Polish archaeologists discovered an unknown temple of Hatshepsut

Cut in the rock and consisting of two rooms, the walls of which are covered with poorly preserved decoration and hieroglyphic inscriptions: a team of archaeologists working under the auspices of the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology of the University of Warsaw started research in the ancient temple at Gebelein in Upper Egypt.

This place was already known to the local authorities, but so far no archaeologist has studied it. Previous researchers could have been discouraged by the poor condition of the decorations. This year's results of Polish research were surprising.

"This temple was dedicated to two gods. There is no doubt that one of them was Hathor, with the cult epithet Lady of Gebelein. The other deity could be Amun-Ra. Unfortunately, his depictions are not preserved and further studies are needed to verify this idea" - explained Daniel Takács, a member of the expedition.

Images of many deities were destroyed in antiquity. Pharaoh Akhenaten, who ruled in the fourteenth century BC, promoted the worship of one god, whose symbol was the solar disk. Depictions of other gods who did not have solar aspects were destroyed during his rule. The Goddess Hathor was associated with the sun, so her depictions ware spared.

"The most puzzling was the lack of royal names in the temple. Rulers of ancient Egypt loved to put their names on the walls of temples exposed to the public view . Sometimes they would destroy the names of previous kings to put their own in these places" - added Wojciech Ejsmond, director of the expedition.

Archaeologists unearth bejeweled ancient Egyptian mummy

By Rany Mostafa

CAIRO: A team of Spanish archaeologists have unearthed a 4,000-year-old female mummy wearing jewels in the necropolis below the mortuary temple of Pharaoh Thutmosis III in the west bank of Luxor, Aly el-Asfar, the head of the Upper Egypt Antiquities Department, said Saturday.

Credit: Manuel González Bustos/Thutmosis III Temple Project 

Both the mummy and the wooden sarcophagus in which it was found were badly damaged and trapped under the tomb’s collapsed roof, and the site of the find dates back to the Middle Kingdom (2,000 B.C.-1,700 B.C.), Asfar told The Cairo Post.

“The sarcophagus was found sealed, which suggests the tomb and its contents apparently eluded tomb robbers in both ancient and modern times. It seems that the roof had already collapsed before tomb robbers were able to enter,” he added.

The mummy, who is believed to have been an aristocrat in her 30s, was found wearing intact jewelry, including a gold-plated necklace inlaid with lapis lazuli, a shell-shaped golden pendant, two badly damaged silver ankle bracelets and two golden bracelets on her wrists, according to Asfar.

UCLA Egyptologist gives new life to female pharaoh from 15th century B.C.

No usurper, Hatshepsut was just really good at her job, according to new biography

By Meg Sullivan | October 08, 2014

By the time of her death in 1458 B.C., Egypt’s Pharaoh Hatshepsut had presided over her kingdom’s most peaceful and prosperous period in generations. Yet by 25 years later, much of the evidence of her success had been erased or reassigned to her male forebears.

Even after 20th century archaeologists began to unearth traces of the woman who defied tradition to crown herself as king, Hatshepsut still didn’t get her due, a UCLA Egyptologist argues in a forthcoming book. 

“She’s been described as a usurper, and the obliteration of her contributions has been attributed to a backlash against what has been seen as her power-grabbing ways,” said Kara Cooney, the author of “The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut’s Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt.”

In the mainstream biography, due Oct. 14 from Crown Publishing, Cooney sets out to rehabilitate the reputation of the 18th dynasty ruler whom she considers to be “the most formidable and successful woman to ever rule in the Western ancient world.” To find a parallel, Cooney argues, one has to look to Empress Lü of third century B.C. China, Elizabeth I or Catherine the Great.

“Hatshepsut’s story needs to be carefully resurrected and her modus operandi needs to be dissected and analyzed in a more fair-minded way,” said Cooney, an associate professor of Near Eastern languages and culture in the UCLA College. “I see her as a person who created her position based on her ability to do the job rather than her desire for it.”

An unidentified royal statue head found in Luxor

A black granite head of an unidentified New Kingdom king's statue has been uncovered in Luxor

by Nevine El-Aref , Thursday 26 Dec 2013

The Egyptian-Spanish archaeological mission unearthed on Thursday a large granite head of a statue of an unidentified New Kingdom king during routine excavation at King Thutmose III’s funerary temple on Luxor’s west bank.
 

