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]

At the Heart of United Kingdom

We needed an identity that could reflect what's special about our product, capture ITV's humanness and warmth and make the brand feel alive. We needed a logo that could wrap itself around a broad range of content rather than feel like a corporate badge.

Our creative platform was born from the fact that at ITV, we don't just make TV programmes, we capture life in all its glory and put it centre stage for everyone to enjoy. The new identity needed to bridge all these areas.

ITV is home to the biggest and best loved shows and talent in British popular culture; we reflect and enhance British life and at times define it. We've never told anyone who we are or why we matter. As a result, their affection was with our shows, not the brand. We were a faceless corporation without a heart.

Our brief was to create an identity that could build an emotional connection with the nation and turn them from pure viewers into fans of ITV, not just our programming.

We required a unique and approachable identity to reflect ITV's position as a human and friendly broadcaster 'at the heart of popular culture'. We based the marque on handwriting, its curves signalling an intimacy with audiences without jeopardizing the organisation's status as large and corporate.

The logotype was divided into five segments: each of which 'picks' a different colour from its background. The ability to pick colours from the background allowed the logo to compliment its surroundings. This creates a unique innovation where no two logos are ever alike.

By Week 5 of the rebrand, 52% like or love the new logo. Prompted Awareness of the new logo is now on par with the weekly reach of ITV. Reactions are really positive; it is seen as modern and eye catching. Just over half of those who were aware of a change to ITV, either loved or liked it. When compared with other broadcasters' logos, ITV's was seen as modern, colourful, bright and attractive while BBC, Channel 4 and FIVE were stronger for being boring, old fashioned and dull.

Type of entry: Graphic Design & Design Crafts;
Category: Large Scale Logo and Visual Design;
Advertiser: ITV;
Product/Service: ITV NETWORK;
Agency: ITV CREATIVE London, UNITED KINGDOM;
Executive Creative Director: Phil Lind (ITV Creative);
Head Of Design: Neill Pitt (ITV Creative);
Head Of Design: Mark Gouldie (ITV Creative);
Designer: Jason Ford (ITV Creative);
Designer: Joe Lewis (ITV Creative);
Brand Designer: Matt Rudd (Rudd Studio).

Culture Minister Aristides Baltas decided that Athens will no longer claim the return of the Parthenon sculptures from the British Museum in fear that Greece might lose the legal battle.

Speaking to the parliamentary committee on educational issues, Baltas said, “We will not proceed with legal claims because we are at risk of losing the case.” The committee is working on a draft bill for the return of cultural artifacts that have been illegally removed from Greek soil.

Former culture minister Costas Tasoulas called the handling of the issue “unacceptable.” Tasoulas had made an effort to pursue the return of the Parthenon sculptures using the legal advice of a British law firm.

The British law firm gave the document of their counsel to the Greek Embassy in London which was forwarded to the ministry of culture. The ministry of culture ignored the counsel and refused to accept it.

It should be noted that the total cost of the legal advice came to 200,000 English pounds, an amount that was paid by a Greek living in London who preferred to remain anonymous.

The fact that Amal Clooney was part of the legal team that came to Athens, gave the issue great publicity and drew international sympathy for the Greek argument. In fact, Tasoulas said, at the time the issues was raised, three British lawmakers stated in British Parliament that the marbles should return to their place of origin.

Greece argued that the sculptures should return to Athens to “join” the remaining marbles in their natural habitat and be exhibited at the Acropolis Museum with the rest of the sculptures so that the world admires them as a whole.

Tasoulas said that Baltas’ decision is defeatist and presumes that Greece will lose the case in international courts when in fact the country has a solid argument and international support in its favor. He further said that the defeatist attitude enhances the argument of the opposite side.

Author: A. Makris | Source: Greek Reporter [December 09, 2015]

The reunification of ancient Egypt achieved by Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II—the first pharaoh of the Middle Kingdom—was followed by a great cultural flowering that lasted nearly 400 years. During the Middle Kingdom (mid-Dynasty 11–Dynasty 13, around 2030–1650 B.C.), artistic, cultural, religious, and political traditions first conceived and instituted during the Old Kingdom were revived and reimagined.

This transformational era will be represented through 230 powerful and compelling masterworks (individual objects and groups of objects) in the major international exhibition Ancient Egypt Transformed: The Middle Kingdom, opening October 12 at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fashioned with great subtlety and sensitivity, and ranging in size from monumental stone sculptures to delicate examples of jewelry, the works of art are drawn from the preeminent collection of the Metropolitan—which is particularly rich in Middle Kingdom material—and 37 museums and collections in North America and Europe. This is the first comprehensive presentation of Middle Kingdom art and culture and features many objects that have never been shown in the United States.

“The astonishing continuity of ancient Egyptian culture, with certain basic principles lasting for thousands of years, gives the impression of changelessness,” said Adela Oppenheim, Curator of Egyptian Art. “But the works of art in the exhibition will show that ancient Egypt constantly evolved, and was remarkably flexible within a consistent framework. New ideas did not simply replace earlier notions; they were added to what had come before, creating a fascinating society of ever-increasing complexity.”

Arranged thematically and chronologically, the exhibition opens with a forceful, monumental statue of King Mentuhotep II, carved in an intentionally archaic style that suggests a link to the legendary kings of early Egypt (ca. 3300 B.C.).

Profound changes in the concept of kingship are demonstrated through a series of royal statues that span several hundred years. Early Middle Kingdom pharaohs are often depicted with youthful faces and confident expressions. In contrast, the evocative, fleshy faces and deep-set, hooded eyes of later kings present startling images of maturity and humanity.

During the 12th Dynasty, the construction of pyramid complexes resumes, after a lapse of more than a century. The innovation found in these complexes is exemplified by that of Senwosret III (around 1878-1840 B.C.) at Dahshur, site of Metropolitan Museum excavations since 1990. A detailed 1-to-150 scale model made by Ron Street, Supervisor of the Museum’s Three-Dimensional Imaging, Prototyping, and Molding Studio, will show the original form of the complex.

