Volunteers race to save rare Egypt books

Cairo - Volunteers in white lab coats, surgical gloves and masks were standing on the back of a pickup truck along the banks of the Nile River in Cairo, rummaging through stacks of rare 200-year-old manuscripts that were little more than charcoal debris.

The volunteers, ranging from academic experts to appalled citizens, have spent the past two days trying to salvage what's left of some 192 000 books, journals and writings, casualties of Egypt's latest bout of violence.

Institute d'Egypte, a research centre set up by Napoleon Bonaparte during France's invasion in the late 18th century, caught fire during clashes between protesters and Egypt's military over the weekend.

It was home to a treasure trove of writings, most notably the handwritten 24-volume Description de l'Egypte, which began during the 1798 - 1801 French occupation.

The compilation, which includes 20 years of observations by more than 150 French scholars and scientists, was one of the most comprehensive descriptions of Egypt's monuments, its ancient civilisation and contemporary life at the time.

Napoleon's 'Description De L'Egypt' lost to fire amid clashes

Thousands of irreplaceable manuscripts at Cairo's Institute for Scientific Research are lost to fire amid attack military attack on protesters at nearby Cabinet building

 

Ahram Online, Sunday 18 Dec 2011

 

A fire that erupted on Saturday in Egypt’s Institute for the Advancement of Scientific Research has resulted in the loss of several precious manuscripts, according to Zein Abdel-Hadi, head of Egypt’s Libraries and Archives Department, which has taken possession of many of the books rescued from the fire. The original manuscript of Napoleon’s historic “Description De L'Egypt” was reportedly among the losses.

Young revolutionaries rushed into the institute – which is located next to the Cabinet building, the site of ongoing clashes between security personnel and anti-government protesters – as soon as the fire erupted in hopes of rescuing the thousands original manuscripts housed there. Nearly 30,000 books were rescued out of a total of around 196,000 in the institute’s collection, estimated Abdel-Hadi, who went on to commend the young activists’ courage.

The “Description De L'Egypt” was initially drawn up by the team of French scientists who accompanied French empire-builder Napoleon on his invasion of Egypt (1798-1801). The 20-volume book was originally entitled “Description of Egypt, or the Collection of Notes and Research Done in Egypt during the French Campaign by Napoleon Bonaparte.”

After the scientists’ return to France, the French interior minister at the time, Jean Antoine Schpetal, organised a special committee mandated with collecting and publishing all the material, which was eventually published in ten volumes of engravings, nine volumes of research, and one atlas.

The volumes are considered among the most important historical works of the early nineteenth century.

Source: http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/29641.aspx

Akhenaten and the Amarna Period

By Dr Kate Spence

The appeal of the Amarna period

Some people are drawn by interest in Akhenaten himself or his religion, others by a fascination with the unusual art which appeals strongly to the tastes of modern viewers and provides a sense of immediacy rarely felt with traditional Egyptian representation. The radical changes Akhenaten made have led to his characterisation as the 'first individual in human history' and this in turn has led to endless speculation about his background and motivation; he is cast as hero or villain according to the viewpoint of the commentator.

Akhenaten came to the throne of Egypt around 1353 BC. The reign of his father, Amenhotep III, had been long and prosperous with international diplomacy largely replacing the relentless military campaigning of his predecessors. The reign culminated in a series of magnificent jubilee pageants celebrated in Thebes (modern Luxor), the religious capital of Egypt at the time and home to the state god Amun-Re. The new king was crowned as Amenhotep IV (meaning 'Amun is content') and temple construction and decoration projects began immediately in the name of the new king. The earliest work of his reign is stylistically similar to the art of his predecessors, but within a year or two he was building temples to the Aten or divinised sun-disk at Karnak in a very different artistic style and had changed his name to Akhenaten in honour of this god.

Akhenaten's 'great king's wife' was Nefertiti and they had six daughters. There were also other wives, including the enigmatic Kiya who may have been the mother of Tutankhamun. Royal women play an unusually prominent role in the art of the period and this is particularly true of Nefertiti who is frequently depicted alongside her husband. Nefertiti disappears from the archaeological record around year 12 and some have argued that she reappears as the enigmatic co-regent Smenkhkare towards the end of Akhenaten's reign.

A Girl and Her Goddess

By Marie-Astrid Calmettes, Egyptologist
Jessica Kaiser, Osteologist
and Brian V. Hunt

More than 2,500 years ago, a very ill young woman died and was buried at the already long-abandoned site of the city of the pyramid builders at Giza. Her grave goods included an amulet of an obscure goddess that suggests the woman may not have been from the Giza area.

Not only that, but she may not have been of Egyptian descent.

