New Discovery, Luxor: 3,000-Year Old Tattooed Mummy Belonged to Top Official or Elite Woman, Studies Reveal

Four years after its discovery in Deir El-Madina on Luxor’s west bank, it has been revealed that a unique tattooed 3,000-year-old mummy belonged to an elite woman or a top official. Written By/ Nevine El-Aref.

Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, says the discovery is important because this is the first time an Egyptian mummy has been found to have figurative tattoos.

Waziri said that previous tattoos found on mummies were only a line or a dot, not whole scenes like the ones on this mummy and not drawn on several parts of the body.The mummy, Waziri said, has 30 tattoos depicting a wild bull, a Barbary sheep, a lotus flower, a baboon and the udjat eye. They are drawn on the mummy’s upper arm, shoulders, back, and neck.

The nature of the tattoos suggest that the mummy, discovered in 2014 by a mission from the French Institute for Oriental Studies, belonged to a member of the elite. Using state of the art techniques and x-rays, the scientific and archaeological studies carried out on the mummy showed that it belongs to a 25 to 34-year-old woman who lived between 1,300 and 1,070 BC. The studies have also revealed that the large number of tattoos on her body may have been indented to signal prestige or indicate an important religious role.

The mummy is currently stored in tomb TT 291 in Luxor so it can be maintained in an environment similar to which it had been stored for millennia. More studies and research will be carried out in an attempt to reveal the name and position of the tattooed mummy.

Source: Ahram Online

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Recovered Antiquities, Cairo: 16th Century Edition of Ibn Al-Jawzi Book Seized at Cairo International Airport

A 16th century edition of a book by Muslim scholar Abu Farag Ibn Al-Jawzi (1126 - 1200 CE) has been seized at Cairo International Airport before it could be smuggled out of the country. Written By/ Nevine El-Aref.

Hamdi Hamam, head of the Central Administration for Archaeological Units in Egyptian ports, told Ahram Online that the manuscript was seized at the customs department at Cairo International Airport inside the luggage of a passenger.

Ali Ramadan, director of the archaeological unit at Cairo International Airport, explains that the book is part of a series of books by Ibn Al-Jawzi on history and heritage titled Mirror of Times. The book will be handed to the Ministry of Antiquities to be sent to the Museum of Islamic Art for restoration after the completion of investigations.

The book describes several historical events since the beginning of humanity until the death of its author. The book, comprised of 732 papers divided into three separate parts, is inked in black and red and is decorated with gilded geometric ornaments.

Source: Ahram Online

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New Discovery, Kom Ombo: Egyptian Archaeologists Discover Stela of Liberation Queens in Aswan

Egyptian Archaeologists discovered a limestone stela in Kom Ombo temple area dated back to Early 18th Dynasty or the Liberation war period. 

Dr. Mostafa Waziry (Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities) said that the stela has a scene in the upper lunette shows two persons making an offering to Queen Tetisheri and Queen Ahmos-Nefertari. The stele shows Queen Tetisheri titles as “Mother of the King” and “Lady of the Two Lands”. 

The importance of this discovery that it shows the activities of the Kings in Upper Egypt to secure their territories during their way with the Hyksos. This discovery is a part of the series of discoveries that could re-date the temple to an older date than it was previously known.

Mohamed AbdBadie said “It is known that Queen Tetisheri is the mother of King Seqenenre and the grandmonth of King Ahmose I and she is the one who inspired them the liberation spirit. Tetisheri was very well respected and dignified by the Egyptians for her great role in the Egyptian history.”

Mr. Abd El-Monem Said, Director of Aswan Antiquities said “The two Queens are of the most important female figures in the history of ruling familes in Egypt and had many stelae and chapels dedicated to them all over Egypt.”

Source: Luxor Times Magazine

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Recovered Antiquities, Kuwait: Egypt Receives Coffin Lid Seized at Kuwait International Airport

The ancient artifact, seized at Kuwait International Airport in March, was handed over to the Ministry of Antiquities for dating. Written By/ Nevine El-Aref.

