Ancient Egypt this week: Ramses the Great dominates

Children's footprints and rare painting fragments at the site of a mysterious Egyptian palace
Researchers found a preserved mortar pit at Egypt's Qantir-Piramesse site. In the preserved mortar they found children's footprints and painting fragments. The team have previously used magnetic imaging to find that the Qantir-Piramesse site was once an Egyptian pharaoh's palace-temple complex.

Archaeologists in Egypt unearth pharaonic structures

Archaeologists have unearthed several Pharaonic structures in Egypt's Nile Delta, the Egyptian Antiquities Ministry announced Tuesday. According to a ministry statement, an Egyptian-German archaeological mission discovered the buildings - one of which they believe is a palace temple - in the village of Qantir, located some 60 miles northeast of Cairo.

Professing Faith: Egyptian cow goddess sheds light on biblical stories

If I were to call one of my colleagues at the college a cow — not that I have ever been thus tempted, of course — doubtless it would be a great insult and would involve an angry phone call for the Human Resources office.

But in ancient times, this would be taken as a high compliment, particularly in the Egypt of the pharaohs. And the cow goddess may shed some light on more than one famous story in the Bible.

Gas Chromatography Reveals the Owner of Ancient Mummified Legs

An international team of archaeologists have identified a pair of mummified legs as belonging to Queen Nefertari, the royal wife of Pharaoh Ramses II — possibly the most powerful pharaoh in Egypt’s history. Nefertari’s opulent tomb was discovered in Egypt’s Valley of the Queens in 1904 by Italian archaeologists, with the remains being kept in a museum in Turin.

For Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs, Life Was a Banquet, But the Afterlife Was the Greatest Feast of All

In Ancient Egypt, inanimate objects—particularly images created for tombs or temples—were believed to contain latent magical powers. What was drawn or etched on stone could later come into being in another cosmos. That is why so many pharaonic works of art show tables piled high with food. Nobody wanted to go hungry in the afterlife. On the contrary, the ancient Egyptians hoped they would enjoy the greatest feast of all in that other realm.

Girl, 17 going on 2,300, visits Fort Lauderdale

It’s been a hard-knock life for “Annie,” a 2,300-year-old ancient Egyptian mummy that’s the centerpiece of a new exhibit at the Museum of Discovery and Science in Fort Lauderdale.

Ancient Egyptian's Baboon Obsession Laid Hidden Within Luxor Tomb

A secret chamber inside a royal scribe's tomb shows that his muse was, apparently, a primate.

For Jiro Kondo and his team from Waseda University, it began as just another day of excavating at Luxor, an Egyptian city famous for its temples and other ancient monuments. The researchers were taking care of mundane tasks at an area to the east of the forecourt of the known tomb of Userhat, who was a royal scribe.

The complex nature of the Ancient Egyptian funeral

The Egyptians had some of the most elaborate funeral practices of any other great civilisation. However, it is important to understand that these customs evolved continuously throughout history, and therefore we cannot generalise them.