And now. . . . .the news from the EEF
Press report: "King Tut hit by the curse of the dome"
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2517951,00.html
"Plans for a grand exhibition of the teenage pharaoh’s treasures
at the [Millennium Dome, London] have been thrown into doubt
because Egyptian officials will not allow the artefacts to be displayed
next to a proposed casino. " (..) "Earlier this year Hawass vetoed
plans for the Tutankhamun exhibition to be displayed at a South
African resort after he discovered that it included a casino. "
-- Another press report:
http://denver.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2006/12/25/daily2.html
Press report: "Ancient site to go nuclear"
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/825/eg4.htm
"The National Democratic Party's announcement a month ago
that Egypt is seeking to revive its nuclear programme and
means to build a large power station neighbouring the
Graeco-Roman site of Tel Al-Dabaa on the Alexandria-
Marsa-Matrouh road caught the headlines of newspapers
and sparked uproar among archaeologists who feared the
construction would destroy a major archaeological site."
Press report: "12th century BC carving may hold
the secret of Karnak Temple"
http://www.dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=4545
Some more details about the recently discovered
stela -- with photo and fairly detailed description!
Press report: "Judas's Story?"
http://vision.org/visionmedia/article.aspx?id=2038
Report of a lecture on the Gospel of Judas. The
relevant part is at the end: "Meyer concluded by noting
that more ancient texts have been found in Egypt by
a Polish team of archaeologists digging in the famed
Valley of the Kings."
Press report: "PLOS One: Peer Review Begone!"
http://archaeology.about.com/b/a/257824.htm
"Peer review costs journals, in time, in labor, and in restricting the
number of publishable articles to be included. Those costs are
passed along to subscribers, and that is, no joke, one of the main
blocks to converting established journals to open access. "
[Ed. Blogged about this once, but I can't find it.]
Dr Nicole Hansen (nbhansen@midway.uchicago.edu) has
made available online a presentation she made at the Digital
Humanities and Computer Science Colloquium held at the
University of Chicago in November 2006. It consists of a
5 minute Flash video plus a 2 page PDF handout: "How to
Reach a Million Students: Teaching Egyptology Online".
http://www.glyphdoctors.com/mod/resource/view.php?id=813
Online version: Alexander Turner Cory, The Hieroglyphics of
Horapollo Nilous, Chthonios Books, London, 1840. XII, 174 pp.,
3 pls.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/hh/index.htm
"In the first stages of hieroglyphical interpretation, this work afforded
no inconsiderable light. But upon the whole, it has scarcely received
the attention which it may justly claim, as the only ancient volume
entirely devoted to the task of unravelling the mystery in which
Egyptian learning has been involved; and as one, which in many
instances, unquestionably contains the correct interpretations. In
the present edition of the work, where any interpretations have
been ascertained to be correct, the chapter has been illustrated
by the corresponding hieroglyphic. In those cases where the
hieroglyphic is mentioned, but an incorrect interpretation assigned,
engravings have been given of it, as well as of the hieroglyphic
corresponding to such interpretation, wherever these have been
ascertained: and they have been inserted in the hope that they
may lead persons better acquainted with the subject to discover
more accurate meanings than we have been able to suggest."
Without the parallel Greek text which appears in the original
book.
Digitized books from "Google Booksearch"
-- Jean-François Champollion, L'Égypte sous les Pharaons ou
recherches sur la géographie, la religion, la langue, les écritures
et l'histoire de l'Égypte avant l'invasion de Cambyse. Description
géographique, de Bure, Paris, 1814.
vol. I - xxvi, 378 pp. - pdf-file (11.8 MB)
http://snipurl.com/15zbk
A. G. Nerlich, I. Wiest, U. Löhrs, F. Parsche and P. Schramel,
"Extensive pulmonary haemorrhage in an Egyptian mummy", in:
Virchows Archiv, Volume 427, Number 4 / December, 1995,
pp. 423-429; in PDF, 2.7 MB.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/x0n457r66m548667/fulltext.pdf
"Report on morphological and trace element findings of
several internal organs from an Egyptian mummy approximately
dating from the year 950 B.C. By use of a multidisciplinary
approach we succeeded in discovering evidence for severe
and presumably recurrent pulmonary bleeding during life."
