Pharaoh Khufu, the first and largest of the three colossal pyramids at Giza just outside modern Cairo. Among the papyri was the journal of a previously unknown official named Merer, who led a crew of some 200 men who traveled from one end of Egypt to the other picking up and delivering goods of one kind or another. Merer, who accounted for his time in half-day increments, mentions stopping at Tura, a town along the Nile famous for its limestone quarry, filling his boat with stone and taking it up the Nile River to Giza. In fact, Merer mentions reporting to “the noble Ankh-haf,” who was known to be the half-brother of the Pharaoh Khufu and now, for the first time, was definitively identified as overseeing some of the construction of the Great Pyramid. And since the pharaohs used the Tura limestone for the pyramids’ outer casing, and Merer’s journal chronicles the last known year of Khufu’s reign, the entries provide a never-before-seen snapshot of the ancients putting finishing touches on the Great Pyramid.
By Alexander Stille for SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE
Following notes written by an English traveler in the early 19th century and two French pilots in the 1950s, Pierre Tallet made a stunning discovery: a set of 30 caves honeycombed into limestone hills but sealed up and hidden from view in a remote part of the Egyptian desert, a few miles inland from the Red Sea, far from any city, ancient or modern. During his first digging season, in 2011, he established that the caves had served as a kind of boat storage depot during the fourth dynasty of the Old Kingdom, about 4,600 years ago. Then, in 2013, during his third digging season, he came upon something quite unexpected: entire rolls of papyrus, some a few feet long and still relatively intact, written in hieroglyphics as well as hieratic, the cursive script the ancient Egyptians used for everyday communication. Tallet realized that he was dealing with the oldest known papyri in the world.
Astonishingly, the papyri were written by men who participated in the building of the Great Pyramid, the tomb of the Pharaoh Khufu, the first and largest of the three colossal pyramids at Giza just outside modern Cairo. Among the papyri was the journal of a previously unknown official named Merer, who led a crew of some 200 men who traveled from one end of Egypt to the other picking up and delivering goods of one kind or another. Merer, who accounted for his time in half-day increments, mentions stopping at Tura, a town along the Nile famous for its limestone quarry, filling his boat with stone and taking it up the Nile River to Giza. In fact, Merer mentions reporting to “the noble Ankh-haf,” who was known to be the half-brother of the Pharaoh Khufu and now, for the first time, was definitively identified as overseeing some of the construction of the Great Pyramid. And since the pharaohs used the Tura limestone for the pyramids’ outer casing, and Merer’s journal chronicles the last known year of Khufu’s reign, the entries provide a never-before-seen snapshot of the ancients putting finishing touches on the Great Pyramid.
Thursday, July 9, 2015
“Window on a lost world”: rediscovered papyri at UBC shed light on ancient Egypt
A reminder for a dinner invitation and a touching letter from a young
man to his mother offer a rare glimpse of daily life in ancient Egypt,
thanks to a recent rediscovery at UBC Library.
It’s believed that the small papyrus scraps, which fit in the palm of an adult hand, are the first of their kind in Western Canada. Both were excavated in Egypt, and made their way to UBC in the 1930s via the University of Michigan.
“Together, they reveal intimate details of life in Roman Egypt,” said Toph Marshall, a professor at UBC’s department of classical, near eastern and religious studies (CNERS). “These documents are a window on a lost world, revealing the daily activities of ordinary people.”
The invitation, similar to a calling or visiting card from Victorian England, summons guests “to dine at the couch of the lord Sarapis.” Meanwhile, the young man’s letter wishes his mother good health; he writes that he thinks of her daily and asks her to visit soon.
The letter is also notable due to some creative handiwork. Parts of it were cut and rearranged in the early 20th century to make it more appealing to the modern sensibilities of antiquities buyers.
 |
| Scan of a dinner invitation. Credit: UBC Library |
It’s believed that the small papyrus scraps, which fit in the palm of an adult hand, are the first of their kind in Western Canada. Both were excavated in Egypt, and made their way to UBC in the 1930s via the University of Michigan.
“Together, they reveal intimate details of life in Roman Egypt,” said Toph Marshall, a professor at UBC’s department of classical, near eastern and religious studies (CNERS). “These documents are a window on a lost world, revealing the daily activities of ordinary people.”
The invitation, similar to a calling or visiting card from Victorian England, summons guests “to dine at the couch of the lord Sarapis.” Meanwhile, the young man’s letter wishes his mother good health; he writes that he thinks of her daily and asks her to visit soon.
The letter is also notable due to some creative handiwork. Parts of it were cut and rearranged in the early 20th century to make it more appealing to the modern sensibilities of antiquities buyers.
Sunday, February 15, 2015
Papyri on display
A collection of papyri from the Fayoum has been put on display for the first time in nine decades at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, writes Nevine El-Aref
Some 80 km southeast of Cairo is the small village of Karanis, once one of the largest Graeco-Roman towns in Fayoum. It was established in antiquity by Ptolemy II Philadelphus, as part of a scheme to settle Greek mercenaries among indigenous Egyptians and exploit the fertile Fayoum basin.
Karanis flourished until the end of the 3rd century CE, when the town started to decline due to troubles in the wider Roman Empire. The town was abandoned by the beginning of the 5th century, as part of momentous socioeconomic, political and religious changes taking place throughout the Mediterranean region.
The site was forgotten, buried by the sands, until the early 19th century when farmers unearthed papyri among organic debris left by the ancient inhabitants. It is these papyri, suitably conserved and restored, that have now been put on display at the Egyptian Museum.
Archaeological excavation, led by British Egyptologist Bernard Pyne Grenfell and papyrologist Arthur Surridge Hunt, started in Karanis in 1895. However, they did not continue their work, deciding that the site had been too plundered in antiquity to produce anything of value. The few papyri and artefacts they stumbled upon were not considered important enough to lead to a better understanding of the history of the site during the Graeco-Roman period.
