Facial Reconstruction May Depict Pharaoh Akhenaten

A digital model has been made of a human skull recovered in 1907 from tomb KV 55 in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, according to a Live Science report.

Francesco Galassi of Sicily’s Forensic Anthropology, Paleopathology, Bioarchaeology Research Center, and 3-D forensic artist Cicero Moraes, used the Manchester method to add facial muscles and ligaments to the model skull according to the rules of anatomy, Galassi explained.

His remains were found in 1907 in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings in tomb KV 55, just a few feet from the tomb of Tutankhamen. More than a century after the tomb’s discovery, the genetic analysis suggested that the skeleton inside belonged to King Tut’s biological father, and other clues in the tomb told archaeologists that the man was Akhenaten, who reigned from 1353 B.C. to 1335 B.C. and was the first king to introduce monotheism in Egypt.

However, some experts have challenged these conclusions, claiming that the true identity of the individual is still uncertain. 

The reconstruction, which took months to design, was created by scientists at the Forensic Anthropology, Paleopathology, Bioarchaeology Research Center (FAPAB) in Sicily.

They worked closely with Cicero Moraes, a 3D forensic artist from Brazil who is known for his work reconstructing faces from the distant past, FAPAB representatives wrote on Facebook.

Unlike previous facial reconstructions of KV 55, the new model omits hair, jewellery and other adornments, in order “to focus on the facial traits of this individual,” according to the post.

Scientists used a reconstruction process called the Manchester method to bring KV 55’s face into the present “from the shadows of history,” said Francesco Galassi, director and co-founder of the FAPAB Research Center, an associate professor of archaeology at Flinders University in Australia, and an adjunct professor of forensic anthropology at the Magna Graecia University of Catanzaro in Calabria, Italy.

During this process, “facial muscles and ligaments are modelled on the skull model according to the rules of anatomy,” Galassi told Live Science in an email. “The skin is placed on top of this, and the tissue thicknesses are average values that have been scientifically determined.”

While building the reconstruction, the researchers referred to “a massive amount of data” for KV 55, including notes from prior physical examinations of the skull, detailed measurements, scaled photographs and X-rays of the skeleton, Galassi said.

A shadowy past

Akhenaten ascended to the throne as Amenhotep IV and took his new name, which means “the Servant of Aten” — an Egyptian sun god — early in his reign. He then began dismantling the priesthood that served Egypt’s pantheon of deities, in order to establish monotheistic worship of Aten, according to The Ohio State University’s Department of History.

Archaeologists found KV 55 in an undecorated tomb that contained bricks engraved with magic spells bearing Akhenaten’s name. Another coffin and canopic jars — vessels for holding mummified organs — contained the remains of a woman named Kiya, who was identified as Akhenaten’s concubine, according to a FAPAB statement released on March 10. 

KV 55 had been mummified, but the preserved flesh disintegrated in the excavators’ hands, leaving only the skeleton behind. Based on objects in the tomb and the sex of the skeleton, some archaeologists concluded that it must represent Akhenaten.

However, analysis of the teeth and bones revealed that the man was younger than expected. He was around 26 years old when he died — and possibly only 19 to 22 years old, whereas records suggest Akhenaten ruled for 17 years and fathered a daughter during the first year of his reign, Galassi said.

“Some archaeologists tend to assume that he began his reign as a young adult rather than as a child. For this reason, there have been continued attempts [to] consider KV 55 older than the actual anatomy indicates,” he said. 

Other experts have proposed that KV 55 could be Smenkhkare, a younger brother of Akhenaten, but there is little evidence that the brother existed at all, Galassi said.

Today, Smenkhkare is more commonly thought to be not a real person, but a constructed identity for Queen Nefertiti, who may have assumed this name when she ascended to the throne after Akhenaten’s death.

This would effectively rule out the “younger brother” hypothesis for KV 55, Galassi said.

Genetic analysis suggested that KV 55 was the son of Amenhotep III and the father of Tutankhamen, providing more evidence that he was Akhenaten, according to a study published in 2010 in the journal JAMA.

However, this conclusion is also not without controversy, as genetic data for Egyptian mummies can be “complicated” by the fact that sibling incest was a common practice in royal dynasties, according to the statement. 

Archaeologists Discover ‘Massive’ Ancient Building in Egypt

An ‘incredibly important’ ancient structure which they claim is believed to be a well-known city in ancient Egypt’s history, it is stated by the country’s Antiquities Ministry announced.

