Talking Pyramids: Ancient Egyptian Pyramids

More on the laser scanning of Djoser’s pyramid.

“Egypt plans to make a documentary film of Pyrmaid of Djoser, Egypt’s first step pyramid, using a three-dimensional technique to be a reference to all archaeologists,” Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni said Monday 9/6/2008.

The film will display a perspective image of the pyrmaid, located in Sakkara, to help archaeologists know the exact condition of each step and stone pieces, the Minister said. The four-week project will be carried out by the Supreme Council of Antiquities in cooperation with a Japanese-American mission, Hosni said.

The project comes as part of celebrations of making 2008 the Year of Science between Japan and Egypt.

Full story: A documentary film of Djoser Pyramid to be a reference to all archaeologists

Here is a great interactive 360 degree panorama of the Giza plateau and surrounds. Use the the Shift and Ctrl keys to zoom in and out and the mouse or the arrow keys to look around.

Click to view the Interactive 360 degree Panorama of Giza Plateau

Announced today on the website of Zahi Hawass was the news that the step pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara will be scanned with precision lasers. The goal is to produce a three-dimensional model that will help to preserve the oldest pyramid of Egypt, thought to be designed by the great architect Imhotep.

“Dr. Hawass stated that this survey is being conducted in collaboration with a Japanese mission headed by Dr. Kosuke Sato of Osaka University and an American mission led by Dr. Mark Lehner, Director of Ancient Egypt Research Associates (AERA). This project intends on archaeologically documenting the Step Pyramid in order to greater understand its various stages of construction by using a variety of laser scanners including the Zoser Scanner, which was custom designed to scan the pyramid by Develo Solutions of Osaka, Japan.

Dr. Sato said that the Zoser Scanner, which is carried on the backs of professional climbers as they rappel down the faces of the pyramid’s six gigantic steps, uses infrared signals to gather coordinates and elevations of the thousands of points on the monument. The scanner gathers data at the exceedingly fast rate of 40,000 points per second in order to create a virtual three-dimensional model of the Step Pyramid, which will be a valuable reference for restorers, archaeologists, and architects involved in the restoration of the pyramid and for the continual monitoring of its condition. The laser scanning survey of the Step Pyramid will take four weeks to complete.”

Read the full story at The Plateau

Today it is with great excitement that I announce the launch of the GlyphStudy Open-Source Projects Group.

Here is the Public Announcement released earlier today:

The GlyphStudy Open-Source Projects (GOSP) Group is an association of software developers, Ancient Egyptian educators, students, and scholars of various levels devoted to open source and public domain tools and resources to aid in Egyptology.

The flagship products of the GOSP are a series of Ancient Egyptian dictionaries containing over 12,000 entries from such sources as Faulkner’s Middle Egyptian Dictionary. The software to generate the dictionaries and various supporting libraries have also been made available. The flexibility of the software promotes rapid generation of a variety of language resources including dictionaries, sign lists, and cross-references in any imaginable layout, structure, and output format. For instance, work is underway to produce a version of the dictionary for the iPod!

The GOSP is also home to a number of other projects including efforts to produce high quality sign lists, a scholarly and fully referenced dictionary of Ancient Egyptian, and numerous collaborations including improvements being made to the open-source hieroglyphic text editor JSesh, and the wiki-based Egyptian dictionary Eglyptionary.

Director and cofounder Ted Young explains, “This is a very exciting and fast moving project. Since the decision to go forward with this project seven days ago we now have a vast array of resources that we can use to support existing projects and to create new resources to fulfill existing needs. We also have a fantastic website full of information.

“It all started when I announced to the GlyphStudy Yahoo group, dedicated to teaching Middle Egyptian, that I had designed a flexible piece of software that can generate arbitrary dictionaries from various sources such as Mark Vygus’s wordlist. Mark’s wordlist is phenomenal. He transcribed over 12,000 entries from Faulkner’s dictionary. He continues to maintain this valuable resource and I wanted a solution that would create new dictionaries as he made improvements.

The response was phenomenal! Dozens of people came forward with suggestions, incredible new ideas, and offers of help. It was decided then that we needed to formalize our movement. Hence, the GOSP was born.

There is a wealth of Egyptology resources available to us now. For instance, we are able to produce high quality documents with the use of JSesh, which can export hieroglyphic text as SVG. As a Java library it is suitable for embedding in other applications such as ours. Another goal of the GOSP is to catalog these resources so they are readily available to other Egyptologists.”

For more information please visit the GOSP website: http://gosp.sourceforge.net

The GOSP Mailing List and Yahoo Group: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/gosp_list/

This week’s photo is of the western wall of the Unas Antechamber, courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum. Click on the image to view the same wall as it appears today.

More on the discovery of the pyramid of Menkauhor at Saqqara, a video from the National Geographic website:

From today’s story in the Guardian:

“In 1842, German archaeologist Karl Richard Lepsius mentioned it among his finds at Saqqara, referring to it as number 29 and calling it the “Headless Pyramid” because only its base remains. But the desert sands covered the discovery, and no archaeologist since has been able to find Menkauhor’s resting place.

“We have filled the gap of the missing pyramid,” Hawass told reporters on a tour of the discoveries at Saqqara, the necropolis and burial site of the rulers of ancient Memphis, the capital of Egypt’s Old Kingdom, about 12 miles south of Cairo…”

“…The pyramid’s base - or the superstructure as archeologists call it - was found after a 25-foot-high mound of sand was removed over the past year and a half by Hawass’ team.

Hawass said the style of the pyramid indicates it was from the Fifth Dynasty, a period that began in 2,465 B.C. and ended in 2,325 B.C. That would put it about two centuries after the completion of the Great Pyramid of Giza, believed to have been finished in 2,500 B.C.

