Talking Pyramids: Ancient Egyptian Pyramids

Every day Bennu reports on the latest news and information related to ancient Egypt. Once a week these updates are compiled and posted here.

Daily News from June 27th - July 3rd 2009

• Common Plants of the Western Desert of Egypt, from Andie Byrnes: http://westerndesertflora.geolab.cz/ #
• DOWNLOAD: The Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections (JAEI) PDF, from Andie Byrnes: http://is.gd/1mFVi #
• Culture Minister approves program to train museum staff nationwide: http://is.gd/1mEWR #
• VOCAB: (MdC): nHH, (English): eternity, (Hieroglyphs): http://twitpic.com/92y2l or http://twitpic.com/92y5b #
• ‘Excavating Egypt’ shatters art museum records: http://is.gd/1lMp3 #
• The Pyramid Farm is one way to address the needs of a swelling population on a planet with finite farmland: http://is.gd/1lMc3 #
• A 2,500 year old Egyptian mummy, discovered by a Jesuit missionary and archaeologist in 1850, returns to Stonyhurst: http://is.gd/1lKzM #
• Egyptologist Kara Cooney looks at the proliferation of pyramids & gathers threads woven through ancient civilizations: http://is.gd/1lmm7 #

Read the rest of this entry »

And now for something completely different: the Glastonbury Pyramid:

For more information on last weekend’s Glastonbury Festival visit a page I put together to cover the event: Glastonbury Festival.

Every day Bennu reports on the latest news and information related to ancient Egypt. Once a week these updates are compiled and posted here.

Daily News from June 20th - June 26th 2009

• Twitter and Archaeology: a great collection of archaeological groups and projects using Twitter from Kris Hirst: http://is.gd/1eWx8 #
• PHOTO: Decorated carttonage from the new excavations at Saqqara:http://is.gd/1eWc4 #
• New chief for Egyptology museum in Berlin to replace Dietrich Wildung who retires at the end of this month: http://is.gd/1eWaw #
• Mummy Portrait Encaustic on Wood Fayum Egypt Roman Period 2nd Century CE - http://snaptweet.com/d37c1 from @mharrsch: #
• Egypt at the Manchester Museum - Curator’s Diary, Friday 26th June 2009: http://is.gd/1enlD #
• Emmy winning, self-styled archaeological “rocks star” dedicated his life to antiquity: http://is.gd/1dtmP #
• Egyptian mummies have been exposed to radiographic study since 1896 and CT scans for more than 20 years: http://is.gd/1dsWI #
• VIDEO: Ten Videos on Tutankhamun: http://is.gd/1drPI #

Read the rest of this entry »

It appears that the burial vault of the oldest pyramid in the world may have finally been opened for the first time since it was built, almost 4900 years ago.

“Maybe this is the most impressive place on earth!”
- Dr Zahi Hawass

It’s really quite amazing to think that Djoser’s sarcophagus had not yet been opened. It lies deep beneath the step pyramid at the bottom of a huge central shaft 7 meters square and about 28 meters deep. The granite beams that house his wooden coffin are so big that each one weighs several tons.

In a previous video recorded two months ago Zahi Hawass described his team’s recent clearing of the top of this massive burial vault. Sitting on the burial vault’s three and a half ton granite plug Hawass explains:

“I use to say that we would never see the sarcophagus in our life. I never thought that we’d be able to do conservation and restoration and clean this sarcophagus.

About two months ago we found a tunnel underneath the sarcophagus and that tunnel goes for about 60 feet, or maybe 90 feet. But going in this tunnel crawling and see yourself under the base of this sarcophagus that maybe weighs 60 tons…

The Egyptian team that (is) working inside the step pyramid was able to remove the stone rubble limestone blocks and be able in two months to be able to clean the sarcophagus for the first time.

And now actually I don’t think that any archaeologist in the past or anyone in modern times saw this sarcophagus. It is the first time that you can actually see it.

So me and my assistant, he said:

‘We have huge blocks underneath. That we cannot move it, we have to break it.’

