Contents: Egypt on its Way to an Early State: The Nile Delta and the Valley (Tatjana A. Sherkova); Ancient Memphis and the Helleno-Roman World: A Short Note (Galina A. Belova); Among the Hidden Treasures of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens: Searching for Forgotten Mummies (Amanda-Alice Maravelia); Les Figurines Obscenes de la Collection Egyptienne du Musee Municipal de Limoges (Ashraf Alexandre Sadek); From the History of Archaeology: The Destruction of the Late Antiquity Necropolises in Egypt reconsidered (Maya Mueller); Knowledge Engineering at the Russian Institute for Egyptology in Cairo and at the CES/RAS, Moscow (Edward Loring); The Shifting Foundation of Ancient Chronology (Leo Depuydt); Sothic Dates in Egyptian Chronology (Anne-Sophie Goddio-von Bomhard); Looped Pile Weaves at the Benaki cation of Techniques and the Technology Museum: More Observations on the Classi of Textiles (Sophia Tsourinaki); Origins of the Sd-Festival: On the History of a Hypothesis (Alexej A. Krol).

The author's aim is to present a study which determines the role of a chantress in ancient Egypt. Although both men and women were known to hold the title, it is the women that form the focus of this study. The number of people that held the title of chantress, and a previous lack of research means a relatively large proportion of the population of the New Kingdom and Third Intermediate period have been neglected, owing to the lesser status of the position compared to more high-ranking, and thus well-researched titles. This study offers an impression of the chantress as a more diverse title than has previously been imagined, taking into account and defining the differences between musical and linguistic roles.

Excavations of Predynastic and early Dynastic cemeteries in Abydos revealed examples of cylinder seal impressions which depicted geometric symbols, rows of animals and single figures or objects, such as boats or birds. This detailed study focuses on finds from each tomb complex in turn before Hill places these objects in their cultural context, assessing the significance of seals as magical objects, as works of art and as administrative tools. The volume goes on to consider comparative examples from Nubia and parallels in Mesopotamia where the use of seals was far more widespread during this period. Finally, Hill considers the function of seals, what they were sealing and what this reveals about foreign trade.

Following a successful inaugural event at the University of Oxford and an expanded second at the University of Liverpool, the Third Symposium for Current Research in Egyptology was held in December 2001, at the University of Birmingham. The symposium was again successful in bringing together UK-based graduate students of Egyptology to provide an opportunity to disseminate the results of their research. It also served to encourage communication between an otherwise disparate group of students spread across the various Egyptological institutions throughout the country. Indeed, speakers came from nine different institutions and the papers presented illustrated well the broad range of topics currently being studied throughout the United Kingdom. T he topics of the 9 featured papers include: The Lotus Roborn: the creation and distribution of the Description de L'Egypte; The arrival of the horse in Egypt: new approaches and a hypothesis; Aspects of the Hyksos' role in Egyptian society from the artistic evidence; Some thoughts on the social organisation of dockyards during the new kingdom; Egyptian blue: where, when, how?; The specialness of science: it's all in the mind; Crossing the night: the depiction of mythological landscapes in the Am Duat of the New Kingdom Royal Necropolis; Trends in burial evidence: evaluating expectations for the regional and temporal distribution of mortuary behaviour in Predynastic Egypt; Representations of Hathor and Mut in the Hibis temple.

The Festivals of Opet, the Valley, and the New Year: Their socio-religious functions compares the religious and social functions of these three Festivals, the first two of which were often regarded by the Egyptians as a pair; the New Year Festival stands out on account of its corpus of surviving material and importance. Until now, detailed study of the New Year Festival has only been carried out with reference to the Greco-Roman period; this study turns its attention to the New Kingdom. The book analyses the broad perspectives that encompass Egyptian religion and cult practices which provided the context not only for worship and prayer, but also for the formation of social identity and responsibility. The festivals are examined in the whole together with their settings in the religious and urban landscapes. The best example is New Kingdom Thebes where large temples and burial sites survive intact today with processional routes connecting some of them. Also presented are the abundant written sources providing deep insight into those feasts celebrated for Amun-Re, the king of the gods. The volume also includes a list of dated records which provides a concordance for the Egyptian calendars.