In 1924 the archaeological rescue of the site began, continuing for the next 12 years under the leadership of an American mission from Michigan University directed by Francis W Kelsey. Two temples, residential houses and urban districts were discovered, along with cisterns, public baths and a collection of household objects of different shapes, sizes and materials. A large collection of papyri, now exhibited at the Kelsey Museum in Michigan in the US, was also unearthed.
Some 80 km southeast of Cairo is the small village of Karanis, once one of the largest Graeco-Roman towns in Fayoum. It was established in antiquity by Ptolemy II Philadelphus, as part of a scheme to settle Greek mercenaries among indigenous Egyptians and exploit the fertile Fayoum basin.
Karanis flourished until the end of the 3rd century CE, when the town started to decline due to troubles in the wider Roman Empire. The town was abandoned by the beginning of the 5th century, as part of momentous socioeconomic, political and religious changes taking place throughout the Mediterranean region.
The site was forgotten, buried by the sands, until the early 19th century when farmers unearthed papyri among organic debris left by the ancient inhabitants. It is these papyri, suitably conserved and restored, that have now been put on display at the Egyptian Museum.
Archaeological excavation, led by British Egyptologist Bernard Pyne Grenfell and papyrologist Arthur Surridge Hunt, started in Karanis in 1895. However, they did not continue their work, deciding that the site had been too plundered in antiquity to produce anything of value. The few papyri and artefacts they stumbled upon were not considered important enough to lead to a better understanding of the history of the site during the Graeco-Roman period.
In 1924 the archaeological rescue of the site began, continuing for the next 12 years under the leadership of an American mission from Michigan University directed by Francis W Kelsey. Two temples, residential houses and urban districts were discovered, along with cisterns, public baths and a collection of household objects of different shapes, sizes and materials. A large collection of papyri, now exhibited at the Kelsey Museum in Michigan in the US, was also unearthed.
Monday, December 29, 2014
The online battle for papyrus texts
Papyrus scrolls are also now increasingly desirable items in the distinctly 21st Century world of the online auction trade, writes Philip Sherwell
By Philip Sherwell, New York
By Philip Sherwell, New York
They are tattered yellowing fragments of bygone civilisations, ancient manuscripts that open a remarkable window on previous millennia, including the earliest days of Christianity.
But papyrus scrolls are also now increasingly hot items in the distinctly 21st Century world of the online auction trade.
A rectangular scrap measuring about 4.5 inches by 1.5 inches and featuring 15 partial lines of Homer’s epic poem The Iliad in the elegant hand of a 4th Century Egyptian scribe was just [DEC] picked up by an unidentified European buyer for £16,000 after a feverish Internet auction battle.
That price was way above the posted estimated but is typical of the sums that collectors will now spend to lay their hands on these fingerprints from the past.
Indeed, it is not just modern art that has been setting jaw-dropping records at auction recently - so have ancient scrolls.
When a fragmentary parchment sheet from the 3rd century AD featuring portions of Paul’s epistle to the Romans was bought at Sotheby’s for £301,000 auctioneers and antiquity experts alike were stunned.
Sunday, November 9, 2014
2000-year-old youth organization
In Roman Egypt, 14-year-old boys were enrolled in a youth organization in order to learn to be good citizens.
So says social historian and historian of ideas Ville Vuolanto, University of Oslo, who has joined forces with Dr April Pudsey of the University of Newcastle to dive deep into a mass of material of around 7,500 ancient documents written on papyrus. The texts comprise literary texts, personal letters and administrative documents. Never before has childhood been researched so systematically in this type of material.
The documents originate from Oxyrhynchos in Egypt, which in the first five hundred years CE was a large town of more than 25,000 inhabitants. Oxyrhynchos had Egypt’s most important weaving industry, and was also the Roman administrative centre for the area. Researchers possess a great deal of documentation precisely from this area because archaeologists digging one hundred years ago discovered thousands of papyri in what had once been the town’s rubbish dumps.
Free-born citizens only
Only boys born to free-born citizens were entitled to be members of the town’s youth organization, which was called a ‘gymnasium’. These boys were the children of local Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. Their families would necessarily have been quite prosperous, and have had an income that placed them in the ‘12 drachma tax class’. It is uncertain how large a proportion of the population would have qualified, probably somewhere between 10 and 25 per cent, Vuolanto explains.
So says social historian and historian of ideas Ville Vuolanto, University of Oslo, who has joined forces with Dr April Pudsey of the University of Newcastle to dive deep into a mass of material of around 7,500 ancient documents written on papyrus. The texts comprise literary texts, personal letters and administrative documents. Never before has childhood been researched so systematically in this type of material.
The documents originate from Oxyrhynchos in Egypt, which in the first five hundred years CE was a large town of more than 25,000 inhabitants. Oxyrhynchos had Egypt’s most important weaving industry, and was also the Roman administrative centre for the area. Researchers possess a great deal of documentation precisely from this area because archaeologists digging one hundred years ago discovered thousands of papyri in what had once been the town’s rubbish dumps.
Free-born citizens only
Only boys born to free-born citizens were entitled to be members of the town’s youth organization, which was called a ‘gymnasium’. These boys were the children of local Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. Their families would necessarily have been quite prosperous, and have had an income that placed them in the ‘12 drachma tax class’. It is uncertain how large a proportion of the population would have qualified, probably somewhere between 10 and 25 per cent, Vuolanto explains.
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Multiculturalism: Nothing New
‘When the Greeks Ruled Egypt’ Highlights the Diversity of Cultures in Ptolemaic Egypt
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
OCTOBER 6, 2014
For the three centuries from Alexander the Great to Cleopatra, Greeks ruled Egypt not so much as foreign conquerors but as the next dynasty in the long line of pharaohs. It was not out of character for Alexander himself to assume the power and status of a pharaoh, not to mention the promised fringe benefit of a grand afterlife and kinship to the Egyptian gods.
