History of Egyptology

The current paper aims to report on and explore what has already been achieved and to identify work in progress, in art historical work in Egyptology. While the aim is to be objective, unavoidably the findings remain subjective. This overview is deliberately brief and therefore incomplete. The main focus is on recent research (since c. 1980) and the emphasis is on topics and approaches that are innovative in their methodology. Among these, preference is given to those adopting more recent theories and methods as developed in other areas of Egyptology and in related disciplines, such as European art history and visual studies (Bildwissenschaft), classics, ancient history, archaeology and literary studies.

On a entrepris cette année une étude critique de la littérature égyptienne : consacrée à en tenter une définition, elle s'est intéressée également à la façon dont les égyptologues ont eux-mêmes défini les critères de ce qu'ils considèrent comme littéraire. Autant dire qu'après une brève partie épistémologique, la question des genres s'est imposée comme thème central du cours de cette année.

Note that this paper is to be read in conjunction with THE DECORATED NORTH WALL IN THE TOMB OF TUTANKHAMUN (KV 62) (THE BURIAL OF NEFERTITI? II) (2019) (https://www.academia.edu/39903971/The_Decorated_North_Wall_in_the_Tomb_of_Tutankhamun_KV_62_The_Burial_of_Nefertiti_II_2019_) and THE TOMB OF TUTANKHAMUN (KV 62): SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES (THE BURIAL OF NEFERTITI? III) (2020)(https://www.academia.edu/44309046/The_Tomb_of_Tutankhamun_KV_62_Supplementary_Notes_The_Burial_of_Nefertiti_III_2020_). THE BURIAL OF NEFERTITI? ANIMATIONS may be accessed separately at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD-SFAqqGpS603n_o7CORky6pUvB061X5

O presente artigo, ao homenagear Jaroslav Cerny, propõe-se a examinar as incontáveis e relevantes contribuições por ele aportadas aos estudos de Egiptologia, em especial as suas investigações sobre a cultura e modo de vida dos moradores da vila de operários Deir el Medina, encarregados da construção de tumbas e templos no Vale dos Reis, Rainhas e Nobres, a partir das quais traçou micro-histórias desses personagens milenares.

In 2007 the facsimile edition of an original manuscript written by a French soldier of Bonaparte’s Expedition in Egypt was published. Illustrated by naive coloured plates by the hand of the author, this document relates, almost day after day, the French Expedition in Egypt and Syria. It describes the main battles between the French troops and the English and Mameluks forces, but also the discovery of an exotic country and its culture at the end of the18th century, from a young revolutionary French soldier’s point of view. The purpose of this paper is to highlight a second version of this personal Description de l'Egypte, probably written shortly after the first one. A preliminary study shows that this variant, still unpublished and mentioned here for the first time, is longer and more detailed. Future research will have to explain why those two versions were written and now coexist.

Ramesses II, King of Egypt (1279–1213 BC) ascended the throne as the third king of the Nineteenth Dynasty at the age of twenty-five. In his sixty-seven year reign he probably built more temples and sired more children than any other Egyptian king. Today, he is popularly known as Ramesses 'the great'. Illustrated with photographs of the statue and contextual images, this book tells the story of this magnificent artefact, discussing the draw of colossal Egyptian sculpture and the history of the reign of Ramesses II.

The latest Czech issue of Prague Egyptological Studies (XVIII/2017) is devoted to the 100th anniversary of the birth of Professor Zbyněk Žába (1917–1971), one of the founders of the Czech Institute of Egyptology, Faculty of Arts at the Charles University in Prague and its branch in Cairo. The issue is divided into two parts, namely studies dedicated to his life and work, and those that are devoted to the continuation of his research at the present times. Included are contributions describing the life and bibliography of Zbyněk Žába, his work in Egypt as part of the Czechoslovak Egyptology during the Cold War, his lecturing at Cairo and his connections to the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures in Prague. The continuity of research is presented by different studies analysing diverse architectural, historical and social aspects of the mastaba of Vizier Ptahshepses at Abusir that was the focus of Žába’s field work in Egypt. All the peer-reviewed papers and studies have abstracts in English, as well as English captions for all the figures, charts and tables.


