Category Archives: EGYPT

AFRICA, EGYPT, WORLD

This is the World’s Oldest Continually Operating Library, Where Lost Languages Have Been Found

Lost Languages Discovered In One Of The World’s Oldest Libraries

Africa, Egypt, St Catherine’s Monastery.

Researchers discovered ancient texts hidden beneath years of writing in the manuscripts at St. Catherine’s Monastery.

St. Catherine’s Monastery, one of the world’s oldest continuously running libraries, lies at the foot of Mount Sinai, the mountain atop which God is said to have given Moses the Ten Commandments.

St. Catherine’s is home to some of the world’s oldest and most valuable books and manuscripts, and the monks that watch over them.

These texts are largely manuscripts and are filled with mostly Greek and Latin. However, recently scientists have uncovered new languages in the manuscripts — and some that haven’t been used since the Dark Ages.

The only catch — the languages can’t be seen with the naked eye.

When the texts were originally written, the monks only wrote in ancient languages. However, the parchment they were written on at the time was valuable, and often subject to reuse.

Texts deemed less important were scrubbed clean from the parchment, which was then reused for more important information, often written in other more universal or modern languages.

These texts with multiple layers of writing are known as palimpsests.

Cloister of St Catherine of Alexandria monastery, 14th century, Cittaducale, Lazio, Italy.

Now, using new technology, a team of researchers has developed a way to uncover the ancient writings in the palimpsests at St. Catherine’s and have discovered languages thought to be long lost.

One such language, Caucasian Albanian, hasn’t been used since the 8th century. Other languages include Christian Palestinian Aramaic, which is a mix of Syriac and Greek.

To uncover the hidden writings, the scientists photographed the manuscripts using different parts of the light spectrum and run the images through an electronic algorithm. This allowed them to see the first writing put down on the pages.

Michael Phelps, a researcher at the Early Manuscripts Electronic Library in California, calls this development the beginning of a “new golden age of discovery.”

“The age of discovery is not over,” he said. “In the 20th century, new manuscripts were discovered in caves.

In the 21st century, we will apply new techniques to manuscripts that have been under our noses. We will recover lost voices from our history.”

Phelps went on to praise the monastery for their record keeping and devotion to the preservation of history.

“I don’t know of any library in the world that parallels it,” he said. “The monastery is an institution from the Roman Empire that continues operating according to its original mission.”

However, he notes that though the monks deserve praise for recording history, they are also to blame for erasing the parchment that held it.

“At some point, the material the manuscript was on became more valuable than what was written on it,” Phelps said. “So it was deemed worthy of being recycled.”

Besides the discovery of the Caucasian Albanian language texts, the researchers also uncovered what is thought to be the first-known copy of the Bible written in Arabic, as well as the earliest examples of writings from the Greek philosopher Hippocrates.

The Ashtiname of Muhammad at the Saint Catherine’s Monastery.
AFRICA, EGYPT, ROMANIA, WORLD

Well-Preserved Mosaic Floor Found in Roman Egypt

Well-Preserved Mosaic Floor Found in Roman Egypt

Once again, Kom El-Dikka archaeological site in Alexandria has furnished an important discovery.

The find at Kom El-Dikka confirms the popularity of ornate design between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD in Roman Alexandria

An Egyptian-Polish Archaeological Mission unearthed on Thursday the remains of a large part of an ancient city dating from the 4th to the 7th century AD in the coastal city of Alexandria.

The country’s Antiquities Ministry said in a statement.

The mission also uncovered a collection of Roman mosaics covering the floor of a house inside the ancient city during its working in the area of Kom el-Dekka in Alexandria, it added.

“Overall, the design of the mosaic, additionally equipped with a transversal field in front decorated with astragals and rosettes, is typical for the triclinia – the most imposing of the dining rooms in a Roman house,” said Majcherek.
“Overall, the design of the mosaic, additionally equipped with a transversal field in front decorated with astragals and rosettes, is typical for the triclinia – the most imposing of the dining rooms in a Roman house,” said Majcherek.

Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, pointed out that the area of Kom al-Dekka is witnessing a new scene of Roman mosaics multicolor, which confirms the spread of mosaic art in Alexandria in addition to the wealth of the inhabitants of these houses.