Between the 6th and 4th centuries BC, Phoenician workshops produced green jasper scarabs which demonstrated both Greek and Persian influences. This volume presents a fully illustrated catalogue of examples drawn from across the area of Phoenician influence, including Spain, Sardinia, North Africa and theEastern Mediterranean. The scarabs, which are held in collections worldwide, are catalogued according to their cultural influences: Egyptian, Levantine, Hellenistic and miscellaneous. Within each of these four groups the scarabs are organised iconographically, with scenes including beetles, boats, birds, gods, fantastic creatures, warriors and kings, chariots, trees and animal attacks. John Boardman's introduction discusses the style, function and source material of the scarabs and the location of the workshops.

Subtitled The value and limitations of zooarchaeological analyses', this volume attempts to describe the effects of the adoption of domesticated species of cattle, sheep, goat and pig on social structure in three key areas of Egypt: the eastern and western deserts, the Delta and the Nile Valley. A descriptive (rather than explanatory) predictive model was created based on economic and social production noted in modern societies using the same species under similiar environmental conditions. This was then applied to the case study to determine why certain food production strategies were used in the formative period before the emergence of the first unified Egyptian state, what factors may have governed it, and what impact this had on Egyptian society.

Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum houses seventeen collections of Palaeolithic material from Egypt, comprising a total of 1009 objects. None of the objects were recovered during excavation but many were found by pioneers of prehistoric archaeology and notable anthropologists. The most significant and largest collection, which forms the focus of much of this study, is that of Charles Seligmann and dates from the first fourteen years of the 20th century. The first half of the book sets the background, examining the origins of Egyptian Palaeolithic archaeology, supported by extracts from diaries and contemporary publications, as well as discussing the types of stone artefacts collected, the cultures of the Egyptian Palaeolithic and more recent developments in research. The second half of the book presents catalogues of each collection with the artefacts illustrated at actual size. An appendix lists items from Seligman's collections which are now housed in other museums.

This detailed study of warfare in early Egypt is firmly based on the material evidence of weapons discovered on prehistoric and Early Dynastic sites as well as the earliest images of hunting or warfare. The weapons, which mainly comprise Paleolithic and Neolithic daggers, maces, arrowheads, spears, staffs, clubs and slings, made from stone, flint, wood, bone and ivory, are considered alongside the evidence of human remains with signs of violent injuries. Finally, Gilbert draws conclusions about early Egyptian warrior society, warfare and hunting rituals and the role of warfare in Egyptian state formation. Includes a corpus of weapons.

Kom el-Hisn is located near the western edge of the Nile delta, midway between Cairo and Alexandria, and about 13 km west of the Rosetta branch of the Nile. It is composed of primarily Old Kingdom deposits (Dynasties V and VI, ca. 2500-2290 BC) but the site was also occupied in the Middle and New Kingdom periods. (It has been suggested that some First Intermediate burials are included within the Old Kingdom architecture, and Kom el-Hisn clearly flourished during the height of Old Kingdom power.) After a detailed introduction, the author reviews the development of Egyptian settlement patterns and structures to provide the Old Kingdom context, before continuing to discuss the specific issues relating to the current research and some of the explanations offered by other researchers for the development of Egypt's particular brand of complex society. Chapter four describes the research programme that provided the data on which this study relies, and subsequent headings contain detailed descriptions of the deposits associated with each excavation unit in the analysis.Before the full summary in the ultimate chapter, there are statistical analyses that build the model of functional differentiation found within the excavated areas. The study as a whole places Kon el-Hisn within the larger context of the Egyptian state structure and allows some conclusions to be drawn as to how this important site functioned within this structure.

Flinders Petrie began his long association with ancient Egypt and the Near East when he went to Giza to survey the pyramids in 1880. He continued to dig almost until his death in Jerusalem in 1942. During his long career he revolutionized Egyptian archaeology and indeed can be said to have founded modern scientific archaeology. But this book is not concerned with his scientific work, except tangentially, as Petrie had an admirable practice of publishing his excavations soon after they were completed. These letters and journals have been selected for their vivid account of living in Egypt and Palestine over sixty years. Even more they describe Petrie's austere approach to a dig where the archaeology was everything and creature comforts near nonexistent. Many anecdotes survive of life on one of Petrie's digs and the reality as revealed in these accounts is just as eccentric.

