Profile of Zahi Hawass (Egypt) Digging In
THERE’S NEVER a dull moment when you’re hanging out with the Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities. And with the surge of discoveries in the past few weeks, Zahi Hawass is more frenetic than usual.
Freeing up some time for meeting at his office, Hawass is deluged with phone calls and secretaries flooding in every couple of minutes as he talks about two breathtaking new discoveries, massive changes in the operations of the Egyptian Museum, a new high-tech project to study mummies and the unfolding plans for the new Grand Egyptian Museum.
Still topping the news is the early May discovery of what many experts say is the ancient University of Alexandria by a team of Polish archaeologists. To be accurate, it was first partly unearthed 25 years ago and was then believed to be a performance theater. Hawass says it turns out the structure was in fact not for performances, but a large auditorium for lectures.
Hawass is truly a force in Egyptian archaeology and will probably go down in history as signficant a figure as Montet in shaping the way archaeology is done there. Read the whole thing.
Dr Donald P. Ryan has placed several articles online at his website:
-- "Some Observations Concerning Uninscribed Tombs in the Valley of the Kings." in: C.N. Reeves (ed.), After Tutankhamun:
Research and Excavation in the Royal Necropolis at Thebes (Kegan-Paul-London, 1992), 21-27
http://www.plu.edu/~ryandp/Observ1.html
-- "Further Observations Concerning the Valley of the Kings", in: Richard Wilkinson, ed., Valley of the Sun Kings: New Explorations in the Tombs of the Pharaohs. (Tucson, 1995),
157-161.
http://www.plu.edu/~ryandp/Observ2.html
-- "The archaeological analysis of inscribed Egyptian funerary cones." Varia Aegyptiaca 4(2), 1989, 165-170.
http://www.plu.edu/~ryandp/cones.html
Wirralling down the drain they go. . . Wirral's ancient sites are being lost under concrete
ARCHAEOLOGY experts fear hundreds of historic relics in Wirral are being lost under new development.
They say not enough is being done to check for relics and unless more funding can be found, important heritage sites will be destroyed.
Landscape archaeologist Jenny Whalley, who chaired Merseyside's Archeological field group for more than 20 years, claims more needs to be done to save Wirral's heritage.
She said: "A string of new developments is going up yet no-one is properly taking account of the history that is being destroyed.
Museum news (bad) Museum at South St. Reduces Staff to Cut Budget
Still hurting financially from the 9/11 attack, the South Street Seaport Museum is eliminating several major staff positions to reduce its budget by $1 million, the museum's chairman said this week.
Among the five full-time and two part-time employees dismissed as of July 1 were the museum's ship historian, a 32-year employee; its waterfront director; and its archaeology curator. Since the 2001 attack, the museum has cut its staff to 33 members from 53.
"To put this museum on a break-even basis, we've had to cut back the payroll," said the chairman, Lawrence S. Huntington, a retired Wall Street executive. "This spring we realized we had to really behave in a financially responsible way."
Update on Utah sites controversy Goshutes protest handling of Range Creek
The Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians on Wednesday issued a statement questioning whether the land transfer of property in eastern Utah containing ancient Fremont Indian sites violated U.S. historic preservation laws.
Leon Bear, chairman of the band, and Melvin Brewster, tribal historic preservation officer, said the transfer of land, from private to federal to state ownership, violated the National Historic Preservation Act, the Indian Sacred Sites Act and the Native American Grave and Repatriation Act.
"It was done in complete silence and secrecy as if native Indians of Utah do not exist," the pair said in the statement.
The Skull Valley Band officials said Indian groups should have been notified before any federally funded work began.
New site find Team of archaeologists unearths settlement along Roanoke River
More evidence of the region's history is being uncovered along the Roanoke River.
A team of about a dozen people working for a national company has uncovered an American Indian settlement in Southeast Roanoke that dates back to about 1200.
Artifacts unearthed include pieces of pottery, 1,000-year-old animal bones, and spear tips made of quartz. The team has also identified a sizable cooking area about 10 feet underground that it plans to explore further in coming weeks.
The dig is the latest of several that have taken place over the past several decades along the river in Southeast Roanoke.
Antiquities market update -- in audio! Guatemala Aims to Curb Looting of Antiquities
New laws to protect Guatemala's antiquities have landed three men in jail. Archaeologists and prosecutors hope the case will help stop looting of the country's Mayan artifacts, which has increased since the end of Guatemala's civil war in 1996. David D'Arcy reports.
We listened to portions of it. Pretty good story.
Online papers alert Collection Database and Open Stack Library of Articles Pertaining to the Collection
Some Egyptological articles in French, German, and English.