July 8 2019

Egyptian Views of the Afterlife

It’s fair to say that we know far more about Egyptian views of the afterlife than we do about the everyday lives of the living. In life, most people lived in mud-brick houses and had few possessions that survived to be found by Egyptologists. Well-to-do people, though, were buried in rock-cut tombs, often with a large array of grave goods, and paintings and inscriptions on the walls which give us a very good idea indeed of how they wanted to spend eternity.

Pulling Early Kingship Together
Normal sized example of a mace head (7 cm tall) from Hierakonpolis (UC14944). These weapons were attached to a handle and many were possibly just a symbol of status.

In 1898, shortly before Flinders Petrie discovered the tombs of the first pharaohs at Abydos, James Quibell (1867–1935) and Frederick Green (1869–1949) were working at the site of Hierakonpolis, south of modern Luxor. They found the spectacular palette of Narmer. The palette is the earliest monumental representation of a pharaoh and, for many today, it embodies the origins of Egyptian civilization. Yet the more the Narmer palette was vested with symbolic value by Egyptologists, the further it was dissociated from its archaeological context.

Ancient Egypt's Oldest Pyramid Has Enormous Moat to Guide Dead Pharaoh to The Afterlife, Researcher Claims
A rock-cut chapel in Djoser pyramid. J. DABROWSKI/PCMA

A huge trench around ancient Egypt's oldest step pyramid may have served as a 3D model of the pharaoh's way to the afterlife, an expert has claimed.

Kamil O. Kuraszkiewicz, an Egyptologist from the University of Warsaw, Poland, has been leading an excavation at the Pyramid of Djoser, which was built between 2667 and 2648 B.C., during the rule of the third dynasty pharaoh Djoser.

Note: The video is pretty amazing, too.

New Books in Egyptology (May-June 2019)

Every two months the Nile Scribes update readers on the most recent Egyptological publications. From popular reads to peer-reviewed scholarship, they hope to illustrate the wide variety of topics discussed in Egyptology, and perhaps introduce you to your next read! Thirteen books are scheduled for release this summer (May and June).

Glimpsing into the Black Market for Ancient Artifacts with an Archaeologist
Andrew Nelson is an archaeologist from Western University. He spoke with Afternoon Drive host Chris dela Torre about smuggling artefacts. (Western University, Canada)

It sounds like something out of an Indiana Jones movie....discovering artifacts in the back of a mail truck.

But it was very much a reality whenever U.S. customs and border protection announced they found mummy remains last month while conducting a vehicle examination at Blue Water bridge on the border between Ontario and Michigan.

They found that the Canadian mail truck was transporting five jars of ancient Egyptian mummy linens into the United States.

The Ancient Egyptian Religion Making a Comeback in the Modern World
Kemetic house shrine of Thot

Ancient Egypt exercises a powerful hold over modern imaginations, conjuring images of gilded pharaohs, towering pyramids, and stunning hieroglyphics.

Historians and archaeologists have, over the past two centuries, unearthed countless lost treasures from beneath the Egyptian sands, and we now know much more than we did about this elusive and fascinating civilization.

Builders Of Egypt Trailer

The latest trailer of the game "Builders of Egypt", in which you play the role of the governor of the Egyptian city. Builders Of Egypt is a city-building economic strategy game taking place in the Nile Valley. Immerse yourself in a world full of pyramids, where you will become a part of the ancient world. Create history, be history!

Picture of the Week

Ancient Egypt May 28

Agatha Christie: world’s first historical whodunnit was inspired by 4,000 year-old letters

When the ancient Egyptian priest and landowner Heqanakhte wrote a series of rather acerbic letters to his extended family sometime during the 12th Dynasty (1991-1802BC), he could not have known that he was creating the framework around which the British crime writer Agatha Christie (1890-1976) would, some 4,000 years later, weave one of the world’s first historical crime novels.