“The discovered city includes the remains of a small theater

A large imperial bathroom and a unique collection of 22 lecture halls, which are the remains of an ancient university,” said Ayman Ashmawy, head of the Egyptian Antiquities Department at the Ministry of Antiquities.

He added the mosaic design found on the floor of one of the houses consists of six hexagon pictures featuring a lotus flower, surrounded by a typical circular frame.

The Polish Archaeological Mission has been operating at the site located in the heart of the Old City since 1960 in cooperation with the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, Waziri added.

Excavations in recent years have focused on the study of residential architecture, which is still unknown in Alexandria from the 1st century to the 3rd century AD, Waziri added.

He explained that the buildings of that period were often lavishly decorated.

AFRICA, EGYPT, NORTH AMERICA, U.S.A, WORLD

Ancient Egyptian Mummy Linen Fragments Seized in Michigan

Ancient Egyptian Mummy Linen Fragments Seized in Michigan

U.S. border officials say they have seized ancient Egyptian mummy linens during enforcement operations at the Blue Water Bridge that connects Port Huron, Mich., to Sarnia, Ont. 

Five containers containing the artifacts were seized on May 25 following the selection of the truck for examination in Michigan near Sarnia, Ont., the U.S. Customs and Border Protection said.

The artifacts had come from Canada in a bulk mail shipment, and were being shipped to a home in the United States, Kris Grogan, spokesman for the agency, said in an interview.

“It’s taken some time to identify what they were,” Grogan said. “We’ve had to work with the State Department as well as other federal agencies in identifying this.”

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced Wednesday officers seized a package of five jars of containing the artifacts found May 25 on a Canadian mail truck.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced Wednesday officers seized a package of five jars of containing the artifacts found May 25 on a Canadian mail truck.

The artifacts would be sent back to Egypt in the near future, Grogan said.

In a statement, the agency said the importer was unable to prove the linens had been taken out of Egypt before 2016.

That could be a violation of the U.S. Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act, a federal law that allows American authorities to impose import restrictions on certain classes of archeological material.

Authorities said they worked with an unidentified archeological organization to pin down the age of the artifacts, which are believed to date back to the Ptolemaic Dynasty from 305-30 B.C.

One expert in antiquities, Sue McGovern-Huffman, said trying to illegally buy ancient artifacts is more trouble than it’s worth no matter what era the object is from.

“If it’s been illegally taken out of the country, it’s got a zero value as far as the commercial market is concerned,” McGovern-Huffman, president of Sands of Time Antiquities, said from Washington, D.C.

Without an artifact’s provenance or proof of ownership and history, even illegally selling ancient artifacts would be difficult for any dealer on the black market, she said.

McGovern-Huffman, an accredited member of the International Society of Appraisers, said pieces like ancient mummy linens have more archeological or study interest than collector interest.

“These fragments have very little value. There are all these reports of antiquities selling for millions and billions of dollars on the black market and it’s completely wrong,” she said. “You’d be lucky to get $50 for this stuff.”

Michael Fox, the customs agency director in Port Huron, Mich., said the seizure was of “historical importance.”

Grogan said no arrests have been made as it remains unclear who might be criminally responsible.

AFRICA, EGYPT, WORLD

A pair of golden sandals found in King Tutankhamun’s tomb that shows how Egyptian sandals were made

A pair of golden sandals found in King Tutankhamun’s tomb that shows how Egyptian sandals were made

During the ancient Egyptian period, people mostly traveled barefoot. It is believed that since the temperature in Egypt was very high throughout the year, people gave less importance to wearing footwear.

There is hardly any record to suggest that the Egyptians wore shoes or any other form of footwear.

The ancient Egyptians began wearing sandals during the early years of the New Kingdom rule.

The sandals used by these people were very simple and were made either by using straw, reeds or leather.

The wealthy people wore leather sandals and these lasted for a longer time than the sandals which were made using straw or reeds. The sandals were worn by all people belonging to all the classes except those who were extremely poor. 

The sandals were decorated by using beads, jewels; some also had buckles on the straps made from precious metals. For the most part, the ancient Egyptians walked without wearing sandals or shoes.

