ARCE Lecture on December 5

The New York chapter of the American Research Center in Egypt and the Egyptian Consulate in New York City will host Professoe Sahar Saleem, M. D. on December 5 at 6:00 PM. Dr. Saleem will be speaking about Ancient Egyptian Medicine and Health in the Eyes of Modern Science.

Dr. Saleem is on the faculty of the Medicine-Cairo University. She will be speaking at the Egyptian Consulate, 866 United Nations Plaza, Suite 586, NY., NY. (at 48th St and 1st Avenue).

The talk is free and open to the public. If you would like to attend, please RSVP at info@arceny.com. Due to security reasons you must RSVP in advance so that your name can be added to the list building security will have.

I hope to see you there.

Secret to Building Great Pyramid Discovered?

     The answer to one of the mysteries of how the Egyptians built the great pyramid may have been discovered. Archaeologists working in the ancient quarry at Hatnub found  a steep ramp with staircases and numerous post holes along side of it. They are specualting that a massive stone block could have been moved by placing it on a wooden sled and then using ropes attached to the sled and the posts lining the ramp. This would hve been much easier than the method of having massive numbers of men pulling the block up a steep ramp manually using only ropes to haul it.

     Apparently two inscriptions of Kufu's were found near the ramp, which would indiate that this system of moving large stone blocks was known at the time of the building of the great pyramid.

ARCE NY Opens its 2018 - 2019 Lecture Season

     The New York chapter of the American Research Center in Egypt will have its first lecture of the new academic year on Tuesday, September 11, at 6:00 in the evening. The speaker is Dr. Tara Prakash of the Metropolitan Museum of Art who will give lecture entitled "Despicable Kings and Debased Rivals: The Enemies of Ramesses II in the Battle of Kadesh Reliefs".

     The lecture is free and open to the public. If you would like to attend, please send an email to ARCE NY at info@arceny.com so that we can add you to the list that building security uses (if you are not on their list, they will not admit you to the building). The lecture will take place at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP, 7 Times Square, NY, NY. 23rd floor (the building entrance is on Broadway at 42nd St. between The Loft and The Counter. After going through security proceed to the 5th floor and transfer for an elevator to the 23rd floor.

     Also, check our website at www.arceny.com for the date and time of future lectures.





   

Brazil Museum Gutted by Fire

     The National Museum in Rio de Janeiro had a major fire on Sunday evening. The museum reportedly houses more than 20 million artifacts from around the world, including 700 from ancient Egypt. The  full extent of the damage is not yet known.

     The sarcophagus of the singer Shaamunensu was one of the more important artifacts in the museum. It was presented as a gift by the Khedive of Egypt Ismail Pasha and has never been opened. The museum also has some ushabti's from the tomb of Seti I in the Valley of the Kings.

The Sarcophagus of Seti I

     I just finished reading a new book describing the sarcophagus of the Egyptian Pharaoh Seti I. The sarcophagus is an extremely beautiful object. I saw it a number of years ago and was very pleased to see this book published.

     This slim volume (96 pages) is filled with with plenty of photographs and a succinct and well written description of Seti's sarcophagus, how it was discovered and how it got to Sir John Soane's home. The majority of the book is dedicated to a description of the illustrations of the ancient Egyptian "Book of Gates" that are carved on the exterior and interior of the sarcophagus. This religious text describes the journey of the sun god Ra through the underground caverns he must cross during the night to be reborn in the eastern sky at dawn. The author, John H. Taylor, has described the carvings in detail and explained the meaning of the text in sufficient detail to enlighten those of us who are interested in Egyptian funerary writings (the "Book of the Dead", the "Book of Gates", etc.) without doing a full translation of the somewhat obscure texts themselves.

     To me, this book was absolutely fascinating and a great addition to my library, but some readers may find the description of the inscriptions to be a bit more detail than they need.

(Sorry about the white background, I am not sure why this is happening........)

Luxor in Las Vegas (Part 2)

Fig. 1 - Entranceway to the Casino

     While the outside of the Luxor hotel / Casino in Las Vegas is big and splashy, the Egyptianizing fun continues inside as well.

Fig. 2 - the heart of the deceased being weighed to see if he is free of sin

     First you enter the hotel past a statue of a Pharaoh and a couple of Egyptianizing columns (see fig. 1) as well as a copy of the scene of the heart of the deceased being weighed before Osiris (see fig. 2). I could make all sorts of comments about having your heart weighed to see if it is heavy with sin before you enter a casino (or will it be weighed when you leave the casino??), but I will refrain.