The city of Memphis was founded circa 2925 B.C. by Menes, a king who is said to have united the prehistoric kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt. The city was originally called the White Walls, a term that may have come from the king’s palace of whitewashed brick.

The newly found ruins are located about an hour south of Cairo, near an open-air museum in the town of Mit Rahina, the ministry says.

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Archaeologists also discovered a connected structure, containing a Roman bath and an ornately carved basin, which was likely used in religious ceremonies, according to The Associated Press.

Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the area was most likely part of a residential community in Memphis, the AP reports.

Memphis and its necropolis became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979.

The grounds contain the remnants of sun temples, palaces, pyramids, residential neighborhoods, and thousands of rock-cut tombs.

Last week, archaeologists found a sandstone sphinx when they were excavating a temple near the city of Aswan, in southern Egypt.

The statue was found close to a site where two reliefs of King Ptolemy V were recovered two months prior, according to the American University in Cairo.

Salima Ikram, a professor of Egyptology, said the sphinx and slabs trace back to the Ptolemaic Period. They “show us that the exterior area of the temple was an active ritual and cult place” and that it “played an important role in the spiritual, political and economic life of the people.”

New archaeological discoveries in Egypt could drive tourism at a time when the industry has seen a decline.

Tourism Minister Rania Al Mashat announced a partnership between the ministry and Zahi Hawass, the former Antiquities minister and archaeologist known as “Egypt’s Indiana Jones,” as part of a campaign to promote tourism in the country.

Ancient Christian settlement discovered in Egypt’s Bahariya Oasis

The Egyptian antiquities ministry announced Saturday that a French-Norwegian excavation team uncovered new Christian ruins in Egypt’s Western Desert, exposing monastic life in the area in the fifth century AD.

During its third excavation campaign at the Tal Ganoub Qasr al-Agouz site in the Bahariya Oasis, the team discovered “several buildings made of basalt, some carved into the bedrock, and others made of mud bricks,” according to the ministry said in a statement.

The complex is comprised of “six sectors containing the ruins of three churches and monks’ cells”, whose “walls bear graffiti and symbols with Coptic connotations”, said Osama Talaat, head of Islamic, Coptic and Jewish Antiquities at the ministry.

Mission head Victor Ghica said, “19 structures and a church carved into the bedrock” were discovered last year.

The church walls were decorated with “religious inscriptions” and biblical passages in Greek, revealing “the nature of monastic life in the region”, Ghica said, according to the statement.

It clearly showed that monks were present there since the fifth century AD, he said, adding that the discovery helped understand “the development of buildings and the formation of the first monastic communities” in this region of Egypt.

The remote site, located in the desert southwest of the capital Cairo, was occupied from the fourth to eighth centuries, with a likely peak of activity around the fifth and sixth centuries, according to the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology (IFAO), in charge of the mission.

Previous excavations undertook in 2009 and 2013 shed light on subjects including “the production and preservation of wine as well as the husbandry of animals” in a monastic context, according to the IFAO.

Cairo has announced several major new archaeological discoveries in recent months with the hopes of spurring tourism, a sector that has suffered multiple blows, from a 2011 uprising to the coronavirus pandemic.

In February, it said a high-production brewery believed to be more than 5,000 years old had been uncovered at a funerary site in the country’s south.

Also last month, an Egyptian-Dominican archaeological mission working near Alexandria said it had discovered mummies from around 2,000 years ago bearing golden-tongued amulets.

In January, Egypt unveiled ancient treasures found at the Saqqara archaeological site south of Cairo, including sarcophagi over 3,000 years old, in a discovery that “rewrites history”, according to famed Egyptologist Zahi Hawass.

Ancient Egyptian manual reveals new details about mummification

According to a statement released by the University of Copenhagen, Sofie Schiødt and her colleagues have found evidence of an ancient Egyptian embalming process in the Papyrus Louvre-Carlsberg, a 3,500-year-old medical text dated to 1450 B.C

Embalming was considered a sacred art in ancient Egypt, and knowledge of the technique was limited to a select few. Egyptologists conclude that most secrets of the art were handed on orally from one embalmer to the next, but written evidence is scarce; until recently, only two texts on mummification had been identified.

