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For the earliest Egyptologists, a trip to the Egyptian Museum in Turin was considered indispensable. The museum's new director is seeking to return the almost 200-year-old museum to its one-time prominence, boosted by an overhaul of the collection and exhibit space of near-pharaonic proportions.

Museum director Christian Greco, who arrived in Turin 10 months ago, well into an ambitious five-year reinstallation of the museum's considerable treasures, aims to make the Egyptian Museum the second-most important in the world, after Cairo.

"Our museum needs to be back on the international scene," Greco said in an interview in front of the ancient Temple of Ellesjia on Tuesday, as the museum showed off its five-year, 50-million-euro ($53.6-million) reinstallation. `'For too many years we have been absent. For too many years, the focus has been on building and renovating the museum."

The museum, founded in 1824, is filled with treasures found in digs commissioned by Savoy kings and completed with the finds of Italian Egyptologist Ernesto Schiaparelli. The vast holdings include a captivating statue of Ramses II, one of the world's most important papyrus collections and nearly the entire contents of an architect's tomb dating back well over 3,000 years.

The large-scale renovations nearly doubled the space, allowing many artifacts to be taken out of storage and a more complete and modern exposition of those already on display. The museum remained open during the years of work, rotating closures of wings.

"It is a very important improvement from an archaeological and Egyptological point of view," said Guillemette Andreu, former director of Egyptology at the Louvre in Paris and member of the Turin Egyptian Museum board who toured the museum on Tuesday. She praised the chronological organization of the reinstallation from the 4th century B.C. to the Coptic period, new lighting and modern showcases.

Andreu said the Turin collection is unique because alongside masterpieces, it includes many objects that describe daily lives, funerary customs, religion as well as architecture and philosophy. "Even if you are not a scholar of Egypt, you can see how great this civilization was," she said.

The revamp puts the 6,500 objects on display in their archaeological context, transforming it from what Greco called `'an encyclopedia of Egyptology from A to Z," and includes 3-D films using historical photos that depict the moment of discovery.

"Turin has a fantastic collection and an incredible history, and to have it redisplayed in a modern museological way is fantastic," said Neal Spencer of the British Museum, who attended the Turin museum's opening and is on the advisory board. `'It is a very immersive experience. The collection really can tell the story of Egypt across several millennia."

The museum already belongs on the European itinerary of any Egyptologist, amateur or otherwise, along with the British Museum in London, the Louvre in Paris and the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection in Berlin. But Greco's ambition is to make it a more integral part of the scientific community, restoring its standing to the one it enjoyed when one of Egyptology's founding figures, Jean-Francois Champollion, famously declared: `'The road to Memphis and Thebes passes through Turin."

Greco, a 39-year-old Italian who was previously at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, the Netherlands, announced on Tuesday that the Turin museum in May will join an ongoing, 40-year-old dig in Saqqara, Egypt, that was founded by his former employer and the University of Leiden. Greco is also working on a coffin project with the Vatican and trying to organize a joint exposition of artifacts from the craftsmen's village of Medina with the Louvre.

"I suspect Greco has a lot of irons in the fire that are going to be very exciting that will be of real benefit to Egyptology and to world culture," said Kara Cooney at the University of California, Los Angeles, who will be traveling to Turin in June to look at the museum's coffins.

The museum is among the top 10 visited in Italy, with a record 567,000 visitors last year. Greco could like to increase that to more than 700,000. The opening of the expanded museum a month before the Expo 2015 world's fair in Milan, just a 40-minute train ride away, is expected to bring a boon in visitors, along with the rare exposition of the Shroud of Turin from April 19-June 24.

More information: 

EGYPTIAN MUSEUM: Turin, Italy. Tuesday-Sunday, 8:30 a.m.-7:30 p.m.; Sundays, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Full admission, 13 euros.

Author: Colleen Barry | Source: The Associated Press [March 31, 2015]

An incredibly rare gold crown estimated to be more than 2,000 years old was found in a tattered cardboard box under a retiree’s bed in England.

The elderly man— who wants to remain anonymous— says he inherited it from his grandfather and had put it away with other “stuff” he had accumulated over the years.

The perfectly preserved gold wreath, used in Ancient Greece to crown athletic and artistic competitions, as well as in religious ceremonies, could be worth more than $200,000, according to auctioneers who plan to put the item up for sale.

According to Guy Schwinge, the auctioneer who was invited to the man’s house to have a look at items he wanted to auction, “It is notoriously difficult to date gold wreaths of this type. Stylistically it belongs to a rarefied group of wreaths dateable to the Hellenistic period and the form may indicate that it was made in Northern Greece. It is eight inches across and weighs about 100 grams. It’s pure gold and handmade, it would have been hammered out by a goldsmith.”

Gold wreaths like the one found were meant to imitate the wreaths of real leaves that were worn in Ancient Greece in religious ceremonies and given as prizes in athletic and artistic contests.

They usually depicted branches of laurel, myrtle, oak and olive trees, which were symbolic of concepts such as wisdom, triumph, fertility, peace and virtue.

Due to their fragile nature, they were only worn on very special occasions. Many were dedicated to the Gods in sanctuaries or placed in the graves of royal or aristocratic people as funerary offerings.

Bits of dirt embedded on the wreath suggest this one was buried at some point, according to London’s Daily Mail, which first reported on the find.

Most date to the Hellenistic period (323BC to 31BC), which this one is also thought to date from, and show the exceptional skill of goldsmiths at that time.

Some were made during earlier periods but the wreaths became more frequent after Alexander the Great’s Eastern conquests, when gold was more available in Greece.

The current owner’s grandfather was a great collector who was fascinated by archaeology and the ancient world.

Although his family do not know how he acquired it, it is likely he bought it sometime in the 1940s when he travelled extensively.

The man said: ‘I knew my grandfather travelled extensively in the 1940s and 50s and he spent time in the north west frontier area, where Alexander the Great was, so it’s possible he got it while he was there. But he never told me anything about this wreath.”

“I inherited quite a lot of things from him and I just put this to one side for almost a decade and didn’t really think anything of it. Recently I decided I needed to sort through things and called in Duke’s (auctioneers) to have look at some of the items he’d passed on to me.”

Author: Gregory Pappas | Source: The Pappas Post [May 28, 2016]

A hoard of more than Anglo Saxon 5,000 coins have been unearthed, including what may be a unique penny. The discovery, near Lenborough, Buckinghamshire is said to be the biggest hoard of coins in modern times.

It includes a uniquely-stamped coin which may be the results of a mix-up at the mint, more than 1,000 years ago. No valuation has officially been placed on the coins, which have formerly been declared as treasure trove, but some experts believe they could be worth more than £1 million.

The 5,248 coins were found by metal detector enthusiast Paul Coleman on December 21 last year. He almost decided not to dig the site when his metal detector beeped, believing he had come across a hidden manhole cover.

However, his persistence was rewarded when he found the silver pennies, which were buried in two sets, possibly up to 15 years apart, based upon the dates imprinted on them. He told a treasure trove inquest in Beaconsfield: ‘I wasn’t going to go [hunting for treasure] but I was talked into it.

‘We looked at the aerial photos and chose a field because there were strange markings. We decided to leave the field because there was nothing in it. When the detector started beeping, it felt like the size of a manhole cover and that’s also what caused me to nearly not dig it up. Anything of that size is normally a manhole cover or a squashed bucket.’

