AKHENATEN/TUTANKHAMUN

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A full inventory, it turned out, hadn't been taken since the 1930s.

So until the new database commissioned is complete, a cloud of unknowing will continue to hang
over the museum, like the hazy gloaming in which parts of it are sunk.

The signage, such as it is, is a law unto itself: a percentage are in English or Arabic, some date from 1902, in rather impatient French, and some are too high to read. The building is arranged according
to the accepted chronology of Egyptian history in the 19th century, which leaves sizeable gaps.

And in room after room, you gaze at things thinking, what is that?

This makes for a unique, and in many ways, uniquely stimulating experience.

Every big museum - the Louvre, the Met, the Uffizi - needs a plan after all, and you can buy a map for LE40 (£3.80) or a guidebook (Illustrated Guide to the Egyptian Museum, AUC Press, LE180/£17) at the entrance and work your way round the highlights.





Tutankhamun's wonders at the far end of the first floor could be a museum in itself, with its incredible profusion of gold and precious jewels, and unending repetition – interlocking shrines and coffins like Russian dolls.

Fatigue, rather than any shortage of highlights, is the only potential problem, and that is when the other side of the museum kicks in: the ability to go off-piste and make wonderful discoveries.

Priest's wigs, the first boomerangs, the first documented use of the colon, undeciphered Nubian scripts. Amazing contrasts between the monumental and the diminutive, absolute power and private affection, the idealised and the naturalistic.

Egypt has always promoted the long view and, looking at the same forms repeated over centuries, in different states of repair is like watching stop-frame renditions of the effects of time.

Patience, artistry – it must be a wonderful place to sketch – and, above all, a delight in life in all its physical forms, the Egyptian Museum perfectly bears out Florence Nightingale's famous quote,


              "One wonders that people come back from Egypt and live lives as they did before."

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                                         T H E   H A P P I E S T   P H A R A O H





by Jimmy Dunn

Today, I have a vision of a sort of Pharaoh reunion.

Everyone is hanging about, many of whom are very much alive, while others are somewhat weaker, struggling for breath at times. Indeed, not all of  them are here. Many from the intermediate periods
did not make it and, apparently, even a few from other more prominent times have left the world of
the living for good.

Some of them, while strong and healthy, are not altogether pleased about the presence of some of
their companions. Clearly, Tuthmosis III really did not expect to see Hatshepsut so strong and alive,
and no one particularly wanted or expected to see Akhenaten, as healthy as ever.

Among the strongest and most healthy we find Ramesses II (he worked very hard for this), Djoser and Khufu. Tuthmosis III, perhaps the greatest empire builder in Egyptian history is strong enough, and Cleopatra (VII), though most of her Alexandria is now gone, survives very well.

But among their midst is an irony.

He was a child king, hardly living into adulthood, with probably nothing to show for his own efforts. Even though his reign was pivotal in the 3,000 year reign of ancient Egyptian religion most, if not all, of this was not his doing. He had not the time to establish himself, and some of his successors even tried to eliminate any possibility of his eternal life.

Yet, here he is, his chest heaving with pure air, his heart beating with the steady confidence of a
top athlete, stronger and healthier than even the most elite among the Pharaohs, for his name
is on everyone's tongues, and this is what matters most to all of the Pharaohs. Tutankhamun.

To the ancient Egyptians, an individual consisted of a number of different parts, which is not altogether different than those of religion view individuals today.

Even now, we think of a person as having a body and a soul, or spirit. The ancient Egyptians thought the same thing, but added to this mix was a persons name, his shadow and other elements (though this is a slightly simplified explanation of the ancient Egyptian's idea of a soul). All of these elements were important, but perhaps most important of all, at least for eternal life, was the name. If one's name was not remembered, there was little hope for the soul to live on after the physical death of the body. As long as the pharaoh's name was remembered, the king would live on through eternity, and none of their names are remembered better than that of King Tut.

Of this group of great men, he must be the happiest of all, not to mention very fond of Howard Carter, even though he did rob his tomb one last time.

In ancient Egypt, kings played the Pharaoh's game, though we should probably not call it a game, because they were dead serious about the outcome. They imagined that they could control their own fate, and the fate of their predecessors by usurping their names on statues, or sometimes by completely obliterating a foe's name from the historic record.