I said ‘Break it’.

Sometimes a surgeon can’t make surgery, he has to sacrifice for things to save the patient.

We are saving the Step pyramid!”

Hawass continues:

“Something that I will be proud of all my life, restoring the Step pyramid. No one can do it. Many foreign expeditions tried and they came and they failed. We did very impressive project - completely done by an Egyptian team of engineering architects, archaeologists, and restorators they work together

I gave them the authority to make a decision even if the decision could be wrong.
But make a decision for the safety of the monument and this is why we are inside the burial chamber it is something incredible I am sitting above the granite sarcophagus for the first time that people can see the sarcophagus.”

Yesterday on his website Zahi Hawass revealed that during restoration work thirty granite blocks were discovered, each weighing as much as five tons and that these “belonged to the granite sarcophagus that once housed Djoser’s wooden sarcophagus - the final resting place of the king’s mummy.”

So it would seem that this rather vague reference at the bottom of this news release may be the announcement that the granite burial vault of the owner of Egypt’s first pyramid, built by the great architect Imhotep, has been opened. Or perhaps it is rehash of the previous announcement.

Oddly, the Egypt State Information Service stated:

“Hawass said that the SCA group unearthed 30 granite blocs that, put together, “

I assume there will be a more news on this in the near future.

Also found during the cleaning of the corridors of the pyramid were limestone blocks with the names of Djoser’s daughters and it is thought that he had eleven of his daughters buried inside the pyramid.

Wooden instruments, remains of wooden statues, bone fragments, the remains of a mummy, and clay vessels were also found inside the three and a half miles of the pyramid’s corridors.

Sources:
The website of Dr Hawass
Egypt State Information Service
eTurbo News

Previously on Talking Pyramids:
Underneath the Step Pyramid with Dr Hawass
New Shaft Found in World’s Oldest Pyramid
World’s Oldest Pyramid Crumbles
Photo of the Week - Inside Djoser’s Pyramid

Brooklyn Museum’s trip to the hospital with four of their mummies yesterday was an event not to be missed. Many of us all over the world were able to ‘tune in’ via popular social networks such as Flickr and Twitter.

Shelley Bernstein, Brooklyn Museum’s technology geek, delivered a running commentary with photos as the four mummies were taken from the museum to the North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset.

The innovative use of the micro-blogging platform Twitter not only allowed many to follow the event step by step, but also allowed others to jump in and add their own two cents worth.

As Tina puzzled over a fold-out street map to determine what the best route was that should be taken, one observer Ian suggested Shelly help Tina by using the GoogleMaps application on her iPhone instead. Apparently Tina wanted a real map so Shelley checked the current state of the traffic on the iPhone instead.

Here’s one of her tweets:

brooklynmuseum: Figuring out good route to bring mummies into hospital #mummyCT

Read the rest of this entry »

Tomorrow morning the Brooklyn Museum will be taking their four ancient Egyptian mummies to North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset to undergo CT scanning. One of the four mummies is former royal prince of Thebes, Pasebakhaienipet, another is simply referred to as the “mystery mummy”. The aim of the scanning is to help learn more about the mummies.

“It’s possible that we will find the cause of death, history of ancient disease, and be able to verify which methods of mummification were used,” said Edward Bleiberg, the museum’s curator of Egyptian art.



The mummies, two male, two female, will undergo a 64-slice computed tomography scan that will allow radiologists to examine the mummies in great detail.



”It’s the same procedure for living people to look at coronary arteries for blockages of the heart, but obviously the mummy’s heart is not there anymore, unless they used something to preserve it,” said Dr. Amgad Makaryus, director of cardiac CT and MRI at North Shore.

”I think the thing that strikes me is the way we are able to use the very most modern equipment to study these ancient people,” Bleiberg said. “It’s a fascinating juxtaposition of the very old and the very new to gain new knowledge.”