Mr Coleman, who is 60 and retired, believes it was fate that caused him to wander over to where the hoard was buried. He chose a different route because choosing his Deus detector was receiving interference from one belonging to another member of the Weekend Wanderers metal detecting club.

He first found 985 coins dating from the reign of Ethelred the Unready in the 990s and a further 4,263 that were minted during the reign of his successor, Canute. The coins were taken to the museum in Aylesbury before then being sent to the British Museum for further analysis.

Brett Thorn, keeper of archaeology at the Buckinghamshire County Museum, told the treasure inquest: ‘Normally hoards are fairly small - 10 to 20 coins, something of that order. The largest came in the 1840s, containing 7,000 plus silver objects, and one was recorded in the late 90s. This find is the only modern one which is comparable to those.'

He believes the coins were buried on the way to a mint in Buckingham five miles (8km) away in order to be melted down and re-cast. New coins were minted every few years, with the holders of old coins having to pay a tax if they tried using them. Alternatively, Mr Thorn said the money could have been the savings of a single family over the course of 20 years.

Despite the age gap between some of the coins, he told the inquest: ‘There’s no doubt they were deposited at the same time.’ He said that one of the coins - an Agnus Dei coin containing a lamb and flag – is possibly unique.

‘It’s a mis-struck coin. The lamb should have on the reverse a dove of peace. This doesn’t; it has a short cross. Someone has made a mistake but it is still good silver. They still sent it out. It makes the coin a rare mistake among a group of unique coins.’

Such coins were issued towards the the end of Ethelred’s reign and were a plea to God to protect them from the Vikings. Just 30 Agnus Dei coins had ever been discovered and 25 of those were in Scandinavia. There have also been just 30 Saxon coins discovered in the area over the course of 150 years because most of them were taken back with the Vikings.

Recalling the moment the hoard was brought into the museum, Mr Thorn said: ‘It was just phenomenal. I came in on Monday morning and there was an email about a hoard of 5,000 coins. I thought it was a typo - you don’t get hoards of that scale, ever. I assumed it meant to say 50; even 500 would be exceptionally exciting.

‘It was a massive amount and I couldn’t believe the condition they were in. The ones I looked at initially were in excellent condition. The first thing we did was phone the British Museum and we drove them down to London that day. Word had spread around the department this was coming in and when we arrived everyone was going “is that the hoard?" They were as excited about it as we were. This is a massively significant find, which is why we were really pleased the British Museum said they were happy to let us have it. It’s the most sensible place for it - in Buckinghamshire, where it was found.’

The museum will need to raise a percentage of the coins’ total value in order to put them on display, with an official valuation expected tin the New Year. Mr Thorn said analysis of the coins showed they had been minted in 40 different locations around the country.

Some of the coins were inscribed with the name Coleman, prompting their finder to say: ‘I joked that the hoard had my name on it - I didn’t realise it literally did.

Mr Coleman, who lives in Southampton, Hampshire said: ‘The whole thing has been surreal the whole time.’ He has been pursuing his hobby for 50 years and said: ‘I’ve found Roman coins, medieval coins and quite a few medieval broaches, the stuff that keeps you interested. The biggest thrill is when you find the personal things like a brooch that an individual has worn - if only you could read the story that went with it. It’s like holding a bit of history.”

Peter Welch, who runs the Weekend Wanderers club, told the Buckinghamshire coroner: ‘This won’t be repeated. I have never had anything like this in 25 years of running the club.’

Coroner Richard Hulett ruled that the hoard should be counted as treasure after hearing the coins were made of more than 10 per cent silver - the minimum level needed to satisfy modern treasure laws.

A lead ‘basket’ which contained the coins - which fell apart during the excavation - was also ruled as treasure after fragments of it were preserved.

Author: Sarah Griffiths | Source: Daily Mail Online [November 04, 2015]

The magic world of ancient Egypt is honored at the Museum of Civilization, at Quebec, Canada, which presents an exhibition of some pieces of the most important Egyptian collections in the world.

Egyptian Magic allows visitors to explore the relationship of the Egyptians with magic, which, according to them, was identified to the origin of the universe.

According to the Egyptologist Michel Guay, to understand and appreciate this exhibition, the visitor must experience a universe where everything that is not known, scientifically rationalized or perceived “is sent to the world of gods, in the world the supernatural.”

“Here is a very simple example: the Egyptians did not know how to operate the solar system, so every night there was a concern on of whether the sun was about to rise or not. Consequently, the sun was deified and rituals were taking place to cause its rising up in the morning, “he says.

According to Guay, at that time, knowledge was in the hands of educated people who could intervene, to cure diseases. Since such knowledgeable individuals were not in contact with people from all the villages and all social classes, rituals and magical beliefs had been developed.

Amulets, figurines and other objects representing deities were thus manufactured, symbolizing protection.

“For example, women were getting help during childbirth birth because childbirth was risky. There was an attempt to intervene by using the forces of nature that had been deified. ”

Egyptian Magic has more than 300 objects of great value, some dating back 3,000 years. These works come from prestigious museums, including the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden Leiden, the Louvre in Paris, the British Museum in London and the Museo delle Antichita Egizie Turin.

The exhibition runs at the Museum of Civilization until April 10, 2016.

Source: Ici Radio Canada [August 03, 2015]

Unprecedented new details of medieval cities hidden under jungle in Cambodia near Angkor Wat have been revealed using lasers, archaeologists said Sunday, shedding new light on the civilisation behind the world's largest religious complex.

While the research has been going on for several years, the new findings uncover the sheer scale of the Khmer Empire's urban sprawl and temple complexes to be significantly bigger than was previously thought.

The research, drawing on airborne laser scanning technology known as lidar, will be unveiled in full at the Royal Geographic Society in London on Monday by Australian archaeologist Damian Evans.

"We always imagined that their great cities surrounded the monuments in antiquity," Evans told AFP.

"But now we can see them with incredible precision and detail, in some places for the very first time, but in most places where we already had a vague idea that cities must be there," he added.

Angkor Wat, a UNESCO World Heritage site seen as among the most important in southeast Asia, is considered one of the ancient wonders of the world.

It was constructed from the early to mid 1100s by King Suryavarman II at the height of the Khmer Empire's political and military power and was among the largest pre-industrial cities in the world.

But scholars had long believed there was far more to the empire than just the Angkor complex.

The huge tranch of new data builds on scans that were made in 2012 that confirmed the existence of Mahendraparvata, an ancient temple city near Angkor Wat.

But it was only when the results of a larger survey in 2015 were analysed that the sheer scale of the new settlements became apparent.

To create the maps, archaeologists mounted a special laser on the underneath of a helicopter which scans the area and is able to see through obstructions like trees and vegetation.

Much of the cities surrounding the famed stone temples of the Khmer Empire, Evans explained, were made of wood and thatch which has long rotted away.

"The lidar quite suddenly revealed an entire cityscape there with astonishing complexity," he said.

"It turned out we'd been walking and flying right over the top of this stuff for ten years and not even noticing it because of the vegetation."

Among the new scans already published are a detailed map of a huge city complex surrounding the stone temple known as Preah Khan of Kompong Svay, a series of iron smelting sites dating back to the Angkor era and new information on the complex system of waterways that kept the region running.