Hatshepsut more or less, mostly more, usurped the throne from her stepson, Tuthmosis III. It may have been good for him, allowing him to mature and become the great commander that he was, but it didn't please him. After her death, he went about methodically removing her name, and so he thought her chances for eternal life as well, from the monuments that she built while king (in ancient Egypt, a king was a king, female or male). What he couldn't remove, he built walls around, such as her Obelisk at Karnak. However, that act only helped to preserve her monument, and her name lives on today and so, according to the ancient Egyptian religion, so does she.

Everyone tried to kill off Akhenaten's hopes for an eternal life. He was the heretic king who, while attempting to radically alter ancient Egyptian religion, abandoned the priests of Amun and the other age old deities of Egypt. His successors tried to remove his name from every source, including the lists of Kings that were kept in holy places. But the city he built at modern el-Amarna was left to the desert sands which, in many ways, protected it for prosperity, and his radical beliefs found for him not oblivion but posterity. He may live on, healthy and viral, but perhaps not a favorite of the gods.

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And then...... there's King Tut.


After the death of his presumed father, Akhenaten, the old religion was restored, making his reign pivotal in Egyptian history, but this was almost certainly not his work.

Personally, he may not be able to claim a single building project of his own, and much of the wealth even in his tomb was not his, but gifts from others. It was surely Ay and Horemheb who held the reins of power during Tutankhamun's kingship, and after the young king's death, Horemheb took back much
of the work performed in the young king's name, by usurping inscriptions with his own name.

Like his father, Tut's name was also omitted from the various Kings' lists. In fact, were it not for Howard Carter, he might not have made the reunion of Pharaohs at all.

But fate plays strange tricks.

What little he had, compared to some of the greater kings of ancient Egypt, was discovered mostly intact in his tomb. Even the grave robbers played into this divine poker hand, not plundering his tomb completely, like so many others.


                         
                             


November 4th, 2007  marks the opening of the King Tut exhibit and not since Tutankhamun's tomb was
 
discovered has he been better known to the world. And since an attribute of ancient Egyptian religion

was that, indeed, fame lead to eternal life for the pharaoh, today King Tut must be one of the happiest

pharaohs who ever lived and,  LIVED ON..........



http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/tut.htm


FOR FULL, COMPLETE PHOTO AND VIDEO COVERAGE OF THE OPENING OF THE EXHIBIT, GO TO:

http://atlantisonline.smfforfree2.com/index.php/topic,706.390.html

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Tutankhamun exhibition back to London after 35 years


The exhibition of (King Tutankhamun and the Golden Age

of the Pharaohs) returns to London after 35 years amid

immense preparations in London to the opening of the
 
exhibition on November 15, 2007

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                                  King Tut Treasures Return London 15/11/2007 - 31/8/2008






After the initial Tutankhamun touring exhibit returned home in the 1970s, the Egyptian parliament passed laws barring future travel of tomb artifacts outside of Egypt, as a result of minor damage to an artifact while on tour. The damage understandably dismayed Egyptian officials, making it another three decades before officials would consider letting the treasures of King Tut travel outside of Egypt.

In 2004, the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities began working with National Geographic, AEG Exhibitions, and Arts and Exhibitions International to develop a new Exhibition. The Exhibition, entitled "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs," would be bigger and better than any previous tour. The current exhibition includes more than 130 artifacts from the tomb of Tutankhamun, other Valley of the Kings tombs and ancient Egyptian sites. The Exhibition also features recent forensic studies performed on Tutankhamun's mummy with a special exhibition section that explores the mystery of Tutankhamun's death through CT scans performed on the young pharaoh's mummy. Additionally, a realistic, life-sized bust created by forensic specialists lets visitors look into the face of the young pharaoh for the first time.

While previous shows focused mostly on the story of the tomb's discovery, this exhibition places Tutankhamun in his own time, revealing the art, politics, religion, and culture of his era. In addition, more than 70 objects from the tombs of Tutankhamun's relatives shed light on his family's dynasty and their role in bringing Egypt to its artistic and military summit. This exhibition will take museum visitors beyond just the shimmering gold, and make them a part of Tutankhamun's legacy.

