Antiquities and Ancient Art

Amulets, Scarabs and Figurines Part of Egyptian Magic Exhibition in Baltimore

Collectors of Egyptian objects, especially small, portable objects, should plan a trip to the Walters Art Gallery if you find yourself in the Baltimore area before November 25, 2007. 

Daily Magic in Ancient Egypt is the Walters’ upcoming ancient focus show, a display that rotates annually as part of the museum’s ancient art collection. This show will display approximately 46 Egyptian amulets, scarabs, figurines and ritual objects.

Magic was an important part in the religions of the ancient world, and amulets played an essential role. Their images and symbols were believed to possess great power. Amulets protected their owners and could guarantee health, well-being, luck and even immortality. They were also used in rituals. Some of these objects were available to everyone, while others were restricted to the elite or special groups of initiated men or women.

Christies' Sarcophagus and Mummy Fetch $1-million in NYC

Real Egyptian mummies are exceedingly rare on the market, so it is no surprise that Christies allocated eight full pages of its winter 2006 catalogue and dedicated an entire room in its Rockefeller Center location for previewing of its 21st Dynasty (990-940 BC) mummy and sarcophagus.

The lot, consigned by the Western Reserve Historical Society, was originally purchased by Liberty Holden of Cleveland, Ohio, from Sheik Mahmud Hassan in Luxor. The intact mummy and wooden burial casket spent 90 years on exhibit at WRHS, prior to being moved to the Frank McClung Museum in Knoxville, TN.

Christies did not publish an estimate for the lot, but privately the whisper among dealers was that it would bring $1-2-million. The mummy was hammered down at the low end of the whisper range, a mere $1-million (not including the 20% buyer's premium).   

Egyptian Tomb Raiders Cursed by Ancient Dentists

The big news this week comes from Egypt where in the sandy shadows of the Step Pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara three tomb robbers ignored the warnings of an ancient curse and were apprehended by police.

Three men had broken into the previously unknown graves of three 5th Dynasty royal dentists. The mud-brick and limestone burial shafts were decorated with with hieroglyphs, including one section warning that trespassers would be eaten by a crocodile and a snake.

According to the ancient inscriptions, the tombs were for the chief dentist - Iy Mry - and the other two - Kem Msw and Sekhem Ka. These men apparently looked after the teeth of the Pharaoh and other members of the Royal family, and indicates that dental health was an important consideration of the ruling class.

Egyptian archaeologists have begun explore these three new tombs and expect to find additional tombs in the same area.

A number of news organizations have covered the story, including:

• The UK Guardian
• MSNBC (Great Pictures and VIDEO)

Newark Museum Offers Twin-bill of Roman and Egyptian Antiquities

For visitors to Newark, NJ, this fall, you have twice as many reasons to visit the Newark Museum.

First, is the new exhibition After the Pharaohs: Art of Coptic Egypt 300-1000 AD, which runs through November 28.  In the multi-cultural society of Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, the mix of cultures produced an art that used classical mythological themes as well as Egyptian motifs, and subjects that reflected a growing Christian presence. The Newark Museum’s collection includes not only a great variety of the colorful textiles for which this period in Egypt is famous, but also sculpture, bronzes, terracottas, ivories and a rare panel painting on wood. Selected loans from The Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Kelsey Museum at The University of Michigan augment this exhibition.

Second, the museum has placed on display two important Roman portrait busts on temporary loan from the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, CA. One bust is an over-life-sized imperial portrait of Emperor Lucius Verus, who ruled for a short eight years. The second is of an unidentified energetic middle-aged man who is thought to be an important Roman official.

Often overlooked by those heading to The Metropolitan or the Brooklyn Museum, the Newark Museum is a wonderful relaxing experience that is easy to digest and enjoy. With two more great reasons for antiquities collectors, this fall would be the perfect time to enjoy this treat.

Egyptian Coffin May Yield Great New Discovery in Valley of the Kings

Archaeologists are on the verge of opening an ancient Egyptian coffin that may yield a great discovery in the Valley of the Kings, the area where the tomb of King Tut was discovered.

After three months of painstaking work since the February discovery of a new tomb, five ancient coffins have been opened, but so far no mummies have been found. So there is a chance that this is not a tomb at all, but rather a cache for used embalming materials.

But there is one big coffin left to open -- the most tantalizing one, sealed, wedged into the back of the space and supported by pillows at its head and feet, with the kind of care that could suggest that someone important is inside, according to an article in the Detroit News.