V letošním roce si připomínáme 100 let od narození profesora Zbyňka Žáby (1917–1971), jednoho ze zakladatelů Českého (tehdy Československého) egyptologického ústavu Filozofické fakulty Univerzity Karlovy. Ke zmíněnému výročí bylo připraveno předkládané číslo Pražských egyptologických studií, které je rozděleno do dvou hlavních tematických celků. První část je věnována Žábovu životu a dílu, zatímco do druhé byly zařazeny příspěvky, které přímo či nepřímo vycházejí ze Žábových prací. 
První oddíl tohoto vydání se zaměřuje na osobu profesora Žáby a jeho odborný odkaz. Příspěvky shrnují jeho život, bibliografii, kontakty s egyptskou bohemistikou nebo práci na staroegyptské krásné literatuře. Žába projevoval také zájem o egyptské starožitnosti a kolegové z Národního muzea – Náprstkova muzea asijských, afrických a amerických kultur připravili zajímavou studii o Žábových kontaktech s muzeem. Články zahrnuté do druhého tematického okruhu navazují na Žábovy práce, a to zejména ty, které se týkají mastaby vezíra Ptahšepsese z doby 5. dynastie (24. století př. n. l.), kde Žába po dlouhou dobu vedl archeologické výzkumy. Volněji s ní souvisí studie, jež se soustředí na události z 1. tisíciletí př. n. l. v Údolí králů v oblasti dnešního Luxoru v Horním Egyptě.
Profesor Zbyněk Žába stál v čele Československého egyptologického ústavu až do své smrti. Toto číslo je důkazem jeho odborného významu a odkazu, na něž navazuje dnes již pátá generace českých egyptologů. Stále také pokračují archeologické práce v Abúsíru, na nichž se Zbyněk Žába podílel od samého počátku. Lze jej tedy považovat za jednoho ze zakladatelů současné moderní české egyptologie.

Epigraphers and archaeologists working in Egypt must navigate a host of complex relationships both on and off site. This chapter explores the multifaceted nature of local Egyptian peoples’ relationships with nearby monuments through the lens of a single case study: the site of Sheikh Abd al-Qurna and its local population, the Qurnawi. Egyptologists have not traditionally sought to incorporate formally the stories and histories of local populations in their studies of pharaonic sites. An increasing blend of social awareness and the desire for social action on the part of both foreign professionals and local activists, however, is pushing Egyptologists to re-evaluate their practices, which, in turn, is moving the discipline in new and positive directions.

A History of World Egyptology is a ground-breaking reference work that traces the study of ancient Egypt. Spanning 150 years and global in purview, it enlarges our understanding of how and why people have looked, and continue to look, into humankind's distant past through the lens of the enduring allure of ancient Egypt. Written by an international team of scholars, the volume investigates how territories around the world have engaged with and have been inspired by Egyptology, and how that engagement has evolved over time. Each chapter presents a specific territory from an institutional and national perspective, while examining a range of transnational links as well. The volume thus touches on multiple strands of scholarship, embracing not only Egyptology, but also social history, the history of science and reception studies. It will appeal to amateurs and professionals alike.

Art Historian, Curator in the Egyptian department in Brooklyn and Professor of Egyptian Art at the Institute of Fine Arts in New York, Bernard V. Bothmer was one of the most important experts in Late Egyptian art. He spent his entire life recording, dating and redefining the methods of understanding Late Egyptian sculpture, an effort that culminated in the creation of the Corpus of Late Egyptian Sculpture, a collection of detailed notes, high quality photographs and negatives currently held at the Brooklyn Museum. In 2008 the Università degli Studi di Milano purchased Bothmer’s private archives, a collection of notes for his classes and lectures, papers delivered at conferences and seminars, detailed dossiers on museums and Egyptian collections around the world, drawings and about 10,000 photographs. During the doctoral research I am currently conducting at the Scuola Normale Superiore, which focuses on a comprehensive study of Ptolemaic private portraiture, I had the chance to look at Bothmer’s private archives in Milan. Among the documents, I have identified two unpublished papers focusing on one of Bernard V. Bothmer’s main topics of interest throughout his scholarly career: the depiction of the individual in Egyptian art. Through the study of the unpublished papers in his private archives which focus on realism and Ptolemaic portraiture it is possible to detect the development of the scholar’s thought on Ptolemaic sculptures characterized by realistic facial features.
The aim of the present paper is to outline, with the aid of both published and unpublished documents, the development of Bothmer’s thought on one of the main issues of Ptolemaic art, namely Ptolemaic portraiture.

