Egyptology Today examines how modern scholars examine all aspects of ancient Egypt, one of the greatest of all ancient civilizations. In essays by a team of archaeologists, curators, scholars, and conservators who are actively involved in research or applied aspects of Egyptology, this book looks at the techniques and methods that are used to increase our understanding of a distant culture that was as old to the Greeks and Romans as these cultures are to us. Topics range from how tombs and other monuments are discovered, excavated, recorded and preserved, to the study of Egyptian history, art, artifacts, and texts. Each chapter shows how modern Egyptology approaches, learns about, and strives to preserve the ancient remains of one of the most fascinating cultures in human history.

First published in 1988. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Vibrant tapestries of beribboned birds, cantering centaurs, and Dionysian dancers, woven in Coptic Egypt more than a thousand years ago, were artfully arranged in a handsome pair of albums in 1913. Some of the fabrics are shown in unique collage compositions. Sandals, spindles, and a mysterious lock of hair are assembled in a shallow box at the back of one album. Many textiles in this important collection, housed at the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington, were once joined by warp and weft with those from the Mus e du Louvre and other major museums. Nancy Hoskins deftly interweaves the creation of the textiles in the Greco-Roman city of Antino, Egypt, with their discovery by the charismatic French archaeologist Albert Gayet (1856-1916). Gayet staged stunning exhibitions of the pieces in Paris at the turn of the century and ultimately gave them to museums or sold them. One collector, Henry Bryon, had his 144 fabrics bound into the two albums featured here. The album pages and covers are illustrated in glowing color, along with archival photographs from Gayet's expeditions. The style, structure, and iconography of each tapestry, tabby, and tablet-woven textile are discussed within the cultural construct of Late Antique and Early Christian Egypt. Detailed technical drawings illustrate the special weaving techniques of the Copts. Directions for six weaving projects inspired by the album fragments are included. The story of the inimitable Coptic tapestry albums will delight weavers, textile historians, art historians, and archaeologists. Nancy Arthur Hoskins, a former college weaving instructor, researched Coptic collections in over fifty museums around the world. She is the author of Universal Stitches for Weaving, Embroidery, and Other Fiber Arts and Weft-Faced Pattern Weaves: Tabby to Taquet . OMaster weaver, scholarly detective, and sensitive connoisseur, Nancy Hoskins combines all these skills to describe and identify this unusually wide range of Egyptian Coptic textile fragments. Her descriptions of weaving techniques create a fundamental glossary of technical terms, which all who study textiles should use. The detailed data on each piece are a benchmark for all who work in the field.O N Jere L. Bacharach, Director, American Research Center in Egypt"

The unique relationship between word and image in ancient Egypt is a defining feature of that ancient culture's records. All hieroglyphic texts are composed of images, and large-scale figural imagery in temples and tombs is often accompanied by texts. Epigraphy and palaeography are two distinct, but closely related, ways of recording, analyzing, and interpreting texts and images. This Handbook stresses technical issues about recording text and art and interpretive questions about what we do with those records and why we do it. It offers readers three key things: a diachronic perspective, covering all ancient Egyptian scripts from prehistoric Egypt through the Coptic era (fourth millennium BCE-first half of first millennium CE), a look at recording techniques that considers the past, present, and future, and a focus on the experiences of colleagues. The diachronic perspective illustrates the range of techniques used to record different phases of writing in different media. The consideration of past, present, and future techniques allows readers to understand and assess why epigraphy and palaeography is or was done in a particular manner by linking the aims of a particular effort with the technique chosen to reach those aims. The choice of techniques is a matter of goals and the records' work circumstances, an inevitable consequence of epigraphy being a double projection: geometrical, transcribing in two dimensions an object that exists physically in three; and mental, an interpretation, with an inevitable selection among the object's defining characteristics. The experiences of colleagues provide a range of perspectives and opinions about issues such as techniques of recording, challenges faced in the field, and ways of reading and interpreting text and image. These accounts are interesting and instructive stories of innovation in the face of scientific conundrum.