Though these classical Greeks knew a thing or two about grandeur, they were bedazzled by the pyramids at Giza, temples up the Nile, and varied cultures speaking different languages and living side by side. Instead of imposing Greek culture, the new rulers oversaw an early and generally successful experiment in multiculturalism. Their new city Alexandria grew to be the cosmopolitan center of a hybrid culture.
The Greek strategy may have been common for ancient empires, scholars say, but not so in the age of nation-states, and especially not in today’s Middle East.
The Greek royal family in Egypt, the Ptolemies, embraced many local customs, among them marriages of brother and sister to keep political power in the family. In their reinterpretation of Egyptian divinities, they emphasized their link to the Egyptian triad of the gods Osiris, Isis and Horus. Osiris and Isis were brother and sister, and Horus their offspring. To Greeks, who frowned on incestuous unions, the Ptolemaic message was when in Egypt, do as the Egyptians do.
Their overriding policy was not to demand assimilation but to accept many ways of life. No official language was imposed for all purposes. Government affairs were often conducted in Greek, but also in Demotic, the local everyday language derived from the more formal hieroglyphs. Jewish and other immigrants often spoke and wrote Aramaic.
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
OCTOBER 6, 2014
For the three centuries from Alexander the Great to Cleopatra, Greeks ruled Egypt not so much as foreign conquerors but as the next dynasty in the long line of pharaohs. It was not out of character for Alexander himself to assume the power and status of a pharaoh, not to mention the promised fringe benefit of a grand afterlife and kinship to the Egyptian gods.
Though these classical Greeks knew a thing or two about grandeur, they were bedazzled by the pyramids at Giza, temples up the Nile, and varied cultures speaking different languages and living side by side. Instead of imposing Greek culture, the new rulers oversaw an early and generally successful experiment in multiculturalism. Their new city Alexandria grew to be the cosmopolitan center of a hybrid culture.
The Greek strategy may have been common for ancient empires, scholars say, but not so in the age of nation-states, and especially not in today’s Middle East.
The Greek royal family in Egypt, the Ptolemies, embraced many local customs, among them marriages of brother and sister to keep political power in the family. In their reinterpretation of Egyptian divinities, they emphasized their link to the Egyptian triad of the gods Osiris, Isis and Horus. Osiris and Isis were brother and sister, and Horus their offspring. To Greeks, who frowned on incestuous unions, the Ptolemaic message was when in Egypt, do as the Egyptians do.
Their overriding policy was not to demand assimilation but to accept many ways of life. No official language was imposed for all purposes. Government affairs were often conducted in Greek, but also in Demotic, the local everyday language derived from the more formal hieroglyphs. Jewish and other immigrants often spoke and wrote Aramaic.
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Ancient Egyptian remedies
Does modern medicine have anything to learn from the medicine of the ancient Egyptians, asks Mai Samih
The ancient Egyptians, who embalmed their deceased so carefully, must have had a profound knowledge of anatomy. This is shown in tomb reliefs depicting surgeons dealing with patients and in famous medical texts such as those in the ancient Egyptian Ebers and Edwin Smith papyri.
The ancient Greek historian Herodotus who visited Egypt around 440 BCE wrote extensively of his observations of ancient Egyptian medical practices. The Roman writer Pliny the Elder also wrote favourably of them in his historical works. The ancient Greek fathers of medicine, Hippocrates, Herophilos, Erasistratus and later Galen, all studied at the temple of Amenhotep in Egypt and acknowledged the contributions of the ancient Egyptians to Greek medicine.
In his book Life of the Ancient Egyptians, author Eugen Strouhal quotes Herodotus describing Egyptian doctors by saying that “the practice of medicine is so divided among them that each physician treats one disease and no more. There are plenty of physicians everywhere; some are eye doctors, some deal with the heart, others with the teeth or the belly, and some with hidden maladies.”
Belgian Scholar Frans Jonckheere writes that there were 82 kinds of doctors known by name in ancient Egypt. No female nurses existed to help these doctors, but there were male nurses, dressers, masseurs, and lay therapists there for help. Czech physician Vincenc Strouhal wrote that the most advanced branch of medicine in ancient Egypt was surgery.
The ancient Egyptians, who embalmed their deceased so carefully, must have had a profound knowledge of anatomy. This is shown in tomb reliefs depicting surgeons dealing with patients and in famous medical texts such as those in the ancient Egyptian Ebers and Edwin Smith papyri.
The ancient Greek historian Herodotus who visited Egypt around 440 BCE wrote extensively of his observations of ancient Egyptian medical practices. The Roman writer Pliny the Elder also wrote favourably of them in his historical works. The ancient Greek fathers of medicine, Hippocrates, Herophilos, Erasistratus and later Galen, all studied at the temple of Amenhotep in Egypt and acknowledged the contributions of the ancient Egyptians to Greek medicine.
In his book Life of the Ancient Egyptians, author Eugen Strouhal quotes Herodotus describing Egyptian doctors by saying that “the practice of medicine is so divided among them that each physician treats one disease and no more. There are plenty of physicians everywhere; some are eye doctors, some deal with the heart, others with the teeth or the belly, and some with hidden maladies.”
Belgian Scholar Frans Jonckheere writes that there were 82 kinds of doctors known by name in ancient Egypt. No female nurses existed to help these doctors, but there were male nurses, dressers, masseurs, and lay therapists there for help. Czech physician Vincenc Strouhal wrote that the most advanced branch of medicine in ancient Egypt was surgery.
Monday, March 10, 2014
Andrew Monson, Agriculture and Taxation in Early Ptolemaic Egypt - A Bryn Mawr Classical Review
Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2014.03.08
Andrew Monson, Agriculture and Taxation in Early Ptolemaic Egypt: Demotic Land Surveys and Accounts (P. Agri). Papyrologische Texte und Abhandlungen, 46. Bonn: Dr. Rudolf Habelt Verlag, 2012. Pp. xii, 176; 30 plates. ISBN 9783774938076.