Known as the temple of Apis, the building in one of the parks of central Copenhagen was designed by Nicolai Abildgaard, the painter (1746-1809) around 1801 and built in 1802-1804. It derives its name from the gable decoration of a charging bull, copied from an antique, carved gem. This choice was not a mere formality, for Abildgaard had taken an interest in its Egyptian connection as laid out in a book in his possession. Furthermore the bull came to feature in the zodiac backdrop to one of his paintings, celebrating “Philosophy”. (LM)

When Kurt Sethe identified the phrase “speaking words” as dialogue on the Shabaka Stone in 1928, he incited a lively debate that continues to this day over the dramatic potential in certain ancient Egyptian texts. The question of whether these texts and other artifacts provide evidence for theatre in ancient Egypt lingers in Egyptological and theatre-historical circles. Theatre scholars reserve a special place for ancient Egypt in the introductory chapters of their history textbooks, attributing ritual origins of theatre to the “Abydos Passion Play.” Egyptologists would recognize this “play” as the dramatic ritual reenactments that took place at Abydos in celebration of the Osirian Khoiak Festival. But while the words “ritual” and “origins” regularly apply to Egypt in both contexts, the definitive “theatre” remains elusive. This paper will interrogate why the scholarly bias against a theatrical tradition in ancient Egypt continues to prevail. It is clear that one reason is the colonial nature of the field of Egyptology. The modern discipline began with Napolean’s conquest of Egypt in the early nineteenth century. Since then French, German, British, and American scholars have all dominated the field at one time or another. Their methods of inquiry are deeply rooted in a logocentric, positivist tradition that analyzes an ancient North African culture through a decidedly European cultural lens. The goal of this paper is to examine the Egyptological historiography of drama and performance along with the historiography of ancient Egypt in theatre history, and to identify new interdisciplinary methods of inquiry.

ABSTRACT: This documentary response sheet contains a series of sequential questions drawn from the video, BBC (Howard Carter Part 1): "The Search for Tutankhamun"; This video covers the early realization in the late 1800s of the existence of Tutankhamun, the excavation of the Valley of the Kings in the early 1900s, and Howard Carter’s discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb (shown in-class; also available online via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFUiE2MWR_8 [58 minutes]), and BBC (Howard Carter Part 2): "The Curse of Tutankhamun"; This video continues Howard Carter’s work in Tutankhamun’s tomb, including the compilation of a team of diverse specialists, the meticulous work required in recording, conserving, and removing items, and Carter’s political and administrative issues with the Egyptian Antiquities Organization and French officials (shown in-class; also available online via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aaNA4CRjNA [56 minutes]).  These sequential questions aim to maximize both student attention to various pertinent points made throughout the documentary and greater retention of the materials covered by the documentary.  In addition, the documentary has been vetted for overall content accuracy (albeit updated and/or corrected in-class), and selected to provide supplementary visual aids (e.g., images of regions, sites, finds, and other materials; re-enactments), and other data to aid in student comprehension of the course lectures and readings from the textbooks.