Photocredit: Ahram Online

Mohamed Abdel-Maqsoud, head of the Ancient Egyptian Antiquities Section at the Ministry of State for Antiquities (MSA), explained that the head is 29.6cm high, 24.3cm wide and 26.9cm deep. The head depicts a round face of a royal figure, not identified yet, wearing a wig, with traces of a broken nose, and two long ears that each reach 8cm. The eyes, he continued, have traces of kohl, with thick eyebrows.

Abdel-Maqsoud said that the head was found buried in sand in a pit on the northern side of the second court of the temple. Studies are underway in an attempt to determine which New Kingdom king it belongs to.

The temple of Thutmose III is a vey small temple located beside the temple of Queen Hatshepsut at Al Deir Al-Bahari. It was first discovered in February 1962 during routine restoration work carried out by a Polish excavation mission of the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology led by archaeologist Kazimierz Michalowski.

The temple is poorly preserved and was dedicated to god Amun-Re.  Although Thutmose III’s actual funerary temple Henkhet-Ankh is located a short distance away, such a temple had played some role within the king’s funerary cult.

Source: http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/9/40/90118/Heritage/Ancient-Egypt/An-unidentified-royal-statue-head-found-in-Luxor.aspx

How a Canaanite goddess conquered ancient Egypt

Brought over by mysterious conquerors and fused with a local deity, the nameless goddess was a kinder, gentler - and yellow - goddess.

By Julia Fridman

Upon entering the tomb of King Thutmosis III, its excavator was greeted by a scene he hadn't expected. In addition to the typical stiff, repetitive funerary imagery of the time, the innermost sanctum of the burial chamber had a simple image of the Pharaoh suckling on a breast protruding from a tree.

The association of a tree of life with a major goddess had been all but unknown in Thutmosis’ 18th Dynasty Egypt (1479 BCE to 1425 BCE). But they were very well known in Canaan and the broader Levant.

Nude goddesses and tree symbolism began appearing as early as the Neolithic period, some 12,000 years ago in the north of Israel. Artifacts including scarab seals, jewelry, and clay figurines were found at important sites such as Lachish, Megiddo, Beit Shean, Gezer, and Nahariya, to name just a few.

By the time of the Middle Bronze Age, 4,000 years ago, they were commonplace in funerary, household and temple contexts – in the Levant. Not in Egypt.

The Egyptian Fortress in Jaffa

By Aaron A. Burke and Martin Peilstöcker   Sun, Mar 03, 2013

Archaeologists are rediscovering a Late Bronze Age Egyptian stronghold in the land of ancient Canaan.


In a very real sense, the ancient port city of Jaffa may offer a valuable historical and archaeological example of the age-old issues and dynamics that have beset occupying powers the world over for thousands of years. Archaeologists have been exploring and studying the ancient Egyptian fortress at this coastal city to obtain insights on what it was like for both conqueror and conquered when there are "strangers in the land"..........

Situated on the central coast of Israel, on the south side of Tel Aviv, and 60 km to the northwest of Jerusalem, Jaffa’s antiquity and importance as a Mediterranean port was well established before the resumption of excavations in 2008 by the Jaffa Cultural Heritage Project. While the biblical texts have served as a primary historical referent, Jaffa’s importance in other periods is much more clearly understood in classical sources including Josephus, but also even from Egyptian New Kingdom literature and administrative documents. Following excavations during the 1950s of the archaeological remains of an Egyptian fortress in Jaffa, a fortress that existed for most of the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1460 to 1130 BC), seeking to understand Jaffa’s role in the Egyptian New Kingdom imperial control of Canaan became of paramount importance.

In 2007 the Jaffa Cultural Heritage Project was established by Aaron A. Burke of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles and Martin Peilstöcker of the Israel Antiquities Authority. The project’s overarching goal is to facilitate long-term research of Jaffa’s cultural heritage through the integration of research and salvage excavations, cultural and historical studies, and multidisciplinary scientific approaches to Jaffa’s history and archaeology. Central to this objective was the renewal of excavations on the mound of ancient Jaffa (Tel Yafo). As part of the initial phase of the project, the Kaplan Excavations Publication Initiative was conceived to provide an in-depth analysis of the unpublished excavations by the site’s most prolific excavator, Jacob Kaplan, who conducted excavations on behalf of the municipality of Tel Aviv-Jaffa and the Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums from 1955 to 1974. We present here the preliminary results of our synthesis of the results of the old excavations since the resumption of excavations in the same area in 2011 by the Jaffa Cultural Heritage Project.