Fig. 3 - the entrance pylon that is inside the hotel

     Now you find yourself in the main lobby. There you are greeted by what looks like a copy (sort of) of the entrance pylon of an ancient temple. Statues of the king flank either side of the entrance to the casino (you can see the slot machines in the distance through the "pylon's" entrance). Also, if you look at the foot area of the statue on the right, you can see a ram-headed sphinx that looks very much like it comes from the avenue of sphinxes that connected the Karnak and Luxor temples in early times.

Fig. 4 - an obelisk with hieroglyphs that light up

Fig. 5 - a "Middle Kingdom" Sphinx

     Upstairs, where the shows and shops are located, there is still more  Egyptomania fun with an obelisk that has hieroglyphs that light up (the hieroglyphs do not really say anything, but in Las Vegas that is not really important, right?). One can only wonder what Ramesses II would have done with something like this. There is also another sphinx there that resembles the famous one from the Middle Kingdom that is now in the Louvre in Paris. My wife sat by the paws of the sphinx while I toured the nearby exhibit of artifacts brought up from the Titanic.

Luxor (in Las Vegas)

Fig. 1 - the Luxor Obelisk in Las Vegas

     OK, let's get silly for a few minutes. I recently did a trip to Las Vegas and I stopped by the Luxor Hotel to get some photos of the "Egyptianizing" decor of the place.

Fig. 2 - the Great Sphinx of Las Vegas

     The front of the hotel / casino features a giant sphinx and obelisk, while the building itself is shaped lime a giant black pyramid. The front of the building has a temple-like front where taxi cabs can drop off and pick up passengers. The walls of this "temple" are decorated with numerous, well carved, but totally meaningless "inscriptions" (see figure 3).

Fig. 3 - "inscriptions" on the exterior of the Luxor "Temple"

     On a previous trip to Vegas (many years ago) the hotel had an exhibit that was something like a reproduction of Tutankhamen's tomb. Not a real reproduction mind you, just something that looked like a small scale mock up of the tomb. This is gone now, replaced by places that can sell you something.

In the next post we can take a look inside the hotel at some of the Egyptianizing decor that can be seen there.

Drinking from a Sarcophagus???

     Occasionally Egyptologists get to deal with some truly unusual ideas and the people who propose them. Some people believe that the pyramids were built by aliens while others believe that there is a curse of the Pharaohs that will strike down anyone who violates a royal tomb.

     The latest example of this sort of thing just might be the craziest I have ever heard of. Last week a large black sarcophagus was found and opened in Alexandria. Inside was a mix of skeletons and a vile smelling red water. A crack in the sarcophagus had apparently allowed water to seep in.

     Now someone has started a petition to have the antiquities service permit the drinking of "...the red liquid from the cursed dark sarcophagus in the form of some sort of carbonated energy drink so we can assume its powers and die." Wow! Mixing an ancient curse with a carbonated energy drink. This idea is truly unique!

     Now it would be easy to dismiss this petition as the ravings of a lone loon, but apparently over 17,000 people have signed the petition! Seriously, 17,000 people want to drink this stuff in the form of a carbonated energy drink that will kill them?

     And I thought the ideas I hear at work were crazy!!!!!

Assassin's Creed Origins

     At the annual ARCE meeting a video game called "Assassin's Creed: Origins" was brought to my attention by a speaker (Christian Casey) who suggested that it be used to engage youngsters in ancient history, especially ancient Egyptian history.

     I took a look at the game through the magic of YouTube.com, which has numerous video clips showing off the stunning graphics in this game. Take a look at them and see what I mean.

     But the larger question here is can games be used to engage kids in "school work" like history? My own personal experience would suggest that the answer to this question is yes. Back in about 1982 I became an early adopter of a new product called a PC. At first I bought it to do for processing, rather than driving myself nuts with a typewriter. During summer break, I played a few games (very primitive ones compared to Assassin's Creed) and got interested in learning how the games were actually created. This led me to becoming a programmer and having a much better career than I otherwise might have. Playing video games did indeed have a significant, positive, impact on my education and life.

     So if anyone has any thoughts on all of this, please do comment on this post as I am really interested in what others may think about this idea.

Gods, Priests and Bald Men in the Book of the Dead - ARCE Annual Meeting Day 3

     On day 3 of the annual ARCE meeting Dr. Barbara Richter spoke about "Gods, Priests and Bald Men: a New Look at the Book of the Dead 103". Spell 103 is short and not well studied. Eighty-six copies of it are known from the New Kingdom through the Roman Period and pre-cursors of this spell appear in the Coffin Texts. The spell reads, "I am one who passes by, pure and bald. Ihy, Ihy, I am in the following of Hathor".