These nine papers are taken from a session at the EAA conference held in Esslington in 2001 which dealt with themes of interest to both the Egyptological community and to European archaeologists alike. The contributors deal with a range of subjects: recent Russian and Hellenic investigations in Egypt; the history of European Egyptology; political, cultural and economic contacts between Europe and Egypt in Dynastic, Hellenic-Roman and early Christian periods; links between ancient populations of Europe and Egypt drawing on anthropological data.

After the death of the last of the ramessides, Smendes, Lord of Tanis, proclaimed himself Pharaoh, founded the XXI dynasty and initiated one of the most unknown but attractive periods in the history of Egypt, the Third Intermediate Period. This book deals with the burials in the Valley of the Kings in the 21st - 30th Dynasties of Egypt, when they were not used by the rulers anymore. Through detailed investigation of the tombs and the hieroglyphes, the author has tried to identify the individuals buried in these tombs. The royal New Kingdom tombs were taken as a reference point and a comparison with the texts and iconography was established. This enables a better understandong of the traditions that followed in the Third Intermediate Period and naturally the changes that had taken place in the choice of the religious compendiums and representations associated with this period.

Animal burials, whether buried with human remains or alone, are frequent discoveries in Egypt yet it can be difficult to reconstruct their religious and cultural significance. This study examines animals in human graves, possibly intended as food offerings, but the emphasis is on independent Predynastic animal burials because these provide greater archaeological evidence for animal cults and possible sacrifice. Flores examines the geographic distribution of the burials and the types of animal represented, including goats, dogs and, in more elite tombs, donkeys, birds, bulls and lions. Throughout, comparisons are made between cultures from Upper and Lower Egypt.

The University College London Lahun (Middle Kingdom) papyri constitute one of the most remarkable harvests of papyri of any age. This volume communicates the content of the surviving letters and letter fragments from the Petrie excavations at Lahun in an accessible and affordable format. The letters and fragments are from original letters: model letters, letter copies, and reports are reserved for future publications. The volume is intended not only for Egyptological researchers, but also for learners in higher and further education. This mass of writing calls for a more nuanced appreciation of the roles of writing and reading, and the social reach of the written culture across the different classes, ages, genders inhabiting this architecture and landscape. (The reader will find three means of access to the original content: Printed pages with transcriptions, transliterations, and translations: A printed index: The entire collection of papyri on an accompanying CD.)

This book studies the royal festivals in the Egyptian Late Predynastic period and the First Dynasty. (The chronological beginning here is the Naqada IId period and the author includes a brief account of royal festivals in the contemporary Lower Nubia and the Second Dynasty.) The Egyptian kings developed a complex system of ceremonies and rituals that served them as a form of expression before society. The ways were complex and varied, but so effective that most of these festivals continued to be performed for more than three thousand years. The author begins with an historical outline of the unification process and the First Dynasty before exploring the main themes of kingship and festivals. The points of discussion include temple structures (Abydos, Saqqara, Hierakonpolis), festival traditions, the 'sed' festival, 'victory festivals', the festival of 'Sokar', and symbolic topography.

This volume reports on the results of survey work carried out in Sudan in advance of the construction of the Merowe Dam. A short introduction leads into the main body of the volume which forms a gazetteer of sites (artefact scatters, settlements, fortified enclosures and cemeteries) reflecting extensive occupation over long periods. Rich in archaeological material, the remainder of the volume includes analyses of pottery, small finds, lithics and rock art from the area. This report clearly reflects the rich archaeology of the area and, since only small areas could be examined in detail, the large amount of material that will be lost.

