Having the epithet ‘she who loves silence’ depending on what mood you are in could be a good thing if say you wanted to be left alone or it could be a foreboding sense of building tension. But the silence referred to by this title is more likely a mixture of contemplative silence with a hint of fury. My topic this week is the Theban cobra Godesses Meretseger, whose name means, you guessed it, She who loves silence. Figure 1:Ostrocon with he workman Pennub adoring the goddess Meretsger in the shape of a woman-headed snake EA8508 Meresetseger is one of three prominent snake goddesses within ..read more

Now bear with me on this one. Sometimes the inspiration for blog topics comes out of something I have seen in the past few weeks or it is something I have always wanted to know a little more about. Still, this time it is a completely random pull from me simply scrolling around collections for something else and finding the cutest looking amulet of a frog. So, that is how I landed on frogs as my topic for this week. The frog amulet in question is made from carnelian dating to the Old Kingdom from Qau el-Kabir and is now in the Manchester Museums collection (Figure 1).    Figure 1: Fro ..read more

I recently came back from visiting a friend abroad who I went to university with and sometimes inspiration strikes in the weirdest way. They happen to have a good number of tattoos some of which have ancient Egypt spin on them. So it got me thinking I know there have been examples of tattoos in ancient Egypt but why don’t I do a little bit of a deep dive and see what I can find out? Figure 1: The American artist Nicole (Cole) Wilson had all of Otzi’s tattoos retouched on her own body as an art performance.  https://www.iceman.it/en/nicolewilsoneng/ The word tattoo comes from the word  ..read more

This week I thought I would do something a little different and have a look into something I have really only heard about in passing and have been a bit curious about. That being the Sun temples at Abu Gurob and how they connect to two iconic structures from ancient Egypt- the obelisk and the pyramid. Abu Gurob Figure 1: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/abughurab/map.html Abu Gurob is located on the west bank of the Nile between Giza and Saqqara and originally was known to travellers as the ‘Pyramid of Rihga’, although pyramids do not dominate the landscape here but the sun te ..read more

Now you may have heard of the famed ancient Egyptian architect Imhotep or if you are a fan of a certain set of films including 1932’s The Mummy and an early 2000s film franchise. But away from the Hollywood versions Imhotep was the Vizier and Overseer of Works of King Djoser and is credited as the creator of the step pyramid at Saqqara. The first Egyptian pyramid and the world’s first known monumental stone structure. To add to his resume, he was also later defied for his wisdom, medical knowledge and scribal skill so let’s find out a bit more about him, shall we?   Born during the 27th c ..read more

Pottery, Souls, Floods and the creation of the world all connect the subject of my blog this week, the ram-headed God Khnum ‘Potter of Mankind’ and ‘Lord of the Cataract’. Figure 1: Temple relief fragment of the god Khnum EA635 https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/Y_EA635 Appearance Figure 2: ‘Amun’ Ram- headed sphinxes at Luxor Temple – Authors Own Photo Khnum has been worshipped early on in ancient Egyptian history from the 1st Dynasty onwards until well into the Graeco- Roman period. Khnum is a ram-headed God with his principal cults on the island of Elephantine at Aswan where he ..read more

This week here in the UK we are celebrating the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II and so it has got me thinking about what a jubilee celebration for a pharaoh would look like. Luckily there is such a celebration recorded from ancient Egypt the Heb-Sed festival or more simply the Sed festival. Figure 1: An ebony oil label showing the Sed festival of King Den. In the top right-hand corner, you can see the king running between two boundary markers. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/Y_EA32650 Early Origins Figure 2: In this line drawing Pharaoh Djoser is seen running between two ..read more

I have spent a lot of time surrounded by books all about ancient Egypt so it feels only right that I introduce you to the goddess Seshat mistress of the library. As it is more than likely that as I write my blogs she would be the one to guide me. So let dive in and see how she connects libraries, the length of the king’s reign and the start of building projects together. Figure 1: The goddess Seshat shown on the back pillar of the colossal statue of Rameses II at the Temple of Luxor. https://www.flickr.com/photos/ckirie/33381782231 Seshat ‘She who is foremost in the library’ is represented as ..read more

What image do you conjure up when thinking of ancient Egypt? King Tutankhamun’s Deathmask, a mummy or just the pyramids at Giza? I bet somewhere mixed among those images is probably that of a Pharoah astride his noble chariot riding into battle.  But how did the chariot come to be a pivotal piece of ancient Egyptian military equipment and the mode of transport for the elite? That is what I will be looking at this week the innovation that was brought to Egypt the chariot. Where did the chariot come from?   A chariot consisted of a light wooden semicircular,open-back framework, furnish ..read more