Royal women were always closely connected to the pharaoh, as evidenced by the placement of their burials and chapels near those of the king. Although less is known about Middle Kingdom queens and princesses, indicating altered or perhaps diminished roles during the era, some of the finest ancient Egyptian jewelry was produced for elite women of the time. Inscriptions and symbolic motifs endowed the jewelry with spiritual power and related to the role these women played in supporting the kings as guarantors of divine order on earth.

During the Middle Kingdom, members of all levels of Egyptian society commissioned a wider variety of works of art and constructed commemorative chapels at significant holy sites; statues of squatting figures rendered in a cubic, block-like form and statues in an attitude of prayer originate during this period.

Thematic groupings of artifacts from domestic settings, tombs, and temples reveal the breadth of artistic expression, evolution of styles, and the transformation of many aspects of Egyptian culture and religion. First attested in the Middle Kingdom are a variety of intriguing, protective magical objects, notably some that were believed to shield pregnant women and young children. Among them are curved hippopotamus tusks that are unique to this era and are covered with images of beneficial supernatural beings.

The family was always a central element of ancient Egyptian culture, but in the Middle Kingdom larger groups of relatives are depicted together on stelae and sculptures. One remarkable stela on view features depictions of 30 individuals. Others include poignant groupings of mothers and their young children.

Significant changes in afterlife beliefs during the Middle Kingdom are manifest in new kinds of objects present in burials. Intricately and finely rendered miniatures of painted wood (so-called models) from the tomb of the chancellor Meketre (ca. 1980–75 B.C.), excavated by the Metropolitan in 1920, depict food production, manufacturing, and journeys by boat; they are displayed in several sections of the exhibition.

During the Middle Kingdom, the god Osiris gained importance as a funerary deity and, from then on, the dead at all levels of society became manifestations of the god. Because Osiris functioned as the ruler of the underworld, certain symbols and regalia that had been the sole prerogative of the reigning king were appropriated for non-royal use: mummies sometimes had a uraeus on the brow (a stylized cobra usually seen on a pharaoh’s crown), and a flail (a standard attribute of the pharaoh) could be placed inside a coffin. Canopic jars, which held the organs of the deceased, became much more ornate in the Middle Kingdom. With lids in the form of human heads, the vessels are small sculptures in their own right.

As devotion to Osiris increased, his cult center at Abydos (north of Luxor) gained prominence. Annual processions were held between his temple and his supposed burial place in the desert to the west. To participate eternally in these elaborate rites and ensure their afterlife, individuals at many levels of society erected memorial chapels—some with outstanding artworks—for themselves and their families along the procession route.

Deity temples—largely built of fragile mud brick in the Old Kingdom—were transformed dramatically during the Middle Kingdom, when pharaohs commissioned decorated stone temples throughout the country. Decoration included spectacular sculpture and reliefs depicting the pharaoh presenting offerings to and revering deities, as well as statues of the gods.

Colossal statues were first made during the Old Kingdom, but they became much more common during the Middle Kingdom. Portions of colossal statues will be displayed throughout the exhibition, with the largest in scale being presented at its conclusion: a monumental head of pharaoh Amenemhat III that was transported to the Delta city of Bubastis and reused by later kings. The same happened to the colossal statue of a mid-Dynasty 12 king, on loan from the Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, Berlin, and on view in the Museum’s Great Hall. Pharaohs after the Middle Kingdom reused the monuments of their predecessors, particularly those of the Middle Kingdom, both for economy and to link themselves to the past.

General knowledge of the history of the Middle Kingdom—the achievements of its artists, its religious beliefs, burial customs, and relationships with other lands—stems in large part from Metropolitan Museum sponsorship of numerous excavations at Middle Kingdom sites including Deir el-Bahri (1920–31), Lisht (1906–34, 1984–91), and Dahshur (1990–present).

Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art [September 26, 2015]

Diplomacy rather than litigation will help Greece win its claim for the return of the Parthenon Marbles from the British Museum, Alternate Minister for Culture Nikos Xydakis said in an interview on Wednesday.

“On the one hand, you can’t file a suit over any issue, and, on the other, the outcome in international courts is never certain,” Xydakis said.

“The way to winning back the Marbles is diplomatic and political,” he said in response to a report by the British firm of cultural heritage lawyers Norman Palmer and Geoffrey Robertson, urging Greece to take swift legal recourse.

Source: Kathimerini [May 13, 2015]

Archaeologists have begun detailed exploration work on the Curtain Theatre, one of William Shakespeare’s least well-known playhouses, in east London.

The playhouse, which saw the first performance of Henry V, is now at the centre of a new residential development, The Stage, offering experts from the Museum of London a rare chance to excavate a key cultural location.

The dig was officially launched by Ed Vaizey MP, Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy just days after the nation marked the 400th anniversary of the playwright’s death.

Trial explorations began in 2012 which offered promising indications that the site, two to three metres below modern ground level, has been well preserved.

Museum of London Archeology (Mola) is hoping to uncover more clues about the physical structure and use of the theatre and shed new light on the cultural makeup of the area and performances in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Archaeologists have started digging through the 18th century remains that encase the Curtain Theatre and now they have reached key layers from the 16th and 17th centuries.

Senior Mola archaeologist Heather Knight said: “We hope to find out more about the structure of the theatre – where Henry V was first performed – which will give us a clearer indication of how Elizabethan playhouses were used and the evolution of theatre.

“There is also the possibility of finding fragments of props, costumes or items used by the audience, including food remains or drinking vessels, which could tell us more about theatre productions and culture at the time. We look forward to sharing our findings in due course.”

Once the detailed dig is complete, the remains of the Curtain will be preserved in-situ, and artefacts discovered and records taken during the excavation will be studied in detail.

A display of the finds will sit alongside the theatre remains as part of a cultural and visitor centre at The Stage , a new £750million mixed-use scheme including 33,000 sq ft of retail, over 200,000 sq ft of office space, and more than 400 homes.