The new data also maps out the full extent of Mahendraparvata, information that will make future digs much more accurate and less time consuming.

"What we had was basically a scatter of disconnected points on the map denoting temple sites. Now it's like having a detailed street map of the entire city," Evans said.

Further maps will be published in the coming months, he added.

Long Kosal, a spokesman for the Apsara authority, the government body that manages the Angkor complex, said the lidar had uncovered "a lot of information from the past."

"It shows the size and information about people living at those sites in the past," he told AFP, adding further research was now needed to capitalise on the finds.

While the Khmer Empire was initially Hindu it increasingly adopted Buddhism and both religions can be seen on display at the complex.

Angkor is visited by hundreds of thousands of visitors a year and remains Cambodia's top tourist attraction.

For more information see the >Cambodian Archaeological Lidar Initiative website.

Author: Suy Se | Source: AFP [June 12, 2016]

The following is an open letter circulated yesterday (May 14) by Alexis Mantheakis, Chairman of the International Parthenon Sculptures Action Committee, on the recent developments in the Parthenon Sculptures issue:

Dear All,

The recent snub by the British government to UNESCO's offer to mediate in the issue of the Parthenon Sculptures dispute and the arrogant wording directed at the Greek government's often repeated offer to negotiate the matter by discussion confirmed our position that Britain never had the intention to enter into good faith discussions. As we had said in recent fora,  the only road we saw to possible success was one of legal action, with a direct and dynamic confrontation with Whitehall.

The recent response by Britain dissolved any illusions we had regarding the powers in the UK to be brought to do the right thing,  and to right a historical wrong.  We too had hoped that Britain would succumb to worldwide public opinion to correct an outrage,  the stripping and vandalising of the Parthenon of 60% of its famous millenia-old  Sculptures ,  a crime committed when Greeks were under occupation and unable to defend their archaeological heritage and national symbols of identity.

The latest declaration by the new minister of culture in the UK continues with the hard line of his predeccesors, namely that "The marbles were legally acquired according to the laws of the time. " So Mr Minister were 3 million African slaves, captured,  transported and sold,  "according to the laws of the time." Opium too was purchased and sold, in tons "according to the laws of the time". Those who did not agree to buy your opium had two wars declared on them,  and so China paid with the loss of Hong Kong and a treaty to buy your Indian grown opium.  This, Mr Minister, is NOT that time.  We are disputing your CURRENT possession of symbols of our heritage, removed from Athens and held by you in a totally government financed and controlled museum institution (all the board is appointed directly, or indirectly by the UK government or by the Queen).

This,  though,  is not the issue.

One more British government acting like  an infant  petulantly hugging another child's toy,  saying "It is mine, mine!"  is understandable,  because there is no home-made item that can compare in beauty,  artisanry,  historic or other value to those created  by a superior ancient civilisation.  We may understand the feeling,  and commiserate,  but that does not justify the possession of the looted Greek scultures taken from the Parthenon.  There is no justification for it.  We sympathise with the situation the British Museum is in,  but our sympathy doesn't extend to giving up iconic and defitive items of our heritage,  nor did our illustrious and talented predecessors in Ancient Athens build the Parthenon to have its facade torn off and damaged  by a British ambassador to decorate his Scottish residence. The Parthenon was built by Pericles and the Greek city states to commemorate the victory of Greek civilisation against the very type of barbarity  and lack of respect that Elgin indulged in 2300 years later.

The British position is well known and is in keeping with how official Britain has acted in the last few centuries.  To win in a contest the basic rule MUST be to understand your opponent and create your game strategy around this knowledge.

Anyone who has studied British history and politics will know that Britain NEVER,  but NEVER,  gives anything back unless forced to do so.  India, Cyprus,  as well as dozens of colonies of the Empire,  and other possessions acquired without the consent of the people, often with great bloodshed caused by British troops were only given back by Britain after a bitterly contested conflict,  on the field of battle,  in courts,  or with a series of extended non-violent political actions by those who had lost their heritage,  freedoms,  or historical archaeological treasures.  Britain today in its museums and in the Tower of London still holds numerous purloined and pillaged items as well as those taken by reason of  military superiority from a vanquished foe defending himself on his own soil.  The Kohinoor Diamond in the so called Crown Jewels  taken from a defeated 15 year old prince in India, is but one example. Manifest Destiny demanded it.  We oppose this way of thinking.

This lengthy introduction,  and I will apologise,  was to emphasise my conviction that dialogue for the return of the Parthenon Marbles, after so many valiant and polite efforts by Greece,  and its overseas friends in all walks of life,  is not a viable option,  and only  incurable romantics or people without an understanding of the official British character and its limitations can insist that this dead end is the road to the Restitution in Athens.

The problem is not the obduracy and intransigence of British officialdom.  It is a given, and we have to act  with that in mind.  It is with the very knowledge of the historic failure of Greek diplomacy,  both cultural and political,  and that of our own self-financed voluntary Parthenon organisations, to bring about the return, that it was encouraging when the Greek government,  that for 40 years has not asked Britain officially for the Sculptures return,  not long ago decided to involve an experienced and prestigious British legal firm Doughty Street Chambers led by George Robertson QC,  to represent our interests and to write a report regarding  what options were open for Greece to act.

Overall public awareness of the issue and additional sympathy for the Greek case was given very welcome boosts,  human nature being what it is,  by declarations of public support by celebrities such as George Clooney,  Matt Damon and others,  while a visit to Greece by Mrs Clooney with her senior colleagues at the UK law office created a media frenzy and a heightening of public interest in the Parthenon issue.  The Doughty Chambers law group produced a 140 page confidential report for the Greek government describing,  as leaked to the press,  5 options.  The one considered to have the highest chance of success was,  and this is no surprise to us,  for Greece to go immediately to the  European Court of Human Rights where,  according to the report,  there was  the greatest chance of a Greek legal victory.  The lawyers were specific: it is  now or never,  if the opportunity is  not to be lost with issues such as statutes of limitations in the near future killing Greek chances of recovery of the items through international court decisions.

In Greece,  as we all know there is a new government,  and the report was delivered to them.  With the understanding of the British penchant for intransigence,  fortified by the recent snub to UNESCO, and the history of failed attempts,  the new minister had a detailed road map in his hands,  to move forward,  with of course the support of millions around the world and at home.  Expecting his decision to do this,  using the British law firm and their international expertise and experience in cross border cultural issues we were stunned to hear the announcement of Under Minister Mr Nickos Xidakis,  a former journalist,  who announced,  in more words than these,  that " We will not go against Britain in court... This is a matter to be settled politically and diplomatically...this issue will be settled, bit by bit over, time..."

Looking at what the minister said let us examine the  viability of his declared course of action over that which the British lawyers and we ourselves at IPSACI believe,  and we all want the same thing ,  the return of the Parthenon Sculptures.

A) Mr Xidakis rejects the expert opinion of the British legal experts.  Claiming we may lose in court.  But for 200 years we have lost! We can only win,  or if we lose here, we can initiate a new legal action in another court.

B) Mr Xidakis says the issue can be won diplomatically.  The question is,  after 200 years of failed  diplomatic initiatives, is the government of Mr Xidakis in such a powerful international position to impose a solution using diplomacy? Does he know of Greek diplomats who can force Mr Cameron to sign a new law allowing/directing the Return of the Parthenon Sculptures?