An ancient Egyptian coffin lid seized in March at Kuwait International Airport has arrived safely in Egypt and was handed over to the Ministry of Antiquities at noon today.

Shaaban Abdel-Gawad, supervisor-general of the ministry’s Antiquities Repatriation Department, told Ahram Online that the lid will be sent to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation (NMEC), where it will be restored and authenticated. Abdel-Gawad thanked the Egyptian foreign ministry, the Kuwaiti foreign ministry, customs authority and the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters of Kuwait for their full cooperation in returning the smuggled coffin lid to its homeland.

In March, Kuwaiti authorities announced that officers working at the air cargo terminal at Kuwait International Airport had found a 186-centimetre coffin lid professionally hidden inside a sofa while scanning of a shipment of office furniture sent from Egypt. The coffin lid was confiscated pending further investigation in compliance with the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.

Kuwaiti customs authorities reported the incident to the country’s National Council for Culture, Arts and Literature (NCCAL) to determine the coffin’s origin and historical authenticity. The NCCAL set up a committee led by Sultan Gawish, director of museums and antiquities at NCCAL, which included two Egyptian professors of ancient history and antiquities, El-Sayed Mahfouz and Ahmed Said, who work at Kuwait University, to inspect the condition of the coffin and report on its authenticity.

According to the committee’s report, Abdel-Gawad said the seized object is an anthropoid coffin carved in wood in the ancient Egyptian Osirin shape, except that the hands on the coffin are not folded together in the usual way.

The lid is painted without any hieroglyphic inscriptions. Most of the surface is covered with a layer of calcined dirt and petrified rat dung. After examination, the committee recommended to return the lid to Egypt as the thick layer of dirt covering the coffin’s surface made it difficult for the committee to determine its authenticity.

"The cleaning process requires special materials that are not available to the committee,” Mahfouz said, adding that after cleaning, specialists could take a sample from the coffin for radioactive carbon analysis in order to determine its authenticity.

Although the coffin is similar to those from the late Pharaonic period and early Ptolemaic era, he continued, the separation between the body and the base and the way the lid is carved in one piece appears anomalous and requires investigation.

Source: Ahram Online

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News, Giza: Japan's New Ambassador to Egypt Pays Visit to Khufu's Second Solar Boat

The newly appointed Japanese ambassador to Egypt visits the restoration project of Khufu’s second solar boat as the first archaeological site in his long tour list. Written By/ Nevine El-Aref.

Masaki Noke, the newly appointed Japanese ambassador to Egypt, visited on Thursday the restoration project of Khufu’s second solar boat in Giza Plateau.

Ambassador Noke viewed the techninque which the Egyptian and Japanese archaeologists are using to lift up the boat’s wooden beams from its original location inside the pit to the surface, before transporting it to the site laboratory for restoration and consolidation.

Eissa Zidan, the head of the Restoration Department of the project, told Ahram Online that the Japanese archaelogist Sakuji Yoshimura, the head of the restoration team, explained to Ambassador Noke that "restoring the second solar boat of king Khufu was his dream to come true.'

Yoshimura said "the Japanese government, through the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), had helped him realise his dream by supporting and financing the project."

The JICA will continue its support of the project until the restoration and reconstruction of the boat is completed and the boat is readied to be on show at the Grand Egyptian Museum, which is scheduled to open in 2020.

Zidan told Ahram Online that the restoration team has so far succeeded in removing 866 pieces from the pit, and restored 840 pieces and transported around 700 pieces to the GEM’s restoration centre.

The first phase of the project began over 20 years ago. In 1992, a Japanese scientific and archaeological team from Waseda University, in collaboration with the Japanese government, provided a grant of $10 million to remove the boat from its original pit, restore and reassemble it, and put it on show to the public.

The team first cleaned the pit of insects then Japanese technicians inserted a camera through a hole in the chamber's limestone to assess the boat's condition inside the pit and the possibility of its restoration.