Mr Vaizey said: “Shoreditch is one of London’s most vibrant locations, and its prominence as a theatrical hotspot during Shakespeare’s time highlights this area’s enduring cultural appeal.”

Author: Giles Broadbent | Source: The Wharf [April 27, 2016]

The British Museum will open a major exhibition presenting a history of Indigenous Australia, supported by BP. This exhibition will be the first in the UK devoted to the history and culture of Indigenous Australians: both Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders. Drawing on objects from the British Museum’s collection, accompanied by important loans from British and Australian collections, the show will present Indigenous Australia as a living culture, with a continuous history dating back over 60,000 years.

The objects in the exhibition will range from a shield believed to have been collected at Botany Bay in 1770 by Captain Cook or one of his men, a protest placard from the Aboriginal Tent Embassy established in 1972, contemporary paintings and specially commissioned artworks from leading Indigenous artists. Many of the objects in the exhibition have never been on public display before.

The objects displayed in this exhibition are immensely important. The British Museum’s collection contains some of the earliest objects collected from Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders through early naval voyages, colonists, and missionaries dating as far back as 1770. Many were collected at a time before museums were established in Australia and they represent tangible evidence of some of the earliest moments of contact between Aboriginal people, Torres Strait Islanders and the British. Many of these encounters occurred in or near places that are now major Australian cities such as Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth. As a result of collecting made in the early 1800s, many objects originate from coastal locations rather than the arid inland areas that are often associated with Indigenous Australia in the popular imagination.

The exhibition will not only present Indigenous ways of understanding the land and sea but also the significant challenges faced by Indigenous Australians from the colonial period until to the present day. In 1770 Captain Cook landed on the east coast of Australia, a continent larger than Europe. In this land there were hundreds of different Aboriginal groups, each inhabiting a particular area, and each having its own languages, laws and traditions. This land became a part of the British Empire and remained so until the various colonies joined together in 1901 to become the nation of Australia we know today. In this respect, the social history of 19th century Australia and the place of Indigenous people within this is very much a British story. This history continues into the twenty first century. With changing policies towards Indigenous Australians and their struggle for recognition of civil rights, this exhibition shows why issues about Indigenous Australians are still often so highly debated in Australia today.

The exhibition brings together loans of special works from institutions in the United Kingdom, including the British Library, the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. A number of works from the collection of the National Museum of Australia will be shown, including the masterpiece ‘Yumari’ by Uta Uta Tjangala. Tjangala was one of the artists who initiated the translation of traditions of sand sculptures and body painting onto canvas in 1971 at Papunya, a government settlement 240km northwest of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. Tjangala was also an inspirational leader who developed a plan for the Pintupi community to return to their homelands after decades of living at Papunya. A design from ‘Yumari’ forms a watermark on current Australian passports.

This exhibition has been developed in consultation with many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander individuals, Indigenous art and cultural centres across Australia, and has been organised with the National Museum of Australia. The broader project is a collaboration with the National Museum of Australia. It draws on a joint research project, funded by the Australian Research Council, undertaken by the British Museum, the National Museum of Australia and the Australian National University. Titled ‘Engaging Objects: Indigenous communities, museum collections and the representation of Indigenous histories’, the research project began in 2011 and involved staff from the National Museum of Australia and the British Museum visiting communities to discuss objects from the British Museum’s collections. The research undertaken revealed information about the circumstances of collecting and significance of the objects, many of which previously lacked good documentation. The project also brought contemporary Indigenous artists to London to view and respond to the Australian collections at the British Museum.

Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum said, “The history of Australia and its people is an incredible, continuous story that spans over 60,000 years. This story is also an important part of more recent British history and so it is of great significance that audiences in London will see these unique and powerful objects exploring this narrative. Temporary exhibitions of this nature are only possible thanks to external support so I am hugely grateful to BP for their longstanding and on-going commitment to the British Museum. I would also like to express my gratitude to our logistics partner IAG Cargo and the Australian High Commission who are supporting the exhibition’s public programme.”

Source: The British Museum [April 23, 2015]

The world’s leading auction house has withdrawn from sale more than £1.2 million of ancient artefacts identified by an expert at a Scottish university as having links to organised criminal networks in Europe, The Scotsman can reveal.

Eight rare antiquities have been pulled from auction by Christie’s over the past six months after a University of Glasgow academic uncovered images of them in archives seized from Italian art dealers convicted of trafficking offences.

The latest tranche of treasures were due to be sold at auction in London tomorrow, but after Dr Christos Tsirogiannis notified Interpol and Italian authorities, they were removed. Last night, the auction house vowed to work with Scotland Yard to scrutinise the items’ provenance.

Dr Tsirogiannis, a research assistant at the university’s Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, discovered the four lots catalogued in the confiscated archives of Giancomo Medici and Gianfranco Becchina, and warned Christie’s was failing to carry out “due diligence”.

Medici was sentenced to ten years in prison in 2004 by a Rome court after he was found guilty of conspiracy to traffic in antiquities. Becchina, a Sicilian antiquities dealer, was convicted in Rome four years ago of trafficking in plundered artefacts.

Dr Tsirogiannis, a forensic archaeologist, has access to their photos and documents via Greek police and prosecutors.

The items accepted for tomorrow’s antiquities sale date back to 540BC. They include an Attic black-figured amphora and an Etruscan terracotta antefix. Cumulatively, they are worth close to £100,000.

It is the second time in six months Dr Tsirogiannis has highlighted the dubiety of items being sold through Christie’s. The value of the eight withdrawn lots exceeds £1.2 million.

Dr Tsirogiannis, a member of Trafficking Culture, a Glasgow-based research programme which compiles evidence of the contemporary global trade in looted cultural objects, said: “Christie’s continues to include in its sales antiquities depicted in confiscated archives of convicted art dealers. Sometimes they sell the lots but nearly every time they withdraw them.

