The eloquent peasant

Egyptologist Bassam Al-Shamaa tells  Abeya
El-Bakry about the history of revolt in Egypt

January 2011 was not the first revolution in Egypt in the last 100 years. Unlike the July 1952 Revolution and the regime to which it gave birth, the January Revolution was not military. It was a civil revolution calling for civil rights and civil government. But nor was the July Revolution in any way unprecedented. As the Egyptologist, tour guide and writer who launched the 2005 Save the Sphinx campaign Bassam Al-Shamaa explains, there was a precedent for the January Revolution in the workers’ strike of 1155 BC. Al-Shamaa traces the Egyptians’ revolutionary character and how it has changed over an incredibly long period of time, indicating that at least some native traits have endured. Of course he is aware of the fact that revolution goes by many names, including “coup d’etat” when it involves military intervention. In ancient Egypt it was called sbi, he explains, meaning roughly rebellion; but by the time the army officer Ahmed Orabi led major protests in 18th century Egypt, it was known by the Arabic word hoga, literally meaning “frenzy” but perhaps more accurately translated as uprising, for which the accepted English term for the Arab world — following Palestinians protests — is “intifada”.

Revolutions were frequent before the unification of upper and lower Egypt, Al-Shamaa says, in the time of what he calls “the very ancient Egyptians”. There were two places in Upper Egypt — the southern half of the country — particularly known for protests: a city whose location is in the present-day town of Ballas, and Naqqada, 27 kilometres north of Luxor. “History works in steps, in my opinion,” Al-Shamaa says. “There is no such thing as an invention, only progress.” King Menes is credited with unifying the country but in fact there were several figures associated with this achievement when “the Lord of the Land(s)” became “the Lord of the Two Lands” and the double crown emerged. This period was in fact very similar to the situation we currently have with the breakdown in security and sharp polarisation between supporters and opponents of General Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi. At the time, Al-Shamaa says, governors and district heads seceded from the central government, which almost happened twice in the last year, in the cities of Al-Mahalla and Port Said.

One Mummy, Many Coffins: Egyptians Intended to Transform Deceased from Human to Deity

Aug. 23, 2013 — The Egyptian elite was buried in a coffin placed inside another coffin -- in ensembles of up to eight coffins. This was intended to ensure the transformation of the deceased from human to deity, according to Anders Bettum, Egyptologist.

"Boxes and other forms of containers are technologies that arise at given points of time in various cultures. Everybody knows the ancient Egyptian practice of mummifying their dead. What is perhaps less known is that they placed the mummies inside layer upon layer of coffins," says Anders Bettum, Egyptologist at the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, University of Oslo.

A similar idea can be found with Russian dolls, Chinese boxes and even Norwegian poetry traditions.

"The Egyptian coffin sets are based on the same principle that we can observe with Chinese boxes and Russian nested matryoshka dolls, where objects are nested inside each other to constitute a complete ensemble," he says.

Ancient Egyptian history encompasses a period of nearly three thousand years, up to the Roman conquest in the year 30 BCE. Today, museums all over the world possess mummies or coffins that have contained mummies of more or less prominent men and women.

The child king Tutankhamun (1334-24 BCE) was buried in as many as eight coffins, according to Bettum.

"For men and women who were members of the ancient Egyptian elite at that time, three or four coffins were not unusual," he adds.

Museum Pieces - Cosmetic Vessel of Meretnubt

Photocredit: The Walters Art Museum

This small cosmetic vessel is carved with an openwork frieze of heraldic birds flanking a cartouche with the name "King's daughter, Nubet-meryt." Meretnubt was a daughter of King Thutmose I (1504-1492 BC). Separating the two heraldic groups are two snakes flanking a column. Above the openwork frieze is carved a series of alternating open and closed lotus flowers which ring the neck of the vessel. The glaze is particularly green in appearance.

Period: ca. 1500 BC (New Kingdom)
Medium: steatite with glaze
Accession number: 48.1388
Measurements: 2 1/8 x 2 1/8 in. (5.4 x 5.4 cm) (h. x diam.)