In this fascinating study, architect and Egyptologist Corinna Rossi analyses the relationship between mathematics and architecture in ancient Egypt by exploring the use of numbers and geometrical figures in ancient architectural projects and buildings. While previous architectural studies have searched for abstract 'universal rules' to explain the history of Egyptian architecture, Rossi attempts to reconcile the different approaches of archaeologists, architects and historians of mathematics into a single coherent picture. Using a study of a specific group of monuments, the pyramids, and placing them in the context of their cultural and historical background, Rossi argues that theory and practice of construction must be considered as a continuum, not as two separated fields, in order to allow the original planning process of a building to re-emerge. Highly illustrated with plans, diagrams and figures, this book is essential reading for all scholars of Ancient Egypt and the architecture of ancient cultures.

The Roman emperor Augustus gave his name to the age he dominated, from the latter half of the first century BC until the second decade of the following century. Yet he shared the age with several royal women who ruled parts of the Mediterranean world, in a symbiotic relationship with Rome. This book is the first detailed portrait of these remarkable women. Previous accounts of the period have centered on Augustus or Rome's allied kings, with scant attention to the women who ruled as their partners or on their own. The most famous of these is Cleopatra Selene, the daughter of the great Cleopatra VII of Egypt and her partner, the Roman magistrate Marcus Antonius. Her very survival following Roman victory over her mother's forces is itself noteworthy but she went on to rule Mauretania (northwest Africa) with her husband for more than twenty years. She even attempted to reconstitute her mother's legacy in this remote region and, like her mother, was an ardent patron of the arts and scholarship. Other women of note included in this book are Pythodoris of Pontos, who ruled northern Asia Minor for forty years, and Salome of Judaea, the sister of Herod the Great, who, while never queen, exercised significant power for nearly half a century. These and others - Glaphyra of Cappadocia, Dynamis of Bosporos, Abe of Olbe, and Mousa of Parthia - were all part of the interrelated dynasties of the Augustan Age. Their values and attitudes toward rule directly affected the emergent Roman imperial system, and their legacy survived for centuries through their descendants and the goals of the royal women of Rome, such as Livia and Octavia, the wife and sister of Augustus. Assimilating all of the historical and archaeological evidence, Cleopatra's Daughter recovers these extraordinary women from the dim shadows of the ancient past.

In this volume Christina Di Cerbo and Richard Jasnow publish 92 Demotic graffiti, along with several ostraca and mummy bandages, from Theban Tombs 11, 12, Tomb -399-, and environs recorded and studied under the aegis of the Spanish Mission at Dra Abu el-Naga directed by Jose Galan. These texts from the mid-second century BCE were inscribed on the tomb walls by workers of the Ibis and Falcon cult, who used the New Kingdom tombs as burial places for mummified birds dedicated to the gods Thoth and Horus. This varied corpus of texts includes not only votive formulae and lists of names, but, most unusually, labels for chambers and halls to guide the men depositing the mummies through the labyrinthine catacombs. The cult workers also recorded important burials and memorialized events of special significance, as when a massive conflagration broke out that consumed several mummies and damaged the tomb walls. The Mission's conservators recovered many hitherto virtually invisible graffiti. Numerous inscriptions posed daunting epigraphic challenges; the text editors employed computer applications, especially DStretch, in order to enhance the digital images forming the basis for decipherment. In an introductory chapter Galan discusses the work of the Spanish Mission at Dra Abu Naga and recounts the complicated history of this important area of the Theban Necropolis down to the Roman period. The graffiti illustrate how New Kingdom tombs were reused for the sacred animal cult in the Ptolemaic period. Francisco Bosch-Puche and Salima Ikram contribute a detailed chapter analysing the archaeological context of the graffiti and the material evidence for the animal cult in the site. The volume, a holistic study of this area at the twilight of Pharaonic history, represents a true collaboration between archaeologists and philologists.

In Ancient Egyptian Phonology. James Allen studies the sounds of the language spoken by the ancient Egyptians through application of the most recent methodological advances for phonological reconstruction. Using the internal evidence of the language, he proceeds from individual vowels and consonants to the sound of actual ancient Egyptian texts. Allen also explores variants, alternants, and the development of sound in texts, and touches on external evidence from Afroasiatic cognate languages. The most up to date work on this topic, Ancient Egyptian Phonology is an essential resource for Egyptologists and will also be of interest to scholars and linguists of African and Semitic languages.