“I don’t understand why they can’t do due diligence beforehand. Clearly, it’s not taking place. Christie’s say they don’t have access to these archives which is not true. Every auction house, dealer and museum should refer to Italian and Greek authorities, who would check for free before the sales.” Dr Donna Yates, of Trafficking Culture, added: “Do they contact antiquities trafficking experts before their auctions? No, never. Do they make public whatever provenance documents they have for a particular piece? No, never. I can only conclude that they don’t take this particularly seriously.”

A spokeswoman for Christie’s said: “We have withdrawn four lots from our upcoming antiquities sale as it was brought to our attention that there is a question mark over their provenance, namely, that they are similar to items recorded in the Medici and Becchina archives.

“We will now work with Scotland Yard’s art and antiques unit to discover whether or not there is a basis for concerns expressed over the provenance.”

She said Christie’s would never sell any item it has reason to believe was stolen and called on those with access to the Medici and Becchina archives to make them “freely available.”

Author: Martyn McLaughlin | Source: The Scotsman [April 13, 2015]

For most of the last 45,000 years Europe was inhabited solely by hunter-gatherers. About 8,500 years ago a new form of subsistence -- farming -- started to spread across the continent from modern-day Turkey, reaching central Europe by 7,500 years ago and Britain by 6,100 years ago. This new subsistence strategy led to profound changes in society, including greater population density, new diseases, and poorer health. Such was the impact of farming on how we live that scientists have debated for more than 100 years how it was spread across Europe. Many believed that farming was spread as an idea to European hunter-gatherers but without a major migration of farmers themselves.

This week, an international research team led by paleogeneticists of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) publishes a study in the journal >Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showing that early farmers from across Europe have an almost unbroken trail of ancestry leading back to the Aegean.

The scientists analyzed the DNA of early farmer skeletons from Greece and Turkey. According to the study, the Neolithic settlers from northern Greece and the Marmara Sea region of western Turkey reached central Europe via a Balkan route and the Iberian Peninsula via a Mediterranean route. These colonists brought sedentary life, agriculture, and domestic animals and plants to Europe.

During their expansion they will have met hunter-gatherers who lived in Europe since the Ice Age, but the two groups mixed initially only to a very limited extent. "They exchanged cultural heritage and knowledge, but rarely spouses," commented anthropologist Joachim Burger, who lead the research. "Only after centuries did the number of partnerships increase."

Professor Joachim Burger, his Mainz paleogeneticist team, and international collaborators have pioneered paleogenetic research of the Neolithization process in Europe over the last seven years.

They showed a lack of interbreeding between farmers and hunter-gatherers in prehistoric Europe in 2009 and 2013 (Bramanti et al. 2009; Bollongino et al. 2013). Now, they demonstrate that the cultural and genetic differences were the result of separate geographical origins.

"The migrating farmers did not only bring a completely foreign culture, but looked different and spoke a different language," stated Christina Papageorgopoulou from Democritus University of Thrace, Greece,, who initiated the study as a Humboldt Fellow in Mainz together with Joachim Burger.

The study used genomic analysis to clarify a long-standing debate about the origins of the first European farmers by showing that the ancestry of Central and Southwestern Europeans can be traced directly back to Greece and northwestern Anatolia.

"There are still details to flesh out, and no doubt there will be surprises around the corner, but when it comes to the big picture on how farming spread into Europe, this debate is over," said Mark Thomas of University College London (UCL), co-author on the study. "Thanks to ancient DNA, our understanding of the Neolithic revolution has fundamentally changed over the last seven years."

Sedentary life, farming, and animal husbandry were already present 10,000 years ago in the so-called Fertile Crescent, a region covering modern-day Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq. Zuzana Hofmanová and Susanne Kreutzer, the lead authors of the study, concluded: "Whether the first farmers came ultimately from this area is not yet established, but certainly we have seen with our study that these people, together with their revolutionary Neolithic culture, colonized Europe through northern Aegean over a short period of time."

Another study has shown that the spread of farming, and farmers, was not the last major migration to Europe. Approximately 5,000 years ago people of the eastern Steppe reached Central Europe and mixed with the former hunter-gatherers and early farmers. The majority of current European populations arose as a mixture of these three groups.

Source: Johannes Gutenberg Universitaet Mainz [June 06, 2016]

An application has been lodged with the Culture and Tourism Ministry to conduct a surface survey to investigate the ancient city of Satala, which served as a military headquarters in the Roman Empire in the northern Turkish province of Gümüşhane’s Kelkit district.

According to historical records, the city, which is 28 kilometers from the city center, was established by the 15th Apollo Legion, a legion of the Imperial Roman army. It served as a headquarters in the ancient era and also served as an intersection of military roads passing through Anatolia and Cappadocia.

The city was controlled at various times by the Assyrian, Graeco-Macedonian, Roman and Byzantine civilizations.

A 47-arched aqueduct was built to bring water to the ancient city of Satala but only one arch survives today.

The city is believed to cover a very large area. Candles, rings, arms, pots, metal pieces and coins have all been discovered at the site and are now on display at the Istanbul Archaeology Museum, while a bronze bust of Aphrodite is at London’s British Museum.

Kelkit Mayor Ünal Yılmaz said the ancient city of Satala, which is under protection as an archaeological site, had been examined by university academics.

As a result of the examination, a report was prepared by the Gümüşhane Governor’s Office, Kelkit Municipality and academics. In line with the report, an application was made to the Culture and Tourism Ministry to conduct a surface survey.

Yılmaz said no serious work had been carried out in the historical city.

“No work has been implemented here although there were discussions from time to time. Evaluations were also made but nothing was done in practice. Because it is an archaeological site, people were not able to build structures there. I hope the applications will receive a positive response and that works will be initiated,” Yılmaz said.

“Our academics are very hopeful on the issue. We think this area will add a lot to tourism for our province and district after the pre-excavation work is completed,” Yılmaz said.