Karnak: Temple Complex of Ancient Egypt

by Owen Jarus, LiveScience Contributor

30 November 2012

Karnak is an ancient Egyptian temple precinct located on the east bank of the Nile River in Thebes (modern-day Luxor). It covers more than 100 hectares, an area larger than some ancient cities.

The central sector of the site, which takes up the largest amount of space, is dedicated to Amun-Ra, a male god associated with Thebes. The area immediately around his main sanctuary was known in antiquity as “Ipet-Sun” which means “the most select of places.”

To the south of the central area is a smaller precinct dedicated to his wife, the goddess Mut. In the north, there is another precinct dedicated to Montu, the falcon-headed god of war. Also, to the east, there is an area — much of it destroyed intentionally in antiquity — dedicated to the Aten, the sun disk. 

Construction at Karnak started by 4,000 years ago and continued up until the time the Romans took control of Egypt, about 2,000 years ago. Each Egyptian ruler who worked at Karnak left his or her own architectural mark. The UCLA Digital Karnak project has reconstructed and modeled these changes online. Their model shows a bewildering array of temples, chapels, gateway shaped “pylons,” among many other buildings, that were gradually built, torn down and modified over more than 2,000 years.

Karnak would have made a great impression on ancient visitors, to say the least. “The pylons and great enclosure walls were painted white with the reliefs and inscriptions picked out in brilliant jewel-like colours, adding to their magnificence,” writes Egyptologist Heather Blyth in her book "Karnak: Evolution of a Temple" (Routledge, 2006).

“Behind the high walls, glimpses of gold-topped obelisks which pierced the blue sky, shrines, smaller temples, columns and statues, worked with gold, electrum and precious stones such as lapis lazuli must have shimmered in the dusty golden heat.”

Out in the daylight

A NUMBER of artefacts discovered at a tomb in Draa Abul-Naga necropolis on Luxor's west bank is to go on show for the first time in the Luxor National Museum, Nevine El-Aref reports.

After almost 10 years in storage at the Luxor antiquities inspectorate, the very distinguished ancient Egyptian objects will take their place in the permanent collection of the Luxor Museum. They were found in the tomb of Djehuty, the overseer of works at Thebes during the reign of Queen Hatshepsut.

The artefacts include the very well-preserved sarcophagus of a Middle Kingdom warrior named Iker, which means "the excellent one". The sarcophagus was found in the courtyard of Djehuty's tomb in 2007, along with five arrows made of reeds, three of them still feathered. These will also be included in the new exhibited collection.

Some clay vases and bouquets of dried flowers that were thrown inside the Djehuty tomb at his funeral are to be exhibited along with a faience necklaces, gilded earrings and bracelets.

Two clusters of ceramic vases, mostly bottles, with shapes typical of those fabricated during the reign of Tuthmosis III, will also be exhibited.

"These artefacts were carefully selected from the collection unearthed at Djehuty's tomb," said Mohamed Ibrahim, minister of state for antiquities.

The Divine King

In Ancient Egyptian times Pharaohs went to some measures to justify their claims to the throne. During the 18th Dynasty for example, kings legitimized their kingship through the myth of the birth of the divine king. They were fathered by a god, not by a man. Amun was the god to be fathered by. Pointing out the importance of the cult of Amun at Karnak during the 18th Dynasty, with a small downfall during the reign of Akhenaten.

So did Thutmose III (1479-1425 BC) after he completed one of his additions to the Karnak temple in honour of Amun he placed the so called coronation inscription to prove his divinity:

I am his son, beloved of his majesty, whom his double desires to cause that I should present this land at the place, where he is. .. I requited his beauty with something greater than it by magnifying him more than the gods. The recompense of him who does excellent things is a reward for him of things more excellent than they. I have built his house as an eternal work. - my father caused that I should be divine, that I might extend the throne of him who made me; that I might supply with food his altars upon earth; that I might make to flourish for him the sacred slaughtering-block with great slaughters in his temple, consisting of oxen and calves without limit. .. -for this temple of my father Amun, at all feasts; of the sixth day satisfied with that which he desired should be. I know that it is forever; that Thebes is eternal. Amun, Lord of Karnak, Re of Heliopolis of the South, his glorious eye which is in this land. (Ancient Records Of Egypt - J.H. Breasted, Volume II, § 149)