GPMP’s primary investigation at Giza is the 4th dynasty settlement of the pyramid builders. In one quarter of our dig site, however, we’re faced with the reality that hundreds of Late Period (747-525 BC) burials and a few Old Kingdom (2575-2134 BC) burials cover the site above the 4th dynasty levels. We cannot investigate the older levels without first carefully excavating, recording, and removing the Late Period burials.

At the end of the 4th Dynasty, the pyramid builders abandoned their city to the desert sands, as the 5th Dynasty kings moved the workers to Abusir and Saqqara. Two millennia later, the ancient Egyptians began using the site of the former Giza workmen’s village to bury their dead. The first of these were interred on a slope along the western edge of our dig site.

Karnak before the XVIIIth Dynasty.

Contribution to the study of the mud-brick remains of the first temples of Amun-Ra

by Guillaume Charloux

(DIGITAL BOOK IN FRENCH: Karnak avant la XVIIIe dynastie. Contribution à l'étude des vestiges en brique crue des premiers temples d'Amon-Rê) 2011.
Co-authored with Romain Mensan
With two articles by Michel Azim & Antoine Garric
With the participation of Shimaa Montaser Abu al-Hagag

Soleb. Collection "Études d’égyptologie" directed by Nicolas Grimal, professor at the Collège de France.

DIGITAL FORMAT. 568 pages (21 x 29,7 cm).
ISBN 978-2-9523726-9-5.

The Temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak, as now visited by thousands of tourists, is the largest religious sanctuary still preserved in Egypt. Yet our knowledge of its origin and its development is still very patchy, despite two centuries of French archaeological research.

In 2002, fortuitous mud-brick remains exhumed during the study of the foundations of New Kingdom constructions has revived the debate about its origin. This was the start of a large-scale geomorphological and archaeological operation conducted by a multidisciplinary research team. Courtyards of the fourth, fifth and sixth pylons, the so-called "courtyard of the Middle Kingdom", neighboring aisles, and Thutmose III’s Akhmenou have been the focus of soundings to recover mud-brick construction and lower sedimentation levels.

The results suggest that the first religious complex at Karnak was built on a hill and it gradually developed to the west. It was also determined that the first temple certainly dates back from the eleventh dynasty (ca. 2160-1991 BC) and cannot be earlier.

The Temple of the New Kingdom, as we now see it, was present in almost identical proportions during the Middle Kingdom and the Second Intermediate Period. This earlier religious complex, of which there remain only minor leveling courses of mud-brick, was most likely one of the largest sanctuaries in Egypt in the first half of the second millennium BC.

Dr. Guillaume Charloux received his Ph.D. from the University Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne). He is a research engineer in the UMR 8167 Orient et Méditerranée of the CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research).

Roman Mensan is an associate researcher at the UMR 5608 Traces of the CNRS .

Source: http://cnrs.academia.edu/GuillaumeCharloux/Books/1215481/Karnak_before_the_XVIIIth_Dynasty._Contribution_to_the_study_of_the_mud-brick_remains_of_the_first_temples_of_Amun-Ra

Big Question for 2012: The Great Pyramid's Secret Doors

By Rossella Lorenzi

Will the mystery over the Great Pyramid's secret doors be solved in 2012?

I dare say yes. After almost two decades of failed attempts, chances are now strong that researchers will reveal next year what lies behind the secret doors at the heart of Egypt's most magnificent pyramid.

New revelations on the enduring mystery were already expected this year, following a robot exploration of the 4,500-year-old pharaonic mausoleum.

But unrest in Egypt froze the project at its most promising stage, after it produced the first ever images behind one of the Great Pyramid's mysterious doors.

Now the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), once led by the controversial yet charismatic Zahi Hawass, is slowly returning to granting permits for excavations and archaeological research.

"As with other missions, we have had to resubmit our application to be allowed to continue. We are currently waiting for the various committees to formalise the approval," project mission manager Shaun Whitehead, of the exploration company Scoutek UK, told Discovery News.

"Once we're allowed to continue, I have no doubt that we can complete our work in 2012," he added.

Built for the pharaoh Cheops, also known as Khufu, the Great Pyramid is the last remaining wonder of the ancient world.

Who Is King Scorpion?

Abstract

The ‘Scorpion’ Mace-head is one of the most significant objects from the main deposit at Hierakonpolis. Unlike the Narmer Mace-head, it is not a complete mace-head but only part of one. Apart from the dominant figure after whom the palette is named, the surrounding scenes are partial; however excellently these have been conserved. This makes the object even more enigmatic and difficult to interpret than usual in the context of the development of Early Dynastic royal iconography.

This article re-examines the evidence and suggests an alternative identification for King Scorpion.

Read the rest of this very interesting article at: http://www.egyptological.com/2011/12/who-is-king-scorpion-6363