Em Hotep! » Archaeology

Nefertiti: The Fight over an Iconic Egyptian Artifact Continues

Shemsu Sesen — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:18:11 +0000

Dr. Zahi Hawass has vowed to fight for the repatriation of the bust of Nefertiti, but as he prepares to pounce, the Germans brace for the battle. Like a couple of prize fighters circling the ring, the champion of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities and Dietrich Wildung, director of Berlin’s Egyptian Museum, have been sizing each other up for this October title fight.

When I interviewed Dr. Zahi Hawass on August 7, 2009, for Heritage Key I asked him about the famous bust of Nefertiti. Previous statements had indicated that the Egyptian position was that the German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt had used “unethical tactics” to acquire the statue. At that time Hawass stated that the evidence was being collected and that he would reveal it when he wrote a letter to the museum in Berlin demanding her return to Egypt.

But Germany, who has had possession of the bust since shortly after her discovery by Borchardt in 1913, and where she has been on display since 1923, considers the queen to be a part of their own “cultural heritage.” In an article that appeared in the August 20-26, 2009, online issue of Al-Ahram, Queen of Egypt’s heart, Wildung made it clear that Germany had no plans to relinquish the artifact.

“We could never be certain that she would arrive in good health,” Wildung told Al-Ahram. “The bust, which is made of limestone and thick layers of plaster, is very sensitive to vibration, shock, and any change of temperature, and is too fragile to travel.”

But travel she has. According to ABC News, Nefertiti Bust Moved to New Berlin Home [story no longer available], the bust of Nefertiti was moved on Sunday, September 4^th, “with the greatest care” from the Altes Museum to the recently restored Neues Museum, where she will go on public display on October 17, 2009. Granted, the Neues is just next door to the Altes, but it does raise the question of why an equal amount of care could not be exercised for a trip to Cairo.

A depiction of the Neues Museum circa 1862. It was destroyed during WWII but has been recently restored and will reopen October 17, 2009. From a lithograph by Eduard Gaertner.

According to an article appearing last week in Ria Novosti, Egyptian archaeologists to search for Cleopatra tomb, Hawass is supposed to send his letter demanding Nefertiti back this week. Given that she has just settled into her new “permanent home,” and that Hawass will be retiring from his position with the Supreme Council of Antiquities in less than a year, one is tempted to see his efforts with the bust of Nefertiti as purely symbolic. Dr. Hawass, no doubt, would protest that notion, and in his defense, Hawass is credited for having repatriated over six thousand artifacts for Egypt in the last seven years.

I promised back on September 25^th with our October Checklist that this was going to be an exciting month! Keep checking in with Em Hotep! for the latest.

Photographs ”Nefertiti berlin.jpg” by Zserghei, “Neues Museum Aegyptischer Hof.jpg” by ONAR are provided courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 License. In short: you are free to share and make derivative works of those files under the conditions that you appropriately attribute them, and that you distribute them only under a license identical to this one. Official license

Interview With Dr. David O’Connor of the Abydos Expedition

Shemsu Sesen — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:57:37 +0000

Dr. David O’Connor is the Co-Director of the Yale University-University of Pennsylvania-Institute of Fine Arts, NYU Excavations at Abydos, which just had their group symposium at Penn Museum on September 19, 2009.

I interviewed Dr. O’Connor for Heritage Key under my daytime name, Keith Payne. Dr. O’Connor offered his insights on such subjects as the Cult of Osiris, royal mortuary chapels, the excavation of an entire fleet of ships, and human sacrifice!

Read the interview at: Exclusive Interview: Dr David O’Connor of the Abydos Expedition.

The Bust of Nefertiti–Will She Ever See Her Egypt Again?

Shemsu Sesen — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:35:32 +0000

The Altes Museum in Berlin has certainly dug its heels in on this issue–Nefertiti’s iconic sculpture is now a “part of German cultural identity.” But what exactly does this fight over an Egyptian artifact obtained under very questionable circumstances communicate about Germany’s cultural identity?

Props go to Timothy Reid of The Egyptians for first blogging about the latest news in this on-going controversy. After you check out his scoop, Nefertiti Please Come Home, hop over to Heritage Key where I blog about this as well under my daytime name, Keith Payne: The Bust of Nefertiti – A Century-Old Archaeological Detective Story Nearing an End?

Zahi Hawass is going full court. We’ll see how far he gets!

Photograph ”Nefertiti berlin.jpg” by Wiki user Zserghei, is provided courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License. In short: you are free to share and make derivative works of those files under the conditions that you appropriately attribute them, and that you distribute them only under a license identical to this one. Official license

Lecture Review: Zahi Hawass’ Mysteries of Tutankhamen Revealed

Shemsu Sesen — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 01:16:24 +0000

More than two thousand Egyptophiliacs lined up outside Clowes Memorial Hall for what Director of Operations Karen Steele informed me was a sold-out house.

