Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Egyptology Update

There is an absolute spaghetti of items concerning Egypt in the press at the moment, particularly in the UK, partly because of the unveiling of the mummified remains of Tutankhamun in his tomb at Luxor, but partly because of the impending visit to London of the Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of Pharaohs exhibtion. I am doing my best to filter them sensibly over on my own blog, but there is nothing of great earth-shaking note emerging publicly from Egypt at the moment. If you want more details about the main events, the following may be of interest

If you are interested in Egyptology and travel in Egypt you shouldn't miss the Times Online: Egypt Travel Special, which links to a large number of excellent articles written by some well known writers. All of the articles concern Egypt, whether it is about visiting the lesser known pyramids or tackling a visit to the Cairo Egyptian Museum in a day.

Philip Hensher's article in the Irish Independent asks the question Where is the dignity in the display of this corpse? He considers whether or not the matter of respect and dignity should be taken into account when putting individuals like Tutankhamun on display for the benefit of the curiosity of onlookers.

There's a spine-chilling look at rubbish left by foreign tourists in the beautiful and unique White Desert of Egypt, near the oasis of Farafra, where three tons of trash has recently been collected.

Last week a CT scan was carried out on an anonymous adult mummy from the Royal Ontario Museum collection and is described on the above page. Three previous mummy scans are also described on the above page, including two infants and the female musician Djedmaatesankh who was based at the Temple of Amun at Luxor.

The Archaeology Magazine website has been updated with an article entitled Zombie Attack at Hierakonpolis by Renée Friedman, and more helpfully subtitled Weighing the evidence for and dating of Solanum virus outbreaks in early Egypt.

And if you're not pulling your hair out about being able to read little else about Egyptology which doesn't have the name of Tutankhamun involved, you might be interested to know that according to the Egypt State Information Service, the Tutankhamun exhibition is being opened next week by Susanne Mubarak. The exhibition has already sold 132,000 tickets.

Finally, hundreds of unpublished photographs taken by Lord Carnarvon during the discovery and excavations of the tomb of Tutankhamun have been discovered at Highclere Castle during research for a book. Unfortunately, only one of these photos that appears to have been released so far, which is the one on the above page.