Reviewed by Sally L.D. Katary, Thorneloe College, Laurentian University
In 2012, Andrew Monson published a seminal study, From the Ptolemies to the Romans: Political and Economic Change in Egypt (Cambridge), that examines and assesses the changes in many aspects of land tenure and taxation based upon the evidence of Greek and Demotic papyri from Egypt. He supplemented that survey with the book under review, where he transcribes and translates twelve Demotic agricultural texts of the early Ptolemaic Period, including most prominently, P. Cair. II 31073(a) and (b), with accompanying detailed commentary, and compares the texts to related Demotic texts. These twelve texts provide evidence of the fundamental changes that took place in the early part of the transition from the pharaonic agricultural economy of the Late Period to the institutions of the Graeco-Roman economy which, while often rooted in the pharaonic epoch, were transformed and supplemented by some radical innovations and initiatives that were intrinsic to the Hellenization of Egypt, the transition of power this entailed, and the peculiar topography of the Nile Delta. Monson scrupulously analyzes details of these texts in the hope of reducing the many gaps that remain in our understanding of early Ptolemaic agriculture and taxation. While occasionally referring to texts from the Roman period in Egypt, Monson does not address or assess the transformation of either land tenure or taxation under Roman rule.
Andrew Monson, Agriculture and Taxation in Early Ptolemaic Egypt: Demotic Land Surveys and Accounts (P. Agri). Papyrologische Texte und Abhandlungen, 46. Bonn: Dr. Rudolf Habelt Verlag, 2012. Pp. xii, 176; 30 plates. ISBN 9783774938076.
Reviewed by Sally L.D. Katary, Thorneloe College, Laurentian University
In 2012, Andrew Monson published a seminal study, From the Ptolemies to the Romans: Political and Economic Change in Egypt (Cambridge), that examines and assesses the changes in many aspects of land tenure and taxation based upon the evidence of Greek and Demotic papyri from Egypt. He supplemented that survey with the book under review, where he transcribes and translates twelve Demotic agricultural texts of the early Ptolemaic Period, including most prominently, P. Cair. II 31073(a) and (b), with accompanying detailed commentary, and compares the texts to related Demotic texts. These twelve texts provide evidence of the fundamental changes that took place in the early part of the transition from the pharaonic agricultural economy of the Late Period to the institutions of the Graeco-Roman economy which, while often rooted in the pharaonic epoch, were transformed and supplemented by some radical innovations and initiatives that were intrinsic to the Hellenization of Egypt, the transition of power this entailed, and the peculiar topography of the Nile Delta. Monson scrupulously analyzes details of these texts in the hope of reducing the many gaps that remain in our understanding of early Ptolemaic agriculture and taxation. While occasionally referring to texts from the Roman period in Egypt, Monson does not address or assess the transformation of either land tenure or taxation under Roman rule.
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Ancient Egyptian Soldier's Letter Home Deciphered
By Owen Jarus, Live Science Contributor | March 05, 2014
A newly deciphered letter home dating back around 1,800 years reveals the pleas of a young Egyptian soldier named Aurelius Polion who was serving, probably as a volunteer, in a Roman legion in Europe.
In the letter, written mainly in Greek, Polion tells his family that he is desperate to hear from them and that he is going to request leave to make the long journey home to see them.
Addressed to his mother (a bread seller), sister and brother, part of it reads: "I pray that you are in good health night and day, and I always make obeisance before all the gods on your behalf. I do not cease writing to you, but you do not have me in mind," it reads.
"I am worried about you because although you received letters from me often, you never wrote back to me so that I may know how you ..." (Part of the letter hasn't survived.)
Polion says he has written six letters to his family without response, suggesting some sort of family tensions.
"While away in Pannonia I sent (letters) to you, but you treat me so as a stranger," he writes. "I shall obtain leave from the consular (commander), and I shall come to you so that you may know that I am your brother …"
A newly deciphered letter home dating back around 1,800 years reveals the pleas of a young Egyptian soldier named Aurelius Polion who was serving, probably as a volunteer, in a Roman legion in Europe.
In the letter, written mainly in Greek, Polion tells his family that he is desperate to hear from them and that he is going to request leave to make the long journey home to see them.
Addressed to his mother (a bread seller), sister and brother, part of it reads: "I pray that you are in good health night and day, and I always make obeisance before all the gods on your behalf. I do not cease writing to you, but you do not have me in mind," it reads.
"I am worried about you because although you received letters from me often, you never wrote back to me so that I may know how you ..." (Part of the letter hasn't survived.)
Polion says he has written six letters to his family without response, suggesting some sort of family tensions.
"While away in Pannonia I sent (letters) to you, but you treat me so as a stranger," he writes. "I shall obtain leave from the consular (commander), and I shall come to you so that you may know that I am your brother …"
Monday, January 27, 2014
How women's wisdom was lost
Papyrus shreds reveal there was a time when female deities were fundamental to popular belief. Yet ancient geopolitics caused them to be sidelined
By Bettany Hughes The Guardian, Sunday 26 January 2014
A mummified crocodile in the back streets of Oxford might not be an obvious guardian for one of life's great mysteries. But some 2,000-year-old treacle brown remains made up of recycled scraps of Egyptian papyrus, torn up to encase the reptile, hide hard evidence of a substantial historical cover-up. Now stored in 100-year-old kerosene cans and Huntley & Palmers biscuit tins, the ancient fragments were originally dumped as rubbish in ancient Oxyrhynchus (the town of the sharp-nosed fish). Their salvation, by two British archaeologists from 1896, who heard that locals were using the papyri fragments as organic fertiliser, was a godsend: these unpromising shreds rewrite history.
