Egypt Archives - Page 85 of 92

Seven New Kingdom Tombs Opened in Saqqara

Egypt is looking to bring visitors back with the opening of seven new tombs 20 miles from Cairo. From the Jerusalem Post:

Egypt’s antiquities ministry on Monday opened seven New Kingdom tombs that were previously unavailable to the public. The tombs include the final resting place of King Tutankhamen’s treasurer as well as a general, Horemheb, who would later become king.
Antiquities Minister Zahi Hawass announced the opening of the South Saqqara tombs on his website on May 22. The tombs are located about 30 kilometers south of Cairo and near Djoser’s Step Pyramid. The seven tombs are from New Kingdom, a period that lasted from the 16th century to 11th century B.C.
The tomb of King Tut’s treasurer, Maya, while unfinished, features images of Maya and his wife Merit. Maya helped Tutankhamen reopen temples in the then-capital Luxor, further south in Egypt, which had been abndoned during his father Akhenaton’s rule for the site of Amarna. He helped Tutankhamen restore order in a country that had been disrupted by his father’s drastic changes including the move of the capital and abolishing of the priestly order.

The full story is here. The story is also reported by the AP. NTDTV has a four-minute video.

Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs, told reporters:

We are opening this new cemetery today to tell the whole world that Egypt is safe and come to smell and to see the magic and the mystery of Egypt.

Tagged Egypt, Tourism

Weekend Roundup

Well preserved remains of an ancient ship possibly from the first century has been found in the port that served ancient Rome.

Roman and Byzantine buildings have been discovered in Jiftlik, a Palestinian town near Alexandrium-Sartaba in the Jordan Valley.

“Geography and culture are important.” Jim Elliff explains why in this bulletin insert that you can download and reproduce for your church.

Infanticide was apparently common in the Roman Empire.

The first phase of the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation is scheduled to open next month.

The country of Turkey is starting to recognize the value of its Christian sites for bringing in tourists (NY Times).

The Alphabetical list of Open Access Journals in Ancient Studies surpassed 900 titles this week.

Wayne Stiles shares his thoughts (and video) on Mount Arbel and the Sea of Galilee (JPost).

Tour guide Joe Yudin describes his jeep tour of the Judean Desert in a new column at the Jerusalem Post.

As a follow-up to the list of finalists for the 2011 Christian Book Award, it may be noted that the winner in the Bible Reference Category is the Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds
Commentary, edited by John H. Walton.

Accordance is giving away a Bible a day (to one winner) and offering a big discount for all users, through the month of May.

ICEJ News reports on Israel’s plans to invest in Nazareth: On Wednesday, Israeli tourism minister Stas Meseznikov announced that the government is planning to invest more than NIS 12 million over the next four years in Israel’s largest Arab city, Nazareth, which is also a major tourist attraction due to its status as the town where Jesus grew up, being visited by over 40% of the tourists who arrive in Israel every year. One of the strategies used in order to develop the city is to encourage local residents to open their own businesses, and grants of up to 30% of their start up investments are therefore offered. “The program to boost development of the tourism industry in Nazareth is part of a 2010 government initiative to encourage development in the Arab sector,” Meseznikov said.

HT: Paleojudaica, Jack Sasson

Tagged Egypt, Excavations, Galilee, Italy, Judah, Museums, Resources, Tourism, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Maps for the Ancient World

Routledge Wall Maps for the Ancient World, edited by Richard Talbert, is available as a set or individually.

From the publisher’s website:

Routledge Wall Maps for the Ancient World provide both students and scholars with detailed and exacting geographic information of the ancient world. Using the world renowned geographic data from the Ancient World Mapping Centre, the sweeping views of the ancient world allow students to understand important concepts such as trade, movement, spatial and cultural relations and to consider how the ancient terrain would have affected them. The maps provide a powerful tool for comprehending how the ancient world worked and also to help re-evaluate out-dated theories in light of precise geographic information.
Those students who are new to the discipline of ancient history will find them invaluable in orientating themselves within the world of the past. How far is Athens from Sparta, what type of terrain did Alexander have to cross on his journeys, how did the valley of the Nile look in 500 BC? Such questions and many more are answered by the maps within this series.

Egypt and the Near East 3000-1200 BCE
Wall Map: 978-0-415-58500-2: $64.95 [$21.80 at Amazon]

Egypt and the Near East 1200 – 500 BCE
Wall Map: 978-0-415-58499-9: $64.95 [$38.35 at Amazon]

Greece and the Aegean in the 5th Century BCE
Wall Map: 978-0-415-58441-8: $64.95 [57.94 at Amazon]

Greece and Persia in the Time of Alexander the Great
Wall Map: 978-0-415-58498-2: $64.95 [57.94 at Amazon]

Italy in the Mid First Century CE
Wall Map: 978-0-415-58440-1: $64.95 [57.94 at Amazon]

The Roman Empire around 200 CE
Wall Map: 978-0-415-58439-5: $64.95 [57.94 at Amazon]

The World of the New Testament and the Journeys of Paul
Wall Map: 978-0-415-58501-9: $64.95 [57.94 at Amazon]

Professors may request a complimentary examination copy via a link at the Routledge website. As I write, the publisher’s website is painfully slow, but the links to Amazon work quickly. In many cases, the maps are available from the Amazon Marketplace for even less than the prices listed above.