Proceeds from the tour of this exhibition will go to support the construction of the Great Egyptian Museum, to be built near the pyramids at Giza. This new museum will contain most of the collections from the Cairo Museum, which is too small and obsolete to display more than a small fraction of the artifacts in its vast collections.

With record-breaking success in Los Angeles, Ft. Lauderdale, and Chicago, "Tutankhamun and the Gold Age of the Pharaohs" is triggering another bout of "Tut-mania" everywhere it travels.

To promote the exhibition in New York, this large ice sculpture of the Canopic Caffeinate of Tutankhamun served as the backdrop for a party at a famous New York Nightclub.

To promote room night packages, the Essex Inn Chicago re-created Tutankhamun's tomb in the hotel lobby.

A group of Chicago schoolchildren spend some time outside the exhibition with a local Chicago news anchor.

The Drake Hotel in Chicago adorned their lobby with giant Egyptian Statues to promote Tutankhamun room night packages.

A host hotel in Chicago creates a 400 pound chocolate bust of Tutankhamun caffeinate for display in the hotel lobby.

Partnering businesses often use gold lights and colors to signify their participation with the exhibition


http://www.sis.gov.eg/VR/kingtut/1.htm

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                                    Amarna - Ancient Egyptian glassmaking recreated





3000-year-old furnace rebuilt by archaeologist



The reconstructed kiln built by Dr. Paul Nicholson of Cardiff University and Dr. Caroline Jackson of Sheffield University.
 
A team led by a Cardiff University archaeologist has reconstructed a 3,000-year-old glass furnace, showing that Ancient Egyptian glassmaking methods were much more advanced than previously thought.

Dr Paul Nicholson, of the University’s School of History and Archaeology, is leader of an Egypt Exploration Society team working on the earliest fully excavated glassmaking site in the world. The site, at Amarna, on the banks of the Nile, dates back to the reign of Akhanaten (1352 - 1336 B.C.), just a few years before the rule of Tutankhamun.

It was previously thought that the Ancient Egyptians may have imported their glass from the Near East at around this time. However, the excavation team believes the evidence from Amarna shows they were making it themselves, possibly in a single stage operation. Dr Nicholson and his colleague Dr Caroline Jackson of Sheffield University demonstrated this was possible, using local sand to produce a glass ingot from their own experimental reconstruction of a furnace near the site.

The team have also discovered that the glassworks was part of an industrial complex which involved a number of other high temperature manufacturing processes. The site also contained a potter’s workshop and facilities for making blue pigment and faience - a material used in amulets and architectural inlays. The site was near one of the main temples at Amarna and may have been used to produce materials in state buildings.

Dr Nicholson, who has been working at Amarna since 1983, said: “It has been argued that the Egyptians imported their glass and worked it into the artefacts that have been discovered from this time. I believe there is now enough evidence to show that skilled craftsmen could make their own glass and were probably involved in a range of other manufacturing industries as well.”

Yahoo News


###
Dr Nicholson has now written a book detailing the discoveries made at Amarna. Entitled Brilliant Things for Akhenaten, it is published by the Egypt Exploration Society (London) and available through Oxbow Books in the UK and The David Brown Book Company in the USA.


SEE PICTURES OF THE ORIGINALS HERE:

http://atlantisonline.smfforfree2.com/index.php/topic,706.90.html





GLASS ITEMS FROM THE AMARNA PERIOD:


http://atlantisonline.smfforfree2.com/index.php/topic,706.570.html

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                                      Ancient Egyptian Industrial Complex Revealed





LiveScience.com
Fri Dec 14, 2007
 
Ancient Egyptians were even more inventive and productive than scholars have thought, according to new findings that depict surprisingly advanced glass-making abilities alongside an industrial complex.

The site, at Amarna, is on the banks of the Nile and dates back to the reign of Akhenaten (1352-1336 B.C.), just a few years before the rule of Tutankhamun.

Historians have said Egyptians of that time imported their glass. But a team led by archeologist Paul Nicholson of Cardiff University in Wales has reconstructed a 3,000-year-old glass furnace, showing that ancient Egyptian glassmaking methods were much more advanced than thought.

The researchers used local sand to produce a glass ingot from their own experimental reconstruction of an ancient furnace near the site.