Egyptologists were therefore surprised to find a short manual on embalming in a medical text that is primarily concerned with herbal medicine and swellings of the skin. The manual has recently been edited by University of Copenhagen Egyptologist Sofie Schiødt:

– Many descriptions of embalming techniques that we find in this papyrus have been left out of the two later manuals, and the descriptions are extremely detailed.

The text reads like a memory aid, so the intended readers must have been specialists who needed to be reminded of these details, such as unguent recipes and uses of various types of bandages.

Some of the simpler processes, e.g. the drying of the body with natron, have been omitted from the text, Sofie Schiødt explains. She adds:

– One of the exciting new pieces of information the text provides us with concerns the procedure for embalming the dead person’s face. We get a list of ingredients for a remedy consisting largely of plant-based aromatic substances and binders that are cooked into a liquid, with which the embalmers coat a piece of red linen.

The red linen is then applied to the dead person’s face in order to encase it in a protective cocoon of fragrant and anti-bacterial matter. This process was repeated at four-day intervals.

Although this procedure has not been identified before, Egyptologists have previously examined several mummies from the same period as this manual whose faces were covered in cloth and resin. According to Sofie Schiødt, this would fit well with the red linen procedure described in this manuscript.

Four was the key number

The importance of the Papyrus Louvre-Carlsberg manual in reconstructing the embalming process lies in its specification of the process is divided into intervals of four, with the embalmers actively working on the mummy every four days.

– A ritual procession of the mummy marked these days, celebrating the progress of restoring the deceased’s corporeal integrity, amounting to 17 processions over the course of the embalming period. In between the four-day intervals, the body was covered with cloth and overlaid with straw infused with aromatics to keep away insects and scavengers, Sofie Schiødt says.

The Papyrus Louvre-Carlsberg

The manuscript, which Sofie Schiødt has been working on for her PhD thesis, is the Papyrus Louvre-Carlsberg – so-called because one half of the papyrus belongs to the Louvre Museum in Paris and the other half is part of the University of Copenhagen’s Papyrus Carlsberg Collection.

The two parts of the papyrus originally belonged to two private collectors, and several sections of it are still missing.

Based on the palaeography, that is, the sign forms, the six-metre long papyrus is dated to approximately 1450 BC, which means that it predates the only two other examples of embalming texts by more than a thousand years.

The bulk of the papyrus, which is the second-longest medical papyrus surviving from ancient Egypt, deals with herbal medicine and skin illnesses.

Specifically, it contains the earliest-known herbal treatise, which provides descriptions of the appearance, habitat, uses, and religious significance of a divine plant and its seed as well as a lengthy treatise on swellings of the skin, which are seen as illnesses sent forth by the lunar god Khonsu.

Graves of nearly 600 cats and dogs in ancient Egypt may be the world’s oldest pet cemetery

A well-preserved burial ground in the researchers consider to be at the very origin of human burial customs has been found in Egypt the skeleton remains of over 600 cats, dogs, monkeys were found carefully laid in individual graves in Berenike, a remote seaport on the western coast of the Red Sea.

Some of the animals were still wearing collars and other adornments, and others showed evidence of illnesses indicating they had been cared for by humans.

But the lack of mummification or sacrifice at the 2,000-year-old site suggests these were companion animals, not used in rituals or venerated as gods.

Berenike was founded in 275 BC by Pharaoh Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who named it after his mother, Berenice I of Egypt. It was a bustling Roman port, and excavations have uncovered ceramics, spices, fabrics and other goods from as far away as India, as well as luxury items from across the empire.

Berenike was also a way station for ‘war elephants’ from Africa that would be sent out to fight in various battles. Archaeozoologist Marta Osypinska and her archaeologist husband, Piotr, originally discovered the cemetery site in 2011 while excavating a Roman trash dump on the edge of town.

In 2017, they unearthed the remains of about 100 animals, mostly cats, and began to form a picture of what the area was used for. Other experts still believed they may have simply been discarded trash.

It wasn’t uncommon to bury pets in ancient Egypt but usually, they’d be interred with their owners, not placed in a dedicated space.

‘At first, some very experienced archaeologists discouraged me from this research,’ Osypinska told Science. They insisted there was little to learn about Berenike culture from studying pets.

‘I hope the results of our studies prove that it’s worth it,’ she told the magazine.

According to her research, published in the journal World Archaeology, the ‘pet cemetery’ at Berenice functioned for about a hundred years, from the mid-first century to the mid-second century. In all, the team has found 585 animals to date, some of which are not native to Africa.