[For the drug problem, see EEF threads of March '04 ("Misc")
and Dec '04 ("Hemp"). The plants refered to in note 6 would
be of the Solanaceae family.]
* E. Panczyk, M. Ligeza and L. Walis, "Application of INAA to
the Examination of Art Objects: Research in Poland", in Journal
of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, Volume 244, Number 3
/ June, 2000, pp. 543-551. In PDF, 914 kb.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/t2761362218g3371/fulltext.pdf
"Systematic studies on art objects using instrumental neutron
activation analysis (INAA) and neutron autoradiography, [in order
to determine] concentrations of trace elements in [several objects,
including] the clay fillings of sarcophagi of Egyptian mummies."
R. G. V. Hancock, M. D. Grynpas and B. Alpert, "Are
archaeological bones similar to modern bones? An INAA
assessment", in Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry
Volume 110, Number 1 / March, 1987, pp. 283-291. In
PDF, 350 kb.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/h1x212k377385x23/fulltext.pdf
"For more than a decade, archaeometrists have been analyzing
archaeologically recovered human bones in an attempt to relate
their trace element contents to diet. Although the problems of
diagenesis have been recognized, the variable effects have been
difficult to establish. In this paper, an assessment is made of the
analytical reliability of the INAA determination of major and trace
elements, using their short-lived radioisotopes in both regular and
defatted modem cancellous bone, and in modem cortical bone. This
modem bone information is then compared with analytical data
for bones from Egyptian mummies ranging in age from ~ 2000
to ~ 3700 BP, and with normally-buried 11th century French bones."
Oxford Eprints:
-- John Baines, Open palms, in: Atti del VI Congresso Internazionale
di Egittologia, vol. I, Torino, 1992, pp. 29-32 - pdf-file (63 KB)
http://eprints.ouls.ox.ac.uk/archive/00001075/
"... There are relatively few standard poses in Egyptian art in which
the rendering of palm lines is appropriate. It is desirable to explore
why this form was relatively uncommon and what meanings were
attached to it and whether it correlates with other relatively unusual
details changes in anatomical representation ..."
-- John Baines, Symbolic roles of canine figures on early monuments,
in: Archéo-Nil, vol. 3, pp. 57-74 (1993) - pdf-file (2.8 MB)
http://eprints.ouls.ox.ac.uk/archive/00001096/
"Late predynastic Egyptian representations of canine figures on
palettes and other objects can be divided into jackals, wild dogs
(lycaon pictus) - which are very prominent - and domesticated
dogs, among which several breeds can be distinguished ... The
emergence of the king at the centre of the dynastic system of
decoration and the identification of king and lion influenced
profoundly the presentation of canines."
-- For earlier Oxford Eprints, see EEFNEWS (356), (376), (380)
and (391), most articles written by John Baines.
Claire Newton, Upper Egypt: vegetation at the beginning of
the third millennium BC inferred from charcoal analysis at
Adaïma and Elkab, in: Journal of Archaeological Science,
vol. 32, pp. 355-367 (2005)
http://snipurl.com/15zc2
[http://www.umr5059.univ-montp2.fr/~umr5059/pdf/newton/
Newton%202005%20JAS.pdf]
"Archaeological charcoals from two Predynastic sites located
in Upper Egypt are studied to help reconstruct woody
vegetation. 'Ash-jars' from the cemeteries at Adaïma and
Elkab appear to have been filled with domestic hearth
residues as offerings. The results show the predominance
of Acacias at Elkab and Tamarix at Adaïma."
End of EEF news