C) Mr Xidakis told the press that the issue should be dealt with "politically" .  This is indeed one way countries settle disputes.  The assumption by lay persons like myself,  on hearing the Minister,  is that Greece at this moment has the political clout to bring the British Museum to its knees and to force Mr Cameron to sign the document of repatriation of the Sculptures to Athens. With all our goodwill towards Mr Xidakis, where does he draw this feeling of current Greek political power and superiority over Britain from?

D) Finally the minister says that this issue is being slowly resolved, "little by little".

But it has already been 200 years from the stripping of the friezes and metopes and Britain has not moved one centimetre in the direction Greece demands!

If the minister does not tell us why he feels his/our  government has the diplomatic and political power to solve the issue,  I very much fear that his position looks like a hot potato shifting of the issue to a future government because of  reluctance to take the bull by the horns,  as recommended by the UK lawyers, and get into court with his British counterpart.(Apologies for the mixed metaphors!)

I have a great fear that we are about to lose the Parthenon Sculptures for ever, and that the work of all our organisations, ministries,  diplomatic missions,  our volunteer supporters, and decades of dedicated work by people such as yourselves around the world, and in Greek and international  organisations are about to be lost down the drain.

I therefore beg those who believe that we must recommend to Minister Xidakis and his staff to listen to the recommendations of people and experts who know the issues well,  and understand the mindset of those walking the halls of Russell Square and Westmister,  to express their concern to the authorities in Greece.

Thank you for your patience in reading this long analysis of where I believe  we are today,  in view of the recent, and disturbing developments.

Best to all,
Alexis Mantheakis
Chairman of the International Parthenon Sculptures Action Committee Inc.
Athens office.
www.ipsaci.com
+(30)22990 47566

Archaeologists in London believe they may have uncovered a mass grave of plague victims buried beneath one of the city's busiest train stations.

The find at Liverpool Street Station is part of one of Britain's most important archaeological digs, with a team of more than 60 scientists working double shifts since March to excavate around 3,000 skeletons.

The bodies were interred in a cemetery attached to the notorious Bedlam mental asylum, with the site being used for burials for at least 170 years.

The name Bedlam, the byname for the Bethlehem Royal Hospital, became synonymous with disorder and confusion and its horrific conditions struck fear into the heart of Londoners.

The burial ground was used from 1569 to the mid-19th century for Bedlam's patients and local residents when other cemeteries became overcrowded.

Beneath the burial ground lies a Roman road where archaeologists have also uncovered a selection of Roman graves.

Jay Carver, the lead archaeologist on the dig, said the potential plague pit within the cemetery contained at least 30 bodies.

He said the mass grave showed signs of being from the time of the great plague of 1665, in which more than 100,000 Londoners died.

"Well the clue is we're certainly in an area of the burial ground that was definitely in use in the 1660s. Thereby we found a small headstone dated in 1665," he said.

"The scientific tests we can do on some of these individuals should tell us what they've died of. If it's bubonic plague and we get some other evidence in terms of dating these layers, we could well have an example of a plague pit from that great plague episode."

The remains interred at Bedlam cover an era of civil wars, Shakespeare, the Great Fire of London and numerous plague outbreaks.

Many of those buried were poor and parish records listed them as servants and apprentices.

None were wearing clothes but several coffin plates found indicate there were some more well-off people buried at the site.

>Crossrail archaeology: 360° video of suspected 1665 plague pit uncovered> at Liverpool Street [Credit: Crossrail Project]
Mr Carver said many of the remains had been disturbed because the burial ground was so crowded.

"There's so many on the site though that they are all intercutting and very often the grave digger was cutting across the remains of some previous victim, so there's a lot of disturbance to all the graves," he said.

While some remains had obvious injuries like blows to the skull, most causes of death had to be established in a laboratory.

"There's a huge amount of work to wash and prepare each skeleton and then inspect it very carefully for injury and disease," he said.

"You can sometimes see very obviously when someone's suffered from an infectious disease like syphilis which has affected their bones, particularly their legs."

He said the archaeologists working on the dig had been moved by many of the stories of those who they had unearthed.

"We've seen burials here of mother and child, very young infants [who] probably died in childbirth in fact. It's extremely poignant to see that stuff," he said.

The remains were initially discovered as part of construction work at the station and so once they are excavated they will be re-buried on an island in the Thames.

Source: ABC News Website [August 14, 2015]

The Greek government has finally acknowledged that the British Museum is the lawful owner of the “Elgin Marbles”. That, at least, is the logical conclusion of the recent news that Greece has dropped its legal claim to the Parthenon Sculptures.

The surprise announcement came only 48 hours after Amal Clooney and the team at London’s Doughty Street Chambers sent the Greek government a 150-page report admitting that there was only a 15% chance of their success in a British court, and that Greece should consider pursuing the claim at the International Court of Justice. However, quite understandably, the Greek government has decided that what Clooney is really saying is that they have no case.

The Syriza government is keenly aware that British courts are recognized the world over for their experience in resolving international disputes, including those involving British interests and institutions. So, quite reasonably, the new Greek government has concluded that an international court will probably not reach a different conclusion. Nikos Xydakis, culture minister, has therefore announced that Greece will drop its legal claim and pursue “diplomatic and political” avenues instead.

This is unsurprising, as — contrary to the widespread misconception — there was nothing illegal about the way in which Lord Elgin saved the Parthenon Sculptures from acute ongoing destruction. The mauling had started when the Greek church smashed up a large number of the ancient temple’s carvings in the fifth century. The Venetians then blew up chunks of the building in 1687. And in the 1800s, when Lord Elgin arrived in Athens, the occupying Ottomans were grinding the sculptures up for limestone and using them for artillery target practice.

Elgin had intended to commission casts and paintings of the sculptures, but when he saw firsthand the ongoing damage (about 40% of the original sculptures had been pulverised), he acquired an export permit from the Ottoman authorities in Athens, and brought as many as he could back to safety in Britain. It was a personal disaster which bankrupted him, but it has meant that, since 1816, the British Museum has been able to share with its visitors some of the best-preserved Parthenon Sculptures in the world.

What is usually missing in the emotion of the Elgin Marbles debate is that the British Museum is a universal museum, which tells the story of humanity’s cultural achievements from the dawn of time. In this, the work of the Ancient Greek department is world leading, and part of a network of museum classicists — including those from the New Acropolis Museum in Athens — who work together collaboratively, sharing their knowledge and passion for the classical world with the widest possible public.

Coincidentally, the British Museum (the nation’s largest tourist attraction) is currently hosting a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition of Greek sculpture, drawing on its own collection and generous loans from other museums all over the world to showcase the evolution of ancient Greek ideas about beauty and the human body. In this breathtaking visual story of the march of classical ideas about aesthetics, the Parthenon Sculptures take their place, contributing eloquently to the state of sculpture in the golden age of Athenian carving under Pheidias.

The overarching misconception we need to get over is that museum objects belong uniquely to the country in which they were created. If that was so, the world should empty out its leading museums of the foreign artefacts they have purchased or been donated. Athens would be no exception in this, and would be required to return their extensive collections of Egyptian, Chinese, Islamic, and South American art.

