Egypt Archives - Page 92 of 93

King Tut’s Death, Parents Revealed

Tut’s tomb was more glorious than his life, according to a genetic analysis published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association. He apparently hobbled all of his life and then died from a broken leg, or complications thereof. His mom was his aunt and his dad was his uncle, and he died after a nine-year rule at the age of 19. The AP has a summary of the JAMA article.

Egypt’s famed King Tutankhamun had a cleft palate and a club foot, which probably forced him to walk with canes, and died from complications from a broken leg exacerbated by malaria, according to the most extensive study ever of his more than 3,300-year-old mummy.
The findings are based on two years of DNA testing and CT (computed tomography) scans on 16 mummies, including those of Tutankhamun and his family, said the team that carried out the study. An article on the findings is to be published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The study establishes the clearest family tree for Tut, indicating for the first time that he was the child of a brother-sister union.
The study says Tut’s father was probably Akhenaten, a pharaoh who tried to revolutionize ancient Egyptian religion and force his people to worship one god. The mummy shown by DNA to be that of Tut’s mother turned out to be a sister of Akhenaten’s, although she has not been identified.

You can read the full AP article (with nice slideshow) here or here or read a brief Q&A with Zahi Hawass here. Or you can see how this study proves that Tut’s family are not aliens. CNN has a 1:20 video report with lots of photos of the king’s treasures.

Sandals found in King Tutankhamun’s tomb

Tagged Egypt

Weekend Roundup

Hundreds of Crusader-era marble pieces were discovered in Acco recently. You can read the press release, the JPost report or the Arutz-7 account, story here, or download high-res photos here.

The house in Luxor of Howard Carter, the man who discovered the tomb of King Tutankhamen, has been opened as a museum.

The NY Times has an interesting and humorous article on Raphael Golb, arrested for impersonation and identity theft in an attempt to stem the tide that rejected his father’s conclusions about the Dead Sea Scrolls. Golb is delighted that the articles he wrote under the name of “Charles Gadda” have been read by so many. I wonder how happy he is that so many are reading about his desperate attempts to stay out of jail.

BibleWorks has a sale for new customers now, offering $30 off the purchase of BibleWorks 8 and one module. For more, see here.

Logos Bible Software released a major new version this week. So far, everything I’ve heard is
positive. I don’t use anything with an “i” in it, but if I did, I’d be real happy about the ability to have my entire library on my phone at no extra cost.

Tagged Discoveries, Egypt, Resources

Egypt and the Bible Symposium, Toronto

There was a notice yesterday in ANE-2 of two conferences related to Egypt in Toronto next weekend. You can read more about the Scholarly Colloquium on Ancient Egypt (Nov 6, 8) here.

The Egypt and the Bible symposium falls on the middle day between the colloquium and, while not free like the other, has a number of interesting lectures. I heard Hoffmeier give the same lecture as listed below last month and it was very good. I imagine that most of the others are as well.

EGYPT AND THE BIBLE

Saturday, November 7th, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Location: University of Toronto campus, 5 Bancroft Ave., Room 1050

Advance online registration: Public $90.00, Member $80.00, Student $40.00, SSEA Members $80.00

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Of plots, women and lawgivers: Egypt as pictured in Genesis & Exodus Prof. Donald B. Redford, Pennsylvania State University

Abraham in Egypt Prof. John Gee, Brigham Young University

Exodus Geography and Location of the Re(e)d in the Light of Recent Archaeological and Geological Work in North Sinai
Prof. James K. Hoffmeier, Trinity International University

The Campaign of Pharaoh Sheshonq, the Bible’s `Shishak’, to the Levant, ca. 920 B.C: Myth, Legend, or Something you can put your (hand-)pick into?
Prof. John S. Holladay, Emeritus University of Toronto
The Rescue of Jerusalem: The Alliance between Hebrews and Kushites
Henry T. Aubin, author of The Rescue of Jerusalem

Two Hymns as Praise: Poems, Royal Ideology, and History in Ancient Israel and Ancient
Egypt: A Comparative Reflection Prof. Susan T. Hollis, Empire State College – State University of New York

Egypt and the Infant Jesus Dr. F. Terry Miosi

Tagged Egypt, Lectures

Midweek Roundup

A Second Temple period hall near the Western Wall has been excavated and restored. The “Hall of Ages” is scheduled to be opened to the public in a few weeks. HT: Joe Lauer

The Baptist Press has a story on the “Joseph coins,” in which they quote Steven Ortiz and Robert Griffin as skeptical.

G. M. Grena has some comments about the upcoming ASOR meetings at his LMLK blogspot, including this note of interest to Qeiyafa watchers:

By the way, Prof. Garfinkel will have some interesting photos of jar handles with special impressions that in many ways parallel the LMLK phenomenon.

BAS reports that from January to August 2010 the Oriental Institute will launch a new exhibit
“Pioneers to the Past: American Archaeologists in the Middle East, 1919-20.”