     For such a short spell, there are a number of meanings to the words, as Dr. Richter pointed out. First of all, Ihy is a minor Egyptian god. The word can also mean "a sistrum player" or "Ihy priest", or even "to make music". The god Ihy is shown wearing a sidelock at Dendera, which is his main cult center, as far back as the Fifth Dynasty. There is also a statue of Ihy in the Tomb of Tutankhamen (see: Carter, Howard. The Tomb of Tutankhamen, vol. 3, plate LVI; the statue is made of wood covered in black resin). Ihy priests are more commonly shown in the Ptolemaic Period, than the New Kingdom. There is also one interesting extra tidbit related to this, as pointed out in this talk. Some New Kingdom statues show a bald man, with just a fringe of hair, offering a sistrum.

     There are double meanings in other words in this short spell. "Ssh" means "to pass by" or "to open" and this spell is sometimes accompanied by a vignette showing a person opening a shrine with Hathor inside.

     A possible interpretation of this spell, according to Dr. Richter, is that it indicates the role of music in pacifying Hathor.

Day Two of the ARCE Meeting (Conclusion)

     The second day of this year's ARCE annual meeting ended (for me) with two papers the first of which was delivered by Hassan Ramadan, one of several Egyptian scholars who spoke at this year's meeting. This paper (entitled "The Western Cemetery Excavation of the tomb of Hetepet at Giza") detailed excavation work done on the Fifth Dynasty (sometime after the reign of Neferkara) mastaba of Hetepet.

     Next, Geoff Embering (University of Michigan) spoke on the "Memories of the Kings of Kush: New Excavations Around the Royal Cemetery at el_Kurru". The paper detailed the work of Dr. Embering and his team in a post-Dynasty 25 Nubian cemetery.  The team attempted to locate some structures mentioned by Reisner and looked at a pyramid dating to the fourth century B. C. This pyramid was considered to be in danger of collapsing and architecture experts were brought in to determine how to prevent that from happening. It is suspected that this pyramid may not have actually been used for a burial.

     Day three started with Dr. Rita Lucarelli speaking about the "Dead Vignettes of the Greek Magical Papyri". Dr. Lucarelli showed a number of interesting vignettes from some Greek papyri and made some suggestions about their interpretation. One of these shows a square with a large "X" running through it. On top of it are two animal heads (Set animals?), while underneath it is a large snake (Apopis?). Is it a stela? A representation of the coffin of Osiris? Or does it represent a gate (from the underworld?). Another interesting vignette shown and discussed is a round topped stela with a winged snake and a human holding a knife, with this scene coming from Spell 149 of the Book of the Dead.

   

   

More Papers at the ARCE Annual Meeting

     Even after hearing all of the papers mentioned in my previous two posts, the second day of the ARCE annual meeting was not nearly over. The next group of papers started with Dr. Rosa Erika Feleg speaking on the topic of "Re-Used Blocks in the Triple Shrine Inside Ramesses III's Forecourt at the Luxor Temple". Some scholars have argued that the shrines to Nut, Amun-Re and Khonshu that has been credited to Ramesses III was actually built by Hatshepsut. Dr. Feleg however seemed to be of the opinion that Ramesses re-used blocks from the reign of Hatshepsut and Amenhotep II, as well as some talatat blocks from the reign of Akhenaten, to build these shrines.

     Dr. Karen Bryson of Johns Hopkins deliver a lecture entitled "Fashion Forward: Dress and Decoding the Queenly Images of the Early 19th Dynasty". One interesting point that she made is that the iconography of the few statues of Horemheb's wife, Mutnodjmet was very similar to the statue found at Akhmim and thought to be of Meritamun, who was a wife of Ramesses II. Was this statue actually of Mutnodjmet?

     Then Dr. Nazomu Kawai of Kanazawa University described his recent excavations at North Saqqara. His team was trying to find the New Kingdom cemetery of Saqqara. They conducted a survey south of the Abu Sir lake, west to the Serapeum and east to the pyramid of Teti. Finds were precisely located using a GPS system and infra-red satellite images were used locate mud-brick structures under the sand. Work will continue in this area.

     

ARCE Meetings - Day 2 (Continued)

     Day 2 of the annual ARCE meeting continued with Dr. Ogden Goelet (of New York University) discussing "Insights into Ritual at the Abydos Temple of Ramesses II".

     Like most Egyptian temples, this one is divided into three parts. At the front is a peristyle court where the general public could worship. Behind this area was an octostyle count (called octostyle because it had eight columns) which was restricted to priests and the elite. At the rear of the temple was a second octostyle court and three cult rooms.

     During festivals the cult statue of the god was frequently paraded on a small barque (boat) carried on poles by the temple priests. Dr. Goelet feels that the rear portions of the temple were too small for a barque to be carried and suggests that a small shrine may have been used instead.

