A diorama of ancient Egyptians in the Royal Museum of Scotland
They wore socks, arm warmers, loincloths and tunics; they even knew underwear! Fashion in ancient Egypt, like today, was changing. Wool was known, but the dominant fabric was linen. Dr. Aleksandra Hallmann talks about the clothes of ancient Egyptians.
Egyptologists and archaeologists specialising in Egypt do not often talk about the clothes worn by ancient Egyptians. This topic is still poorly researched - scientists have long neglected it and focused on other aspects of this civilization, despite the fact that a lot of fabrics have survived to our times.
Wanscher Egyptian Chair Ole Wanscher for Carl Hansen & Son
When it comes to furniture, Egypt is rarely seen as an innovator or cutting-edge producer.
Even in 2019, the 35,000 registered workshops in the Nile Delta city of Damietta are churning out pieces largely based on models from the 19th century — in a style contemporary designers sometimes refer to derisively as “Louis Farouk,” known for its gilded and ornate features.
But a new partnership between the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and two Egyptian furniture manufacturers has brought young Danish design students in contact with producers.
The tomb of an ancient Egyptian princess has been found south of Cairo hidden in bedrock and surrounded by a court of tombs belonging to 4 high officials.
Dating to 2500 B.C., the structure was built in the second half of the 5th Dynasty, though archaeologists are puzzled as to why this princess was buried in Abusir South among tombs of non-royal officials.
BRIDGEMAN IMAGES Itier photographed this daguerreotype of Madinat Habu in Luxor in 1845 or 1846.
“To copy the millions of hieroglyphs that cover even the exterior of the great monuments of Thebes, Memphis, Karnak, and others would require decades of time and legions of draftsmen…. By daguerreotype, one person would suffice.”
—François Arago, January 7, 1839, during his announcement in Paris of the invention of photography by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre
Speaking as an astronomer, physicist, member of parliament and secretary of the Académie des Sciences, François Arago’s words resonated throughout the land. Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt had ignited a national passion for all things pharaonic when, from 1798 to 1801, he brought not only occupying soldiers but also more than 150 savants—scholars, cartographers, artists, naturalists, draftsmen and even a musicologist—who recorded the details of ancient sites and modern customs.
Credit: NEVILLE AGNEW/GETTY CONSERVATION INSTITUTE
THE hallowed tomb of King Tutankhamun has been restored to its ancient glory after 10 painstaking years.
Conservationists have breathed new life into the fabled burial chamber where the young Pharoh's mummified body was laid to rest nearly 3,000 years ago.
Exhibit in the Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, New York, USA. This artwork is in the public domain because the artist died more than 70 years ago. Photography was permitted in the museum without restriction.
A CT scan revealed the identity of this 3,000-year-old mummy that everyone erroneously thought was female.
Ankhefenmut is one of a pair of mummies at the institute whose remains were found at Bab el-Gasus (“Gate of the Priests”) in Egypt, and date to the 21st Dynasty between 1069 and 945 BC. When the mummy arrived at the Albany Institue in 1909, it was fully wrapped (the other was half-wrapped) and was assumed to be a female, due to some unknown seed of misinformation planted decades ago.
(Egyptian Antiquities Authority via AP) (Associated Press)
Egypt says archaeologists have uncovered ancient tombs dating back to the Second Intermediate Period, 1782-1570 B.C., in the Nile Delta.
The Antiquities Ministry said Wednesday that archaeologists also found 20 burial sites dating back to the Predynastic Period in Kom al-Kholgan archaeological site, about 140 kilometers (87 miles) north of Cairo.
The severed, mummified head was discovered in an Egyptian tomb in 1915. (Wikimedia Commons)
After other teams of scientists tried fruitlessly to extract DNA from the remains, the FBI made a surprising discovery.
In 1915, a team of US archaeologists excavating the ancient Egyptian necropolis of Deir el-Bersha blasted into a hidden tomb. Inside the cramped limestone chamber, they were greeted by a gruesome sight: a mummy’s severed head perched on a cedar coffin.
When the ancient Egypt gallery opens at the National Museum of Scotland on February 8, it will feel very different from the exhibitions of the past.
The artefacts on display will be broadly the same. The museum has 7000 pieces from the 4000 years of the Egyptian empire, from mummified remains, elaborate coffins and stone tablets to tiny ornaments and pieces of jewelry.
It has the only undamaged royal burial group in a museum outside Egypt.
What has changed is the way these relics are displayed and how their stories are told.
Egypt- Remains of Alleged Roman Era's Industrial, Commercial Area Unearthed
Centuries after their deaths, the remains from the Roman era still astonishes people with the details of their lives in Egypt. While we are in the beginning of 2019, the treasures left from the Roman period, begun in 30 BC, still emerge. The ministry of antiquities announced the discovery of several relics dating back to the Roman and Greek era at the Tuba Metwah archaeological site in Al-Amriyah in Alexandria.
The English Archaeological Mission of the University of Birmingham working on Hawa Dome project in Aswan succeeded in uncovering six tombs of different sizes dating back to the Old Kingdom.
The Head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Mostafa Waziry explained that the discovered tombs ranging in dimensions between 190 x285 cm, 352 x 635 cm.
An Egyptian wooden face with inlaid eyes, originally part of a coffin. Photograph: Paul Tucker
Museums teach us to dream. Since the Victorian age it’s been Egyptian mummies – matched only by dinosaurs – that have captivated children. Being taken to see the mummies is a rite of passage, and one accessible across the country, not just to those in London who have the British Museum on their doorstep. But local authority culture budgets are being slashed, so how can regional arts institutions survive? What should they do about the pressure to return looted objects? And how do they show their relevance to modern audiences?