They also discovered that the glassworks was part of an "industrial complex," as they've described it. The site contained a potter’s workshop and facilities for making blue pigment and materials used in architectural inlays.

The site was near one of the main temples at Amarna and may have been used to produce materials for state buildings, the researchers figure.

"It has been argued that the Egyptians imported their glass and worked it into the artifacts that have been discovered from this time," Nicholson said. "I believe there is now enough evidence to show that skilled craftsmen could make their own glass and were probably involved in a range of other manufacturing industries as well."

The findings, announced today, are detailed in the book "Brilliant Things for Akhenaten" (Egypt Exploration Society, 2007).


Gallery: Amazing Egyptian Discoveries

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                               Twinkling Fractal Theory explains mysterious nature of glass 






(Nanowerk News)
Oct. 6, 2008

Archaeological evidence suggests that glass was first made in the Middle East sometime around 3000 B.C. However, almost 5,000 years later, scientists are still perplexed about how glassy materials make the transition from a molten state to a solid. Richard Wool, professor of chemical engineering at UD, thinks he has the answer. 

What distinguishes glasses from other materials is that even after hardening, they retain the molecular disorder of a liquid. In contrast, other liquids--for example, water--assume an ordered crystal pattern when they harden. Glass does not undergo such a neat phase transition; rather, the molecules simply slow down gradually until they are stuck in an odd state somewhere between a liquid and a solid. 
In a paper to be published later this year in the Journal of Polymer Science Part B: Polymer Physics, Wool documents a new conceptual approach, known as the Twinkling Fractal Theory (TFT), to understanding the nature and structure of the glass transition in amorphous materials. The theory provides a quantitative way of describing a phenomenon that was previously explained from a strictly empirical perspective. 

“The TFT enables a number of predictions of universal behavior to be made about glassy materials of all sorts, including polymers, metals and ceramics,” Wool says. 

Another difference between glasses and more conventional materials is that their transition from the liquid to the solid state does not occur at a standard temperature, like that of water to ice, but instead is rate-dependent: the more rapid the cooling, the higher the glass transition temperature. 
Wool discovered that as a liquid cools toward the glassy state, the atoms form clusters that eventually become stable and percolate near the glass transition temperature. The percolating clusters are stable fractals, or structures with irregular or fragmented shapes. 

“At the glass transition temperature, these fractals appear to twinkle in a specific frequency spectrum,” Wool says. “The twinkling frequencies determine the kinetics of the glass transition temperature and the dynamics of the glassy state.” 

The theory has been validated by experimental results reported by Nathan Israeloff, a physics professor at Northeastern University. “He was not aware of the TFT,” Wool says, “but his results fit my theory in extraordinarily explicit detail.” 

TFT was developed as an outgrowth of Wool's research on bio-based materials such as soy-based composites. “It was my need to solve issues in the development of these materials that led me to the theory,” he says. 

For now, Wool is content to view the theory as a portal into materials science and solid-state physics that others can use to go in new directions. “Acceptance will come when people recognize that it works,” he says. 

TFT has the potential to contribute to better understanding of such phenomena as fracture, aggregation and physical aging of materials. “It is also giving us new insights into the peculiarities of nanomaterials, which behave very differently from their macroscopic counterparts,” Wool says. 
Wool, who earned his doctorate at the University of Utah, joined the UD faculty in 1995. An affiliated faculty member in the Center for Composite Materials, he was recently featured on the Sundance Channel series “Big Ideas for a Small Planet.” 



Source: University of Delaware 

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                                                 Queen Nefertiti: More than a pretty face






German scientists have discovered that the world's most beautiful woman allowed herself to be
sculpted with wrinkles to appear more beautiful.

Maybe wrinkles are not so bad, after all, some German scientists have discovered.

In ancient times, such laugh lines and wrinkles around the mouth improved the face of Nefertiti, the Egyptian queen acclaimed as the world's most beautiful woman.

X-ray pictures of the bust by a computer tomography machine at the nearby Charite Hospital in Berlin revealed that the sculpture is a piece of limestone with details added using four outer layers of plaster of Paris.

"We have discovered that the sculptor later added gentle wrinkles to her face, especially around the eyes," said Dietrich Wildung, director of the Museum of Egyptology housed in the upper storey of the Altes Museum.

"The wrinkles make the image more individual and expressive."