Also Queen Hatshepsut (1473-1458 BC) legitimized her kingship through the myth of divine conception and birth. According to inscriptions, Amun himself chose her to become the ruler of Egypt, even before she was born. One inscription tells the story about how Hatshepsut's mother Queen Ahmose became pregnant of her daughter. The god Amun took form of Hatshepsut's father Thutmose I and found Queen Ahmose asleep in her bedroom. She woke up by the fragrance of the god and recognized him as a god. They had intercourse and Hatshepsut was conceived. The inscription later tells:

Utterance of Amun, Lord of the Two Lands, before her: "Khnemet-Amun-Hatshepsut shall be the name of this my daughter, whom I have placed in thy body, this saying which comes out of thy mouth. She shall exercise the excellent kingship in this whole land. My soul is hers, my bounty is hers, my crown is hers, that she may rule the Two Lands, that she may lead all the living." (Ancient Records Of Egypt - J.H. Breasted, Volume II, § 198)

These are just two examples of two kings from the 18th dynasty, but the divine birth was easily adopted by later Pharaohs. Even in Ptolemaic times, and by Alexander the Great when he visited the Oracle of Amun at Siwa he was proclaimed as son of Amun. Alexander was simply using the old existing tradition. Nothing new there.

By Amun-Ra

Thanks Tommy from http://de-oudheid.blogspot.com/ for your input!

Much needed makeover for three goddesses

by Nevine El-Aref

The temples of the Karnak complex stand majestically on the east bank of the Nile at Luxor, their awe-inspiring architecture flaunting the great and noble civilisation of ancient Egypt. We know from historical records that Karnak's vast medley of temples, chapels, columns, pylons, obelisks and above all the sacred lake have fascinated visitors for at least 2,000 years.

To the south of the Amun-Re temple complex, beneath the tenth pylon, stands the ruined temple of the mother goddess Mut. Since its construction by Pharaoh Amenhotep III (1388-1360 BC) the temple became a centre of interest for the pharaohs of the New Kingdom up until the Ptolemies (310-30 BC), who built several temples associated with the original Mut temple and its crescent-shaped lake.

The Mut precinct preserved its importance even after the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 BC, but its decline began not long afterwards. Regrettably the temple has been devastated over time; it has lost some of its features completely, and most of its blocks were usurped in antiquity and reused to construct other structures at Karnak. Except for some walls, foundations and no less than 600 black granite statuettes of the lioness goddess Sekhmet found scattered at the courtyard. Some Theban residents even built residential houses within the precincts of the Mut temples.

The temple closed its doors to the public. In 1976 so that the American Research Centre in Egypt (ARCE) and the Brooklyn Museum could tart excavation and conservation work at the Mut precinct. This was followed by another mission from Johns Hopkins University in 2001 led by American archaeologist Betsy Bryan.

According to ARCE's website, while work was carried out at the Mut temple from 2007 to 2009 Bryan and her team continued to support the project to conserve the foundations. They found that the intermittent rise and fall of the Nile-fed sacred lake over many centuries had caused subsidence on the west side of the temple, creating a slippage of more than 10 centimetres in some areas of the wall.

Reign of Pharaoh Thutmose II suggests crisis

Harvard University educated archaeologist and president of the Paleontological Research Corporation, Dr. Joel Klenck, states an array of archaeological discoveries evidence a crisis during the reign of the Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose II (ca. 1,492-1,479 B.C.) in the Eighteenth Dynasty.
An inscription by the succeeding Pharaoh Hatshepsut (ca. 1,479-1,457 B.C.) in her Underground Temple at Speos Artemidos states that Egypt was “ruined” and “had gone to pieces” before the beginning of her reign. Hatshepsut’s inscription also states that a population of “vagabonds” emerged from former Asiatic populations that once controlled northern Egypt and caused this ruination. Hatshepsut notes these vagabonds were responsible for “overthrowing that which had been made”.

Klenck comments, “The reign of Thutmose II ended between 79 and 86 years after Seqenenre Tao II (ca. 1,560-1,555 B.C.) began to reconquer northern Egypt from foreign Hyksos populations, who controlled Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period (ca. 1,650-1,550 B.C.). Egyptian texts are clear that the son of Tao II, Ahmose I, conquered the Hyksos and captured their capital at Avaris around 1,550 B.C. Yet, this inscription by Hatshepsut notes another population remained in Egypt from ‘the midst’ of the ‘Asiatics’ and ruined Egypt ‘down to my majesty’ or before the beginning of her reign.”