The vast majority — more than 90 per cent — were cats, though there were also dogs, baboons, and two species of macaques native to the Indian subcontinent.

Of the dogs, most were light-coloured Spitz types, though there were also toy dogs and larger canines more like mastiffs. Many of the cats wore metal collars or necklaces threaded with ostrich-shell beads. Osypinska told Science many of the animals were covered with textiles or pottery, ‘which formed a kind of sarcophagus.’

The animals were not haphazardly discarded, but carefully laid in individual pits. One feline was placed atop the wing of a large bird, the magazine reported.

Consulting with a veterinarian, Osypinska’s team was able to determine several of the animals had illnesses that would have killed them without human caregivers.

The remains of a dog that suffered from bone cancer were found in a mat of palm leaves covered with an amphora, according to Archaeology News Network.

Its belly still contained remains of fish and goat meat, its final meal. Other canines were missing most of their teeth, had gum disease or showed signs of joint degeneration.

‘We have individuals who have very limited mobility,’ Osypinska said. ‘Such animals had to be fed to survive, sometimes with special foods in the case of the almost-toothless animals.’

The kind of devotion required to nurse an old pet reveals the people of Berenice had strong emotional ties with domesticated animals, according to the report.

Archaeologists have uncovered mass animal graves in Egypt before, but almost always the creatures were either sacrificed or venerated, not treated as pets. Dozens of mummified cats were found in 2018 on the edge of the King Userkaf pyramid complex at the ancient necropolis of Saqqara, south of Cairo.

Several years earlier a labyrinth of sacred tunnels was uncovered in the same region, packed with the mummified remains of up to eight million dogs, some of which was just hours old when they were sacrificed.

Other canines were treated as living representatives of the dog-headed god Anubis, living out their lives in the nearby temple before being preserved and laid to rest in the network of tunnels. The people of Berenike treated these animals as loving companions, Osypinska insists, ‘They weren’t doing it for the gods or for any utilitarian benefit.’

CT Scans Suggest Egyptian Pharaoh Was Brutally Executed on the Battlefield

Seqenenre Taa II, the Egyptian pharaoh, may have died on the battlefield, surrounded by attackers carrying daggers, swords, and spears. According to a recent computed tomography (CT) scan of the pharaoh’s damaged mummy, which revealed new facial wounds that ancient embalmers tried to disguise.

A broad cut in the pharaoh’s forehead, wounds across his eyes and cheeks, and a knife wound at the base of the skull that may have penetrated the brain stem were all visible. The attackers, it seems, surrounded the defeated ruler on every side.

“This suggests that Seqenenre was really on the front line with his soldiers, risking his life to liberate Egypt,” study lead author Sahar Saleem, a professor of radiology at Cairo University, said in a statement.

A war over hippos

Seqenenre Taa II (also spelled Seqenenre Tao II) was the ruler of southern Egypt between about 1558 B.C. and 1553 B.C., during the occupation of Egypt by the Hyksos, a people who probably came from the Levant.

The Hyksos controlled northern Egypt and required tribute from the southern part of the kingdom.

According to fragmentary papyrus accounts, Seqenenre Taa II revolted against the occupiers after receiving a complaint from the Hyksos king that the noise of hippos in a sacred pool in Thebes was disturbing his sleep.

The king lived in the capital city of Avaris, 400 miles (644 kilometres) away. On this trumped-up charge, the Hyksos king demanded the sacred pool be destroyed — a grave insult to Seqenenre Taa II. 

This insult may have been the prelude to war. Text on a carved rock slab found in Thebes recounts that Seqenenre Taa II’s son and immediate successor, Kamose, died in battle against the Hyksos. 

No one knew what had happened to the pharaoh, even after his mummy was discovered in 1886. Archaeologists noticed wounds on the skull and speculated that he’d been killed in battle or perhaps murdered in a palace coup. The 19th-century archaeologists who found the mummy reported a foul smell when they unwrapped it, leading them to suspect that the mummy had been hastily embalmed on the battlefield. 

The new study uses X-rays from multiple angles to build a 3D image of the pharaoh’s mummy. The pharaoh’s remains are in poor condition, with bones disarticulated and the head detached from the rest of the body. 