During the Old Kingdom, the ancient Egyptians constructed elaborately decorated mortuary monuments for their pharaohs. By the late Old Kingdom (ca. 2435-2153 BCE), these pyramid complexes began to contain a new and unique type of statue, the so-called prisoner statues. Despite being known to Egyptologists for decades, these statues of kneeling, bound foreign captives have been only partially documented, and questions surrounding their use, treatment, and exact meaning have remained unanswered. Ancient Egyptian Prisoner Statues-the first comprehensive analysis of the prisoner statues-addresses this gap, demonstrating that the Egyptians conceived of and used the prisoner statues differently over time as a response to contemporary social, cultural, and historical changes. In the process, the author contributes new data and interpretations on topics as diverse as the purpose and function of the pyramid complex, the ways in which the Egyptians understood and depicted ethnicity, and the agency of artists in ancient Egypt. Ultimately, this volume provides a fuller understanding of not only the prisoner statues but also the Egyptian late Old Kingdom as a whole.

This volume, published in honour of Egyptologist Professor Rosalie David OBE, presents the latest research on three of the most important aspects of ancient Egyptian civilisation: mummies, magic and medical practice. Drawing on recent archaeological fieldwork, new research on human remains, reassessments of ancient texts and modern experimental archaeology, it attempts to answer some of Egyptology's biggest questions: how did Tutankhamun die? How were the Pyramids built? How were mummies made? Leading experts in their fields combine traditional Egyptology and innovative scientific approaches to ancient material. The result is a cutting-edge overview of the discipline, showing how it has developed over the last forty years and yet how many of its big questions remain the same. -- .

Cleopatra of Egypt is one of history's most famous rulers, but who was responsible for founding the Ptolemaic dynasty from which she came, how, and when? For the answers we go back 300 years before Cleopatra's time, to Ptolemy of Macedonia. He was a friend of Alexander the Great, fighting with him in the epic battles and sieges, which toppled the Persian Empire, and after Alexander's death taking over Egypt after the dead king's commanders carved up his vast empire among themselves. They were soon at war with each other, the co-called Wars of the Successors, as each man fought to increase his share of the spoils. They made and broke alliances with each other cynically and effortlessly, with Ptolemy showing himself no different from the others. But unlike them he had patience and cunning that arguably made him the greatest of the Successors. He built up his power base in Egypt, introduced administrative and economic reforms that made him fabulously wealthy, and as a conscious imperialist he boldly attempted to seize Greece and Macedonia and be a second Alexander. As well as his undoubted military prowess, Ptolemy was an intellectual. He founded the great Library and Museum at Alexandria, making that city the intellectual center of the entire Hellenistic age, and even patronized the mathematician Euclid. Ptolemy ruled Egypt first as satrap and then as its king and Pharaoh for forty years, until he died of natural causes in his early eighties. On his death, his son, Ptolemy II, succeeded him, and the Ptolemaic dynasty was thus established. It was the longest-lived of all the Hellenistic dynasties, falling with Cleopatra three centuries later. As a king, soldier, statesman, and intellectual, Ptolemy was one of a kind, but, unlike Alexander, he never forgot his Macedonian roots. Against all odds, Ptolemy fought off invasions, invaded opponents' territories, and established an Egyptian empire, making his adopted country a power with which to be reckoned. His achievements shaped both Egypt's history and that of the early Hellenistic world.