"Ex oriente nigri: "Captain of the Blacks" and the Fabrication of the Minoan Culture

The fabrication of the Minoan culture is the specifically modern phenomenon, closely linked to the imperial and colonial conquest and appropriation of Ancient Greece. The Greek war of independence created an arena in which Europe could take part in the fight for its cradle. In the postcolonial key, the paper situates the fresco "Captain of the Blacks" into the context of the fabrication of the Minoan culture and the colonial narratives inscribed into it. In the beginning of the 20th century, this colonial past of the notion, known today as the Minoan culture, played a major role in the definition of the European past, present and future. The Minoan culture, as a colonial discursive formation in archaeology, has remained in the framework of the culture-histori-cal paradigm, but beyond it as well. The paper argues that the reconstructionof the fresco "Captain of the Blacks" in the works of Arthur Evans is the consequence of the colonial racism, putting the emphasis on the colour of the skin as a racial/ ethnic category. The interpretation that the dark-skinned figures are of the African origin has rarely been questioned, but rather perpetuated as a given.

Key words: Minoan culture, racism, "Captain of the Blacks", Egypt,colonialism, post-colonial perspective"

‫المحتـــــــويات‬ ‫الصفـحة‬ 7 ‫ألول‬ : ‫افي‬ ‫الجغر‬ ‫وموقعها‬ ‫بالمدينة‬ ‫التعريف‬ 31 ‫ينة‬ 31 ‫لمدينة‬ ‫افي‬ ‫لجغر‬ ‫و‬ ّ ‫مجد‬ 13 ‫في‬ ‫األثرية‬ ‫حفائر‬ ‫و‬ ّ ‫مجد‬ ‫ونتائجها‬ 13 ‫لثاني‬ : ‫و‬ ّ ‫مجد‬ ‫الحـديدي‬ ‫و‬ ‫البـرونزي‬ ‫العصـر‬ ‫في‬ 11 ‫القديم‬ ‫البرونزي‬ ‫العصر‬ ‫ي‬ 11 ‫الوسيط‬ ‫البرونزي‬ ‫العصر‬ ‫ي‬ 66 ‫المتأخر‬ ‫البرونزي‬ ‫العصر‬ ‫ي‬ 77 ‫الحديدي‬ ‫العصر‬ ‫ي‬ 86 ‫طق‬ ‫و‬ ّ ‫مجد‬ ‫الحديدي‬ ‫و‬ ‫البرونزي‬ ‫العصر‬ ‫في‬ 331 ‫لثالث‬ : ‫في‬ ‫التاريخي‬ ‫التطور‬ ‫و‬ ّ ‫مجد‬ 331 ‫في‬ ‫لمصري‬ ‫و‬ ّ ‫مجد‬ 331 ‫في‬ ‫البحر‬ ‫وشعوب‬ ‫الفمسطينيون‬ ‫و‬ ‫ن‬ ‫و‬ ّ ‫مجد‬ 313 ‫ميمان‬  ‫وخمفاؤه‬ ‫في‬ ‫ونشاطهم‬ ‫و‬ ّ ‫مجد‬ 311 ‫عمى‬ ‫البابمية‬ ‫و‬ ‫اآلشورية‬ ‫و‬ ّ ‫مجد‬ 361 ‫عمى‬ ‫الفارسية‬ ‫و‬ ّ ‫مجد‬ 376 ‫ابع‬ ‫لر‬ : ‫لمدينة‬ ‫الحضارية‬ ‫األهمية‬ ‫و‬ ّ ‫مجد‬ 383 ‫تجاري‬ ‫مركز‬ 383 ‫في‬ ‫دينية‬ ‫و‬ ّ ‫مجد‬ 391 ‫المعمارية‬ ‫اني‬ 131 ‫الشخصية‬ 113 ‫في‬ ‫المياه‬ ‫و‬ ‫ي‬ ‫و‬ ّ ‫مجد‬ 111 ‫ت‬ ‫و‬ ّ ‫مجد‬ 111 ‫و‬ ّ ‫مجد‬ 119 117 ‫ات‬ ‫ختصار‬ 117 ‫بة‬ ّ ‫عر‬ ُ ‫الم‬ ‫و‬ ‫العربية‬ 163 ‫األجنبية‬ 161