Source: LI hospital CT scan may shed new light on mummies

Shelley Bernstein, the Museum’s chief geek has informed me that they will be covering the trip live so I have knocked up a widget and embedded it in this page so that others can follow the journey.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Yahoo group GlyphStudy is running three new Middle Egyptian study groups, each starting in July. One of the groups will be using James Hoch’s Middle Egyptian Grammar, another will use James Allen’s Middle Egyptian: An introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, and the third group will be using How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs: A Step-by-Step Guide to Teach Yourself, Revised Edition by Mark Collier and Bill Manley

The three groups are open to anyone who wishes to participate, the only requirement is that you have the text book for that course and that you sign up for a Yahoo account and subscribe to GlyphStudy. Yahoo accounts are free and so is the subscription to GlyphStudy.

Here are the details:

#1. Hoch 2009 section:
Middle Egyptian Grammar (SSEA Publication) (Plastic Comb) by  James Hoch 
 
The Hoch group will start on July 12th, the first homework will be due on July 26th.

 You will need to have the book in hand to work with the course. You will not need to purchase Hoch’s sign list.

This text runs $49 at Amazon USA but you can receive a discount if you order from Oxbow books directly. To receive the discount you will need to mention AEL (the discount is through the old parent group AncientEgyptianLanguage and not GlyphStudy-so say AEL).

Study guides will be available and also a web-site where things like vocabulary lists, grammar summaries, sign lists, and the like will be maintained in addition to the study guides and collation materials that will also be available on GlyphStudy.



Anyone who is interested in the Hoch group should send an e-mail to Bob at manske_r @ yahoo . com (delete the spaces around the @ sign and the period - otherwise it won’t reach Bob) stating your interest in taking the course.
Put “HOCH” in the subject line, that will be helpful. The return address will be used to send the formal invitation to you to join the group.

#2 Collier and Manley 2009 section:
How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs: A Step-by-Step Guide to Teach Yourself, Revised Edition by Mark Collier and Bill Manley.

These are reasonably priced at Amazon and you can even acquire a used or remainder copy through Amazon Sellers at a discount. The lessons are based on the 2004 reprint of Collier & Manley’s ‘How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs: A step-by-step Guide to teach yourself ‘. If you have an edition prior to 2003, you may find that it has a few errors in it (particularly in the answers to the exercises!) - but I don’t think you should find this a significant problem.
 
Collier and Manley is a beginner’s book - it introduces you to hieroglyhs. It concentrates on funerary inscriptions; it uses stelae from the British Museum for examples and exercises. By the end of the book you should be able to visit Egypt (or a museum) and read the basic inscriptions. A rough estimate to complete the course is 18 months.
 
The study group will start on the 12th July with the reading of Chapter 1. The first homework will be due 26th July. Timetables, details of where and how to post homework, etc. will be published in the next couple of weeks. It is hoped that everyone will do all the exercises, starting with all the exercises for chapter 1 in one go, but spreading the exercises out over more than one week after that.

 If there is anyone  who would liketo join, please send an email to Angela on  manna1@btopenworld.com putting ‘C&M 2009′ in the subject box. Official invites will be sent out over the next few weeks. If you have any concerns or questions, you can ask Angela directly at the address above.

 

#3 Allen 2009 section:
Middle Egyptian: An introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs by James Allen.
 
A 2009 Allen Group will start on the 12th July with the reading of chapter 1 (you will not need to submit homework for this chapter).
 
Timetables, details of where and how to post homework, etc will be published in the next couple of weeks. There will be a week to read a chapter and the first homework for the chapter will be due at the end of the following week. After the first three lessons the pace will slow down and increase the reading time to two weeks, and even three weeks reading for the final chapters of the book.
 
The exercises will be spread over several weeks; each of you will receive an allocated 2/3 exercises each week, so that each exercise should be completed by at least three people.

If you would like to join this Group, please send Angela an email to manna1@btopenworld.com - putting ‘Allen 2009′ in the subject box.

Visit the group’s page on Yahoo Groups: GlyphStudy.
Sign up with Yahoo.

Contact Karen at kmotc@swbell.net for more information.