The team’s inspection showed that the second boat was in a much better state of preservation than the first one discovered in 1954. Khufu's first solar boat was discovered by the late architect and archaeologist Kamal El-Malakh, together with Zaki Nour, during routine cleaning on the south side of the Great Pyramid.

The first boat was removed piece by piece under the supervision of master restorer Ahmed Youssef, who spent more than 20 years restoring and reassembling the boat. The second boat remained sealed in its pit until 1987, when it was examined by the American National Geographic Society via remote camera.

After the space inside the pit was photographed and air measurements were taken, the pit was resealed. It was initially believed that the pit had been so well sealed thus the air inside must have been preserved since ancient Egyptian times. Sadly, though, Yoshimura pointed out that this was not the case, explaining that air had leaked into the pit from outside and mixed with the air inside and this had allowed insects to thrive and negatively affect some wooden beams.

 Source: Ahram Online

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New Discovery, Memphis: 'Massive' Ancient Building Discovered By Archaeologists in Egypt

Building likely a part of ancient capital city of Memphis. Archaeologists have discovered a “massive” ancient building in Egypt.

Large Roman bath and chamber likely for religious rituals
discovered in town of Mit Rahina 

The building was found in the town of Mit Rahina, 12 miles (20km) south of the capital, Cairo.

The country’s Antiquities Ministry said archaeologists also uncovered an attached building which includes a large Roman bath and another chamber that was likely used for religious rituals.

Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the building probably formed part of the residential block in the area, which was the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis.

Memphis, which was founded around 3,100BC, was home to Menes, the king who united Upper and Lower Egypt. “The discovered building was built of brick blocks supported by huge blocks of limestone, whose foundations, external walls and inner staircase were built with red brick molds,” Mr Waziri said, according to Egypt Today.

He said the area would be excavated and studied in order to discover more about the building. Egypt hopes such discoveries will spur tourism, partially driven by antiquities sightseeing, which was hit hard by political turmoil following the 2011 uprising.

Source: Independent UK

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Our Treasures Abroad, Norway: Egypt Ambassador to Norway Inaugurates Ancient Egyptian Artifacts Exhibition in Oslo

Egyptian Ambassador in Norway Mahy Hassan Abdel-Latif inaugurated an exhibition of ancient Egyptian antiquities and paintings entitled "Images of Egypt" at the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History in Oslo. Written By/ MENA.

The three-month exhibition showcases Egyptian artifacts from across the world's largest museums including London's Victoria and Albert Museum, Paris's Musée d'Orsay and the US Metropolitan Museum of Art, alongside two original copies of the book "Description de l'Égypte."

Over 300 people attended the opening ceremony including ambassadors, members of the diplomatic corps, representatives from Norway's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and individuals from the Egyptian community in Norway.

Source: Ahram Online

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New Opening, Nile Delta: San Al-Hagar Archaeological Site's Conversion to Open-Air Museum of Ancient Egyptian Art Making Progress

The Minister of Antiquities Khaled el-Enany and an entourage of foreign ambassadors embarked on an inspection tour Saturday to the San Al-Hagar archeological site to assess the progress being made to develop the Sharqiya Governorate site into an open-air museum for ancient Egyptian art. Written By/ Nevine El-Aref.

The minister was accompanied by Mostafa Waziri, General Secretary of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Mamdouh Gurab, Governor of Sharqiya, and a group of a dozen foreign ambassadors to Egypt from Brazil, Lithuania, Congo, Greece, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and other attaches.

El-Enany explained that the project aims to lift the monumental blocks, reliefs, columns, statues, and stelae laying on the sand at the site and to restore and re-erect them onto concrete slabs to protect them for future generations. The artifacts have been laying on sands since their discovery in the 19th century.

Waziri also said that the Egyptian mission restored and lifted-up ancient Egyptian blocks, statues, columns and obelisks onto stone mounts to isolate them from the ground and protect them from subsoil water, salts and moisture, as well as putting the objects on a better display to visitors.