The American Egyptologists who are working here plan to open it, hoping not only for a mummy but also to solve the many mysteries of the new find. They may also shatter a long-held belief that there is nothing important left to find in the Valley of the Kings, the article said.  Read the entire article.

Airbus Beluga Used to Transport Egyptian Underwater Antiquities to Exposition in Europe

The Airbus A300-600ST, the aircraft manufacturer's Super Transporter, which is also known as "Beluga", supports the exhibition "Egypt's Sunken Treasures" by carrying some of the artefacts from Egypt to European destinations. "Egypt's Sunken Treasures" will exhibit 500 artefacts of Egyptian history of the period 700 BC to 800 AD, which have been buried in the Mediterranean for more than 1000 years. They were discovered off the coast of Alexandria and in the bay of Aboukir by the archaeologist Franck Goddio over the last ten years.

On 10th April, three colossal statues - representing God Hapy as well as a king and a queen of the Ptolemaic dynasty - and approximately 40 boxes with smaller pieces were loaded on board one of Airbus' "Belugas" in Alexandria, Egypt. The three Colossal Statues all have a height of about five meters and weigh 5.5 tonnes each.

The aircraft flew to Berlin-Schönefeld, Germany, on 11th April. Following the unloading, witnessed by Mohammed Al-Orabi the artefacts will be taken further by road transport to the exhibition site in the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin.

On this particular mission, the Airbus Super Transporter carried a payload of 36,861 kg over a distance of 1,810 nm ( 3,352 km ) during a flight from Alexandria to Berlin with a stop in Italy.

"Egypt's Sunken Treasures" will be on display in Berlin between 13th May and 4th September 2006. The Airbus "Beluga" aircraft will also de deployed for transporting the artefacts to their next destination, Paris in France, in September 2006,

Featuring the most voluminous cargo hold of any aircraft today, be it civil or military, the A300-600ST Super Transporter offers a unique method for transporting oversized air cargo. The aircraft type was designed specifically to ferry complete aircraft sections for the Airbus production system from different sites around Europe to the final assembly lines in Toulouse or Hamburg.

However, due to its main-deck cargo volume, which is greater than that of the Lockheed Galaxy, the AN-124 or the giant C-17 military cargo planes, the Beluga is also ideally suited for flying other oversized and fragile cargo, such as valuable artefacts and pieces of art. The "Beluga" can usually carry a maximum payload of 47 metric tonnes in its 1,400 m3 freight compartment non-stop over a range of 1,660 km/900 nm. Thanks to their unmatched dimensions the Belugas have already served the space, military and other outsized cargo markets.

Rare Egyptian Artifacts Excavated by Flinders Petrie Touring the US Through 2008

The 27-year-old British archaeologist was making his first trip to Egypt, on a mission to uncover the truth about the Great Pyramid. When he moved into an abandoned tomb at Giza and slept on a hammock, everyone noticed the unconventional William Matthew Flinders Petrie.

Petrie became even harder to ignore after his 1880 adventure as he brought a scientific approach to excavations and, as a result, changed what the world knew about the ancient civilization.

Some of his best discoveries from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology at University College London are now touring the United States. “Excavating Egypt” is at the Albany Institute of History & Art through June 4.

Known as the father of Egyptian archaeology, Petrie got his start by measuring the Great Pyramid and dispelling the popular notion that the structure contained mystical secrets. He determined it was only a monument to a pharaoh.The exhibit is traveling while the Petrie Museum, which has 80,000 objects in its collection, builds a new facility scheduled to open in 2008. Other locations include: Mount Holyoke College Art Museum in South Hadley, Mass., Jan. 28-July 29, 2007; Museum of New Mexico, Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe, N.M., Aug. 24, 2007-Jan. 6, 2008; and University of Miami, Lowe Art Museum in Coral Gables, Fla., June 28-Nov. 2, 2008.

Click here for more background on the Petrie collection.

Important Group of Ancient Egyptian Pottery Discovered Undocumented in UK Museum Closet

A request from an assistant keeper in the Department of Ancient Egypt at the British Museum has resulted in a 4,000-year-old discovery at Hawick Museum, according to the Scottish Borders Council.

