Permalink  30 July 2007

Egypt's Largest Pharaoh-Era Fortress Discovered, Experts Announce
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The largest known fortress from ancient Egypt's days of the pharaohs has been unearthed near the Suez Canal, archaeologists announced on Sunday.

The massive fortress, discovered at a site called Tell-Huba, includes the graves of soldiers and horses and once featured a giant water-filled moat, scientists said.

The discovery dates back to ancient Egypt's struggle to re-conquer the northern Sinai Peninsula from an occupying force known as the Hyksos.

The campaign against the Hyksos was depicted in etchings on the ancient walls of the Karnak Temple, 450 miles (720 kilometres) south of Cairo.

Archaeologists said the new find shows those stone-chiselled tales to be surprisingly accurate.

"The bones of humans and horses found in the area attest dramatically to the reality of such battles," said Zahi Hawass...

Egypt's Largest Pharaoh-Era Fortress Discovered, Experts Announce, Dan Morrison, National Geographic News, USA, July 27, 2007.

Previously:

Mammoth mud brick fort dating from the pharaonic period unearthed in Egypt, July 24, 2007.


#3011 posted by Mark Morgan on 30 July 2007, 5:48:27 PM  Permalink     comment [] trackback []

Added wrinkles make Nefertiti more beautiful
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Wrinkles improved the face of Nefertiti, the pharaonic Egyptian queen acclaimed as the world's most beautiful woman, German scientists have discovered.

The 3,000-year-old bust of Nefertiti is the greatest treasure at Berlin's Altes Museum.

X-ray pictures of the bust by a computer tomography machine at the nearby Charite Hospital in Berlin revealed that the sculpture is a piece of limestone with details added using four outer layers of plaster of Paris.

'We have discovered that the sculptor later added gentle wrinkles to her face, especially around the eyes,' said Dietrich Wildung, director of the Museum of Egyptology housed in the upper storey of the Altes Museum.

'The wrinkles make the image more individual and expressive...'

Added wrinkles make Nefertiti more beautiful, The Argentina Star, Argentina, July 30, 2007.


#3010 posted by Mark Morgan on 30 July 2007, 5:43:56 PM  Permalink     comment [] trackback []

Museum from Curitiba houses Egyptian mummy
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Every month, around 3,000 people visit the Egyptian Museum, on Nicaragua street, in Curitiba, capital of the southern Brazilian state of Paraná, to see the relics of the land of the pharaohs up close. The institution has a permanent exhibition of a mummy of an Egyptian who lived in Ancient Egypt. The body, nicknamed Tothmea, was supposedly a singer and musician who honoured goddess Isis, according to data supplied by the museum. The mummy arrived in the capital of Paraná state in 1995, as a donation from the Rosicrucian Museum of San Jose, California, which belongs to the Rosicrucian Order, a mystical and philosophical institution that also owns the Egyptian Museum in Curitiba.

According to the person responsible for the museum, Rodrigo Bontorin, the donation was made at the request of the institution. The mummy was nicknamed Tothmea in honour of pharaoh Thutmose, who governed Egypt in the 18th dynasty. It was discovered in a necropolis, ancient cemetery, in Thebes, in the second half of the 18th century. In the Egyptian Museum, the mummy is in a funeral chamber, similar to the ancient Egyptian tombs, with pictures of daily and religious scenes on the walls, made especially for Tothmea. The embalmed body is one of the main attractions of the Egyptian Museum of Curitiba.

Apart from the mummy, however, the museum houses 497 replicas of historic Egyptian artefacts like the bust of queen Nefertiti, wife of pharaoh Akhenaten, and objects of king Tutankhamun...

Museum from Curitiba houses Egyptian mummy, Isaura Daniel and Mark Ament, ANBA, Brazil, July 23, 2007.


#3009 posted by Mark Morgan on 30 July 2007, 5:41:37 PM  Permalink     comment [] trackback []