Talking Pyramids: Ancient Egyptian Pyramids

Photo of the Week - Khufu’s Sarcophagus

Vincent — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 02:22:18 +0000

This week’s photo is of the granite sarcophagus inside the burial chamber of Khufu’s pyramid. From the Brooklyn Museum’s Egyptian Lantern collection.

Khufu's granite sarcophagus

Sirius From Other Sources

Vincent — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 08:28:29 +0000

Assem Dief has written an article on the legends surrounding Sirius. Interestingly, Assem reveals mention of Sirius from Arab sources and compares it with Ancient Egyptian mythology.

'Sothis is encircled by the Duat' - Utterance 216, Pyramid Texts.

“Looking into other cultures we find equal myths about the same type of story. To the Indians the name “Tishtrya” goes back to the Sanskrit term “three stars”. In Arab mythology there are abundant poems on the Sirius lore. They believed there were three stars getting along well. They called the original star “Al-Shi’ra Al-Yamaniyyah or “Al-Shi’ra Al-A’bour”, denoting Sirius A in Canis Major from the Arabic verb a’bar, meaning to traverse, and another “Al-Shi’ra Al-Shamiyyah or Al-Ghomaisaa” from the verb ghamasa i.e. blink from excessive weeping. But the latter is not Sirius B, but Procyon in Canis Minor; the appearance of which above the horizon heralds the coming of Sirius approximately an hour later. Both are the alpha stars of the dog constellations and both are binary stars, each with a white dwarf companion (both are also relatively close, 8.7 light years for Sirius, and 11 light years for Procyon). Perhaps it was because Procyon was also called by the Arabs “Al-Shi’ra” (Sirius) that Griaule took it for Sirius B and impelled the Dogons unnoticeably or involuntarily to accepting it this way; thus attributing them more knowledge than they actually possessed.

A third star in the set is Suhayl in the Constellation Carina (part of Argo), known as “the ship of the desert”. There are the three most important stars for the Arabs, along with Ursa Major. It meant they recognised the triplet Sirius- Proycon-Canopus, in which the last was the brother of the first two sisters and Sirius is married to Canopus. Now the legend goes as follows: “As Canopus and Sirius were husband and wife and the first flew to the south, Sirius in order to follow suit traversed the constellation. Procyon, being left alone and losing its brother, not being able to traverse similarly, began to weep heavily; losing its brightness and becoming a smaller star and staying at the end of the constellation”. So eventually, Sirius moved to the south, whereas Procyon was tilted to the north. This explains their Arabic names “Al-Shi’ra Al-Yamaniyyah” for Sirius and “Al-Shi’ra Al-Shamiyyah” for Procyon, referring to Al-Sham (Syria).”

Read the full article: Sirius Lore.

Painted Coffins Found Near the Pyramid of Unas

Vincent — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:53:28 +0000

More discoveries at Saqqara.

A painted 19th dynasty sarcophagus belonging to Maayi, a scribe in the palace of Maat during the reign of Ramesses II (1279 BC to 1213 BC)

Several painted wooden coffins as well as statues representing their owners have been discovered by Egyptian archaeologists. Tunnels containing carved stones were also found in the area.

“These coffins were found in the tombs of senior officials of the 18th and 19th dynasties,” near Saqqara, Zahi Hawass, the director of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities said on Thursday.

“Some coloured unopened coffins dating back to the sixth century BC were found as well as some coffins dating back to the time of Ramses II,” who ruled from 1279 to 1213 BC, he said.”

Read the full story at Middle East Times.

Photo of the Week - Inside Djoser’s Pyramid

Vincent — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 01:59:56 +0000

This week’s photo is Limestone and Faience molding around a relief in the system of tunnels underneath Djoser’s Step Pyramid at Saqqara. Photo from the Brooklyn Museum’s Egyptian Lantern collection.

Inside Djoser's Pyramid

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IAE Computer Group Conference 2008

Vincent — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 02:47:04 +0000

The IAE Computer Group (Informatique et Egyptologie, I&E) will be meeting in Vienna at the Kunsthistorisches Museum on the 8-11 of July this year. The conference itself will start on Wednesday the 9th and 10th.

IAE 2008 meeting at the Kunsthistorisches Museum

The conference fee is €30 and includes a visit to the Heurigen restaurant for a typical Viennese party.

Here is a very basic overview:

Wednesday, 9 July:
Session 1: Modelling and Animation
Session 2: Text Corpora and Text Processing

Tuesday, 10 July:
Session 3: Databases
Session 4: Images, Bibliography and Tools

A more detailed programme can be found at the IAE Computer Group’s website below and also abstracts from the speakers including:

Vincent EUVERTE of the Rosette Project: A computer-assistance for the student, the epigraphist, and the philologist

Claus JURMAN: The Memphite Database Project

Edward LORING: Sharing Images in the Internet

Marcus MÜLLER: Encoding Vignettes of the Book of the Dead

PhD Hana NAVRÁTILOVÁ / Dr. Renate LANDGRAFOVA: The Database of First Intermediate Period biographical texts

Mark-Jan NEDERHOF: Automatic alignment of hieroglyphic and transliteration

Elaine SULLIVAN and Willeke Wendrich: An Offering to Amun-Ra: Building a Virtual Reality Model of Karnak

You can read more about the conference at the IAE Computer Group Meeting 2008 website.