Further, there is evidence that disease affected the royal court before the reign of Hatshepsut. The mummy of Thutmose II is the only corpse of a pharaoh during the Eighteenth Dynasty covered with cysts from an unknown malady. These lesions coat the back, waist, arms and legs of Thutmose II and exhibit a mixture of papules, scabs and scars up to several centimeters in length. These cysts also cover the corpse of the wet-nurse Sitre-In, who was probably unrelated to the royal lineage. In addition, Hatshepsut and her successor, Thutmose III (ca. 1,457-1,425 B.C.), bear traces of the disease suggesting their skin healed after a period of time. Recent DNA evidence suggests that Thutmose III might not be related to Thutmose II. That Sitre-In and Thutmose III show evidence of this disease suggests the disease was not hereditary but widely affected Thutmose II and his court.

Rare wood statue of woman pharaoh found in University of Toronto dig in Egypt

by Stephanie Findlay

Consider her the Queen Elizabeth of ancient Egypt, one of the great pharaohs of her age.
Unlike the female pharaohs before and after her, Hatshepsut, who ruled in the 15th century B.C., was a powerful leader, a prolific builder and a dedicated patron of the arts who maintained her empire’s sphere of influence for two decades at the height of that civilization.

For reasons that can only be guessed at, her stepson, Thutmose III, tried to obscure her place in Egypt’s history after she died. He wasn’t entirely successful.

Last summer, in a dig in Egypt, a University of Toronto archaeologist discovered a wooden statue with an hourglass figure and gentle chin that was likely crafted in Hatshepsut’s image.
“There is more delicate modelling in the jaw,” noted Mary-Ann Pouls Wegner, associate professor of Egyptian archaeology, who recently presented her findings.

Pouls Wegner said Hatshepsut (pronounced hat-shep-SOOT) is often depicted in men’s clothes with a fake beard in ancient Egyptian iconography. “In her stone statuing, she’s shown to be male but with nods to her (female) physique,” she said. “The waist is thinner in this example.”

The find is extraordinary. There are fewer than 15 such wooden statues of pharaohs in the world; most fell victim to termites centuries ago. Many of the surviving examples were found in King Tut’s tomb, nearly a century ago. If this statue is of Hatshepsut, it will be the first depicting a female pharaoh.

New archaeological discovery at the Valley of the Kings

The tomb of Amun Re singer Ni Hms Bastet was discovered in the Valley of the Kings on Luxor’s West Bank

by Nevine El-Aref , Sunday 15 Jan 2012

A deep burial well was found during a routine cleaning carried out by a Swiss archaeological mission on the path leading to King Tuthmosis III’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings. The well leads to a burial chamber filled with a treasured collection of ancient Egyptian artefacts.

Mohamed Ibrahim, Minister of State for Antiquities, said that further inside the chamber, excavators stumbled upon a wooden sarcophagus painted black and decorated with hieroglyphic texts, and a wooden stelae engraved with the names and different titles of the deceased.

Early studies carried out by the Swiss team revealed that the tomb dates back to the 22nd Dynasty (945-712 BC) and it belongs to the daughter of Amun Re, lecture priest in Karnak temples and also the singer of the God Amun Re.

Excavations are now in full swing in order to reveal more of the tomb’s treasured collection.

Source: http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/9/40/31799/Heritage/Ancient-Egypt/New-archaeological-discovery-at-the-Valley-of-the-.aspx

Hatshepsut - The King Herself

What motivated Hatshepsut to rule ancient Egypt as a man while her stepson stood in the shadows? Her mummy, and her true story, have come to light.

By Chip Brown

There was something strangely touching about her fingertips. Everywhere else about her person all human grace had vanished. The raveled linen around her neck looked like a fashion statement gone horribly awry. Her mouth, with the upper lip shelved over the lower, was a gruesome crimp. (She came from a famous lineage of overbites.) Her eye sockets were packed with blind black resin, her nostrils unbecomingly plugged with tight rolls of cloth. Her left ear had sunk into the flesh on the side of her skull, and her head was almost completely without hair.

I leaned toward the open display case in Cairo's Egyptian Museum and gazed at what in all likelihood is the body of the female pharaoh Hatshepsut, the extraordinary woman who ruled Egypt from 1479 to 1458 B.C. and is famous today less for her reign during the golden age of Egypt's 18th dynasty than for having the audacity to portray herself as a man. There was no beguiling myrrh perfume in the air, only some sharp and sour smell that seemed minted during the many centuries she had spent in a limestone cave. It was hard to square this prostrate thing with the great ruler who lived so long ago and of whom it was written, "To look upon her was more beautiful than anything." The only human touch was in the bone shine of her nailless fingertips where the mummified flesh had shrunk back, creating the illusion of a manicure and evoking not just our primordial vanity but our tenuous intimacies, our brief and passing feel for the world.