James Henry Breasted had received a large donation from John D. Rockefeller, Jr. to establish the Oriental Institute in 1919 and quickly organized an expedition to travel across the Middle East to acquire objects for the Institute and identify sites for excavation. World War I had just ended, the political map of the Middle East had not yet been redrawn, and it was a dangerous time to be travelling through the region. The exhibit will present the incredible adventure story of the Breasted expedition through photographs, excerpts from letters, original documents from the archives, and objects purchased on the trip.

BAS is now offering a free e-book entitled “Israel: An Archaeological Journey” (requires quick registration if you haven’t already). The contents include:

The Fury of Babylon: Ashkelon and the Archaeology of Destruction, by Lawrence E. Stager
Vegas on the Med: A Tour of Caesarea’s Entertainment District, by Yosef Porath
How Jewish Was Sepphoris in Jesus’ Time?, by Mark Chancey and Eric M. Meyers
Where Masada’s Defenders Fell, by Nachman Ben-Yehuda
A New Reconstruction of Paul’s Prison, by Ehud Netzer

Tagged Egypt, Jerusalem, Shephelah, Temple Mount

Joseph’s “Coins”

Every time a story surfaces on the internet that is obviously (in my mind) bogus, I prefer to ignore it here. But after receiving several emails from sharp individuals, I think this one must be worthy of comment. Instead of just stating that the story about Egyptian coins from Joseph’s time should be ignored, I’ll suggest a few clues that should make you suspicious.

1) The report claims to prove the biblical account. I believe the Bible is an accurate historical account, but experience has taught me that most news reports claiming such are untrustworthy.

2) The discovery was reported by an Egyptian newspaper. This is not the place where credible scholars break stories.

3) Coins were not invented until approximately 600 BC. By anyone’s reckoning, Joseph lived or did not live many hundreds of years earlier.

4) A statement like this: “Some of the coins are from the time when Joseph lived in Egypt.” There is no time (singular) when scholars believed Joseph lived.

There are various theories about when he lived. No credible source would make this statement without a discussion of when the “coins” date to and how we now know when Joseph lived.

5) Statements from the Quran about Joseph were used by the archaeologist as credible historical testimony.

6) If it sounds too good to be true…: “Among these, there was one coin that had an inscription on it, and an image of a cow symbolizing Pharaoh’s dream about the seven fat cows and seven lean cows, and the seven green stalks of grain and seven dry stalks of grain.” 7) Never in the report is a date or the name of a pharaoh given!

The story was re-reported as fact by the Jerusalem Post and Arutz-7 (shame on them; their editors must be off for the Yom Kippur weekend). The only one I’ve seen refuting this so far is Paleojudaica and Joe Lauer, who rightly questions whether this was released on the Egyptian version of April Fool’s Day.

UPDATE: Michael S. Heiser has several helpful comments on PaleoBabble. I don’t think I was aware of this blog before, but some readers here will certainly want to follow what is dubbed as “your antidote to cyber-twaddle and misguided research about the ancient world.”

Tagged Analysis, Egypt

Drawing Israel’s Borders

The Jerusalem Post has an interesting article on the modern map of Israel and the man in charge.

Most Israelis and Jordanians are probably unaware that the border between their countries isn’t really fixed. The boundary runs directly through the center of the Jordan River, but should the river naturally change its course, so too will the border. It is one of many secrets held by Dr. Haim Srebro, director-general of the Survey of Israel center. For decades, Srebro has been working to give the State of Israel its final borders. When the peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan were signed, Srebro and his Arab counterparts worked behind the scenes, away from the limelight and photo-ops of leaders shaking hands, to draw up some of the Middle East’s best-known frontiers. "The Jordan River is constantly changing. If it alters its route naturally, according to our agreement with the Jordanians, we recognize the change. But if the river is redirected artificially and suddenly, the border remains fixed," he said this week, speaking from his spacious office at the Survey of Israel’s Tel Aviv headquarters…. Jordan is now working to develop a $27 million complex in Aqaba, complete with hotels and lagoons, funded largely by investment from the Gulf states. The proximity of the development to the Israeli border means that Srebro and Sagarat have had to be called in for advice. "The border fence isn’t actually on the border. It’s on Israel’s side, meaning that the Jordanians could have crossed into Israel without knowing it. That’s why they are now building a border fence on their side, too," Srebro explained. During the 1979 peace negotiations with Egypt, Srebro employed the cutting edge technique of using bridged straight aerial photographs (known as orthophotos) to draw up a new border between the countries following Israel’s withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula. "I told the Egyptians, we’ll do something together. Let’s set up a committee, so that you can check on us and we’ll check on you," Srebro recalled. At first, the Americans, who were brokering the talks, handed both sides an abstract map of the new proposed border, but Srebro said the map, which lacked any physical features, was useless. "For the first time in a peace treaty, aerial photographs were used to plan a border," he said. The Egyptians were so pleased with the result that they sent Srebro a statue of Nefertiti to thank him.

The complete article is here.

Tagged Egypt, Jordan, Technology