So far just 5% of the million or so fragments have been translated; but they embody the concerns and priorities of the man (and woman) on the street from the first century BC to the fourth century AD. Here is an unofficial snapshot of life at the birth of the modern world. Crucially, this was a time and place where Woman Wisdom, Sophia in ancient Greek, walked the streets. We find her name again and again in Jewish, Christian and pagan papyrus texts. Sophia – a mystical female presence whose appearance is only fleeting in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament – was clearly once a household name and a fixture in everyday lives.
Today we talk a great deal about the perilous place that female opinion and understanding has on the world's stage. The Oxyrhynchus papyri suggest there was a time when female wisdom was foundational to popular belief. Yet Sophia became a casualty of geopolitics. When Christianity developed as the dominant religion of the new Roman Empire under Constantine I in the fourth century AD, it needed "tidying up". Suddenly Christians didn't have just a faith, but a territory of their own. A muscular military structure protected the (extensive) domains of the One True God, and a burgeoning population of (male) scribes and clerics set out to protect the new Christian canon from heresy.
By Bettany Hughes The Guardian, Sunday 26 January 2014
A mummified crocodile in the back streets of Oxford might not be an obvious guardian for one of life's great mysteries. But some 2,000-year-old treacle brown remains made up of recycled scraps of Egyptian papyrus, torn up to encase the reptile, hide hard evidence of a substantial historical cover-up. Now stored in 100-year-old kerosene cans and Huntley & Palmers biscuit tins, the ancient fragments were originally dumped as rubbish in ancient Oxyrhynchus (the town of the sharp-nosed fish). Their salvation, by two British archaeologists from 1896, who heard that locals were using the papyri fragments as organic fertiliser, was a godsend: these unpromising shreds rewrite history.
So far just 5% of the million or so fragments have been translated; but they embody the concerns and priorities of the man (and woman) on the street from the first century BC to the fourth century AD. Here is an unofficial snapshot of life at the birth of the modern world. Crucially, this was a time and place where Woman Wisdom, Sophia in ancient Greek, walked the streets. We find her name again and again in Jewish, Christian and pagan papyrus texts. Sophia – a mystical female presence whose appearance is only fleeting in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament – was clearly once a household name and a fixture in everyday lives.
Today we talk a great deal about the perilous place that female opinion and understanding has on the world's stage. The Oxyrhynchus papyri suggest there was a time when female wisdom was foundational to popular belief. Yet Sophia became a casualty of geopolitics. When Christianity developed as the dominant religion of the new Roman Empire under Constantine I in the fourth century AD, it needed "tidying up". Suddenly Christians didn't have just a faith, but a territory of their own. A muscular military structure protected the (extensive) domains of the One True God, and a burgeoning population of (male) scribes and clerics set out to protect the new Christian canon from heresy.
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Bilingual Notaries in Hellenistic Egypt: A Study of Greek as a Second Language - A Bryn Mawr Classical Review
Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2014.01.39
Marja Vierros, Bilingual Notaries in Hellenistic Egypt: A Study of Greek as a Second Language. Collectanea hellenistica, 5. Brussels: Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten, 2012. Pp. 291. ISBN 9789065691033.
Reviewed by Sofía Torallas Tovar, CSIC, Madrid; Univ. of Chicago
The study of languages in contact is a relatively recent development which has based its progress mainly on field work performed with actual speakers of living languages. This field of linguistics has provided an invaluable theoretical frame to apply to the languages of the ancient world or corpus languages for which the absence of live speakers leaves the researcher only with the written sources. Egypt – especially Graeco-Roman Egypt – provides the perfect laboratory to experiment on language contact in antiquity, not only because it was a multilingual society with specific sociolinguistic characteristics which can be described and thus allow a more accurate evaluation of the sources, but also because it is virtually the only place in the Mediterranean where an enormous amount of documents written on papyrus have been preserved thanks to the climatic circumstances. Multilingualism in the papyri started to receive attention in the 1950s, 1 although it was later, starting in the 1980s when when more extensive work was undertaken, especially by Peremans and Remondon. Initial results on linguistic aspects of this situation of contact needed to be narrowed down, for the bulk of documents belonged to too wide a geographical and temporal span. Working on specific archives, where the speakers can be better defined (as bilingual speakers, native Egyptians, monolingual Greeks, etc.) introduces a better organisation into the field. As Katelijn Vandorpe comments, in her essay “Archives and Dossiers,” (in R.S. Bagnall, The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology, Oxford University Press, 2009: 216), “Where unrelated texts are like instant snapshots, archives present a coherent film of a person, a family, or a community and may span several months, years or decades.” And I may add that the archives provide a more complete and defined picture of the linguistic situation within these families or communities.
Marja Vierros, Bilingual Notaries in Hellenistic Egypt: A Study of Greek as a Second Language. Collectanea hellenistica, 5. Brussels: Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten, 2012. Pp. 291. ISBN 9789065691033.
Reviewed by Sofía Torallas Tovar, CSIC, Madrid; Univ. of Chicago
The study of languages in contact is a relatively recent development which has based its progress mainly on field work performed with actual speakers of living languages. This field of linguistics has provided an invaluable theoretical frame to apply to the languages of the ancient world or corpus languages for which the absence of live speakers leaves the researcher only with the written sources. Egypt – especially Graeco-Roman Egypt – provides the perfect laboratory to experiment on language contact in antiquity, not only because it was a multilingual society with specific sociolinguistic characteristics which can be described and thus allow a more accurate evaluation of the sources, but also because it is virtually the only place in the Mediterranean where an enormous amount of documents written on papyrus have been preserved thanks to the climatic circumstances. Multilingualism in the papyri started to receive attention in the 1950s, 1 although it was later, starting in the 1980s when when more extensive work was undertaken, especially by Peremans and Remondon. Initial results on linguistic aspects of this situation of contact needed to be narrowed down, for the bulk of documents belonged to too wide a geographical and temporal span. Working on specific archives, where the speakers can be better defined (as bilingual speakers, native Egyptians, monolingual Greeks, etc.) introduces a better organisation into the field. As Katelijn Vandorpe comments, in her essay “Archives and Dossiers,” (in R.S. Bagnall, The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology, Oxford University Press, 2009: 216), “Where unrelated texts are like instant snapshots, archives present a coherent film of a person, a family, or a community and may span several months, years or decades.” And I may add that the archives provide a more complete and defined picture of the linguistic situation within these families or communities.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Egypt: Italian technology to save Egyptian museum papyri
High tech instruments part of cooperation project
(ANSAmed) - CAIRO, NOVEMBER 18 - Italian technology will allow the restoration and preservation of thousands of very delicate papyri at the Egyptian museum in Cairo.