Architecte The purpose of this article is the search of the project in the royal funerary complexes of the ancient Empire in Egypt. The searches performed by the author on the pyramid complexes of the ancient Empire, and on a lot of tombs of nobles of the same period, have shown a satisfactory coincidence between measures of relief and hypothesis of project. This has happened on the base of documented reliefs on the study of the mathematical, geometric and astronomic knowledge of the ancient Egyptian builders, and on my continuous study of the culture and the thought of this ancient people. The first treated example is the king Huny's funerary complex in Meidum, realized in various phases and destined to posthumous collapse because of inexperience of the planners. Despite this, it's possible to realize a reasoning of project founded on the use of the generative and modular geometry. The article is provided of technical sketches and virtual reconstructions: these are useful to introduce the reader in the reconstructed monument using materials of the epoch and, when there are documentations, the decorations.

This paper explores the collection of artefacts from British excavations in Egypt and their dispersal to institutions across the world between 1880 and 1915. The scope, scale and complexity of these distributions is reviewed with a view to not only highlighting the complex, symbiotic relationship between British organisations that mounted such excavations on the one hand and museums on the other, but also as basis from which to argue that both field and museum collecting practices were enmeshed within the same processes of ‘artefaction’. These shared processes together created a new form of museum object, here referred to as the ‘excavated artefact’. It is further suggested that the collection of artefacts for museums was one of the primary motivating factors in the establishment of a scientific archaeology in Egypt. Case studies of the activities of the Egypt Exploration Fund and Flinders Petrie’s work are presented to draw these arguments into relief.

Songbook for ancient Egypt music video (http://music.ancientgebts.org). Includes exercises, plus sing a song in hieroglyphic lyrics! Learn the lyrics in Tigrigna, Amarigna, English and hieroglyphs and sing along!

To have Legesse Allyn speak at your next event, please visit http://keynotespeaker.ancientgebts.org

For the print version of this book and others in the book series for your library, you can order it from Amazon.com at the following link...
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/102-5565860-1204124?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=%27Legesse%20Allyn%27

Desde que el emperador Maximiliano desembarcó de la fragata SMS Novara en el puerto de Veracruz, el 28 de mayo de 1864, consideró que México contaba con todos los elementos necesarios para estar a la par con las grandes potencias internacionales en los campos de las ciencias y las artes; por esta razón emprendió acciones para fortalecer las instituciones culturales del país. Uno de sus más ambiciosos proyectos fue trasladar las obras del Museo Nacional Mexicano del edificio de la Real y Pontifica Universidad al inmueble de la antigua Casa de Moneda para crear el Museo Público de Historia Natural, Arqueología e Historia. Para el emperador el museo era una poderosa herramienta para reafirmar la identidad nacional y transmitir los ideales del Segundo Imperio Mexicano; muestra de ello fue su afán en implementar medidas para que las colecciones arqueológicas del museo se incrementasen. Con este propósito financió varias expediciones al interior del país, pero su voluntad ilustrada y universalista no se restringía tan sólo al plano local; ya que también pretendió dotar al insigne museo de la calle de Moneda N. 13 con una colección de más de 1,200 obras del antiguo Egipto, la cual arribó a Veracruz, en el año de 1867, pero debido a la infortunada situación política del momento nunca pudo desembarcar. En este artículo expongo algunos de los más interesantes hechos de esta historia -que aún no ha sido suficientemente estudiada- y reviso el papel que tuvo la naciente egiptología en el ámbito intelectual de la época, con el fin de comprender el contexto en el que se desarrolló el interés de Maximiliano por la arqueología mexicana; el cual ayudó a la consolidación de una de las instituciones culturales más importantes del país.