Violent death 

Nevertheless, the wounds on the skull tell the story of brutal death. The pharaoh had a 2.75-inch-long (7  centimeters) cut across his forehead, which would have been delivered from an axe or sword stroke from above. This wound alone could have been fatal. Another potentially fatal slice above the pharaoh’s right eye was 1.25 inches (3.2 cm) long and possibly made by an axe. More cuts on the nose, right eye and right cheek came from the right and from above and may have been delivered with an axe handle or blunt staff, the researchers said. 

Meanwhile, someone in front of the king swung a sword or an axe at the pharaoh’s left cheek, leaving another deep slice. From the left, a weapon — probably a spear — penetrated the base of his skull, leaving a 1.4-inch-long (3.5 cm) wound.  

Early archaeologists had previously reported many of these wounds, but Saleem and her colleague, Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, discovered a new set of skull fractures covered by embalming material. Concentrated on the right side of the skull, the damage seems to have been caused by a dagger and a heavy, blunt object, perhaps an axe handle. 

The mummy’s hands were flexed and clenched, but there were no defensive injuries on his forearms, leading the researchers to suggest that perhaps Seqenenre Taa II’s hands were bound when he died. He may have been captured on the battlefield and executed by multiple attackers, Saleem said in the statement. 

Although researchers have discovered pharaoh mummies with violent wounds before, there had been no evidence of pharaoh battlefield deaths until now, Saleem told Live Science. For example, Ramesses III had his throat cut in a palace coup, she said. Historical accounts tell of Ramesses II and Thutmose III taking part in the battle, but there is no evidence of injuries on their mummies. The mummy of an unidentified nobleman had an arrow embedded in its chest, Saleem said, which may have occurred in battle. 

The fact that embalmers tried to patch up Seqenenre Taa II’s skull wounds suggests that he wasn’t hastily embalmed, the researchers wrote in their new study, in the journal Frontiers in Medicine.

The pharaoh’s desiccated brain was also stuck to the left side of his skull, suggesting that someone laid him on his side after his death, either at the place where he fell or while his body was being transported for embalming. 

Seqenenre Taa II may have lost his life in battle, but his successors eventually won the war. After Kamose died, Seqenenre Taa II’s consort, Ahhotep I, likely acted as regent, continuing the rebellion against the Hyskos. When Seqenenre Taa II and Ahhotep I’s son Ahmose I came of age, he inherited the throne and finally pushed out the foreign occupiers. Ahmose I would unify Egypt and launch the New Kingdom, the period of ancient Egypt’s peak power between the 16th and 11th centuries B.C. 

Ancient beer factory unearthed by archaeologists in Egypt

At one of the most famous excavation sites of ancient Egypt, a top antique official said Saturday, American and Egyptian archaeologists have discovered what may be the oldest known beer factory.

The factory was discovered in Abydos, an ancient burial ground situated in the desert west of the Nile River, about 450 kilometers (280 miles) south of Cairo, Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said.

He said the factory apparently dates back to the region of King Narmer, who is widely known for his unification of ancient Egypt at the beginning of the First Dynastic Period (3150 B.C.- 2613 B.C.).

Archaeologists found eight huge units – each is 20 meters (about 65 feet) long and 2.5 meters (about 8 feet) wide. Each unit includes some 40 pottery basins in two rows, which had been used to heat up a mixture of grains and water to produce beer, Waziri said.

The joint mission is co-chaired by Matthew Adams of the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and Deborah Vischak, assistant professor of ancient Egyptian art history and archaeology at Princeton University.

Adams said the factory was apparently built in this area to provide royal rituals with beer, given that archaeologists found evidence showing the use of beer in sacrificial rites of ancient Egyptians.

British archaeologists were the first to mention the existence of that factory in the early 1900s, but they couldn’t determine its location, the antiquities ministry said.

With its vast cemeteries and temples from the earliest times of ancient Egypt, Abydos was known for monuments honoring Osiris, ancient Egypt’s god of the underworld and the deity responsible for judging souls in the afterlife.

The necropolis had been used in every period of early Egyptian history, from the prehistoric age to Roman times.

Egypt has announced dozens of ancient discoveries in the past couple of years, including a 3,000-year-old sarcophagus that could “rewrite history” and mummies with golden tongues, in the hope of attracting more tourists.

The tourism industry has been reeling from the political turmoil following the 2011 popular uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak. The sector was also dealt a further blow last year by the coronavirus pandemic.