The initiative was presented on Monday morning during a ceremony at the museum attended by Gianpaolo Cantini, director general for the cooperation for development, Egyptian antiquities minister Mohamed Ibrahim, Italian ambassador Maurizio Massari and the museum's director Tarek el Awadi. It is part of the 'commodity aid' programme of Italian cooperation.
High tech instruments in particular provided by Italtrend Spa and produced by Bresciani Srl, which will play a role in saving the museum's secular papyri, were shown during the ceremony. They are a laser and a portable instrument. The laser, an Italian-made groundbreaking tool in the preservation of artwork, uses non-invasive technology to clean very delicate and sensitive surfaces and allows not to use chemical products. The spectrometer is used for chemical-physical measurements and to analyze material without the extraction of samples.
In order to save and preserve the precious papyri of the Egyptian museum, a low-pressure table with a humidifier to restore paper documents has been provided together with ten humidifiers and thermometers and five climatic chambers to preserve the findings to recreate the same condition as in the tombs where the papyri were found.
They were also especially planned for the museum overlooking the famous Tahrir square, one of the busiest in Cairo, and were made with special gas filters against pollution.
The initiative in favour of the Egyptian antiquities ministry is part of a programme of aid which aims to import to Egypt high tech Italian products and train specialized personnel in a number of sectors.
The programme which spans almost two decades was agreed in 1994, kicked off in 1996 and has funded until today the importation of Italian goods worth 37 million euros. The instalment for the Egyptian museum has a value of 300,000 euros.
(ANSAmed)
Source: http://www.ansamed.info/ansamed/en/news/sections/culture/2013/11/18/Egypt-Italian-technology-save-Egyptian-museum-papyri_9638580.html
(ANSAmed) - CAIRO, NOVEMBER 18 - Italian technology will allow the restoration and preservation of thousands of very delicate papyri at the Egyptian museum in Cairo.
The initiative was presented on Monday morning during a ceremony at the museum attended by Gianpaolo Cantini, director general for the cooperation for development, Egyptian antiquities minister Mohamed Ibrahim, Italian ambassador Maurizio Massari and the museum's director Tarek el Awadi. It is part of the 'commodity aid' programme of Italian cooperation.
High tech instruments in particular provided by Italtrend Spa and produced by Bresciani Srl, which will play a role in saving the museum's secular papyri, were shown during the ceremony. They are a laser and a portable instrument. The laser, an Italian-made groundbreaking tool in the preservation of artwork, uses non-invasive technology to clean very delicate and sensitive surfaces and allows not to use chemical products. The spectrometer is used for chemical-physical measurements and to analyze material without the extraction of samples.
In order to save and preserve the precious papyri of the Egyptian museum, a low-pressure table with a humidifier to restore paper documents has been provided together with ten humidifiers and thermometers and five climatic chambers to preserve the findings to recreate the same condition as in the tombs where the papyri were found.
They were also especially planned for the museum overlooking the famous Tahrir square, one of the busiest in Cairo, and were made with special gas filters against pollution.
The initiative in favour of the Egyptian antiquities ministry is part of a programme of aid which aims to import to Egypt high tech Italian products and train specialized personnel in a number of sectors.
The programme which spans almost two decades was agreed in 1994, kicked off in 1996 and has funded until today the importation of Italian goods worth 37 million euros. The instalment for the Egyptian museum has a value of 300,000 euros.
(ANSAmed)
Source: http://www.ansamed.info/ansamed/en/news/sections/culture/2013/11/18/Egypt-Italian-technology-save-Egyptian-museum-papyri_9638580.html
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Museum Pieces - Scene from the Great Harris Papyrus: Ramesses III before the gods of Memphis
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| (Photocredit: British Museum) |
Ramesses III stands praying before Ptah, Sekhmet and Nefertem. The accompanying notes are these:
Ptah the great, "South-of-His-Wall." lord of "Life-of-the-Two-Lands."
Sekhmet the great, beloved of Ptah.
Nefertem, protector of the Two Lands.
I tell the prayers, praises, adorations, laudations, mighty deeds, and benefactions, which I did for you in your presence, O Resi-inebef. (South-of-His-Wall)
Height: 42.500 cm
EA 9999/43
From Thebes, Egypt
20th Dynasty, around 1150 BC
At forty-two metres, the Great Harris Papyrus is one of the longest papyri still in existence from ancient Egypt. It is divided into five sections, with hieratic text and three illustrations of the king and the gods accompanied by hieroglyphic texts.
The first three sections describe the donations made by King Ramesses III (1184-1153 BC) to the gods and temples of Thebes, Heliopolis and Memphis. Each of these sections is illustrated, the king making offerings to three of the deities from each area. The amounts were colossal: The list relating to Thebes alone includes 309,950 sacks of grain and large quantities of metals and semi-precious stones.
This vignette is the third of those at the beginning of the papyrus. The king worships the gods of Memphis, one of the main administrative cities of Egypt. He holds the crook and flail, and wears clothing reserved for the king, including the banded cloth head-dress, sash, triangular-fronted kilt and bull's tail. Each god or goddess is shown in his or her most typical form. The close fitting and ornate costumes are typical of the traditional clothing the deities were thought to wear.