Death Comes as the End (1944) is the only one of Christie’s novels not to be set in the 20th century and not to feature any European characters. The death of a priest’s concubine sets off a series of murders within the family and, as in Christie’s more familiar 20th-century whodunnits, the scene is soon littered with bodies. The book is due to be adapted for the screen by the BBC in 2019.

How did King Tutankhamun become a household name?

Out of all Ancient Egyptians, one Pharaoh remains a well-known figure today. And his continued prominence may be because of an an influential museum exhibition nearly fifty years ago. Treasures of Tutankhamun was an incredibly popular exhibition at the British Museum that promoted King Tut into public consciousness. ABC Overnights speaks to Secretary of the Manchester Ancient Egypt Society and Deputy Editor of Ancient Egypt Magazine Sarah Griffiths who saw the exhibition when she was a young girl.

Graduate student unearths ancient Egyptian life stories from burial texts

A UCLA student discovered that ancient Egyptians used material objects to construct their social identities just as people do today.

Marissa Stevens, a graduate student in the department of Near Eastern languages and cultures, studied how ancient Egyptians used funerary papyri to convey social status and personalities by examining social documents buried with the dead. Stevens presented her research May 3 at the final round of the University of California Grad Slam, an annual contest in which UC graduate students present their research in just three minutes.

Collection of ancient Egyptian artefacts seized in Naples, Italy

The artefacts had been stolen from illegal excavation sites in Egypt.

Police in Naples, Italy have seized a number of parcels filled with artefacts from several countries, including ancient Egyptian artefacts.

Tel Al-Amarna Visitors' Centre in Minya to receive upgrade

The Ministry of Antiquities has begun a project to develop the Amarna Visitors' Centre in Minya in partnership with the University of Cambridge's McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.

The project is titled Delivering Sustainable Heritage Strategies for Rural Egypt: Community and Archaeology at Tel El-Amarna, and is funded by the Newton-Mosharafa Fund organised by the British Council and the Science and Technology Development Fund, according to Mostafa Waziri, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities at Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities.

Skeleton Found At Late Roman Fortress In Egypt Reveals Violent Death

At the Late Roman era fortress of Hisn al-Bab between ancient Egypt and Nubia, archaeologists recovered the skeleton of a young man who met a violent death and who was left exposed where he fell after the fort was destroyed. His remains may hold the key to understanding a previously undocumented battle.





Egypt: Old Kingdom by Clarus Victoria is now available on Steam!

Strategy simulator of the Great Pyramids construction period, where you take your path from the unification of Egyptian tribes to the foundation of The First Empire.

Deep historical research and stylized graphics - these two are the main features of Egypt Old Kingdom, the game made by Clarus Victoria Studio in cooperation with egyptologists from CESRAS (Center for Egyptological Studies of the Russian Academy of Science).

The player will lead a small group of Egyptians, who came to the Lower Egypt to found a new settlement. All he has is a minimal stock of food, a handful of people and a few soldiers as a protection from threats and wild animals.

Intriguing Gold Coin and Other Treasures Uncovered in Egypt

Archaeologists in Egypt have unearthed the remains of a huge, red, brick building — likely the remnants of a Roman bath — as well as a mountain of treasures, including a statue of a ram and a gold coin featuring King Ptolemy III, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities.

Archaeologists discovered previously unknown hieroglyphic inscriptions in Egypt

Polish scientists discovered dozens of previously unknown hieroglyphic inscriptions on the rocks near the temple of Hathor at Gebelein, Southern Egypt. The inscriptions containing prayers to deities had been made by pilgrims or priests, the researchers say.

"The temple scribe Senebiu adores Hathor Lady of Gebelein" - reads one of the inscriptions discovered by a team of Polish scientists working at Gebelein. Like a few dozen others, it was engraved on a rock surface near the 3.5 thousand years old rock-cut chapel of the goddess Hathor.

Video of the week

Picture of the week

New Amenhotep III Statues at Kom El Hitan. Luxor's West Bank.