Sandals were worn by people on special events. The gold and wood sandals are known to have been made in the ancient Egyptian period.

For researchers, the wow-factor is in the craftsmanship. “The technology employed that’s the most wow thing for us, looking at the detailed, minute, skilled craftsmanship of the Ancient Egyptians is really mind-blowing,” Ikram explained.

“With some of Tutankhamun’s shoes, they used bits of gold, birch bark, bone and maybe even glass inlays to decorate and create luxurious and glamorous footwear.”

Studying how the Egyptians made such luxurious footwear, researchers discovered that the ancient Egyptians adapted and maintained traditional styles and technologies throughout millennia.

“It’s interesting to see that there are not too many advances in the technology, but we do see things that were established and then carried on,” Ikram noted. “For example, there’s skeuomorphism, that is something originally made in one material is translated into something of far more precious material.

Sometimes you have fancy footwear that looks like regular footwear, but it’s made out of gold or it has gold accents.”

During the Middle and New Kingdoms time, the sandals were commonly used. The use of covered shoes by the ancient Egyptians is not very well known. However, some records suggest that shoes were made by weaving palm fiber and grass.

In the Early Middle Kingdom, shoes were a modification of sandals. Shoes had straps between the toes and were joined to the sides at the heel. It also had a leather cover which protected the feet.

The Hittites settled in Anatolian highlands wore shoes with turned up toes. The Egyptians during the New Kingdom period are said to be influenced by the Hittites and began using shoes.

AFRICA, EGYPT, EUROPE, ROMANIA, WORLD

Greco-Roman Era Tomb Found in Upper Egypt

Greco-Roman Era Tomb Found in Upper Egypt

A rock-cut tomb dating back to the late Pharaonic Graeco-Roman period has been discovered by Egyptian-Italian archeological mission working in the Aga Khan Mausoleum area in Aswan.

Mostafa Waziri, the general secretary of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, explains that the mission found inside the tomb parts of a painted wooden coffin.

Also discovered were fragments of another coffin adorned with a complete text that includes the name of the owner, identified as Tjt, and an invocation to the gods of the First Cataract; Khnum, Satet and Anuket, as well as Hapy, the Nile god.

Ayman Ashmawy, the head of the antiquities ministry’s ancient Egypt  department, told Ahram Online that the tomb consists of a stairway partly flanked by sculpted blocks leading to the funerary chambers.

The entrance was sealed by a stone wall found in its original place over the stairway.

Patrizia Piacentini, the head of the mission, said that the mission also found many amphorae and offering vases, as well as a funerary structure containing 4 mummies and food vessels.

Also found were 2 mummies, likely of a mother and her child, still covered by painted cartonnage.

A round-topped coffin was excavated from the rock floor. In the main room were around 30 mummies, including young children who were deposited in a long lateral niche.“

Leaning against the north wall of the room was an amazing intact stretcher made of palm wood and linen strips, used by the people who deposited the mummies in the tomb,” Piacentini told Ahram Online .

At the entrance of the room were vessels containing bitumen for mummification, white cartonnage ready to be painted and a lamp.

On the right and left sides of the door, many beautiful colored and gilded cartonnages, fragments of funerary masks painted with gold and a well preserved statuette of the Ba-bird, representing the soul of the deceased, still presenting all the details of the decoration have been found.

The mission has mapped around 300 tombs dating from the 6th century BC to the 4th century AD, located in the area surrounding the Mausoleum of the Aga Khan, on the west bank of the Nile in Aswan.

AFRICA, EGYPT, WORLD

Egypt unveils 2,500-year-old mummy at forgotten cemetery

Egypt unveils 2,500-year-old mummy at forgotten cemetery

Egypt unveiled a high priest’s 2,500-year – old mummy at an ancient southern cemetery in Cairo.

Egyptologist Zahi Hawass and a team from Egypt opened three 26th Dynasty sealed sarcophagi.

One contained the well-preserved mummy of a powerful priest, wrapped in linen and decorated with a golden figure depicting Isis, an ancient Egyptian goddess.