Controversy about museums’ possession and exhibition of human remains has usually affected those identified as ancestral remains by indigenous peoples. Egyptian mummies, with their long tradition of exhibition, seemed exempt from such considerations until the covering of unwrapped remains in the Egyptian gallery at The Manchester Museum in 2008. The museum’s representatives argued that this covering responded to visitors’ objections, but subsequent widespread protest against the measure suggested that it had been carried out with inadequate public consultation. With reference to the Manchester case, I will present two arguments to expand the scope of current debates about human remains display. The first argument favours the consideration of museum visitors from cultures other than those represented by exhibited remains as legitimate stakeholders in the remains’ management, including consideration of their personal reasons and historical precedents for favouring display. The second argument, which reveals the spurious bases of many objections to Egyptian mummies’ display and demonstrates their derivation from misconceptions promulgated by the media, shows that the grounds for public objections to human remains display should be more critically examined. If perpetuated rather than halted, the display of mummies could be used to actively combat disparaging media stereotypes. Human remains exhibition is not inherently offensive, but can be regarded as such by visitors whose cultural backgrounds fail to prepare them for encounters with the dead. Removing the dead from display avoids engagement with ethics debates rather than facing the challenge of finding ways to respect the dead by facilitating encounters with them.

Tahuantinsuyo, in ancient Quechua language, is the name indicating the Inca Empire, one of the largest of the South American continent, much more than the Aztec and Maya Empire. In 1532 BC, the Inca Kings ruled over a geographical region including Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina. It was an extensive territory inhabited by different communities. Among them, the national group Q’eros had a very special role, because of the characteristics of their mythological traditions.
One of the most fascinating tales refers to the myth of Cuzco’s founding, the majestic capital of the great Inca Empire, with its mysterious buildings. Q’eros were direct descendants of the Inca priest caste, and they broke off through the internal areas of Peru, to save themselves from Spanish persecution and murder.

British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan 10 (2008): 1-37.
This essay examines the conceptual development of Egyptian museums from the mid-nineteenth to the early twenty-first century. It is particularly concerned with the narrative themes and poetic structures through which colonial and postcolonial identities have been negotiated in modern Egypt. Over the past 150 years, Egyptian museum display has retained much of its traditional architecture based on Victorian aesthetics, but a new archaeological narrative has emerged in the past 50 years that redefines the colonial characterization of Egypt. This narrative integrates the full span of Egyptian history into a single identity, and in so doing it joins the independent present to the indigenous past.  To contextualize the Egyptian museum condition, day-to-day museology and issues of audience are also addressed, and a directory to the complete museums of Egypt is included. https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20190801114604/https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/publications/online_journals/bmsaes/issue_10/doyon.aspx

The solution to the problems 56, 57, 58, 59 and 59B proposed in this study shows that the Egyptians knew the properties of the right triangle from the time of the Rhind Papyrus that, as the scribe Ahmes indicates, the original text dates back to the XIIth dynasty, 1300 years before Pythagoras.
Problem 56 shows which are the calculation procedures to obtain the Seked (in palms) in relation to a cubit of 7 palms. In this first problem a pyramid is drawn with double lines next to the description, different from those related to the following four problems that don't have the double line on the sides but only on the base.
The four problems 57, 58, 59 and 59B all refer to the Seked of 5+1/4 which reproduces a right-triangle with the same proportions as the Pythagorean Triple 3-4-5.
In fact in RMP 57 and 58 the right triangle has a base 70 which is at its height 93+1/3 as 3 is at 4. In RMP 59 and 59B is indicated the right triangle with base 6 and height 8 whose hipotenuse corresponds to 10.
These right triangles with Pythagorean Triple 3-4-5 also correspond to the measurements of the Khafre's Pyramid which has a seked of 5+1/4 since the base is 215.5m. and the height should be 143.5m.

Hiroshi Yoshida (1876-1950), a Japanese painter and woodcutter, was known for his excellent landscape compositions, creating paintings using the European oil technique. He traveled the world and also experimented with traditional woodcut printing. His woodprints depicted non-Japanese landscapes and architectural objects, such as ones found in the United States, India, the Swiss Alps, etc. He cultivated the tradition of the ukiyo-e convention, restored in the twentieth century as shin-hanga. The article concerns one of these extraordinary works: the night and day views of the Great Egyptian Sphinx. The woodcut is very precise, and a few of its details allow us to determine the date of the creation of the prototype, as it depicts an important stage in the conservation works carried out on the famous statue. The article also digresses into interesting Japanese-Egyptian themes in the nineteenth century and the works of contemporary Japanese Egyptologists.