Of course, it is an absurd idea. The world is manifestly enhanced by museums and their depth of specialised knowledge. They are, above all, educational places that enrich us all. The fact that half the surviving sculptures from the Parthenon can be seen in Athens, with the remaining half split between London, Berlin, Munich, Würzburg, Copenhagen, the Vatican, and — thanks to the British Museum — the Hermitage in St Petersburg earlier this year, ensures that the widest possible audience is able to experience for themselves the unique and bewitching ability of fifth-century Athenians to convert rough stone into warm, living flesh.

Another page has turned definitively in the story of the Parthenon Sculptures. The idea that Lord Elgin or Parliament did something illegal has finally been dropped, and not before time. Now the debate can proceed in a less antagonistic manner, and everyone can acknowledge that it is a question of politics, not looted artefacts.

As the world has recently discovered from the tragic destruction of Assyrian art at Nimrud, Mosul, and elsewhere in the Middle East, the planet’s heritage does not last unless someone looks after it. And so far, in the case of the Parthenon Sculptures (and indeed its holdings of Assyrian sculpture), the British Museum continues to do the world an enormous service

Author: Dominic Selwood | Source: The Telegraph [May 14, 2015]

Some 80 km southeast of Cairo is the small village of Karanis, once one of the largest Graeco-Roman towns in Fayoum. It was established in antiquity by Ptolemy II Philadelphus, as part of a scheme to settle Greek mercenaries among indigenous Egyptians and exploit the fertile Fayoum basin.

Karanis flourished until the end of the 3rd century CE, when the town started to decline due to troubles in the wider Roman Empire. The town was abandoned by the beginning of the 5th century, as part of momentous socioeconomic, political and religious changes taking place throughout the Mediterranean region.

The site was forgotten, buried by the sands, until the early 19th century when farmers unearthed papyri among organic debris left by the ancient inhabitants. It is these papyri, suitably conserved and restored, that have now been put on display at the Egyptian Museum.

Archaeological excavation, led by British Egyptologist Bernard Pyne Grenfell and papyrologist Arthur Surridge Hunt, started in Karanis in 1895. However, they did not continue their work, deciding that the site had been too plundered in antiquity to produce anything of value. The few papyri and artefacts they stumbled upon were not considered important enough to lead to a better understanding of the history of the site during the Graeco-Roman period.

In 1924 the archaeological rescue of the site began, continuing for the next 12 years under the leadership of an American mission from Michigan University directed by Francis W Kelsey. Two temples, residential houses and urban districts were discovered, along with cisterns, public baths and a collection of household objects of different shapes, sizes and materials. A large collection of papyri, now exhibited at the Kelsey Museum in Michigan in the US, was also unearthed.

The papyri are historically significant as they provide an idea of the lives led by the town’s inhabitants in ancient times, as well as of Egypt’s relationship with the Roman Empire. The papyri were written at the same time and unearthed from the same place, all of them written in Greek and dating to the period between the reign of the emperor Diocletian and the 370s CE.

“It is the dry climate of Karanis which preserved these papyri,” said German papyrologist Cornelia Römer, who noted that although the papyri had been taken to Michigan the university had given part of the collection back to Egypt in 1952. This part was then put in storage at the Egyptian Museum and had not been closely studied.

In 2010, Römer came to Egypt for excavation work in Fayoum, in an area called Filoteris, five km from Lake Qarun. She hoped to investigate drainage systems used in Fayoum during the Graeco-Roman period. But due to her interest in papyri and her desire to promote papyrology in Egypt, Römer started to study the Karanis papyri, often known as the Michigan papyri.

In collaboration with young restorers at the Egyptian Museum, Römer started conservation work on the papyri, which are of different sizes and in different conditions of conservation. Some of them are tiny fragments in a poor state of conservation, while others are larger and in a much better condition.

Romer then published the results of her work in collaboration with professors from Alexandria University and Cairo and Ain Shams Universities in Egypt.

“When I came face to face with the papyri, I was very excited as I could not have expected what I would find,” Römer told the Weekly. Her work concentrated on a group of papyri found in the house of a man called Socrates who lived in the 2nd century CE. He was a tax collector who went door to door to collect money from people for the Roman state.

“We knew his profession from papyri found inside his house, which include long lists of names and numbers,” Römer said, adding that he kept a register of who had paid what in the village. Studies of these lists revealed that people had to pay taxes for baths and guards, among other things. Tax rates were the same for everybody and did not depend on income.

The papyri show that Socrates was a rich man who gained a lot from his profession. In Roman times, Römer said, a tax collector typically took more than he needed to remit to the state. “Obviously, he was a clever and rich man in the village,” Römer said, adding that he lived in a large house located in the best area, was married, and had two sons and a daughter.

“From the names of Socrates’s family and the names written in the tax lists, we also know that ancient Karanis was a multicultural society,” Römer said. While Socrates bore a Greek name, his wife and two sons had Roman names, while his daughter had an Egyptian name and her husband had a Roman name. The names written on the lists are in Latin, Greek and Egyptian.

Römer said that when Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in 332 BCE Egypt became part of the Hellenistic world. His former general, Ptolemy, established a Greek-speaking dynasty in the country that then ruled it for the next 300 years. Even after the beginning of Roman rule in 1st century BCE, tens of thousands of Greek-speaking people lived in Egypt, working in the army and administration of the country.

The Ptolemies created new settlements for the newcomers, including in Fayoum, a depression centred on Lake Qarun south of Cairo. A sophisticated system of canals and dams was built to lower the level of the lake. “Thousands of new fields were created and Fayoum was declared a new settlement to host the new settlers,” Römer said, adding that the town of Karanis was among these new settlements.

Study of the papyri show that the number of inhabitants in Karanis reached 1,500 people, two thirds of whom were Egyptians and one third Greek. In the 2nd century CE, when Socrates lived, the population reached nearly 4,000 people.

Along with tax records, Römer said that literary papyri had also been found. It seems that in order to fit into society in Karanis, Socrates thought it important to hone his Greek culture and read classical Greek literature.

“We found papyri of poems written by the Greek poet Homer and Greek plays written by the dramatist Menander who lived in 300 BCE,” Römer said. She added that this highlights the fact that people continued to read Menander’s comedies 450 years after they were written. Ancient Greek comedy “always has a happy ending,” Römer said. As well, fragments of a play called “A Man on Trial” were found.

She continued to say that among the papyri at the Egyptian Museum is a love letter written by an unidentified woman, as well as notifications of death and complaints about robberies. Among the latter was one presented by a man who was attacked and beaten on the road, and another by a farmer who lost some of his harvest to thieves.

“Studying these papyri has taken us deep into the daily life of this society,” Römer said. It has even been possible to identify the type of clothes people wore. One text complaining of a robbery said that a man broke into the author’s house and stole boxes of clothes, she said.

“Living standards in Karanis were lower than in Alexandria, the capital of Egypt at the time, but the inhabitants tried to imitate the life of the capital nonetheless,” Römer said.

The Greek comedy that Socrates had been reading was to the taste of people living in rural areas, whereas in Alexandria, tragedies considered too difficult for people in the provinces would have been read. “However, the existence of such literary texts indicates that residents were keen to show themselves to be well educated in Greek,” she added.