Another proof of its date, Hawass says, was the discovery inside the pyramid of a gray granite lid of a sarcophagus, of the type used at that time.

The rectangular base, at the bottom of a 15 foot-deep pit dug out by workers, gives little indication of how imposing the pyramid might have once been. Heaps of huge rocks, many still partially covered in sand and dust, mark the pyramid’s walls and entrance, and a burial chamber was discovered inside.

Archaeologists have not found a cartouche - a pharaoh’s name in hieroglyphs - of the pyramid’s owner. But Hawass said that based on the estimated date of the pyramid he was convinced it belonged to Menkauhor.

Work continues at the site, where Hawass said he expected to unearth “subsidiary” pyramids around Menkauhor’s main one, and hoped to find inscriptions there to back up his claim.”

More photos and information at The Plateau - the Official Website of Dr Zahi Hawass

The Brooklyn Museum has taken the step of displaying some of their photographic collections online. To begin the process the museum has uploaded a set of lantern slides of Egypt collected by the Museum’s first Curator of Fine Arts, William Henry Goodyear. These slides were used by Goodyear to illustrate his lectures on Ancient Egypt.

So today I am posting a slide from the collection of the Sphinx as it appeared in Goodyear’s time.

From the Brooklyn Museum’s Flickr page:

“While the Brooklyn Museum staff is the primary user of our Libraries and Archives, we are open to the public and are always looking to reach out to a wide and varied audience. One of the challenges is ensuring everyone knows which resources we have available and listening to the needs of our visitors, so we know what to provide and how best to present these materials. One of the more interesting results of “growing” an encyclopedic collection is that we have research collections that serve as an intellectual link to the objects and perhaps act as storytellers revealing the cultural context of the objects. Think about the possible stories behind these photographs and then tag the images with the story you see. Take a look at these photographs and tell us how you would like to use them. What other materials would you like to see?

We believe that by sharing these images we will support a better understanding of the cultures that have created the great art that is held by this Museum. We hope you will agree.

Visit the Brooklyn Museum’s Egypt collection on Flickr

The Egyptian Supreme Council for Antiquities (SCA) reported today that the bottom part of an unknown pyramid in the Saqqara area has been discovered.

Secretary General of the SCA, Zahi Hawass stated that it was thought to belong to fifth Dynasty King Menkauhor who ruled from 2444 B.C. to 2436 B.C. (not to be confused with fourth Dynasty King Menkare who’s pyramid is one of the three Giza pyramids).

Menkauhor was a relatively obscure King and was the last pharaoh to build a sun temple - called Akhet-Re.

There is evidence in the form of Old Kingdom administrative records at Abusir that suggest Menkauhor completed his pyramid complex which was called Ntry-iswt-Mn-kw-hr. His funerary cult is believed to have been operational long after he died.

…additional information from a translation by Andie:

“A team of Egyptian experts have discovered the remains of a pyramid which has been covered with sand since the nineteenth dynasty (read ‘nineteenth century’) in the necropolis of Saqqara, 20km southeast of Cairo. The announcement was made by Zahi Hawass, the Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in a communication in which he said that the pyramid is located by the side of the Pharaoh Teti, the first monarch of the Sixth Dynasty. The remains of the pyramid were first mentioned by Karl Richard Lepsius. Recent excavations have revealed the entrance, walls, funerary chamber and a piece of a granite sarcophagus. It is not known to whom the burial belonged but Hawass is speculating that it belonged to Menkauhor Kaiyu, who reigned during the Fifth Dynasty.”

Read the full story

View a set of slides and Videos in the story at Yahoo

See also the following story containing video.

Here is a video on the pyramid of Djedefre at Abu Roash that uses computer generated imagery to show what the pyramid might have once looked like.

The accompanying story is in Italian: Il mistero della quarta piramide “La più bella, alta e preziosa” and Archaeologist, Andie, who runs the best Egyptology blog on the planet for the latest news in Egyptology, has provided an English translation:

“In summary (not word for word translation) it says that although the Giza pyramids are the best known, the pyramid of Djedefre was far more impressive in terms of its majesty, beauty, wealth and dimensions even though it was located away from Giza. It is now located in a military zone to which there is severely restricted access. it is in very ruinous condition today, and there is very little to see. Some archaeologists, and in particular Zahi Hawass of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, suggest that the pyramid had been completed, that it was actually the tallest of all of the pyramids and made out of more valuable materials, but that during the Roman period the pyramid was dismantled for building material. The excavations have been taking place for twelve years and have given rise to new interpretations of the mysteries concering Djedefra and why he chose to build his pyramid at Abu Roach rather than on the Giza plateau with its predecessor, but was instead in a more secluded and elevated place. One view which was held for many years was that the Pharaoh had suffered some misfortune or disagreement with his family, but today Hawass thinks that his choice of location was designed to emphasize his independence and that the higher location was chosen in order to be closer to the sun itself, which the Pharaohs worshipped.”

Thanks Andie.

The Isle of Man Mint has released another batch of Tutankhamun coins.

Last December the mint produced the world’s first triangular, or ‘pyramid’ shaped coin to mark the new Tutankamun exhibition in London’s O2 arena. Intended as a gift and sold for for 15 pounds, it is also legal tender in the Isle of Man having a value of 25p.

The above images are from ‘Isle of Man Today’ website:

“One side of the 57mm wide by 40mm high, copper coin shows Tutankhamun, the teenage pharaoh who died 3,330 years ago, and the other features a portrait of the Queen.

The coin is expected to form part of a series, which will depict the most wondrous artefacts unearthed in the young pharaoh’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings by English archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922, whose great nephew is a well known resident of the Island.”

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