A box of pottery, long-untouched and undocumented, has turned out to contain 'very important', numbered pottery, much of it dating from the Egyptian Middle Kingdom of 2040-1750 BC. The items were collected by the Egyptologist John Garstang at Esna, Upper Egypt, in 1905/6. The numbers on the pots refer to the tombs they were found in, making them valuable research tools. The pottery came to light after an assistant keeper in the Department of Ancient Egypt and the Sudan at the British Museum sent Hawick Museum a request for information on Ancient Egyptian collections held by local museums. Hawick Museum staff had suspected the pottery to be Egyptian but, until now, lacked written confirmation.

The discovery brings the Ancient Egyptian collection at Hawick Museum to more than 50 items. The British Museum has undertaken to date and explain the collection, which will be on display next year.

Shona Sinclair, Curator of Hawick Museum, said, "This is the final chapter in a long mystery story. We were always pretty sure that the pots were from Ancient Eqypt, but we had no idea they held such archaeological significance."

English archaeologist John Garstang (1876-1956) served as WM Flinders Petrie's field assistant in Egypt in 1899, and became Emeritus Professor at the University of Liverpool.

Information on the newly identified artefacts will be included in the Cornucopia website developed by the British Museum and the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology with funding from the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council.  The collection will also appear on a forthcoming website called Accessing Virtual Egypt, developed from Cornucopia.

Three Mummies Discovered in Yemen to Undergo Scientific Analysis

Three mummies have been discovered in the Al-Jawf governorate in Yemen and have been ordered to undergo scientific analysis by the Minister of Culture and Tourism, Khalid Al-Rowaishan.

According to the Yemen Observer, archeological specialists were appointed on January 30 to examine the ancient bodies to provide further clues as to their age and history. The minister, who ordered that the fragile relics should be stored safely in the National Museum in Sana’a while the research is carried out, expressed his gratitude to the citizens who handed them over. He praised the patriotic sense of the Yemeni citizens, and the care that they had taken to preserve the heritage, civilization and history of Yemen. Click for more on the story plus photos.

First Photos of Life-size Granite Statue of Queen Tiy (Akhenaten's Mother) Uncovered at Luxor

With news spreading through the popular press of last week's spectacular find of a life-sized statue of Tiy, wife of the powerful Amenhotep III and one of Egypt's most famous queens, we are pleased to present some of the very first pictures shot by Jay VanRensselaer at the active excavation site. A Johns Hopkins University archaeological expedition in Luxor, Egypt unearthed the masterpiece which dates back nearly 3,400 years.

The statue, which dates to between 1391 and 1352 B.C.E., was uncovered January 21 by the expedition's director, Betsy Bryan, Johns Hopkins professor of Egyptian art and archaeology. Bryan and a graduate student, Fatma Talaat Ismail, were clearing a portion of the platform of the temple of the goddess Mut in Luxor, an area dating to about 700 B.C.E. The statue, which was lying face down in the ground, appeared to have been used as building rubble, Bryan said.

The statue's back pillar was unearthed first and led Bryan to believe briefly that it dated from a far later period, since an inscription there was clearly made in the 21st Dynasty, about 1000 B.C.E., for a very powerful queen Henuttawy.

"The statue, however, when it was removed, revealed itself as a queen of Amenhotep III, whose name appears repeatedly on the statue's crown," Bryan said. She said she theorizes that perhaps this statue is of the great Queen Tiy, wife of Amenhotep III and mother of the so-called heretic king Akhenaten, who came to the throne as Amenhotep IV but later changed his name because of his rejection of the god Amen in favor of the sun disk Aten.

"Tiy was so powerful that, as a widow, she was the recipient of foreign diplomatic letters sent to her from the king of Babylonia in hopes that she would intercede with her son on behalf of the foreign interests," Bryan said. "Some indications, such as her own portraits in art, suggest that Tiy may have ruled briefly after her husband's death, but this is uncertain."

For reasons relating to inscriptions found on it, the statue of the queen definitely may be dated to the late years of Amenhotep III's 38-year rule, Bryan said.

"The king did marry his own daughter, princess Sit-Amun, and made her his great royal wife as Tiy became more elderly," Bryan said. "Thus the statue could also represent Sit-Amun as queen. Research on this highly detailed and exquisitely worked large-scale statue is only beginning. More story will be revealed."

The discovery was made during Bryan's 11th annual excavation at the Mut Temple Precinct, where she and her students are exploring the Egyptian New Kingdom (1567 to 1085 B.C.E.). The crew shares its work with the world through "Hopkins in Egypt Today," an online diary featuring images by university photographer Jay VanRensselaer and captions by Bryan, detailing the day-to-day life on an archaeological dig. It is located at www.jhu.edu/neareast/egypttoday.html.