A medical handbook from the first century CE showing surgical techniques was also found. Part of it shows a dislocated shoulder and the recommended treatment to fix it. “This piece is a section of a papyrus roll and the other part is in the British Museum in London,” Römer told the Weekly.

The papyri will now be on display for three weeks in the temporary exhibition hall at the Egyptian Museum. The display includes information about Socrates and his family, his library and the excavation work carried out.

Clay and bronze statues depicting Greek and ancient Egyptian deities found in the houses of the town’s inhabitants are also on show, along with glass vessels of different shapes and sizes.

“I am very happy with the results of the collaboration with Egyptian restorers, and I aim to continue studying the rest of the Karanis papyri,” Römer said.

Author: Nevine El-Aref | Source: Al Ahram Weekly [February 12, 2015]

The new temporary exhibition “A dream among splendid ruins... Strolling through the Athens of travelers, 17th-19th century” was designed to provide an imaginary stroll through monumental Athens between the 17th and 19th centuries. Our companions on this stroll are the European travelers who undertook the “Grand Tour” to the capital city of Hellenism and who, inspired by the movement of Classicism, recorded the “splendid ruins” of its historical past.

Twenty-two illustrated travel publications and twenty-four original works of art — oil paintings, watercolors, and engravings from the Library collections of the Hellenic Parliament — offer landscapes, images, monuments, and specific moments from the Athens of travelers, feeding our imagination and setting starting-points for our own, personal readings. Thirty-five marble sculptures from the National Archaeological Museum, many of them presented here for the first time, converse with the travelers’ works, complementing their charming narrative of the city’s monumental topography. The museum experience is supplemented by music from the travelers’ homelands as well as by Greek music such as that recorded by the French composer and music theorist L.A. Bourgault-Ducoudray during his visit to Athens in 1874-1875.

The cultural environment in which European traveling flourished was directly linked to the intensification of the study of classical antiquity and systematization of archaeological research. Integrated into the same context is the formation of the first private archaeological collections and archaeological museums in Europe, as well as the dark side of traveling — the “mania” for antiquities and their plundering —, both of which increased the awareness of the newly-formed Greek state and led to the establishment of a national policy for the protection of antiquities and creation of archaeological museums.

The exhibition was organised with the cooperation of the Hellenic Parliament Library. Into the total of 76 exhibits are included works of sculpture and archive records from the National Archaeological Museum, along with etchings, paintings and illustrated editions from the Collection of Artworks and the Library of the Hellenic Parliament. Works of art on loan from the Museum of the City of Athens and the General State Archives of Greece also feature among the exhibits.

The exhibition is enriched with digital applications that enhance visitors’ sense of direction around the monumental landscape of the city, enable them to leaf through pictures of illustrated books on display, offer them the opportunity to glimpse into the everyday life of the city, as this comes alive with the aid of technology, and to reflect back, by way of images, photos and selected extracts from travelers’ texts as well as those of institutional representatives of the new Greek state, on the relationship people who lived then in Athens, permanently or temporarily, had with antiquities. The exhibition is accompanied by a scholarly catalogue in Greek and in English published by the Archaeological Receipts Fund.

Finally, this temporary exhibition can be seen as the precursor of an important approaching anniversary. In 2016, the National Archaeological Museum will celebrate 150 years since its foundation. The new exhibition of the National Archaeological Museum brings out the incipient cultural environment to which the Museum owes its foundation, while the long chronicle of the museum’s founding, character, history, and activities, so closely bound with the modern history of Greece, will be unravelled in a series of upcoming events.

The first one is now presented in a separate hall adjacent to the exhibition of the Travelers. It is a special visual installation the artistic curation of which was undertaken by Andonis Theocharis Kioukas. Enriched with music and film projections, the installation makes use of old showcases from the first years of the Museum’s operation, subtly making an effort to elucidate the secret thread that connects all those that the National Archaeological Museum carries in its entrails and transports through time functioning as an ark of concepts and universal values.

The exhibition will run until 8th October, 2016.

Source: National Archaeological Museum [September 12, 2015]

The Museo Civico Archeologico is hosting Egypt. Millennia of Splendour. Beneath the two towers, the splendour of a civilisation that lasted thousands of years and has always fascinated the entire world, has sprung back to life: the Egypt of the pyramids, pharaohs and multiform gods, but also that of sensational discoveries, captivating archaeology, passionate collecting and rigorous scholarship.

The exhibition ‘Egypt’, which is being held at the Museo Civico Archeologico in Bologna, is not just an exposition of high visual and scientific impact, but also an unprecedented international enterprise: the Egyptian collection of the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, Netherlands – among the top ten in the world – and that of the Bologna museum – among the most important in Italy for the quantity, quality and state of conservation of its collections – have been brought together in an exhibition space measuring around 1,700 metres, filled with art and history.

500 finds, dating from the Pre-Dynastic Period to the Roman Period, gave been brought from the Netherlands to the Bologna museum. And, together with the masterpieces from Leiden and Bologna, the exhibition also includes important loans from the Museo Egizio in Turin and the Museo Egizio in Florence, creating a network of the most important Italian museums.

For the first time, the masterpieces of the two collections are being displayed side by side, including the Stele of Aku (Twelfth–Thirteenth Dynasty, 1976–1648 BC), the ‘major domo of the divine offering’, with a prayer describing the otherworldly existence of the deceased in a tripartite world divided into sky, earth and the beyond; gold items attributed to General Djehuty, who led the Egyptian troops to victory in the Near East for the great conqueror Pharaoh Thutmose III (1479–1425 BC); the statues of Maya, superintendent of the royal treasury of Tutankhamen, and Merit, a chantress of the god Amun, (Eighteenth Dynasty, reigns of Tutankhamen and Horemheb, 1333–1292 BC), the most important masterpieces in the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden have left the Netherlands for the first time for the Bologna exhibition; and, among the numerous objects attesting to the refined lifestyle of the most wealthy Egyptians, a Mirror Handle (1292 BC) in the shape of a young woman holding a small bird in her hand.

Lastly, for the first time 200 years after the discovery of his tomb in Saqqara, the exhibition offers the unique and once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the important Reliefs of Horemheb reunited: Horemheb was the head commander of the Egyptian army during the reign of Tutankhamen, then rising to become the final sovereign of the Eighteenth Dynasty, from 1319 to 1292 BC and the reliefs are divided between the collections in Leiden, Bologna and Florence.

Thousands of years of the history of a unique civilisation revealed in a major exhibition that brings together masterpieces from important world collections and tells of the pyramids and pharaohs, the great captains and priests, the gods and other divinities, and the people that made Egyptian history and that, thanks to discoveries, archaeology and collecting, never stop enchanting, revealing, intriguing, fascinating and charming generation after generation.

The Seven Exhibition Sections

The Pre-Dynastic and Archaic Periods – At the Origins of History: The transition from raw material to form, from the oral tradition to the written one and from prehistory to history was a fundamental moment for Egyptian civilisation. The Leiden collection is rich in materials documenting the central role played by nature during this long cultural and artistic evolution.

The exhibition opens with a selection of these objects, which are strikingly modern in style, including a vase from the Naqada IID Period (named for a site in Upper Egypt and datable between 3375 and 3325 BC) decorated with ostriches, hills and water motifs. The scene depicted on this vase takes us back to an Egypt characterised by a flourishing landscape later changed over time by climatic changes. Ostriches, here painted red, along with elephants, crocodiles, rhinoceros and other wild animals were common in the Nile region at the time.