Source: http://art.thewalters.org/detail/37477/cosmetic-vessel-of-meretnubt/

Confirmed: Ancient Egyptian Jewelry Was Made From Meteorites

Barraging ancient beads with tests tells archaeologists that jewelry came from space-rocks--and that iron-working was an older job than we thought.

By Colin Lecher Posted 08.19.2013

If you want to track down meteorite debris, UCL Qatar professor Thilo Rehren explains in a phone interview, you have a couple options: your best bet is to scour for the black chunks of rock in the white plains of Antarctica, "but the second best place to hunt meteorites is the Sahara Desert," where it's relatively easy to find space rocks amid the expansive, light sands. About 5,000 years ago, that's where the Egyptians likely looked.

Rehren and a team of archaeologists have been studying Egyptian jewelry first uncovered from a grave in 1911--specifically, a set of beads from around 3,200 B.C. (The markings on ceramics and other finds at the site indicate the general time period.) The beads don't look like much more than decaying chunks of metal (which they are), but they were ceremoniously strung together on a necklace and wrapped around the deceased inside the tomb.

The beads are the earliest known iron artifacts ever found. So old, in fact, that the beads pre-date iron smelting, where metal is produced from raw ore. That technique is what ushered in the Iron Age, when stronger tools and weapons altered the course of human history. It's long been suspected that iron trinkets from well before the Iron Age came from meteorites, and now it's been confirmed "beyond reasonable doubt," Rehren says. That means iron working was practiced thousands of years before it was widespread.

Ransacked! Egypt's Malawi National Museum

AP released some photos yesterday from the ransacked Egyptian antiques museum Malawi National Museum. Apparently 1040 of the 1089 objects were stolen from the museum last thursday.

The following photos by AP show what is left of the museum after the looting.

For more info about the stolen objects:

http://www.facebook.com/StopTheHeritageDrain

http://www.facebook.com/EgyptsHeritageTaskForce

Egypt's archaeological sites and museums closed indefinitely

Following violence across the country as security forces move to break up pro-Morsi sit-ins, minister announces archaeological sites and museums closed

by Nevine El-Aref , Wednesday 14 Aug 2013

Egypt's Ministry of State for Antiquities (MSA) has closed all archaeological sites and museums across Egypt, as well as the ministry’s administrative premises.

The decision came in response to violence in Egypt following police attempts to break up Muslim Brotherhood sit-ins at Rabaa Al-Adawiya in Nasr City and Al-Nahda Square in Giza.

Minister of State for Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim established an emergency operation room to follow up on security measures taken at archaeological sites and museums across the country, in order to protect them from looting or encroachment.

During clashes, pro-Morsi protesters destroyed guard kiosks at the entrance to the National Museum of Alexandria, and at the Malawi National Museum in the Upper Egypt city of El-Minya.

Ibrahim told Ahram Online that both museums are safe, however. "Thank God, nothing happened to the museums themselves," he said.

Source: http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/9/40/79035/Heritage/Ancient-Egypt/Egypts-archaeological-sites-and-museums-closed-ind.aspx

The Mummy Code

Ancient-DNA researchers have long clashed over work on Egyptian mummies, but next-gen sequencing might resolve their debates.

By Dan Cossins | August 1, 2013

In 2010, researchers analyzed DNA from the ancient Egyptian boy-king Tutankhamen and 10 of his relatives (JAMA, 303:638-47). It was a blockbuster study. Revealing family relationships among the 3,300-year-old royals and identifying the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum in several of the corpses, the research grabbed headlines and was even the subject of  a 3-part documentary aired by the Discovery Channel, which partly funded the project.

But the work drew criticism from some ancient-DNA experts, who claimed that the results could be explained by contamination from modern humans. The ensuing row deepened a long-standing rift among researchers who aim to coax genetic secrets from the mummified denizens of bygone civilizations. “For sure it is a highly debated field,” says Carsten Pusch of the University of Tübingen in Germany, who was part of the team that analyzed King Tut’s DNA. “The tone of the arguments is sometimes a little bit strong.”

On one side are “believers,” who claim to have analyzed DNA from dozens of Egyptian mummies. On the other side, skeptics view such claims as highly problematic. DNA breaks down more quickly in hot conditions, causing many to doubt whether fragments long enough to enable reliable analysis can survive for thousands of years baking in the Egyptian desert.