The potential of the scarab seal is still neglected by many archaeologists. They are primarily considered for chronological purposes, and so their capacity as an historical document is under-rated, as is their value as an archaeological tool. Luckily, more recent studies are beginning to assess the archaeological and historical value of scarabs, and in particular design scarabs, revealing them as potential indicators of cultural interaction, and it is within this genre that the anra (identified always by a sequence of hieroglyphs which includes the letters n and r) scarab is considered in this extensive study. The aim of this work is to try and establish the status, function, meaning, and significance of the anra scarab, and possibly offer something new with regard to the nature of the relationships that existed between the countries of Africa and the Levant during the latter part of the Middle Bronze Age.

A selection of 17 papers from the first Symposium of "Current Research in Egyptology", held in Oxford in 2000. The Symposium was held to foster communication and exchange of ideas among students of Egyptology at UK institutions. The UK enjoys a wealth of Egyptological resources, but it is sometimes difficult for graduate students from different universities to interact. In many cases, the very diverse papers presented, constitute ongoing research, offering authors the opportunity to formulate the current state of their work, and to present it to a wider audience. Topics covered range from "Hysteria Revisited: Women's Public Health in Ancient Egypt" to "Papyrological Evidence of Travelling in Byzantine Egypt".

Although the Ptolemaic royal image has been the subject of many individual studies, there remains an imbalance in the extent of scholarly attention devoted to the different styles of imagery. The aims of the present publication are to assess the interaction between the Greek and Egyptian Ptolemaic royal representations (from about the third century B.C.), and to establish a relative chronological sequence for developments in the presentation of the royal family, where possible identifying individual rulers. The book's material is divided according to classification, and the various functions of the different types of royal image will also be considered. Includes a catalogue section detailing 70 pieces of sculpture from major museum collections and elsewhere.

Hierakonpolis, located less than 100km south of Luxor, has been excavated at various times since the end of the 19th century with much work carried out by Michael Hoffman in the 1980s. This report builds on Hoffman's work and forms the background to renewed investigations at the site by Adams and others. It presents material from 12 tombs which are part of the large cemetery, including descriptions of the tomb form and type, and artifacts found within them, as well as plant, human and faunal remains. These finds are then compared with material from other parts of the Hierakonpolis site.

The use of Neutron Activation Analysis opens up enormous possibilities for studying and identifying the chemical composition of clays from pottery vessels and, subsequently, for investigating the origins and possible place of manufacture for these vessels. This publication and the research on which it is based, completes the work of Joan Huntoon whose dissertation focused on the origins, distribution and trade of Middle Bronze Canaanite Jars, with the site of Tel el-Daba featuring prominently. Patrick McGovern uses Huntoon's programme of NAA analyses in making inferences on the production, movement and trade of Canaanite jars, polished, painted and other vessels around the Near East and Aegean.

Before its inundation in 1965, the island of Meinarti was situated at the foot of the Second Nile Cataract, 10km south of the town of Wadi Halfa. It was the last place that could be reached, at all times of the year, by large watercraft travelling upriver, a circumstance clearly important in shaping the history of the settlement. The total excavation work covered 18 occupation levels, varying in date from the 2nd or 3rd centuries to the 17th century AD. This volume processes in detail the Late Meroitic and Ballana phases (c. 200-660 AD), and is the first in five volume series.

From the first major discoveries a century ago, the painted portraits of Roman Egypt were a revelation to scholars and the public alike, and the recent finding of a new cache of these gilded images, which made national headlines, have only heightened their mystery and appeal. Published to coincide with a new major exhibition of these portraits, "Ancient Faces" is the most comprehensive, up-to-date survey of these astonishing works of art.
Dating from the later period of Roman rule in Egypt, shortly before the birth of Christ, the painted mummy portraits are among the most remarkable products of the ancient world, a fusion of the traditions of pharonic Egypt and the Classical world. They are historical and cultural objects of outstanding importance and beauty, superb works of art that represent some of the earliest known examples of life-like portraiture. Though the subjects of the portraits believed in the traditional Egyptian cults, which offered them a firm prospect of life after death, they also wished to be commemorated in the Roman manner, with their fashion of dress and adornment signaling their status in life. Despite their ancient history, these portraits speak to the modern eye with a beauty and intensity that would be lost to portraiture until the Renaissance.