The Old Kingdom – A Political/Religious Model Destined for Success and its Weaknesses: The historic period of the Old Kingdom (from the Third to the Sixth Dynasty, roughly between 2700 and 2192 BC) is known for the pyramids and for the consolidation of a bureaucracy at the apex of which stood an absolute sovereign, considered a god on earth and lord of all of Egypt.

This definition of State and its worldly and otherworldly rules, which were highly elitist, are well documented by funerary objects, of which the Leiden museum has a particularly rich collection, including a calcite (alabaster) table for offerings.

Offerings to the deceased were a fundamental part of the funerary ritual, ensuring life after death. The uniqueness of this table, which belonged to a high state official named Defdj, lies in its circular shape, which was unusual, as well as the repetition of the concept of the offering as indicated by the inscription, the sculpted receptacles and, most importantly, the central depiction corresponding to the hieroglyph hotep (offering), or a table upon which one places a loaf of bread.

The Middle Kingdom – The God Osiris and a New Perspective on Life in the Afterworld: The end of the Old Kingdom and the period of political breakdown that followed it led to major changes in Egyptian society, within which the individual had greater responsibility for his own destiny, including in the afterworld. Any Egyptian with the means to build a tomb complete with a sufficient funerary assemblage could now aspire to eternal life. The god Osiris, lord of the afterworld, became Egypt’s most popular divinity.

Many steles now in Leiden and Bologna came from his temple in Abydos, one of Egypt’s most important cult centres. Among them is that of Aku, major domo of the divine offering, who dedicated the stele to Min-Hor-nekht, the form of the ithyphallic god Min worshipped in the city of Abydos. Aku’s prayer to the god describes an otherworldly existence in a tripartite world: the sky, where the deceased were transfigured into stars, the earth, where the tomb was the fundamental point of passage from life to death, and the beyond, where Osiris granted the deceased eternal life.

From the Middle to the New Kingdom – Territorial Control at Home and Abroad: The defeat of the Hyksos, ‘princes from foreign lands’ who invaded and governed northern Egypt for a few generations, marked the beginning of the New Kingdom. An extremely aggressive foreign policy enriched Egypt, and this was one of its periods of greatest splendour. The social class of professional warriors rose to the top of the state hierarchy and spawned a number of ruling dynasties.

The wealth and prestige of these soldiers was also expressed in the production of sophisticated objects, including the gold items attributed to Djehuty, a general under the pharaoh Thutmose III. The Egyptian goldsmith’s art has survived in works of high artistic and economic value, an example being the pectoral element on view in the exhibition.

This piece is a sophisticated exemplar attributed to the tomb of General Djehuty, the man to whom the sovereign Thutmose III entrusted control of his foreign territories. Representing a blue lotus flower, a symbol of rebirth and regeneration, it must have served as the central element of an elaborate pectoral. The scroll engraved on the back suggests that the piece was given personally by Thutmose III.

The Saqqara Necropolis of the New Kingdom: The Leiden and Bologna museums can be considered ‘twins’ in a certain sense, since they house two important groups of antiquities from Saqqara, one of the necropolises of the city of Memphis. During the New Kingdom, this early Egyptian capital returned to its role as a strategic centre for the expansionist policy of the sovereigns of the Eighteenth Dynasty.

This is seen in the funerary monuments of high state officials who held administrative, religious and military roles, including the tombs of the superintendent of Tutankhamen’s royal treasury, Maya, and his wife, Merit, chantress of Amun, and that of Horemheb, head commander of Tutankhamen’s army and the pharaoh’s crown prince.

The statues of Maya and Merit arrived in the Netherlands in 1829 as part of the collection of Giovanni d’Anastasi. More than a century and a half would pass before, in 1986, a British/Dutch archaeological expedition identified the tomb from which they came, southeast of the pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara. These statues, which are the greatest masterpieces in the collection of the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, left the Dutch museum for the first time to be displayed in the exhibition.

It should be noted that, when the Egypt Exploration Society of London and the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden began excavation work southeast of the Djoser pyramid in 1975, the goal was to find the tomb of Maya and Merit. It was therefore a great surprise when they instead discovered the burial of General Horemheb, who had capped off his stunning career by becoming the last sovereign of the Eighteenth Dynasty.

His tomb, which has a temple structure, is characterised by a pylon entrance, three large courts and three cult chapels facing onto the innermost court, which has a peristyle structure. This court is where most of the reliefs preserved in Leiden and Bologna were found, narrating Horemheb’s most important military feats against the populations bordering Egypt: the Asians, Libyans and Nubians.

The New Kingdom – Prosperity after the Conquest: Refined furnishings, musical instruments, table games and jewellery: these are just a few of the luxury goods attesting to the widespread prosperity enjoyed in Egypt as a result of the expansionist policy of the sovereigns of the New Kingdom. Through these sophisticated objects, it is possible to conjure up moments of everyday life, imagining what it was like living inside a royal palace or the residence of a high official. One example in the exhibition is a mirror handle in the graceful, sensual shape of a young women holding a small bird in her hand.

Egypt in the First Millennium: In the first millennium BC, Egypt was characterised by the increasingly clear weakness of its central power to the advantage of local governors who gave themselves the role of ruling dynasts. The loss of political and territorial power weakened Egypt’s defence capacity at its borders, opening the way for Nubian, Assyrian and Persian invasions. The temples remained strong centres of power, and managed a sizeable portion of the economy and the transmission of knowledge, taking on the role of a political intermediary between the ruling power and the devout populace.

Many of the masterpieces on view in the exhibition were part of the funerary assemblages of priests and came from important temple areas. Among them is the sarcophagus of Peftjauneith, which represents the likeness of the god Osiris, wrapped in a linen shroud and with a green face evoking the concept of rebirth. The refined decoration of this sarcophagus confirms the high rank of its owner (the superintendent of the possessions of a temple in Lower Egypt) in the temple sphere. Of particular note is the interior scene of the sky goddess Nut swallowing the sun every evening (to the west) to then give birth to it in the morning (to the east).

Alexander the Great’s conquest of Egypt in 332 BC ended the ‘pharaonic’ phase of Egyptian history. The period of Greek domination was begun by his successors, the Ptolemies, the last of whom was the renowned Cleopatra VII.

The golden decline of Egypt would continue for many more centuries, beyond the Roman conquest in 31 BC up to Arab domination in the sixth century AD.

The dialogue between old and new, local and foreign that distinguished the Greco-Roman period brought a return to high artistic achievements, including the celebrated Fayum portraits, exquisite examples of which from the Leiden collection are on view in the exhibition

Source: Museo Civico Archeologico in Bologna [October 19, 2015]

French President Francois Hollande and archaeological officials have used an exhibit in Paris of two preserved ancient Egyptian cities as a defiant example that the world will not be cowed by Islamic State militants who recently destroyed ancient Syrian heritage sites in Palmyra and killed a local archaeologist.

The exhibit at Paris' Arab World Institute, Osiris, Egypt's Sunken Mysteries, presents about 250 ancient objects that were recovered after a French archaeologist discovered the legendary cities Thonis/Heracleion and Canopus underwater over a decade ago.