The discovery of Hatshepsut's lost mummy made headlines two summers ago, but the full story unfolded slowly, in increments, a forensic drama more along the lines of CSI than Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indeed the search for Hatshepsut showed the extent to which the trowels and brushes of archaeology's traditional toolbox have been supplemented by CT scanners and DNA gradient thermocyclers.

Coffin reveals secret past of mummified 'royal boy'

Wednesday, October 05, 2011

A 2,500-year-old mummified boy, who is a star draw at Devon's oldest museum, has unexpectedly been put in the shade – by the very coffin in which he lies.

Ever since he went on show as part of a major revamp at Torquay Museum in 2007, Psamtek – the only human mummy on public display in the county – has captured the imagination of thousands of curious visitors.

But now his own mummy-shaped coffin has stolen the limelight, after museum officials were told the ornate near-4ft-long object (1.2m) is nearly 1,000 years older than the body it contains.

Further investigation reveals the coffin may have been made for a junior member of royalty more than a century before the time of the famous boy king Tutankhamun.

Museum curator Barry Chandler said: "It's an extraordinary discovery and means that the coffin is now the most spectacular exhibit in our entire collection.

"It's extremely rare – even the British Museum doesn't have one quite like it."

Final section, completing rare ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, on view at the Brooklyn Museum

BROOKLYN, N.Y.- Following a three-year-long conservation project, the final section of the rare, thirty-five-centuries-old Egyptian Book of the Dead of the Goldworker of Amun, Sobekmose will go on long-term view on September 28. One of the most important funerary texts of the New Kingdom, in part because it is an early version of the Book of the Dead and casts light on the development of all later manuscripts, the papyrus is about twentyfive feet long. In an unusual feature, it is inscribed on both sides.

The Book of the Dead is a present-day name for ancient Egyptian texts containing a number of magic spells intended to assist the deceased in the afterlife, and which were placed in the coffin or burial chamber. The Book of the Dead of Sobekmose, created during the Eighteenth Dynasty, probably during the reign of Thutmose III or Amunhotep II (circa 1479–1400 b. c.e.), contains nearly one hundred “chapters,” almost half of the total known group of Book of the Dead texts. Several of the chapters are close in content to those found in the Coffin Texts, the collection of funeral texts used in the previous historical period.

The texts on the front are written in approximately 530 columns of hieroglyphs reading down and from right to left. English translations are provided in the gallery for certain key passages. Although portions of these funeral texts have been translated, understanding them is often challenging even to Egyptologists, who do not yet know the meaning of certain phrases and sentences.

The final third of the Book of the Dead of Sobekmose will join the previously completed sections, which have been on view in the Mummy Chamber installation in the Egyptian galleries since May 2010. That installation marked the first time the object had been on view in the Brooklyn Museum. It entered the collection in 1937 as a part of a purchase from the New-York Historical Society but had never previously been displayed because it was in poor condition.

The conservation project, supported by the Leon Levy Foundation, has made it possible for this exceptionally rare object to be put on public view.

Source: www.artdaily.org

Heb Sed, The Ritual Jubilee

Introduction

Off all the many ancient Egyptian festivals, local as well as nationwide, there was one which differed quite a bit from the rest. While they all were aimed at the relationship between the gods, the king and the people, the Heb Sed was more directly focussed around the kingship as such and its complete renewal.

The name Heb Sed, also known as The Sed festival or Feast of the Tail, derives from the name of an Egyptian wolf god, one of whose names was Wepwawet or Sed. The less formal feast name, the Feast of the Tail, is derived from the name of the animal's tail that typically was attached to the back of the pharaoh's garment in the early periods of Egyptian history. This suggests that the tail was the vestige of a previous ceremonial robe made out of a complete animal skin.

A Heb Sed was first held during the 30th regnal year of a pharaoh, and from then on, every three years, but several pharaohs however, held their first Heb Sed at a much earlier date: Hatshepsut held her first jubilee during her 16th regnal year, while Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten chose to dedicate his festival to his solar-god Aten at the early beginnings of his reign. Ramesses II often left two instead of three years between his Heb Seds, he was able to celebrate 14 such jubilees during his 67 years of reign.