Goodbye & Hello

Holiday Greetings!

Threshold to Cleopatra's mausoleum discovered off Alexandria coast

Read the Guardian article here. I love that they use a photo of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in Antony and Cleopatra to illustrate the article!

Solstice Greetings!

Christmas Cookies with an Egyptian Flair!

They aren't just ordinary Christmas cookies!
These mummies are all buttoned up...

Living the "sweet life"...

William (the Met's famous blue hippo) may have left the building, but there are plenty more...

I don't know what sharks have to do with Christmas or Egypt, but here they are...

These sphinxes are dressed to the nines...

Happy Holidays from Luxor!

The Louvre Returns Five Fragments to Egypt

It happened today at the Élysée Palace. The article from lepoint.fr is here.

UPDATE! Zahi Hawass has now announced what will happen to the fragments. Read about it here.

A Wedding and a Funeral...

It's hard to believe, almost surreal in fact, that just one Sunday ago we were celebrating the wedding of a CH workman and then yesterday we were at a funeral mourning the passing of dear friend Susan Weeks.

You can read the statement from AUC here.

Her body was found in the Nile late Saturday night. It appears she fell from the Kingfisher, the Weeks' dahabbiya. Jane Akshar tells the story on her blog. (N.B. Perhaps it would be more effective if those commenting on Jane's blog post directed those comments to Jane herself.) I had just been with them for drinks on the Kingfisher earlier in the evening. We shall miss her terribly. Rest in peace, Susan, in your beloved Luxor...

(Photo from the Theban Mapping Project)

Member of the Wedding

I had the opportunity to attend the wedding party of one of our workmen on Sunday evening. What a joyous occasion! Any and all relations and friends were amongst the guests....Music blared from industrial size speakers....Men, women, and children danced....The official wedding portrait was handed round....The beaming bride and groom ascended to a platform above the crowd and all guests climbed up in small groups to greet and congratulate them...Glitter and happiness filled the air! Truly heartwarming.




And I have video:

Of course, the boys all wanted to have their pictures taken!

 I think a great time was had by all!

Theban Balloons

Yesterday, as I walked to the ferry to go to the West Bank, I was greeted with a view of several balloons rising into the morning sky...

Egypte-Algérie, encore et toujours...

The saga continues... Today's entry on Egyptoblogue (Carnet de bord de Claude Guibal, correspondante de Libération au Caire) points out the absurdity in the ongoing conflict over a spot in the FIFA World Cup 2010.

Moon Over Luxor...

There's a beautiful full moon over Luxor tonight. Here's a photo which isn't the greatest even with a tripod ;[ MaAlaysh!

Back to its roots?

This article appeared in this week's English-language Al-Ahram Weekly. If you look closely at the proposed design  below you will see that the new dock is NOT in front of Luxor Temple, but in front of the convention center (the building with circular drive on the left) and Chicago House (to the right of the convention center)!

Iraq's national museum to showcase its treasures online with aid of Google

"For six years the plundered treasures of Iraq's national museum have been slowly returning, giving the once grand institution a chance to showcase its ancient wares once again.

"Now, perhaps as a safeguard against another invasion, but also in recognition of its priceless heritage, Google is to make available online 14,000 images of the museum and its artefacts." (The Guardian - 24 November 2009)

Read the full article here.

Anticipation...

I will not write about Dendera...I will not write about Abydos...I will not...I will not...I will not...at least until I have written about my two walks around Luxor, the house trip to Edfu and my visit to Luxor Temple. But to whet your appetites, I will post two photos--one from Dendera and one from Abydos. They both resulted from a wonderful day-trip three of us took on Sunday to those two fascinating sites.

The first is of two Ba birds on the roof at Dendera:

And the second is of the cartouches of Seti I at Abydos:

The "prenomen" (on the right) reads "Men-Maat-Ra" or "Enduring is the Divine Order of Ra". The "nomen" (on the left) reads "Seti meryenptah" or "Seti beloved of Ptah".

The Internet in Arabic...

Check out this post (N.B.it's in French) on Egyptoblogue, the "carnet de bord" of Claude Guibal, Cairo correspondent for "Libération". Now, in addition to the Internet extensions we're used to, such as .com and .edu and .org, Egypt has established the extension .masr (Masr-or Misr-means Egypt in Arabic). And for the first time this Internet domain is not in a Latin alphabet but in Arabic characters. Egypt seems to realize the enormous potential in an Arabic market of at least 300 millions people worldwide...

The Cost of Fame

Al-Ahram Weekly has just published an article about the collaboration between the Supreme Council of Antiquities and the Getty Conservation Institute for the conservation and management of the tomb of Tutankhamun.

Vanished Persian Army Said Found in Desert? UPDATE 11/30/09

Bones, jewelry and weapons found in Egyptian desert may be the remains of Cambyses' army that vanished 2,500 years ago. Read the article.

And now read a great background piece which casts significant doubt on the "discovery".  (Btw, rogueclassicism looks like a great site. I'll be following it...)

And here's the official statement found on Dr. Zahi's website.

And here is a press release about the Iranians' stake in the whole deal!

The quest to regain Egypt's antiquities

An article from BBC News on November 11, 2009:

"Later this month Egyptian archaeologists will travel to the Louvre Museum in Paris to collect five ancient fresco fragments stolen from a tomb in the Valley of the Kings in the 1980s, but there are many other "stolen" antiquities which they also want back, reports the BBC's Yolande Knell in Cairo."

Getty and Egypt to Work on Tut’s Tomb

The Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles said on Tuesday that it had entered into a five-year partnership with Egypt to help conserve and manage the tomb of Tutankhamen... From NY Times - See Arts, Briefly for the full blurb.

Luxor Details

I rambled around Luxor (east bank) today in the always-diverting company of CH photographer par excellence Yarko Kobylecky. Our mission was to do "salvage photography" in the area north of the train station, but we made a big loop which took three hours and left me quite exhausted! I will report in more detail when I am recovered, but wanted to share a few "telling" details of the afternoon.