During the building of the Aswan High Dam between 1960 and 1970, the Nubian Rescue Campaign, operating under the auspices of UNESCO, was an international effort to rescue those of the Nubian monuments which would be submerged once the dam was completed. The most famous monument to be thus rescued and reconstructed is the Great Temple of Ramesses II at Abu Simbel, but altogther four areas in Nubia around Lake Nasser now contain ancient monuments that were reconstructed and moved from their original positions: Abu Simbel, New Amada, New Wadi al-Sebua, and New Kalabsha. These impressive sites are becoming increasingly popular with international visitors. Dr. Jocelyn Gohary opens this compact and attractive guide, the first of its kind, with an introduction to the history and culture of Nubia during the pharaonic period. She then describes each monument in detail, providing a simple plan for each and highlighting its history, religion, and art. Also included are brief descriptions of the four temples that were transported and re-erected abroad -- the most notable being the Temple of Dendur in the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

Having worked on projects around the world, strengthening and restoring historically significant structures from Windsor Castle to the parliament buildings in Canada, Peter James brings insight to the structural engineering of ancient Egypt. After fourteen years working on the historic buildings and temples of Egypt, and most recently the world's oldest pyramid, he now presents some of the more common theories surrounding the `collapsing' pyramid - along with new and innovative projections on the construction of the pyramids and the restoration of some of Cairo's most monumental structures from the brink of ruin. The decoding of historic construction from a builder's perspective is examined and explained - often contrary to many existing theories - and the book provides a new outlook on long-held assumptions, to embrace modern theories in a bid to preserve the past.

The ancient Egyptians were firmly convinced of the importance of magic, which was both a source of supernatural wisdom and a means of affecting one's own fate. The gods themselves used it for creating the world, granting mankind magical powers as an aid to the struggle for existence. Magic formed a link between human beings, gods, and the dead. Magicians were the indispensable guardians of the god-given cosmic order, learned scholars who were always searching for the Magic Book of Thoth, which could explain the wonders of nature. Egyptian Magic, illustrated with wonderful and mysterious objects from European museum collections, describes how Egyptian sorcerers used their craft to protect the weakest members of society, to support the gods in their fight against evil, and to imbue the dead with immortality, and explores the arcane systems and traditions of the occult that governed this well-organized universe of ancient Egypt.

Rameses III-often dubbed the "last great pharaoh"-lived and ruled during the first half of the 12th-century bc, a tumultuous time that saw the almost complete overthrow of established order in the eastern Mediterranean, and among Rameses's achievements was the preservation of Egypt as a nation-state in the face of external assault. However, his reign also saw economic challenges, and increasing dissatisfaction, which culminated in the king's own assassination. This richly illustrated book is the latest in a series that aims to provide accounts of key figures in ancient Egyptian history that covers not only their life-stories but also their rediscovery and reception in modern times. Accordingly, it follows the king from his birth to his resurrection through modern research, describing the key events of the reign, his major monuments, and the people and events that led to these becoming once again known to the world.

The main aim of this book is to reconstruct a philosophical context for the Hieroglyphica of Horapollo, a late 5th century Greek study of hieroglyphic writing. In addition to reviewing and drawing on earlier approaches it explores the range of signs and meanings for which Horapollo is interested in giving explanations, whether there are characteristic types of explanations given, what conception of language in general and of hieroglyphic Egyptian in particular the explanations of the meanings of the glyphs presuppose, and what explicit indications there are of having been informed or influenced by philosophical theories of meaning, signs, and interpretation.

Thebes offers a scholarly survey of the history and archaeology of the city, from 1600 BCE - 476 CE. Discussions of major developments in politics, war, society and culture form the basis of a chronological examination of one of Greece's most powerful and dynamic cities. By taking a broad view, the book's account speaks to larger trends in the ancient Mediterranean world while also demonstrating how Thebes was unique in its ancient context. It provides an up-to-date examination of all available information: topographic, demographic, numismatic, epigraphic, archaeological and textual discussions provide the most complete, current picture of ancient Thebes and illustrate the value of an interdisciplinary approach.

Self-presentation is the oldest and most common component of ancient Egyptian high culture. It arose in the context of private tomb records, where the character and role of an individual-invariably a well-to-do non-royal elite official or administrator-were presented purposefully: published by inscription and image, to a contemporary audience and to posterity. Living Forever: Self-presentation in Ancient Egypt looks at how and why non-royal elites in ancient Egypt represented themselves, through language and art, on monuments, tombs, stelae, and statues, and in literary texts, from the Early Dynastic Period to the Thirtieth Dynasty. Bringing together essays by international Egyptologists and archaeologists from a range of backgrounds, the chapters in this volume offer fresh insight into the form, content, and purpose of ancient Egyptian presentations of the self. Applying different approaches and disciplines, they explore how these self-representations, which encapsulated a discourse with gods and men alike, yield rich historical and sociological information, provide examples of ancient rhetorical devices and repertoire, and shed light on notions of the self and collective memory in ancient Egypt.