It would not be too much of an exaggeration to say the event had the feel of a rock concert. We were there to see a star. What secrets would he reveal tonight? What announcements would he make?

Shemsu scoops the news for Heritage Key.

I have already written about the interview with Zahi Hawass, which naturally was the main event for me. But Heritage Key also sent me to cover the event, Zahi Hawass’ Mysteries of Tutankhamen Revealed. It was an exciting night all around, and Dr. Hawass made several announcements.

What is the status of the probing of the “secret doors” inside Khufu’s Pyramid, and when can we expect an update? How far did he get with the Osiris Shaft? What is going on with the CT scans and genetic testing of Tutankhamen and his family?

Dr. Hawass addresses these questions and more, and I detail them in my blog entry on Heritage Key. Read about it here: Lecture Review: Zahi Hawass’ Mysteries of King Tut Revealed.

This is a separate article from the interview, so hop over and check it out. I can’t reproduce it in full here because it was written while on assignment, but I can say that I ruminate about who might rest in a new tomb to be revealed in October, 2009, and I discuss Hawass’ promise to reveal in one month some very, very interesting information about King Tut…

Shemsu’s Interview with Zahi Hawass

Shemsu Sesen — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:42:11 +0000

My interview with Zahi Hawass has been posted to Heritage Key!

Dr. Hawass’ plans for the near future.. Additional sites about to open to the public.. The secrets of the Great Pyramid.. Repatriation of stolen artifacts..

Read it here: Exclusive Interview with Dr. Zahi Hawass in Indianapolis

Photograph “Zahi_Hawass.jpg” is provided courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License. In short: you are free to share and make derivative works of the file under the conditions that you appropriately attribute it, and that you distribute it only under a license identical to this one. Official license

New Theory on the Great Pyramid

Shemsu Sesen — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 02:20:44 +0000

The Current issue of Archaeology (Volume 62 Number 4, July/August 2009) has a great article by Bob Brier regarding the theory first proposed by Jean-Pierre Houdin about the possibility of an internal ramp inside Khufu’s Pyramid.

The theory accounts for some anomalies in a microgravemetric survey couducted by French researchers in the 1980′s, and includes his trip up the side of the pyramid to explore the “niche”. He discovered an unexplored chamber right where you would expect one if his theory of an internal ramp was correct…

Archaeology was kind enough to put the entire article online. Read it here - Update: Return to the Great Pyramid.

Kingdom of the Dead: The Giza Plateau

Shemsu Sesen — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 06:13:59 +0000

It’s the northern tip of a vast cemetery that spans the desert from Memphis to Cairo. It’s the home of the Great Sphinx, scores of pyramids, and thousands of tombs. One of its features, the Great Pyramid, is the last remaining Wonder of the Ancient World, and the best minds still can’t agree on how it was constructed.

Welcome to the Giza Plateau, the only place on Earth that is recognizable from outer space because of a few 4,600 year old buildings.

The Liveliest Graveyard in the World

The Giza Plateau is a high desert plain adjacent to the southwestern suburbs of Cairo. Home of the Great Sphinx and the famous Giza Pyramids, the plateau is named after the small nearby town of el-Gizah. This most-famous of archeological sites is often envisioned as a remote and uninhabited stretch in the heart of the Sahara, but nothing could be further from the truth. The largest and busiest city in Africa abuts this ancient city of the dead, and everywhere you look someone is trying to sell you decorated papyrus, good luck scarabs, or bottled water.

Cairo as seen from the Giza Plateau (Photo by Keith Payne)

The views from the plateau range from ancient desert vistas to the encroachment of of modern Cairo. Look in one direction and you might see a camel corral. Look to the right and there is the causeway leading up to Khufu’s Pyramid, the last Wonder of the Ancient World. Look instead to the left and you are facing the skyline of a metropolis of seventeen million people. But when you are there, nothing, not even the many hucksters, can break the spell of the panorama unfolding around you.

Feeding time at a camel corral at the base of the plateau (Photo by Keith Payne)

The bank of a road leading from Cairo to the plateau (Photo by Keith Payne)

The Necropolis

The Giza Plateau is the northernmost part of the Memphis Necropolis, the burial grounds of the ancient capitol of Egypt. The Memphis Necropolis began in the area of Saqqara, which during the time of the First Dynasty was a cemetery for officials and servants of the Royal Court, with the royalty being entombed at Abydos. But by the Second Dynasty, kings were choosing Saqqara as their burial sites as well. Beginnig with the Step Pyramid of Djoser (Netjerikhet), first king of the Second Dynasty, the Memphis Necropolis was the preferred burial site of Egyptian Kings.

One of the many mesas of the Giza Plateau (Photo by Keith Payne)

The region was ideal for the ancient Egyptians, who took great care in their treatment of the dead. On the one hand, there were plenty of flat, solid surfaces for building pyramids and other royal mortuary structures out of fine limestone that could be quarried elsewhere and imported. On the other hand, the mesas and other local materials and features could be used to construct tombs for privileged non-nobility.