Djoser 3D Scanning Begins

Vincent — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 03:30:24 +0000

Last Tuesday morning the American-Japanese scientific team arrived in Saqqara to commence the laser scanning of Djoser’s pyramid to create a 3D model.

Creating a 3D model of Djoser

It is expected to take four weeks to complete, after which a survey of the internal structure will commence as part of phase two of the project.

Sato pointed out that for more than 70 years French architect Jean-Philippe Lauer had comprehensively studied and restored the Step Pyramid complex. Although his seminal work was indisputably considered the foundational study on pyramids, his theories were based on his schematic plans and sections, which are not facsimiles of the actual state of the monument. In contrast to the scanned images produced by the ground fixed laser scanner in the previous season, Sato continued, the Japanese mission improved several aspects for laser scanning the Step Pyramid in order more evenly to dense point cold data, eliminating shadows created by obstacles between the laser scanner and the target as much as possible and providing a density of point clouds finer than 5mm mesh.

Sato said that he did not arrive haphazardly at the invention of a special device, but that it was an urge because the normal fixed laser scanner produced uneven point cloud data which were needlessly very dense at closer ranges, while less dense at a distance. “The developed scanner maintains a constant distance between the scanner and the pyramid,” he said.

To avoid having an unscanned area, Yukinori Kawae from the AERA explained, the mission applied a multiple scanner system that simultaneously produced laser beams, even behind small protuberances. With this method, while surveyors scan and move at a constant speed, accurate information for the position and the attitude of the scanners can be gained.”

Read the story in full at Al-Ahram

Photo of the Week - Khafre’s Valley Temple

Vincent — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 01:52:19 +0000

This week’s photo is of Khafre’s Valley Temple, from the Brooklyn Museum’s Egyptian Lantern collection.

Valley Temple with Khafre's Pyramid in the background

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Want to be an Egyptologist?

Vincent — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 05:07:07 +0000

Dr. Kara Cooney explains what it is to be an Egyptologist.

Thanks to Bob Manske from GlyphStudy for this one.

Eugene Cruz-Uribe and Nigel Strudwick have put together a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) on the subject: How to be an Egyptologist

The ‘Lost Fourth Pyramid of Giza’

Vincent — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 00:27:41 +0000

Next Monday the History Channel will air a documentary called “The Lost Pyramid”.

The documentary sensationally refers to the pyramid of Djedefre as “The Lost Fourth Pyramid of Giza”, even though Egyptologists have been well aware of this pyramid for over a hundred years, it first being investigated by John Perring and later by Flinders Petrie who’s meticulous efforts gave us the detailed measurements of Khufu’s pyramid. Nor is the pyramid located at Giza, instead it can be found 8 kilometers north at Abu Roash.

Even Zahi Hawass, who as we know is a bit of a show man, is hyping up the claim stating:

“I’m a pyramid man, and what I’ve seen now has made me change many things…Every history book in every language is going to be rewritten.”

'The Lost Fourth Pyramid' on the History Channel

Like the video I posted in a previous article, the documentary uses computer-generated reconstructions to demonstrate how Djedefre’s pyramid was connected to the three pyramids at Giza.

See the History Channel website for more information on “The Lost Pyramid”.

The Titanic & the Sunken Sarcophagus

Vincent — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 14:34:16 +0000

More news on the search for Menkaure’s missing sarcophagus.

Franck Goddio discovered artefacts submerged in Alexandria and is also favoured in the search for the Beatrice

Spain and Egypt have made some advancements on the arrangement of a joint mission to search for the sarcophagus of Menkaure, lost on the sea floor somewhere between Malta and Gibralta. With financial help from the National Geographic Society, the Egyptian Government wants to use underwater robots to recover the sarcophagus.

“To locate the Beatrice he has lined up the services of Robert Ballard, who found the Titanic using high-tech submersibles. The Egyptians have also privately suggested Franck Goddio, the French marine archaeologist who has discovered hundreds of artefacts from submerged parts of Alexandria.

“I will seek a formula for co-operation with the Spanish Government and we will agree to return the sarcophagus to Egypt,” Dr Hawass said. Experts say that finding the ship will not be easy. In his account of the expedition Colonel Vyse noted that the Beatrice “was supposed to have been lost off Carthagena . . . as some parts of the wreck were picked up near the former port”. Other accounts say that the crew swam safely to shore, suggesting that the Beatrice lies in shallow water. Still others merely state that it went missing somewhere between Malta and Gibraltar — an impossibly large area to search.

“It’s going to be very challenging to find something of that sort,” said John Baines, Professor of Egyptology at Oxford University. “Looking for something in the open Atlantic, which is nearly what this amounts to, strikes me as being a hopeless case.”

Dr Hawass is undeterred. “We have all the information from the time the ship sank, from Spanish newspapers and other sources,” he said. The Egyptian Ambassador in Madrid met Spanish officials this month to seek their co-operation in the project.”

Source: Titanic discoverer Robert Ballard called to find lost sarcophagus

Visit the Frank Goddio Society website.