This book presents a concise account of the lives and times of some of the more significant occupants of the Egyptian throne, from the unification of the country around 3000 BC down to the extinction of native rule just under three millennia later. Some, such as Thutmose III, had a major impact on their time, and were remembered by their own people until the very civilization collapsed. Others, such as Tutankhamun, were soon forgotten by the Egyptians themselves, only to burst into popular culture thousands of years after their deaths, as a result of the labors of modern archaeologists. Still more remain unknown outside the small circle of professional archaeologists, but led lives that call out for wider dissemination. This book sets out to provide a mix of all three categories, in an attempt to present a balanced view of Egyptian kings and their range of achievements.First published in 1995, Monarchs of the Nile has now been extensively revised and rewritten to take into account two further decades of research and excavation.

This book explores the development of tombs as a cultural phenomenon in ancient Egypt and examines what tombs reveal about ancient Egyptian culture and Egyptians belief in the afterlife. * Investigates the roles of tombs in the development of funerary practices * Draws on a range of data, including architecture, artifacts and texts * Discusses tombs within the context of everyday life in Ancient Egypt * Stresses the importance of the tomb as an eternal expression of the self

Violence and Power in Ancient Egypt examines the use of Egyptian pictures of violence prior to the New Kingdom. Starting with the assertion that making and displaying such images served as a tactic of power, related to but separate from the actual practice of violence, the book explores the development and deployment of this imagery across different contexts. By comparatively utilizing violent images from a variety of other times and cultures, the book asks that we consider not only how Egyptian imagery was related to Egyptian violence, but also why people create pictures of violence and place them where they do, and how such images communicate what to whom. By cataloging and querying Egyptian imagery of violence from different periods and different contexts-royal tombs, divine temples, the landscape, portable objects, and private tombs-Violence and Power highlights the nuances of the relationship between aspects of royal ideology, art, and its audiences in the first half of pharaonic Egyptian history.

The Gayer-Anderson Cat has been one of the most admired objects at the British Museum since its arrival in 1947. This book presents a detailed description of the cat and a discussion of its possible meaning and role in ancient times. Surprising new finds from scientific analyses are presented for the first time, shedding light on the cats somewhat traumatic modern history, from its acquisition by the British Army major and avid antiquities collector John Gayer-Anderson to its donation to the British Museum. The fascinating narrative is complemented by outstanding new photography.

A common belief is that systems of writing are committed to transparency and precise records of sound. The target is the language behind such marks. Readers, not viewers, matter most, and the most effective graphs largely record sound, not meaning. But what if embellishments mattered deeply - if hidden writing, slow to produce, slow to read, played as enduring a role as more accessible graphs? What if meaningful marks did service alongside records of spoken language? This book, a compilation of essays by global authorities on these subjects, zeroes in on hidden writing and alternative systems of graphic notation. Essays by leading scholars explore forms of writing that, by their formal intricacy, deflect attention from language. The volume also examines graphs that target meaning directly, without passing through the filter of words and the medium of sound. The many examples here testify to human ingenuity and future possibilities for exploring enriched graphic communication.

This is the second of three volumes, first published in 1906, which explore the Egyptian theology of the afterlife. It contains the complete hieroglyphic text of the short form of the Am-Tuat and of the Book of Gates, with translations and reproductions of all the illustrations. In the Book of Gates the doctrines of the sophisticated cult of Osiris are prominent: they affirm that the beatified live for ever in the kingdom of Osiris, and feed daily upon his eternal body. The object of all the Books of the Other World was to provide the dead with a 'guide' or 'handbook,' containing a description of the regions through which their souls would have to pass on their way to the Kingdom of Osiris, and which would supply them with the words of power and magical names necessary for an unimpeded journey from this world to the next.