Much like the mystery of ancient Atlantis, the cities had been lost somewhere between myth, history and legend — that is, until French archaeologist Franck Goddio made his landmark discovery in 2000 uncovering the sites in their watery grave near Alexandria. They had miraculously been preserved by sea sediment for nearly 2,000 years.

"This exhibit is an incredible achievement," Goddio told The Associated Press. "For years, these cities seemed lost to the world — submerged because of natural calamities like earthquakes and big tides... And now here they are — being shown to the public for the first time. Some objects only came out of the water last year and others have never left Egypt before."

The underwater excavation is ongoing with a team of 50, and Goddio estimates that only as little as 3 percent of the ancient cities have been uncovered so far.

Hollande, who inaugurated the exhibit this week, alongside the Egyptian minister of antiquities and minister of tourism, said that the message of this exhibit went far beyond Egypt — and said it showed how the will to preserve world heritage is stronger that the wish to annihilate it.

"This exhibit is a message, a fighting message that we have preserved these artifacts, a message of hope at a time when the Middle East is undergoing such drama," he said.

In the last weeks, Islamic State militants destroyed the two-millennia-old temple of Bel, The Temple of Baalshamin, as well as three ancient tower tombs in the central city of Palmyra — what UNESCO has called an "intolerable crime against civilization."

Hollande also paid his respects to the "sacrifice" of Khaled al-Asaad, the former director of the destroyed Palmyra heritage sites and one of the most important pioneers in Syrian archaeology in the 20th century, who was killed by Islamic State militants.

The exhibit was presented in collaboration with the Egyptian government, with officials keen to use this as a way to show that there's another face to the Arab world as the one being projected by militants.

"What is going on in Syria, like the destruction of Palmyra and in Iraq, this kind of thinking is not the real beliefs of the area. This exhibit shows it. This preservation of culture here in Paris shows that it's just a minority who somehow took the lead that are doing this damage," said Mohamed Abdelmaguid, the general director of the Central Department of Underwater Antiquities in Egypt.

The many thousands expected to visit the Osiris exhibit in the coming months, as it travels to London's British Museum, might not be drawn for their knowledge of current affairs, and be just be attracted by beauty of the artifacts.

The objects — like a beautiful and imposing 5-meter (16-feet) granite statue of the god Osiris, tools, and ritualistic objects — are in often near-perfect condition, and offer a rare public glimpse into the vast achievements of the ancient world.

The exhibit runs until Jan. 31.

Author: Thomas Adamson | Source: Associated Press [September 10, 2015]

Eight hundred years ago, one of the world's most important documents was born. Issued by King John of England in 1215, the Magna Carta ("Great Charter") acknowledged the rights of citizens and set restrictions on the power of the king. The Magna Carta has influenced the structures of modern democracies, including the writ of habeas corpus of the U.S. Constitution.

Thanks to meticulous comparative handwriting analysis, Stanford literary scholar Elaine Treharne has uncovered new information about who wrote one of the last four surviving original versions of the 1215 Magna Carta, preserved at England's Salisbury Cathedral.

Scholars have long thought that the Magna Carta was issued by the king in the Chancery, the king's central court, written by his scribes there and then sent out to other locations in the shires, or counties, of England.

According to Treharne, her research suggests the Salisbury Magna Carta was not just received and preserved at Salisbury, but that the Salisbury Magna Carta was written at Salisbury by one of the cathedral's own scribes. She recently co-published her findings with University of Glasgow historian Andrew Prescott.

Treharne, a professor of English at Stanford, says that knowing about this difference in authorship "changes the way we think about the transmission of texts in the Middle Ages from the court."

Instead of the charter being something passive that the king produced and sent out from the central court to be put away in satellite locations, Treharne says versions of the charter "were written in the regions and then taken to the court for sealing by the king's Great Seal."

This reconfiguration of the Magna Carta's path signals "a much more proactive relationship between institutions and king," the scholar says. "It makes us look again at the role of the church in relationship to the king. They become much more partners, really, in the production of texts."

Painstaking work

Treharne made the unexpected discovery while working on a larger project profiling the rich archive of Salisbury Cathedral. She was analyzing texts in a book that belonged to Salisbury in about 1215 or 1220 when she noticed "that a couple of the scribes' work in that book looked very similar to that of the Magna Carta scribe."

In particular, she noted similarities in the handwriting of the Salisbury Magna Carta and a document called the Register of St. Osmund, which contains regulations, charters, writs and other documents pertaining to the cathedral.

Through her work on the Salisbury archive and other long-term projects such as Stanford's initiative Text Technologies, Treharne pursues her fascination with the history of documents and the development of texts and handwriting from the Middle Ages to today's digital texts.

The archive at Salisbury has not been digitized, so Treharne has been traveling there from Stanford for several years to examine the documents firsthand.

The scholar says she first noticed similarities between the Register of St. Osmund and the Salisbury Magna Carta through her overall visual impression of the manuscripts. Then, she says, came the most painstaking part of the process: the "accumulation of proof" through a meticulous, letter-by-letter handwriting comparison.

"You would truly begin with an 'a,' and look at the 'a,' and the way that it was formed with a pen, and then move to the 'a' of the other document and look at the 'a' there."

Treharne proceeded to do the same for the whole alphabet in lower case and upper case. She says she then examined the punctuation, abbreviation, "the angle of the pen and the number of strokes for each character. So it's really incredibly painstaking work."

Treharne explains that just like our handwriting is particular to each of us, medieval scribes wrote particular letters in ways that were "absolutely specific" to each scribe.

In the case of the Magna Carta and Register of St. Osmund, she has identified at least four "remarkable letter-forms," including a particularly noteworthy 'g' with a "looped tail," that point to the handwriting of one person – a Salisbury scribe.

The importance of access

Treharne's work is a testament to how sometimes big discoveries can come unexpectedly from the pull of scholarly curiosity and from nurturing a fertile field of research.

"I didn't set out to find anything out – I just thought it was quite interesting to look at the hand of the Magna Carta scribe," she said. "But it struck me really forcefully when I first saw this Register of St. Osmund. When I opened it I thought, goodness, that really looks like the Magna Carta scribe."

Treharne emphasizes that discoveries like these highlight the importance of both preservation and access. Her work on the Magna Carta is now part of the larger book she has been writing, Collective Memories in Salisbury Cathedral Library and Archive, 1200-1800.

The scholar says the history of the Salisbury archive is "an incredible story of collecting and preserving and producing, and actually protecting."

For example, Treharne says, "When the Reformation came they had a public book burning and a lot of the Salisbury books appeared to have been lost. But somehow they managed to save stuff that they should've had to get rid of."

Treharne says this project shows the benefits of collaboration. She has been working with Prescott, who focuses on the historical aspects of the findings, and other scholars in the UK. Their findings are additionally confirmed by different evidence from research being done on the Magna Carta by historians David Carpenter (King's College London) and Nicholas Vincent (University of East Anglia).

Treharne says the findings also show the value of keeping an open mind in scholarship. "Although we think we know so much about history, we know so much about people of the past, we know so much about our institutions, all the time scholars and interested citizens are making amazing discoveries."

Author: Angela Becerra Vidergar | Source: Stanford University [September 02, 2015]