The scientists speculate that Nefertiti, who would have sat for the sculptor, herself approved the older look.

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Scientific motivation



The 3,000-year-old bust of Nefertiti is the greatest treasure at Berlin's Altes Museum.
Wildung said he received the revelation a year ago that the serene face, which today lacks one eye, was not quite as smooth as it looked.

Museum officials, who say Nefertiti is too fragile to visit Egypt, even worried about sending her to the hospital.



The scan of the artwork, which is 50 centimeters tall including the hat, was arranged in cooperation with film teams from the US National Geographic Society and German public broadcaster ZDF. Their documentary was aired last month in Germany.

"The prime motivation was scientific," stressed Wildung, an Egyptologist who said he had always presumed that some plaster "make-up" had been applied as a finish to the solid limestone before it was painted.

The results prove once and for all that the artist re-adjusted the image four times.

"The purpose was not to idealize her at all, but to make the image more realistic," Wildung explained, suggesting that hints of age were probably not taboo in Nefertiti-era art, but a source of prestige.

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Sign of esteem



It may surprise modern women who go to the cosmetic surgeon to recover that smooth teenage complexion, but wrinkles have always been esteemed as a subtle badge of wisdom.

The museum is to alter the lighting in the Nefertiti room after the discovery.

"The lighting will now emphasize the eye area and show these hints that she has a past and is not ageless," said Wildung.

Nefertiti was the chief wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten who ruled about 1350 BC.

"There are still quite a few mysteries about her," said Wildung. "We don't know if she was a native Egyptian or came from the Middle East. Nor do we know how old she was when she married or if she survived her husband."

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Call for return



It will always be a matter of speculation exactly how old she was when the royal sculptor Thutmosis preserved
her appearance for immortality.

The sculpture was re-discovered in 1912 by a German archaeologist, Ludwig Borchhardt, during an excavation
in Egypt. It was awarded to the German excavation team under the legal arrangements for the dig and duly exported.

James Simon, the German merchant and patron of the arts who funded the expedition, kept the bust in his
Berlin home for a time, then donated it in 1920 to the government of Prussia, which was a part of Germany.

Nefertiti went on public display in 1924 and has graced various museums since, accompanied by longing calls
from Egypt for her return. The Germans say their legal ownership of the bust is beyond question.

She is set to obtain a new home in 2009 when the collection moves to the nearby Neues Museum after its renovation.

Museum chief Wildung says he often observes museum visitors from his nearby office as they stand in awe
before the Egyptian beauty, who now lacks one eye.

"She is more than just a pretty face," he said. "The people go silent in wonderment at her."



Copyright DPA with Expatica

8 August 2007



http://www.expatica.com/actual/article.asp?subchannel_id=26&story_id=42679

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                                   Queen Nefertiti Boils Cairo Blood as Germans Reject Bust Loan








By Abeer Allam

 Sept. 11, 2007
(Bloomberg) --

In 1912, Ludwig Borchardt discovered a 3,400-year-old statue of Nefertiti, a queen of ancient Egypt,
among ruins on the eastern bank of the Nile.

The German archaeologist shipped it home to Berlin, where it became the centerpiece of the antiquities collection at the Altes Museum. Now the blue, gold and terracotta bust is the focus of an international tug of war. After Germany refused to lend the statue to Egypt for a three-month exhibition, Egyptian officials said they may demand the statue be returned permanently.

``They were taken out by imperialism,'' says Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities in Cairo. ``Well, the days of imperialism are over.''

Egypt's complaint echoes those of Italy and Greece, which are seeking to recover antiquities they say were illegally taken by foreign archaeologists. For Egyptians, the dispute is about more than just artifacts. People in Cairo say the German attitude underscores a lack of respect for Egyptian culture.

Nefertiti has become a cause celebre among Egypt's 75 million people, with talk-shows and newspaper columns dedicated to regaining the bust.

``Those people make my blood boil,'' says Ahmed Nabil, a 29- year-old hotel clerk. ``I already have hypertension and they made it worse. Do they think we're a bunch of thieves? They stole her, not us.''

Egypt first requested Nefertiti's return in 1925. Germany agreed to hand it over in 1935 before Adolf Hitler decided it should stay put. It has remained in Germany ever since.