The God statue Discovered in the First Ancient Egyptian Pyramid

During the restoration work of Djoser (Zoser) step pyramid in Sakkara, a bronze statue of the ancient Egyptian God Osiris was found.

The team working at the site discovered the statue during the restoration and preservation work of the west side of the pyramid.

Dr. Mostafa Waziry, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said that the statue was found inside a small hole (gap) between the large stone blocks of the pyramid’s façade while removing the debris.

The Statue represents God Osiris standing holding a feather in one hand and sceptre in the other hand wearing Atef crown. The statue has traces of gypsum in some parts.

The statue measures 63 cm height (2 feet and 1 inch) and 15 cm width at the widest part.

Mr. Sabry Farag, General Director of Sakkara antiquities, said that the statue dated to late period and it was probably put in this gap by one of the priests to keep it safe and as a symbol of Osiris relation to the resurrection.

Osiris statue is now at the restoration lab in Sakkara’s antiquities storehouse.

#Egypt #Cairo #Sakkara #StepPyramid #Pyramids #AncientEgypt #Osiris #Discovery #History #Saqqara

Mummy Curse Strikes Again: MSA Stops BYU Mission

The news spread all over about a million mummies cemetery unearthed at the site of Fag El Gamous in Fayoum where the mission of “Brigham Young University” directed by Dr. Kerry Muhlestein. This led to the decision made by the Ministry of Antiquities to stop the mission from working at the site again.

 (Screen shot of the article published by the Daily Mail online)

Luxor Times has contacted Dr. Muhlestein requesting an interview concerning the discovery and we received the following reply on Wednesday night “Because there have been too many requests from media sources to answer each request individually, I am sending each request this same statement.

We continue to excavate in Egypt and to study the results of past excavation seasons. Thus, all results are preliminary.

The cemetery is largely a Roman period cemetery, located in the Fayoum area of Egypt. The burials are not in tombs, but rather in a field of sand. The people in the cemetery represent the common man. They are the average people who are usually hard to learn about because they are not very visible in written sources. They were poor, yet they put a tremendous amount of their resources into providing beautiful burials.

The cemetery is densely populated. In a square that is 5 x 5 meters across and usually just over 2 meters deep, we will typically find about 40 burials. The cemetery is very large, and so far seems to maintain that kind of burial density throughout. Thus the math suggests that there are over a million mummies in the cemetery, though we cannot be certain of this without further exploration and a thorough academic review process.”

 

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein (Source: Youtube)

Today (Thursday), the ministry of antiquaries denied the “discovery of a million mummies cemetery” and made an official statement describing the published news as “rumors” and decided to stop any cooperation with the mission after the press statement were published in the Daily Mail.

So Luxor Times approached Dr. Kerry Muhlestein again and asked him what does he has to say about the Ministry decision to stop the mission and the statement of Dr. Youssef Khalifa.

Dr. Muhlestein responded in almost no time saying “I believe there have been some misunderstandings. I would like to work this out with the Ministry, for whom I have the greatest respect.”

Dr. Youssef Khalifa, head of Ancient Egypt department, said to Luxor Times on phone “What was published in the newspaper is not true. There are no million mummies, a mummy definition to begin with means a complete mummified body and there is only one mummy found at the site of Fag El Gamous in 1980 which is at the Egyptian museum since then.”  Dr. Youssef added “In the past few seasons of the mission’s work at the site, only poor skeletons were found and some thousands of bone’s remains. The mission violated the rules and regulations of the agreement with the Ministry of Antiquities concerning making press statements and that’s why the committee of the ancient Egypt department took the decision to stop their permission to work at the site after 28 years of working at the site and the last season finished last March.”

When we mentioned to Dr. Youssef that the director of the mission told Luxor Times that there have been misunderstandings, Dr. Youssef said “What was published was clearly stating wrong information and I think the Permanent Committee will also approve our department’s decision to stop the mission.”

 Dr. Youssef Khalifa

What did really happen? Was this announcement a publicity stunt from the mission? or the British newspaper will be blamed for publishing wrong information? or maybe the Ministry officials did not like that the announcement of such a discovery was made away from the Minister?

More will be revealed soon and till then, we hope that any misunderstandings or mistakes to be cleared as Egypt needs the work and cooperation of different institutions at the moment.

#Egypt #FagelGamous #AncientEgypt #BYU #Muhlestein #MinistryofAntiquities #History #Discovery #DailyMail

New discovery in the Valley of the Kings

Photo courtesy: Stefan Gerke

The Minister state of Antiquities, Mohamed Ibrahim said that a new discovery in the Valley of the Kings will be announced within few days. Is it the long waited for KV64 that Dr. Zahi Hawass was talking about how close to unearth it soon for at least 3 years?

In January 2011, Dr. Zahi Hawass said “We found some indication that this tomb could be for Ankhesenamun, the Queen of Tutankhamun,”

We will keep you updated ...

 Photo courtesy: Stefan Gerke

The Discovery of the Burial Shaft of the tomb of the priest, Karakhamun at Assasif

SCA Press Release:

An Egyptian-American expedition has found the burial chamber of a priest named, Karakhamun (TT223). The tomb dates to Dynasty 25 (c. 755BC) and was uncovered during conservation and restoration work on the west bank of Luxor. 

Farouk Hosni, Minister of Culture, announced this discovery today and added that the restoration work of this tomb is part of a much larger project known as the South Asasif Conservation Project (SACP). The el-Asasif area is a very important site, which contains nobles’ tombs from the New Kingdom, as well as the 25-26th Dynasties.
Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), said that the team found the burial chamber of Karakhamun at the bottom of an 8m deep burial shaft. The chamber is in very good condition and contains beautifully painted scenes. The entrance to the chamber is decorated with an image of Karakhamun and the ceiling is decorated with several astrological scenes, including a depiction of the sky goddess, Nut.

The leader of the expedition, Dr. Elena Pischikova, said that the tomb of priest Karakhamun was discovered in the 19th century in an unstable condition. It continued to deteriorate, and only parts of it were accessible to visitors in the early 1970s. Later it collapsed and was buried under the sand. Dr. Pischikova’s team rediscovered the tomb in 2006 and has been carrying out conservation work since then. She believes that the tomb of Karakhamun could be one of the most beautiful tombs from Dynasty 25 because of the preservation of the color and the unique quality of the scenes.

Egyptian papyrus found in ancient Irish bog

Irish scientists have found fragments of Egyptian papyrus in the leather cover of an ancient book of psalms that was unearthed from a peat bog, Ireland's National Museum said on Monday.
The papyrus in the lining of the Egyptian-style leather cover of the 1,200-year-old manuscript, "potentially represents the first tangible connection between early Irish Christianity and the Middle Eastern Coptic Church", the Museum said.

It will be on display June 2011

More information on the Museum site here

Wanted!!! Suspected robber of Van Gogh painting

Who draw it and how? Have a look Here

It’s your fault.... No, it’s your fault.... Time out, please!!!

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The Deputy Minister who is in custody now and the Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosni, pointing fingers of accusation to each other. The minister says that he didn’t know how bad the situation was in the museum and it is the Deputy Minister who is responsible for the museum and it is not his job as a Minister to go everyday to check how the work is going on at the museum. As a response from his custody, Mohsen Shallan, the Deputy Minister said that he asked the Minister for 40 million pounds to change all the security cameras and asked the Minister to close the museum as he can’t take that decision according to the law as the museum classified as an international museum and only the minister can take that decision. At the end the Deputy Minister said “What Farouk Hosni spent on his personal fruitless campaign for UNESCO would have solved all the museums’ problems.”