S. Quirke and A.J. Spencer, The British Museum book of anc (London, The British Museum Press, 1992)
Sources: http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/aes/s/scene_from_the_great_harris_pa.aspx
Translation from:
James Henry Breasted, Ancient Records Of Egypt, vol 4 § 305
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Museum Pieces - Papyrus from the office of Cleopatra VII
Document from the office of Cleopatra VII
Papyrus / documentary (document)
Cleopatra VII Philopator (Queen)
More: 23 Feb. 33 BC
Egypt (country)
excavation site: Abusir el-Meleq
Papyrus
Objektmaß: 24.2 x 21 x 0.02 inches
Frame: 28 x 24 x 0.4 cm
Ident.Nr. 25239 P
Collection: Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection | Papyri
© Photo: Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin - Prussian Cultural Heritage
Photographer / in: Sandra rump
More about the papyrus:
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Museum Pieces - Papyrus from the Book of the Dead of Nakht
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| Photocredit: British Museum (EA 10471/13) |
From Thebes, Egypt
Late 18th Dynasty, 1350-1300 BC
Late 18th Dynasty, 1350-1300 BC
Agricultural scenes
Nakht was a royal scribe and overseer of the army (general) at the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty (about 1550-1295 BC). His Book of the Dead is a beautifully illustrated example.
This papyrus shows Spell 110, a series of addresses to deities who dwell in the 'next world', specifically in the Field of Offering and the Field of Rushes. The deceased was expected to undertake agricultural work in the Field of Rushes.
The vignette evolved from a map of the Field in the earlier Coffin Texts. It shows areas of land surrounded by water. Nakht is shown with Thoth at top right, with the balance and feather of Maat (referring to the Judgement Scene). He then paddles his boat across the Lake of Offerings where two mummiform deities stand before a table of offerings. Nakht is also shown worshipping the Heron of Plenty. He is shown pulling flax, reaping, and ploughing below. The boat of Wennefer (a name for the god Osiris), shown with a head of a snake, is moored in a channel of the water at the bottom. Three deities of the ennead (group of nine gods) are shown bottom right.
R.O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Book of t, (revised ed. C. A. R. Andrews) (London, The British Museum Press, 1985)
R.B. Parkinson and S. Quirke, Papyrus, (Egyptian Bookshelf) (London, The British Museum Press, 1995)
E.R. Russmann, Eternal Egypt: masterworks of (University of California Press, 2001)
S. Quirke and A.J. Spencer, The British Museum book of anc (London, The British Museum Press, 1992)
Nakht was a royal scribe and overseer of the army (general) at the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty (about 1550-1295 BC). His Book of the Dead is a beautifully illustrated example.
This papyrus shows Spell 110, a series of addresses to deities who dwell in the 'next world', specifically in the Field of Offering and the Field of Rushes. The deceased was expected to undertake agricultural work in the Field of Rushes.
The vignette evolved from a map of the Field in the earlier Coffin Texts. It shows areas of land surrounded by water. Nakht is shown with Thoth at top right, with the balance and feather of Maat (referring to the Judgement Scene). He then paddles his boat across the Lake of Offerings where two mummiform deities stand before a table of offerings. Nakht is also shown worshipping the Heron of Plenty. He is shown pulling flax, reaping, and ploughing below. The boat of Wennefer (a name for the god Osiris), shown with a head of a snake, is moored in a channel of the water at the bottom. Three deities of the ennead (group of nine gods) are shown bottom right.
R.O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Book of t, (revised ed. C. A. R. Andrews) (London, The British Museum Press, 1985)
R.B. Parkinson and S. Quirke, Papyrus, (Egyptian Bookshelf) (London, The British Museum Press, 1995)
E.R. Russmann, Eternal Egypt: masterworks of (University of California Press, 2001)
S. Quirke and A.J. Spencer, The British Museum book of anc (London, The British Museum Press, 1992)
Monday, May 20, 2013
Library's papyrus leads to an ancient detective story
By Gwen Glazer
In 1889, Andrew Dickson White’s extensive travels found him in Cairo, where he purchased an 8-foot-long papyrus scroll found in an ancient tomb. A museum conservator told White it was Spell 125 from the “Book of the Dead,” a traditional Egyptian funeral text.
White shipped it to Ithaca and, trusting his account, no one translated the scroll after it arrived in the library’s archives – until now, when a collections assistant in the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections (RMC) examined it carefully.
 A segment of the papyrus on display |
| Photocredit: Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections |
Fredrika Loew ’12, a Near Eastern studies and archaeology major who knows hieroglyphics and began as a student assistant in RMC, consulted with her colleagues and found something odd about the text.
“It’s written in hieratic, the hieroglyphic equivalent for papyrus, and it’s clear from the drawing that it has something to do with death and burials,” Loew said. “But when I looked at it carefully, the words didn't seem familiar.”
Loew's was right: The scroll turned out to be a unique funerary text. It quotes parts of the “Book of the Dead,” but, as far as scholars know, it is an original text from the Ptolemaic period and dates to around 330-320 B.C.
With Thomas Christiansen, a hieratic scholar in Denmark, Loew is working to understand the text. She, Christiansen and Caitlin Barrett, assistant professor of classics, are also co-authoring a book about the papyrus.
The papyrus belonged to a Ptolemaic priest named Usir-Wer, and it describes what will happen to his body and soul (or “ba”) after death. Part of it reads:
“They will take your ba to the sky and they will take your corpse to the Duat. They will place the cloth of the southern and northern house on your mummy like the follower of Sokar, whom you made into one of the vigilant ones who are watching over the lord, the great god. ... Your ba will appear in a chamber of white gold. Royal linen will descend on your mummy bandages.”