The remains of the second mummy found at the site. This person would have been a singer in a temple dedicated to the god Thoth

The remains of the second mummy found at the site. This person would have been a singer in a temple dedicated to the god Thoth

The team also opened two other sarcophagi, one containing a female mummy decorated with blue beads and another with a father in a family tomb.

The finds were revealed live on air on the Discovery Channel on Sunday.

At the burial site in Minya province, the team also found a rare wax head.

“I never discovered in the late period anything like this,” Hawass said.

The wax head of the high priest
The wax head of the high priest

Egyptian archaeologists discovered the site a year and a half ago and the excavation is continuing.”

I really believe that this site needs excavation maybe for the coming 50 years,”

Hawass told Reuters a day before the sarcophagi were opened. He expects more tombs to be found there.

In 1927, a huge limestone sarcophagus was found in the area and placed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, but the site was then forgotten, Hawass said.

But two years ago an unauthorized digger was found at the site and stopped, he said. That’s what alerted archaeologists and excavation began.

Source: archaeologynewsnetwork

AFRICA, EGYPT, WORLD

4000 Years Ago in Egypt, Dozens of Men Who Died Of Terrible Wounds Were Mummified and Entombed Together in the Cliffs Near Luxor

4000 Years Ago in Egypt, Dozens of Men Who Died Of Terrible Wounds Were Mummified and Entombed Together in the Cliffs Near Luxor

In Egypt more than 4,000 years ago, in the cliffs near Luxor, dozens of men who died of terrible wounds were mummified and buried together.

Mass burials were exceptionally rare in ancient Egypt — so why did all these mummies end up in the same place? Recently, archaeologists visited the mysterious Tomb of the Warriors in Deir el Bahari, Egypt; the tomb had been sealed after its discovery in 1923.

After analyzing evidence from the tomb and other sites in Egypt, they pieced together the story of a desperate and bloody chapter in Egypt’s history at the close of the Old Kingdom, around 2150 B.C.

Their findings, presented in the PBS documentary “Secrets of the Dead: Egypt’s Darkest Hour,” paint a grim picture of civil unrest that sparked bloody battles between regional governors about 4,200 years ago.

One of those skirmishes may have ended the lives of 60 men whose bodies were mummified in the mass burial, PBS representatives said in a statement.

Archaeologist Salima Ikram, a professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo, investigated the mummies with a camera crew in late September 2018, with the cooperation of the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities and the assistance of local experts, Davina Bristow, documentary producer, and the director.

From the tomb’s entrance, a maze of tunnels branched out about 200 feet (61 meters) into the cliff; chambers were filled with mummified body parts and piles of bandages that had once been wrapped around the corpses but had come unraveled, Ikram discovered. The bodies all seemed to belong to men, and many showed signs of severe trauma.

Skulls were broken or pierced — probably the result of projectiles or weapons — and arrows were embedded in many of the bodies, suggesting the men were soldiers who died in battle. One of the mummies was even wearing a protective gauntlet on its arm, such as those worn by archers, according to Ikram.

Archaeologist Salima Ikram examines an image of a skull from the mass burial.
Archaeologist Salima Ikram examines an image of a skull from the mass burial.

These people have died bloody, fearsome deaths,” Ikram said. And evidence from elsewhere in Egypt suggests that they died during a period of extreme social upheaval.

A kingdom’s collapse some of those clues lay in the tomb of the pharaoh Pepi II, whose 90-year reign had just ended, Philippe Collombert, an Egyptologist at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, told archaeology-world in an email.

Pepi II’s burial tomb in Saqqara, Egypt, was ornate and spectacular; it was built during his youth, which suggests that the kingdom at that time was secure with no signs of civil collapse, Collombert said.

However, Pepi II’s tomb was looted soon after he was buried. Such a profoundly sacrilegious act could only have taken place if Egyptians had already begun to reject the godlike stature of the pharaoh, and if the central government was no longer in control, Collombert explained.

Hieroglyphs in Pepi II's pyramid in Saqarra, Egypt contain ritual text for the pharaoh's rebirth in the afterlife.
Hieroglyphs in Pepi II’s pyramid in Saqarra, Egypt contain ritual text for the pharaoh’s rebirth in the afterlife.

