Recent research into an ‘impossible’ statue at National Museums Scotland led me to discover a previously unrecognised statue-type from Deir el-Medina, the village of Egypt’s royal tomb-builders. These unique statues reinforced the community’s special relationship with the king. They offer insights into the role that statues play in reinforcing power structures. The ancient settlement of Deir el-Medina on the West Bank of Luxor (ancient Thebes) The settlement of Deir el-Medina is located in the desert near the Valley of the Kings, so the craftspeople could be close to the royal tombs that they ..read more

The king’s arm is raised in a graceful arc, high in the air, poised in the moment just before it smashes down to brutally shatter his enemy’s skull. In one of the oldest images of an ancient Egyptian ruler, King Narmer’s power and authority is expressed through violent domination. The scene is repeated in the top right using symbols from the natural world: a fierce falcon subduing an enemy on a papyrus plant, an emblem of Egypt. Plaster reproduction of the Narmer Palette (NMS A.1974.104). The original is in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo (CG 14716) and dates to c.3100–2900 BC. People had lived a ..read more

This post is reblogged from my Object of the Month post for National Museums Scotland. All images are © National Museums Scotland: This box of Pharaoh Amenhotep II, decorated with an image of the protective god Bes, is one of the finest examples of decorative woodwork to survive from ancient Egypt. It is thought to have been found by pioneering Scottish archaeologist Alexander Henry Rhind in the mid-19th century. The fragmentary box is richly decorated with exotic materials from different areas of the ancient Mediterranean, signifying the extent of the king’s empire and its wealth. The main b ..read more

This blog post is reposted from the Feast Bowl, the blog of National Museums Scotland, where I’ve recently joined as Curator of the Ancient Mediterranean. Today, 90 years ago on 26 November 1922, a small group gathered in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt at the entrance to a tomb after five years of excavating. They waited as archaeologist Howard Carter painstakingly chiselled an opening through the sealed door. Initially he could see nothing in the flickering candle light, but he described how as his eyes adjusted to the light: ‘The details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, str ..read more

Images courtesy of the Natural History Society of Northumbria, the Great North Museum: Hancock. 190 years ago today, on the 27th of September 1822, a young scholar delivered a paper just eight pages long and rather unassumingly titled ‘Letter to Monsieur Dacier’, but which would completely change the world’s understanding of ancient history. The scholar was Jean-François Champollion and his paper was the first truly significant breakthrough in the decipherment of hieroglyphs. By cracking a code that had defeated scholars for hundreds of years, he revealed the key to ancient Egypt’s secrets, o ..read more

In over three thousand years of history, ancient Egypt was ruled by hundreds of kings; to the untrained eye, they may often seem undistinguishable in their idealised representations, but their stories are more varied and extraordinary than might be imagined. In my new book, written to accompany the British Museum UK touring exhibition Pharaoh: King of Egypt, I explore many of these fascinating stories through the fabulous objects in the British Museum’s collection, from beautiful gilded palace tiles to a papyrus account of royal assassination. The aim of both the exhibition and the book is to ..read more

As most of you’ll have noticed from the Google doodle posted today, May 9th 2012 is the 138th birthday of Howard Carter, the archaeologist celebrated for discovering the tomb of Tutankhamun. While many know him for that achievement, his original training was as an artist and some of his most notable work may actually be the incredible artistic records he produced, some of which may be viewed here. While other Egyptologists such as Champollion and Petrie were famed for their scholarly advances, Carter superseded them in the public imagination with a discovery borne out of perseverance and a bi ..read more

Update March 12th: The El Hibeh expedition has put together a press release and the looting was featured on Egyptian television last night on Al Qahera Al Youm. Update March 10th: Excavator of the site Carol Redmount is posting to a newly founded Facebook group ‘Save El Hibeh Egypt’. For those without Facebook access, Glenn Mayer has posted her appeal in the comments on this page. This Egyptian news video (click here to view) reports on looting in El Hibeh. Photographs of ransacked tombs and scattered human remains are shown from the 7.20 mark. These heartbreaking images bear witness to a hea ..read more

Wooden statuette of a foreign woman excavated at Beni Hassan, Egypt [A.1911.260]. © National Museums ScotlandAlmost 4,000 years ago, a woman travelled hundreds of kilometres to Egypt carrying an infant child on her back, seeking to trade or perhaps to settle there, presumably looking for a better life. They were immortalised in an extraordinary wooden statuette, which was excavated in a tomb at Beni Hassan in Middle Egypt thousands of years later. She stands only 15 cm tall but her face is full of character. Her appearance is very different from depictions of ancient Egyptians: her skin is yel ..read more

4000 years ago, a learned Egyptian scribe penned this advice: ‘Do not be proud because you are wise! Consult with the ignorant as with the learned! Perfect speech is more hidden than malachite, yet it is found with the maidservants at the millstones’. While wisdom may be found in unexpected places, unfortunately ignorance may be also. I was disappointed last week when the BBC and the Guardian published articles that inaccurately dismissed hieroglyphs as a more primitive form of writing than emojis. Professor Vyv Evans, Professor of Linguistics at Bangor University, was quoted as saying: ‘As a ..read more