     Like all Egyptian temples, this one had many texts and scenes carved on its walls, including the "Litany of Horus", which is an offering ritual that appears as far back as the Pyramid Texts. There is also a scene of Ramesses being rejuvenated by drinking cow's (Hathor's) milk, while in chapel G there is another scene of Ramesses being rejuvenated, this time by a "baptism" that shows the water being poured on him as streams of Ankhs (life) and Was scepters (dominion).

     Adela Oppenheim of the Metropolitan Museum discussed the museum's recent work at Lisht South and the pyramid complex of Senwosret III in a talk entitled "The Metropolitan Museum 2017 Season at Lisht South and the Pyramid Complex of Senwosret III, Dashur".

     The museum started the season by doing conservation and restoration work in the burial chamber of Senwosretankh at Lisht South, which is well known as it has a copy of the Pyramid Texts in it. Then the work switched to Dashur and the South Temple of Senwosret III's pyramid complex. On the Southwest side of the temple are a number of boat pits (one of the boats they contained is in the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh). The temple itself is now limited to mud brick sub-foundations and the exact layout of the temples rooms cannot be determined at this time. The decorative program is very fragmented. There were intrusive burials found as well as a post-Middle Kingdom pit lined with blocks placed in all sorts of random directions. A lintel was also found that has what Dr. Oppenheim referred to as a "Bird Stare Down", with Nekhbet and Horus facing each other and seeming to want to see who will blink first.

ARCE 2018 Annual Meetings - Day 2

     Day two of the annual American Research Center in Egypt conference started at 8:30 this morning with a talk by Martin Uildriks (of Brown University) entitled "Forts, Cities and Urbanization, a Comparative Space Syntax Analysis of State-Planned Space".

     Dr. Uildriks raised the issue of Egyptologists assuming that the first floor of homes (of the wealthy anyway) had columned rooms that were used as reception areas. This interpretation may need to change as he showed a number of depictions of homes that show columned rooms on the second floor. Further, some of the excavated homes at Amarna show signs of having the first floor used fo production work, such as weaving. The speaker also pointed out to similar indications is state controlled housing at Kahun and in the Nubian forts, such as Uronarti.

     Lisa Saladino Haney discussed the art work of Senwosret III and how it fit into a possible co-regency (the talk was called "Visualizing Coregency: the Early and Later Styles of Senwosret III"). Dr. Haney started by mentioning three stelae that have "double datings" that possibly indicate coregencies:

• Stela of Hapu - double dating of Amenemhat II (year 35) and Senwosret II (year 2)
• Stela of Wepwawet - Senwosret I (year 44) and Amenemhat II (year 2)
• Stela of AMeny - also carries a double date

Dr. Haney divides the art of Senwosret III into two parts, and early and late period. The late style continues into the reign of Amenemhat III while the early style first appears in the reign of Senwosret iII's predecessor.
  

ARCE Annual Meetings - Day 1

     The American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) is having its annual meeting this week on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I arrived Friday morning (because United got me to Houston too late to catch my connecting flight on Thursday), so I missed the first few papers I wanted to see. However, there were still plenty of other papers to enjoy:

     Bonnie Sampsell gave a paper entitled "Reconsidering the History of an Unusual Yellow Coffin" in which she described a Third Intermediate Period yellow coffin and suggested that the specific coffin was likely a late example of its type.

     Brian Muhs of the University of Chicago gave a talk entitled "Papyri in Private Collections, Afterlife or Second Death? The Case of William Randolph Hearst", in which he detailed Hearst's collection of eight papyri, how they were eventually sold at auction to help pay off Hearst's massive debts and what became of some of them after they were sold to private collectors. Dr. Muhs also pointed out that the present whereabouts of three of the papyri is no longer known.

     "The Gilded Coffin of the Priest of Heryshef, Nedjemankh", a talk by Diana Craig Patch and Janice Kamrin, described a Ptolemaic coffin that has recently been acquired by the Metropolitan Museum. The coffin has a number of interesting features. For instance, the lappets of the "wig" on the coffin have a number of registers of decoration that show baboons worshipping the rising sun Isis and Nephthys with Osiris, Anubis and Horus with Osiris and representations of recumbent jackals (earlier Egyptian coffins did not have decorative registers on the wig lappets). The coffin is made of cartonnage covered with plaster and gilded.

     There was also a business meeting of the various members of the various ARCE chapter's Board of Directors, which I attended as one of the representatives of the New York chapter. Some interesting ideas were discussed and some interesting developments should be happening soon.  I will post news as it happens.

     My next post will detail events of the second day of the conference.