HT: Jack Sasson

Tagged Egypt, Greece, Italy, Resources

Weeks on Protecting Egypt’s Archaeology

Kent R. Weeks has written an important assessment in Newsweek of the situation in Egypt: “Can Egypt Protect Its Ancient Monuments?” Weeks is professor emeritus of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo and founding director of the Theban Mapping Project.

The SCA’s on-site inspectors, who are supposed to administer and preserve the country’s heritage, are underpaid and unmotivated. Most are young and—for the first few years, at least—enthusiastic about their job. But the low salary and near-universal reluctance of their superiors to delegate authority leads to frustration. A large number leave to become tourist guides. Instead of taking 300 Egyptian pounds a month from the SCA (about $50), they can earn six or seven times that amount as guides.
Besides staffing problems, the SCA is perennially underfunded, even though archeological tourism generates considerable income. In December 2010 ticket sales to sites in Luxor alone earned $30 million for Egypt. But much of this money goes to the government treasury, and the SCA routinely postpones or ignores conservation, maintenance, documentation, and tourist management because of a lack of funds.
Meanwhile, the number of visitors to archeological sites increases every year. The Valley of the Kings, which had perhaps 100 visitors a day in 1970, had 8,000 a day in December of last year, and the Ministry of Tourism hopes for 15,000 a day by 2015. The pressures such numbers inflict on tombs and temples are enormous. Yet no long-term comprehensive management plan to protect them has yet been agreed upon.
Tourism is a major pillar of the Egyptian economy, and given the income that archeological sites generate, one might think their protection would be a primary goal. After all: no sites, no money. But almost every branch of government wants some control over that income and wants as much of it as possible for themselves, focusing only on short-term gain. Since the revolution, the number of tourists has dropped dramatically, and one can imagine that the SCA will now feel even more financial pressure.

The whole is worth reading for all who are interested in Egypt’s archaeological heritage.

HT: Jack Sasson

Tagged Analysis, Egypt

Amenhotep III Statue Unearthed at Funerary Temple

From the Associated Press:

Archaeologists unearthed one of the largest statues found to date of a powerful ancient Egyptian pharaoh at his mortuary temple in the southern city of Luxor, the country’s antiquities authority announced Tuesday.
The 13 meter (42 foot) tall statue of Amenhotep III was one of a pair that flanked the northern entrance to the grand funerary temple on the west bank of the Nile that is currently the focus of a major excavation.
The statue consists of seven large quartzite blocks and still lacks a head and was actually first discovered in the 1928 and then rehidden, according to the press release from the country’s antiquities authority. Archaeologists expect to find its twin in the next digging season.
Excavation supervisor Abdel-Ghaffar Wagdi said two other statues were also unearthed, one of the god Thoth with a baboon’s head and a six foot (1.85 meter) tall one of the lion-headed goddess Sekhmet.

The full story is here. The temple is best known to visitors by the well-preserved Colossi of Memnon, but most of the stones of the temple were robbed away in antiquity. Amenhotep III’s temple was the largest in ancient Thebes, covering a total of four million square feet. A diagram and aerial photo is included with an article about the temple by Mark Andrews.

Colossi of Memnon, with floodwaters of Nile, c. 1965
Source: Photographs of Charles Lee Feinberg

Tagged Discoveries, Egypt

Weekend Roundup

Gordon Franz has updated his article about Simcha’s nails, including statements from several authorities that deny that the nails came from the tomb of Caiaphas.

The excavators of Tel Burna have posted the report on the first archaeological season.

James Hoffmeier is lecturing on “The Exodus from Egypt in Light of Recent Archaeological and Geological Work in North Sinai” in Houston on May 21.

The Global Heritage Fund has created “its own spy agency, created to allow armchair archaeologists (as well as real ones), to watch for looting, disasters and other calamities at some of the most endangered sites of human history.”

This July, Thomas Davis will become Professor of Archaeology and Biblical Backgrounds at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Forth Worth, Texas. Davis is author of Shifting Sands: The Rise and Fall of Biblical Archaeology. One clear result of the fall of biblical archaeology is that professors now have significantly different titles.

If you believed the recent report about dishonesty by the author of Three Cups of Tea, perhaps you were unaware that it was the work of 60 Minutes. These are the same folks who brought us the report exposing the James Ossuary and the Jehoash Tablet as forgeries. The heart of their case was the on-screen confession of an Egyptian artisan. Yet Hershel Shanks has investigated and determined that it was all a lie. And 60 Minutes knew it all along.

Tagged Egypt, Pseudo-Archaeology, Shephelah, Technology, Weekend Roundup