Source: Hurriyet Daily News [March 15, 2016]

Egypt's antiquities minister Mamdouh Eldamaty launched on Saturday a fund raising campaign to re-buy the 4500-year-old ancient Egyptian statue of Sekhemka, which was sold by a UK museum.

"I am calling all Egyptians around the world to help Egypt to preserve its ancient Egyptian heritage and to collect the required fund to buy the Sekhemka statue," Eldamaty told reporters at the Ministry of Antiquities premises in Zamalek.

He also announced that the ministry has stopped all archeological cooperation and relations with the Northampton Museum that sold the statue last year to make up for its lack of funds.

The statue dates to the 5th dynasty and depicts Sekhemka who was a scribe and court official, with his wife Sitmerit.

The controversy over the Sekhemka statue began in July 2014 when Northampton Museum put the statue on sale in an attempt to raise the funds of the museum's budget.

The statue of Sekhemka was sold to an anonymous buyer at Christie's in London for £15,76 million during an auction in July 2014 but a temporary export ban was later imposed.

The sale of the statue by Northampton Council was opposed by the Arts Council, the Museums Association, the Art Fund, and the International Council of Museums, as well as locals in Northampton.

This export ban was meant to expire on 29 July and British and Egyptian campaigners have asked the prime minister to intervene "urgently".

The UK department for culture took the unprecedented step of extending a deadline to 29 August over the export of the Egyptian sculpture of Sekhemka. This is the first time that such a step has been has been taken since the art export regulations were introduced in 1952.

The decision was made after it was determined that the sale of the 4,000-year-old Egyptian statue to a private collector, by the Northampton Museum and Art Gallery and Abington Park Museum, had breached Arts Council England's (ACE) accredited standards for how museums manage their collections.

ACE subsequently removed Northampton Museum from their accreditation scheme with immediate effect. It will now be excluded from future participation until August 2019 and are no longer eligible for Arts Council grants.

On Saturday, Eldamaty announced that the Department of Culture declared a second deferral period until March 2016 in an attempt to give an opportunity to British businessmen to collect the money to match the price of the statue.

Eldamaty called on Egyptian businessmen to collect the required money in order to return it back to Egypt.

"If British businessmen find the matching money, the statue is to be kept in another museum in Britain," he said.

Author: Nevine El-Aref | Source: Ahram Online [August 22, 2015]

The southern Turkish province of Muğla's Datça Municipality has initiated a project to repatriate the historical artifacts belonging to the ancient Greek city of Knidos back to the district. Artifacts such as the 'Lion of Knidos' and the 'Demeter of Knidos', which are displayed at the British Museum in London as well as the artifacts displayed at the Marmaris and Bodrum museums are planned to be restored to their original site.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency (AA), Datça Municipality Mayor Gürsel Uçar said they are determined to regain the artifacts and they will apply to the Culture and Tourism Ministry for assistance. He said the artifacts unearthed in Knidos, in present-day Datça, are stored at the Marmaris Museum and Bodrum Museum as well as in storage at Middle East Technical University and Selçuk University. He added that the artifacts should be displayed and stored where they are excavated.

The municipality previously contacted the ministry, and they were assured that the small museums in the region will be closed and a new museum in Datça will be built. However, Uçar stressed that there has been no development since.

"We are determined to display the artifacts unearthed in Datça at their original site," Uçar said. Datça has two protected areas called Reşadiye and the Old Datça Neighborhood.

The latter draws thousands of tours every year thanks to Knidos. However, the municipality also wants to make Reşadiye a tourist attraction with a museum where they can display the artifacts from Knidos.

"We decided on a 20 hectare area in Reşadiye for the museum building. Although Reşadiye was taken under protection, the region does not have the necessary historical atmosphere. We want to develop Reşadiye and build a museum in the region," Uçar said.

Tourist guide and an official of Datça Municipality's Department of Culture, Osman Akın, told AA that thousands of artifacts have been unearthed in Knidos, and a huge part of these artifacts are displayed in museums in the UK. He said the 'Lion of Knidos' and 'Demeter of Knidos' sculptures are still showcased in the British Museum in London.

"The worst thing is that the other artifacts unearthed in the ancient city are not displayed in Datça either," Akın said. He added that the sculptures in the British Museum belong to Datça, and they had to make the replicas of the sculptures in order to remind people that these artifacts were excavated from Knidos.

"The British Museum is considered one of the most important archaeology museums in the world. When you enter the museum from the first entrance, the 'Lion of Knidos' welcomes you to the museum. It is a huge sculpture that weighs 11 tons and is 8 meters tall," he said.

The king of Knidos commissioned the 'Lion of Knidos' sculpture after their naval victory under the command of Admiral Conon. The sculpture was taken out of its original site by British officer and archaeologist Sir Charles Newton in 1855 on a battleship.

Source: Daily Sabah [December 09, 2015]

The British Government is refusing to negotiate with Greece about the return of the so-called Elgin Marbles despite a request to do so from the United Nations, a decision that could prompt Athens to begin legal action for the first time.

British campaigners likened the UK’s stance to “clinging on to stolen booty for dear life” and contrasted it with the “generous act” of returning the sculptures to help a friendly country on the brink of economic collapse. Youth unemployment has hit 50 per cent and suicide rates have soared amid a crisis so severe the Financial Times has warned Greece could turn into a “quasi slave economy”.

In 2013, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) invited the UK to take part in mediation about the marbles, created 2,500 years ago to decorate the Parthenon temple in Athens. Then last year it asked for a response by 31 March.

However a Government source said the UK “won’t be able to make any significant announcement this side of the [May] election”.

A motion calling for the UK to reply to Unesco and move to return the marbles is to be filed in the House of Commons on Monday.

The failure to respond in time could prompt Greece to abandon decades of diplomacy and take legal action, possibly in the European Court of Human Rights. A team of lawyers in London, including leading QC Geoffrey Robertson and Amal Clooney, wife of actor George, is preparing a “book-length” document setting out the options.