The area around Saqqara eventually began to suffer from a sort of urban sprawl of the dead, with tombs being built further and further north, and kings having to chose increasingly remote locations to have room to build the sort of funerary complexes that really got the attention of the gods. Pyramids as far afield as Dashur and Meidum were constructed, many on a larger scale than those of Saqqara. But the real granddaddy of pyramids would be raised on the Giza highlands.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu (Photo by Keith Payne)

The Pyramids and the Giza Cemeteries

There is evidence that as early as the First Dynasty Egyptians of means were being buried as far north as Giza, but it isn’t until the Fourth Dynasty that a king’s pyramid makes its appearance, and it was quite a debut indeed. The Great Pyramid of Khufu was built on a scale intended to outdo the Red Pyramid of his father, Snefru, at Dashur. It remains unsurpassed. Khufu’s pyramid would be followed by that of his son, Khafre, and the much smaller Pyramid of Menkaure. These three pyramids, while certainly not the only ones on the plateau, are collectively known as the Giza Pyramids.

The Giza Pyramids (Photo by Keith Payne)

Map of Giza Plateau (courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

The Giza Necropolis would come to be the primary burial grounds throughout most of the Old Kingdom period, with more than 6,000 tombs being located in the area. It can be roughly divided into two sections. The northern section is comprised of the Sphinx, the Giza Pyramids, and their related temples. This is further subdivided into the Eastern Cemetery and the Great Western Cemetery. The second part is the Southern Field, which consists of tombs of lesser nobles and high officials.

Lesser tombs in the shadow of the pyramids (Photo by Keith Payne)

The Great Western Cemetery lies to the west of Khufu’s Pyramid and is the resting place of high court officials and grand architects. One such master builder was Senedjemib-inty, whose tomb is pictured below. Senedjemib-inty was a vizier who served under Pharaoh Djedkare of the Fifth Dynasty. One of his titles is “Overseer of All Royal Works,” and many members of his family, also viziers and royal architects, have tombs in the Great Western Cemetery.

The tomb of Senedjemib-inty (Photo by Keith Payne)

The Eastern Cemetery is located to the east of Khufu’s Pyramid, and contains mostly tombs of Khufu’s family and favored servants, although esteemed court officials would continue to be buried there long after Khufu’s reign. Seshemnefer IV, for example, who lived during the Sixth Dynasty and bore the title “Secretary of all the king’s secret orders,” earned a place for himself in the Eastern Cemetery. His mastaba (tomb) is fairly typical of those in the Western and Eastern Cemeteries.

The tomb of Seshemnefer IV (Photo by Keith Payne)

The Giza Necropolis fell into disuse, and outright abuse, during the Middle Kingdom Period, which is when the pyramids and tombs suffered frequent plundering and destruction. The area experienced a revival during the New Kingdom, particularly during the Eighteenth Dynasty, when religious devotion centered on the Sphinx and the pyramids again came into vogue. This persisted even into the Late Period when the newly-popular cults of Osiris and Isis built shrines around the Sphinx. The area again fell to indignity beginning with the Ptolemaic Dynasty and lasting into the modern period, when tombs and pyramids were again subject to being robbed and stripped for materials.

The Solar Boat Museum

The Solar Barge of Khufu (courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

One of the more modern structures on the Plateau is the Solar Boat Museum. In 1954 Kamal el-Mallakh, an inspector working for the Department of Antiquities, discovered a complete disassembled cedar boat buried in a pit next to Khufu’s Pyramid. He had found evidence of something buried in the location four years earlier while surveying for a road, and suspected it might be a boat pit similar to those found at lesser pyramids, but wasn’t able to begin a serious excavation at that time.

Besides, the previous boat pits had already been plundered by the time they had been discovered, so Kamal’s discovery was low on the list of priorities.

The Solar Boat Museum next to Khufu's Pyramid (Photo by Keith Payne)

The boat, which included its original ropes and sails, was meticulously removed and in 1958 reconstruction began. It would not be completed until 1968. It is not certain whether or not the boat was ever in water or if it served a more ceremonial function. The Solar Boat Museum was built overtop the pit where the 4,600 year old boat was discovered, and has housed the boat since 1982.

History, Mystery, and Everything In Between

The Giza Plateau remains one of the most active archeological digs on Earth, and one where tourists, amateur Egyptologist, professional archeologists, royalty, peasants, mystics, and con-men freely intermingle on a daily basis. Everything is literally set in stone, and yet also in a constant state of flux. The very place where you haggled over the price of a bottle of water yesterday may be cordoned off tomorrow as the most important historical discovery in modern history. The proportion of everything is huge and under perpetual scrutiny, and yet everything the eye sees suggests even more lies hidden.

The Great Sphinx and Pyramids (Photo by Keith Payne)