As Pepi II’s influence waned toward the end of his rule and local governors became more and more powerful, their burial chambers became bigger and more lavish.

One governor’s tomb, built in the Qubbet el Hawa necropolis after Pepi II’s death, contained inscriptions that hinted at the conflict emerging between political factions, describing social disruption, civil war and lack of control by a single administration, Antonio Morales, an Egyptologist at the University of Alcalá in Madrid, Spain, said in the documentary. And famine caused by drought may have accelerated this social collapse, according to Morales.

Another inscription in the governor’s tomb noted that “the southern country is dying of hunger so every man was eating his own children” and “the whole country has become like a starving locust,” Morales said.

Together, starvation and unrest could have laid the groundwork for a frenzied battle that left 60 men dead on the ground — and then mummified in the same tomb, Ikram said.”Secrets of the Dead: Egypt’s Darkest Hour” aired last night (April 3) on PBS and is now available to stream on the PBS website and on PBS apps.

AFRICA, EGYPT, WORLD

Two Ancient Egyptian Kingdom Tombs Opened in Luxor, Egypt

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Two Ancient Egyptian Kingdom Tombs Opened in Luxor, Egypt

Two tombs of unidentified officials dated to Egypt’s New Kingdom era have been opened at Luxor’s Draa Abul-Naglaa necropolis years after they were initially discovered by German archaeologist Frederica Kampp in the 1990s.

The opening of the tombs was announced at an international conference attended by the governor of Luxor, the minister of social solidarity, the director-general of the International Monetary Fund, members of the international media, foreign ambassadors, members of parliament, and Minister of Antiquities Khaled El-Enany.

“It is a very important discovery because both tombs contain very rich funerary collections, and one of them has a very distinguished painted statue of a lady in the Osirian shape,” with this most recent discovery being the third Draa Abul-Naga alone.

“It seems that our ancient Egyptian ancestors are bestowing their blessing on Egypt’s economy as these discoveries are good promotion for the country and its tourism industry,” El-Enany told Ahram Online.

Mostafa Waziri, the secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities and head of the Egyptian excavation mission, explains that both tombs were given special numbers by German archaeologist Frederica Kampp in the 1990s.

The first tomb, named “Kampp 161,” was never excavated, while excavation work on the second, “Kampp 150,” was undertaken by archaeologist Kampp short of entering the tomb itself.

The tombs had been left untouched until excavation started during the recent archaeological season.

Most of the items discovered in Kampala 161 are fragments of wooden coffins.

The most notable discoveries are a large wooden mask that was originally a part of a coffin, a small painted wooden mask, a fragment of a gilded wooden mask in poor condition, four legs of wooden chairs that were among the deceased’s funerary equipment, as well as the lower part of a wooden Osirian shaped coffin decorated with a scene of goddess Isis lifting up her hands.

“The owner of Kampp 150 is not yet known, but there are two possible candidates,” Waziri told Ahram Online.

He said that the first possibility is that the tomb belongs to a person named Djehuty Mes, as this name is engraved on one of the walls.

The second possibility is that the owner could be the scribe “Maati,” as his name and the name of his wife “Mehi” are inscribed on 50 funerary cones found in the tomb’s rectangular chamber.

The tomb has only one inscription on one of its northern pillars. It shows a scene with a seated man offering food to four oxen, with the first kneeling in front of the man, who is giving it herbs. The scene also depicts five people making funerary furniture.

The entrance of the long hall is inscribed with hieroglyphic text with the name of “Djehuty Mes.” The ceiling of the chamber is inscribed with hieroglyphic inscriptions and the cartouche of King Thutmose I.

The objects uncovered inside include 100 funerary cones, painted wooden masks, a collection of 450 statues carved in different materials such as clay, wood and faience, and a small box in the shape of a wooden coffin with a lid.

The box was probably used for storing an Ushabti figurine 17 cm tall and 6 cm large. Also found was a collection of clay vessels of different shapes and sizes, as well as a mummy wrapped in linen with its hands on its chest in the Osirian formStudies, suggest that the mummy, which was found inside the long chamber, could be of a top official or another powerful person.