A source who has advised successive Greek governments said the main problem was finding a court to take jurisdiction in the case, but once that hurdle was overcome “then the lawyers are saying there is about a 75 to 80 per cent chance of success”.

The marbles are regarded as some of the finest works of art in history and a symbol of the birth of Western civilisation. Some sculptures were taken to Britain by Lord Elgin in controversial circumstances just over 200 years ago when Greece was ruled by the Ottoman Empire.

Dr Elena Korka, director of antiquities at the Greek Culture Ministry, said the central issue was “reunifying these exceptional, outstanding and most important sculptures, which belong as an integral part of a unique symbolic monument for the whole world”.

“This is the essence of it, making something which exists today as whole as it can be… this is what the public wants, every poll shows it. It’s such an important issue. Even if Greece didn’t ask for it, the whole world would,” she said.

She said if the British authorities relented it would be “a day of true joy, not only for the monument itself but I think for the value of the gesture for the sake of co-operation”. “It would definitely help the [public] morale. It would be a huge boost,” she said.

Asked about the prospect of legal action, Dr Korka said Greece was “still so much into the process of mediation that we’re not thinking of the next step”. “We haven’t exhausted the possibilities so let’s not go so fast,” she said.

She added that the UK’s silence since 2013 was “not so polite really”.

David Hill, chairman of the International Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures in Australia, said there was a “growing appreciation even among people who are timid about the prospect of litigation that we have reached the point of last resort if this UNESCO gambit fails. The diplomatic and political strategies of the last 30 years have not produced any progress at all.”

Polls have consistently showed strong support in Britain for returning the marbles. In November, a survey for The Times found there was a two-to-one majority in favour.

Andrew George, chairman of Marbles Reunited and Liberal Democrat MP for St Ives, said: “One of our friends is down on their uppers and we can offer something to them that might make their lives easier and give them a lift, which can only be good for their economy.

“It would be a generous act which would improve Britain’s standing in the world. At the moment we look rather grubby… like we are clinging on to stolen booty for dear life.”

He said he planned to lodge an early day motion in the Commons tomorrow calling for  the Government to “demonstrate that Britain is prepared to... reunite these British-held Parthenon sculptures with those now displayed in the purpose-built Acropolis Museum in the shadow of the monument to which they belong, the Parthenon in Athens”.

The British Museum, which denies Elgin stole the marbles, argues that it “tells the story of cultural achievement throughout the world” and the Parthenon sculptures are “a significant part of that story”. It regards itself as “a unique resource for the world” with visitors able to “re-examine cultural identities and explore the complex network of interconnected human cultures” within its walls.

“The Parthenon Sculptures are a vital element in this interconnected world collection. They are a part of the world’s shared heritage and transcend political boundaries,” it says.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport said it would “respond in due course” to UNESCO.

Author: Ian Johnston | Source: Indpendent [March 07, 2015]

The stories of Roman lives are written their bones: diet, disease, childbirth and trauma all leave their mark. Individual skeletons can tell rich tales, but the fullest information comes from large groups, when we can look at populations. So what can we learn about about a Roman community from their skeletons?

Whether they were a slave

Slavery was ubiquitous in the Roman world, and some of its agonies are preserved on skeletons: those working in and living near Roman mines in Jordan were exposed to lead and copper at levels that would have been toxic, and caused a range of illnesses. The remains of people who were likely to have been slaves have also been found still wearing iron shackles, for instance in a subterranean room of a villa in Pompeii, and near the silver mines of Laurion in Roman-era Greece.

Whether they played sports

Among the human remains from ancient Herculaneum, which was destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius at the same time as Pompeii, were a possible boxer, with typical fractures to his hands and nose, and a javelin-thrower whose bones reveal the same elbow problems experienced by modern athletes.

How they died, who they loved

At Dura-Europos in Syria, remains of Roman and Sasanian troops trapped in a siege mine beneath the walls of the ancient city reveal the brutal and violent reality of ancient conflict, including gas warfare. In the nearby cemetery, families were buried together in underground tombs, with women and children placed together.

Where people came from

Even places like Roman Britain were diverse. Scientific methods (such as isotope analysis), as well as the study of graves and grave goods (the objects buried with a body) can tell us where a person was likely to have come from, or where they had links to. For instance, work on the cemeteries of Roman York has shown that people buried there came from other places in Britain, and much further afield in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

The extent of childhood illnesses

In the Roman world, children often didn’t make it to adulthood. Roman cemeteries such as Poundbury in Dorset include many children with rickets, scurvy and anaemia – survival rates were staggeringly low by modern Western standards. Infant and early childhood mortality was high in the Roman period, with 45% of children unlikely to survive past five years of age.

So we can learn a lot about how a Roman may have lived from her or his remains, but, while skeletons are biological, bodies are cultured and contextual; they can be modified to fit ideals of beauty, status, or gender. Ultimately, Roman skeletons tell us that culture is a significant factor in determining difference: underneath it all, we’re pretty much the same collection of 206 interlocking parts.

Dr Jen Baird and Dr Tim Reynolds from the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology, Birkbeck College, University of London, will be talking in depth about Roman skeletons at a Guardian Live/Birkbeck event on 21 November.

Authors: Dr Jen Baird and Dr Tim Reynolds | Source: The Guardian [November 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 British Museum is to stage a major exhibition on two lost Egyptian cities and their recent rediscovery by archaeologists beneath the Mediterranean seabed. Opening in May 2016 for an extended run of six months, The BP exhibition Sunken cities: Egypt’s lost worlds will be the Museum’s first large-scale exhibition of underwater discoveries. It will show how the exploration of Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus – submerged at the mouth of the River Nile for over a thousand years – is transforming our understanding of the relationship between ancient Egypt and the Greek world and the great importance of these ancient cities.