Loew created an RMC exhibition around the papyrus – and several other Egypt-related artifacts from the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art and the library, including its anthropology collections – that will be open until June 15 in the Kroch Library rotunda. The display includes mummified birds, an amulet, a kohl jar and an 1824 book deciphering hieratic and hieroglyphics from the Rosetta Stone. Also on display are White's photographs from his travels in Egypt, including the excavation of the Sphinx.
The exhibition is open Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Source: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2013/05/librarys-papyrus-leads-ancient-detective-story
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Egypt's King Khufu's harbour in Suez discovered
French-Egyptian archaeological mission discover the oldest commercial harbour from fourth dynasty Egyptian King Khufu at Wadi Al-Jarf area, 180 km south of Suez
by Nevine El-Aref , Thursday 11 Apr 2013
On the Red Sea shore at Wadi Al-Jarf area along the Suez-Zaafarana road, a French-Egyptian archaeological mission from the French Institute for Archaeological Studies (IFAO) stumbled upon what it believed to be the most ancient harbour ever found in Egypt.
The harbour goes back to the reign of the fourth dynasty King Khufu, the owner of the Great Pyramid in Giza Plateau. The harbour is considered one of the most important commercial harbours where trading trips to export copper and other minerals from Sinai were launched.
A collection of vessel anchors carved in stone was also discovered as well as the harbours different docks.
Minister of State for Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim announced that a collection of 40 papyri, showing details of daily life of ancient Egyptians during the 27th year of King Khufu’s reign, was also unearthed during excavation work carried out.
“These are the oldest papyri ever found in Egypt,” asserted Ibrahim.
He also stated that these papyri are very important because it reveals more information on the ancient Egyptians’ daily life, as it includes monthly reports of the number of labours working in the harbour and details of their lives.
The papyri have been transferred to the Suez Museum for study and documentation.
French Egyptologist Pierre Tallet, director of the archaeological mission, pointed out that it is very important to carefully study the information in these papyri because it will introduce plenty of information about this period. The papyri will also show the nature of life that the ancient Egyptians once lived, their rights and duties, which we know little about, Tallet added.
The mission has also succeeded in discovering remains of workers’ houses, which reveals the importance of this harbour and area commercially whether among the different cities of Egypt or abroad, said Adel Hussein, head of the Ancient Egyptian Sector at the Ministry of State for Antiquities.
A collection of 30 caves were also discovered along with the stone blocks used to block their entrances, inscribed with King Khufu’s cartouche written in red ink. Ship ropes and stone tools used to cut ropes and wooden remains were discovered as well.
Source: http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/9/40/69024/Heritage/Ancient-Egypt/Egypts-King-Khufus-harbour-in-Suez-discovered.aspx
by Nevine El-Aref , Thursday 11 Apr 2013
On the Red Sea shore at Wadi Al-Jarf area along the Suez-Zaafarana road, a French-Egyptian archaeological mission from the French Institute for Archaeological Studies (IFAO) stumbled upon what it believed to be the most ancient harbour ever found in Egypt.
The harbour goes back to the reign of the fourth dynasty King Khufu, the owner of the Great Pyramid in Giza Plateau. The harbour is considered one of the most important commercial harbours where trading trips to export copper and other minerals from Sinai were launched.
A collection of vessel anchors carved in stone was also discovered as well as the harbours different docks.
Minister of State for Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim announced that a collection of 40 papyri, showing details of daily life of ancient Egyptians during the 27th year of King Khufu’s reign, was also unearthed during excavation work carried out.
 |
| Photocredit: MSAA |
“These are the oldest papyri ever found in Egypt,” asserted Ibrahim.
He also stated that these papyri are very important because it reveals more information on the ancient Egyptians’ daily life, as it includes monthly reports of the number of labours working in the harbour and details of their lives.
The papyri have been transferred to the Suez Museum for study and documentation.
French Egyptologist Pierre Tallet, director of the archaeological mission, pointed out that it is very important to carefully study the information in these papyri because it will introduce plenty of information about this period. The papyri will also show the nature of life that the ancient Egyptians once lived, their rights and duties, which we know little about, Tallet added.
The mission has also succeeded in discovering remains of workers’ houses, which reveals the importance of this harbour and area commercially whether among the different cities of Egypt or abroad, said Adel Hussein, head of the Ancient Egyptian Sector at the Ministry of State for Antiquities.
A collection of 30 caves were also discovered along with the stone blocks used to block their entrances, inscribed with King Khufu’s cartouche written in red ink. Ship ropes and stone tools used to cut ropes and wooden remains were discovered as well.
Source: http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/9/40/69024/Heritage/Ancient-Egypt/Egypts-King-Khufus-harbour-in-Suez-discovered.aspx
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Truth Behind Gospel of Judas Revealed in Ancient Inks
By: Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer
Published: 04/08/2013 11:37 AM EDT on LiveScience
A long-lost gospel that casts Judas as a co-conspirator of Jesus, rather than a betrayer, was ruled most likely authentic in 2006. Now, scientists reveal they couldn't have made the call without a series of far more mundane documents, including Ancient Egyptian marriage licenses and property contracts.
The Gospel of Judas is a fragmented Coptic (Egyptian)-language text that portrays Judas in a far more sympathetic light than did the gospels that made it into the Bible. In this version of the story, Judas turns Jesus over to the authorities for execution upon Jesus' request, as part of a plan to release his spirit from his body. In the accepted biblical version of the tale, Judas betrays Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.
As part of a 2006 National Geographic Society (the Society) investigation of the document, microscopist Joseph Barabe of McCrone Associates in Illinois and a team of researchers analyzed the ink on the tattered gospel to find out if it was real or forged.
Some of the chemicals in the ink raised red flags — until Barabe and his colleagues found, at the Louvre Museum, a study of Egyptian documents from the third century A.D., the same time period of the Gospal of Judas.
"What the French study told us is that ink technology was undergoing a transition," Barabe told LiveScience. The Gospel of Judas' odd ink suddenly fit into place.
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