The most important objects that the mission restored and re-erected are the northern and southern colossi of King Ramses II, which had been left on the ground in pieces since its discovery in the 19th century, along with two obelisks and two columns of the King Ramses II era. San Al-Hagar boasts many monumental relics and is one of the country’s largest and most impressive sites, causing Egyptologists to dub it the “Luxor of the North”.

During the 21st and 22nd dynasties, Tanis was a royal necropolis housing the tombs of the Pharaohs as well as nobles and military leaders. Pierre Montet’s excavations between the 1920s and 1950s were the most important carried out at Tanis. Montet put an end to the enigma of the identification of the site, as some Egyptologists saw Tanis as Pi-Ramses, while others suggested that it was the ancient Avaris.

Montet showed that Tanis was neither Pi-Ramses nor Avaris, but rather a third capital in the Delta during the 21st Dynasty. He also unearthed the royal necropolis of the 21st and 22nd dynasties in 1939, with their unique treasures now on display in the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square.

“This discovery was not recognised in the way that the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922 was recognised because of the outbreak of World War II,” Waziri said. Among the tombs that were uncovered were those of the Pharaohs Psusennes I, Amenemonpe, Osorkon II and Sheshonq III.

The site houses large number of tombs and temples among the largest is the one dedicated to god Amun. It also houses the Temples of deities Mut and Khonsu and Horus along with a collection of obelisks, columns and colossi of King Ramses II. In December 2017, the ministry launched a comprehensive rescue project to restore Tanis and to develop the site into an open-air museum of Ancient Egyptian art.

Source: Ahram Online

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New Discovery, Aswan: A Sarcophagus With A Mummy Uncovered in Late Period Tomb in Egypt

A Late Period sandstone anthropoid sarcophagus with mummy uncovered near Al-Aga Khan mausoleum in the Upper Egyptian historic city. Written By/ Nevine El-Aref.

Excavations carried out by an Egyptian mission near the Aga Khan Mausoleum on Aswan's west bank uncovered an anthropoid sandstone sarcophagus with a mummy inside of a Late Period tomb.

Mostafa Waziri, the secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, told Ahram Online that the mummy inside the sarcophagus is wrapped in linen and in a very good conservation condition.

Waziri pointed out that more studies are needed to identify the sarcophagus’ owner. He noted that the mission also uncovered a couple of Late Period tombs with walls decorated with scenes depicting several deities such as Isis, Hathor, and Anubis.

A fragmented collection of coloured stone sarcophagi was also unearthed, along with the remains of a wooden coffin inscribed with hieroglyphic text.

Abdel-Moneim Saeed, the director of Aswan and Nubian Antiquities, explained that a large number of mummies, which were haphazardly buried in the tomb, were also unearthed, suggesting that the tomb was used as a communal burial site.

Saeed added that excavations inside the tomb revealed an unidentified sandstone head of a statue, as well as a collection of amulets and scarabs carved in faience and a wooden statuette of the deity Horus.

Source: Ahram Online

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New Discover, Kom Ombo: A New Sphinx Uncovered Near Aswan

The Egyptian archaeological mission stumbled upon a sandstone statue of a Sphinx during excavation work that was being carried out at the Kom Ombo temple in Aswan to reduce the ground water level. Written By/ Nevine El-Aref.

Mostafa Waziri, general secretary of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, told Ahram Online that the discovered statue likely dates to the Ptolemaic era as it was found in the south-eastern side of Kom Ombo temple, the same location where two sandstone reliefs of King Ptolemy V were previously uncovered 2 months ago.

Abdel Moneim Saeed, general director of the Aswan and Nubia antiquities council said that the mission will conduct more archaeological studies on the Sphinx to discover more information about its history and the king it belongs to.

The previously discovered reliefs of King Ptolemy V were engraved in sandstone and inscribed with hieroglyphic and demotic writings, and upon their discovery, were transferred to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat for conservation and display inside the museum.

Source: Ahram Online

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