300 outstanding objects will be brought together for the exhibition including more than 200 spectacular finds excavated off the coast of Egypt near Alexandria between 1996 and 2012. Important loans from Egyptian museums rarely seen before outside Egypt (and the first such loans since the Egyptian revolution) will be supplemented with objects from various sites across the Delta drawn from the British Museum’s collection; most notably from Naukratis – a sister harbour town to Thonis-Heracleion and the first Greek settlement in Egypt.

Likely founded during the 7th century BC, Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus were busy, cosmopolitan cities that once sat on adjacent islands at the edge of the fertile lands of the Egyptian Delta, intersected by canals. After Alexander the Great’s conquest of Egypt in 332BC, centuries of Greek (Ptolemaic) rule followed. The exhibition will reveal how cross-cultural exchange and religion flourished, particularly the worship of the Egyptian god of the afterlife, Osiris.

By the 8th century AD, the sea had reclaimed the cities and they lay hidden several metres beneath the seabed, their location and condition unclear. Although well-known from Egyptian decrees and Greek mythology and historians, past attempts to locate them were either fruitless or very partial. The exhibition will show how a pioneering European team led by Franck Goddio in collaboration with the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities made use of the most up-to-date technologies to find them.

Thanks to the underwater setting, a vast number of objects of great archaeological significance have been astonishingly well preserved. Pristine monumental statues, fine metalware and gold jewellery will reveal how Greece and Egypt interacted in the late first millennium BC. These artefacts offer a new insight into the quality and unique character of the art of this period and show how the Greek kings and queens who ruled Egypt for 300 years adopted and adapted Egyptian beliefs and rituals to legitimise their reign.

The exhibition will feature a number of extraordinary, monumental sculptures. A 5.4m granite statue of Hapy, a divine personification of the Nile’s flood, will greet visitors as they enter the space. Masterpieces from Egyptian museums such as the Apis bull from the Serapeum in Alexandria will be shown alongside magnificent recent finds from the sea. One such piece is the stunning sculpture from Canopus representing Arsinoe II (the eldest daughter of Ptolemy I, founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty). The Graeco-Macedonian queen became a goddess beloved to both Egyptians and Greeks after her death and is depicted here as the perfect embodiment of Aphrodite, a goddess of beauty ‘who grants fortunate sailing’.

The exhibition will also cover the arrival of Greeks in Egypt, when they were hosts and not rulers; privileged but controlled by the pharaohs. A complete stela from Thonis-Heracleion advertises a 380BC royal decree of the Egyptian pharaoh Nectanebo I. It states that 10% of the taxes collected on all goods imported from the ‘Sea of the Greeks’ into Thonis-Heracleion and on all trade operations at Naukratis were to be donated to an Egyptian temple.

A wide range of objects, from modest to grand and costly, bears witness to the piety of both inhabitants and visitors at these major religious centres. Lead models of barges uncovered in the sacred waterway linking Thonis-Heracleion to Canopus are unique and moving finds. They are associated with the Mysteries of Osiris, the most popular festival celebrated annually across Egypt during the month of Khoiak (mid-October to mid-November). Ranging in size from 6 to 67cm, these reproduce in metal a flotilla of 34 papyrus barges that would have been displayed on a waterway to celebrate the first sacred navigation of the festival. According to religious texts, each barge was to measure 67.5 cm and to bear the figure of an Egyptian god, and would have been illuminated by 365 lamps. The lead barges are lasting testimonies possibly left by people who, long ago, celebrated this festival in the Canopic region.

Only a tiny proportion of these sites have revealed their secrets. The on-going underwater archaeological mission continues to bring to light new masterpieces and further research every year as the most recent finds from 2012 will show.

Sir Richard Lambert, Chairman of the British Museum, said, “It’s hugely exciting to be announcing the British Museum’s first large-scale exhibition of underwater discoveries and to be welcoming these important loans to London. We are grateful to BP for their ongoing support without which ambitious exhibitions such as these would simply not be possible. We’re also delighted to be working with Franck Goddio, his expert team at IEASM, the Hilti Foundation and of course our Egyptian colleagues to bring the extraordinary story of these lost cities to life.”

His Excellency Nasser Kamel, Ambassador of the Arab Republic of Egypt to the United Kingdom, said, "As well as looking for partners to invest in the Egyptian economy, Egypt is always searching for partners to help in exploring its heritage and treasures which are still hidden under its lands, and waters. This exhibition shows that despite what we know of its tremendous history and culture, Egypt still has a lot more to offer to?the world and we thank our partners in the UK, such as BP, for working with us in utilising our resources to develop our economy and through such an exhibition unraveling our history as well. I invite the people of Britain to visit this exhibition to get a glimpse of what Egypt has to offer, and come to Egypt to live that experience."

Bob Dudley, Group Chief Executive, BP, said, “BP is proud to support this fascinating exhibition which showcases the power of science and the pioneering spirit to discover what lies beneath the surface of the Nile Delta. By sharing these underwater treasures the British Museum is opening a whole new frontier for visitors to explore, and we are pleased to be a part of it.”

Franck Goddio, President of Institut Europeen d’Archeologie Sous-Marine (IEASM) and exhibition co-curator said “My team and I, as well as the Hilti Foundation, are delighted that the exhibition with discoveries from our underwater archaeological expeditions off the coast of Egypt will be on display at the British Museum. It enables us to share with the public the results of years of work at the sunken cities and our fascination for ancient worlds and civilisations. Placing our discoveries alongside selected masterpieces from the collections of Egyptian museums, complemented by important objects from the British Museum, the exhibition presents unique insights into a fascinating period in history during which Egyptians and Greeks encountered each other on the shores of the Mediterranean.”

Aurelia Masson-Berghoff, exhibition curator at the British Museum said “People sometimes assume that when two cultures mix, the essence of each is diluted and, as a result, weakened; this exhibition demonstrates the opposite. It is a rare opportunity to reveal the beauty and strength of Late Pharaonic art and culture, alongside the latest research on the momentous intermingling between Egyptian and Greek communities in Egypt at this time. We are illustrating this vibrant cosmopolitan world through Egyptian, Greek and ‘hybrid’ artworks, rarely ever displayed side by side. It shows ancient Egypt not as an isolated civilisation, but as the outward looking, influential and inclusive society that it was.”

Source: British Museum [February 14, 2016]

Sex equality in residential decision-making explains the unique social structure of hunter-gatherers, a new UCL study reveals.

Previous research has noted the low level of relatedness in hunter-gatherer bands. This is surprising because humans depend on close kin to raise offspring, so generally exhibit a strong preference for living close to parents, siblings and grandparents.

The new study, published today in Science and funded by the Leverhulme Trust, is the first to demonstrate the relationship between sex equality in residential decision-making and group composition.

In work conducted over two years, researchers from the Hunter-Gatherer Resilience Project in UCL Anthropology lived among populations of hunter-gatherers in Congo and the Philippines. They collected genealogical data on kinship relations, between-camp mobility and residence patterns by interviewing hundreds of people.

This information allowed the researchers to understand how individuals in each community they visited were related to each other. Despite living in small communities, these hunter-gatherers were found to be living with a large number of individuals with whom they had no kinship ties.

The authors constructed a computer model to simulate the process of camp assortment. In the model, individuals populated an empty camp with their close kin - siblings, parents and children.

When only one sex had influence over this process, as is typically the case in male-dominated pastoral or horticultural societies, camp relatedness was high. However, group relatedness is much lower when both men and women have influence - as is the case among many hunter-gatherer societies, where families tend to alternate between moving to camps where husbands have close kin and camps where wives have close kin.

First author of the study, Mark Dyble (UCL Anthropology), said: "While previous researchers have noted the low relatedness of hunter-gatherer bands, our work offers an explanation as to why this pattern emerges. It is not that individuals are not interested in living with kin. Rather, if all individuals seek to live with as many kin as possible, no-one ends up living with many kin at all."

Many unique human traits such as high cognition, cumulative culture and hyper-cooperation have evolved due to the social organisation patterns unique to humans.

Although hunter-gatherer societies are increasingly under pressure from external forces, they offer the closest extant examples of human lifestyles and social organisation in the past, offering important insights into human evolutionary history.

Senior author, Dr Andrea Migliano (UCL Anthropology), said: "Sex equality suggests a scenario where unique human traits such as cooperation with unrelated individuals could have emerged in our evolutionary past".

Source: University College London [May 15, 2015]

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]

The name Stonehenge is full of mysteries. It is probably the most famous prehistoric monument, and also the monument about which the most myths and legends have been created. For the first time in the world, an exhibition is being shown about the fascinating cult complex Stonehenge and its surrounding landscape including the latest research findings on the much bigger and older stone circle at Durrington Walls – this is at MAMUZ Museum Mistelbach.

In the exhibition Stonehenge. A Hidden Landscape, original finds will be on display which have never before left the British Isles. Gigantic stone models in original size which can be touched, original stones like the ones used in the cult complex, and also digital animations on the surrounding landscape transport visitors to the mystical world of our ancestors more than 4,000 years ago. But a long time before Stonehenge there were even bigger monumental structures in Europe, in particular in the Weinviertel region: the circular enclosures. Discover a piece of the religious world of our ancestors – Stonehenge is close enough to touch.

True-to-scale reconstructions of the stone circle based on 3D laser scan data let visitors to MAMUZ experience the magnificence and dimension of this cult monument without having to travel to the cult site itself. Elaborate visualisations give a three-dimensional impression of the landscape surrounding Stonehenge so that visitors are able to imagine the stone circle and also picture all of the fascinating cult monuments in the extensive surrounding area. At the location west of London, in Wiltshire, the large numbers of visitors and the preservation of the site mean it is not possible to enter the stone circle directly or to touch the stones. In the exhibition at Museum Mistelbach, visitors are really “in the thick of it” thanks to visualisations and reproductions and they can also touch original bluestones and sarsen stones as used to build the complex.

The exhibition also links Stonehenge with the prehistory of the province of Lower Austria. Long before the first stones were put in place at Stonehenge, the first monumental structures appeared in Central Europe. The impressive discoveries of these circular enclosures, which are distributed throughout Lower Austria and especially in the Weinviertel region, are shown alongside the fascinating original exhibits of the so-called Bell Beaker culture, which demonstrates the transition from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age in Lower Austria.

Working together with renowned cooperation partners, academics from Austria and abroad and also experts in exhibition design and multimedia presentation, MAMUZ is showing the first ever exhibition about Stonehenge. The exhibition is being realised in cooperation with the Niederösterreichische Landessammlungen, Ludwig Boltzmann Institute, 7reasons, atelier cremer and the University of Birmingham.

Stonehenge: A Hidden Landscape opens on 20th March 2016 and will run until 27 Nov. 2016.

Source: MAMUZ Museum Mistelbach [March 03, 2016]

This spring the British Museum will stage a major exhibition on the human body in ancient Greek art, sponsored by Julius Baer.

This exhibition will explore the Greek experience and its preoccupation with the human form. To the ancient Greeks the body was a thing of beauty and a bearer of meaning. The remarkable works of art in the exhibition range from the abstract simplicity of prehistoric figurines to breathtaking realism in the age of Alexander the Great. Giving form to thought, these works continued to inspire artists for hundreds of years and, over time, shaped the way we think of ourselves.

The exhibition will feature around 150 objects, including some of the most beautiful Greek sculpture to have survived from antiquity. In addition to iconic white marble statues, the exhibition will include exquisite works in terracotta, beautiful bronzes and fascinating vases that demonstrate the quality and inventiveness of ancient Greek craftsmen. Outstanding objects from the British Museum, one of the most important collections of Greek art in the world, will be shown alongside extraordinary loans from other world-class collections.

Ancient Greek sculpture was both art and experience. The exhibition will present sculpture as an encounter between viewer and the object. The first such encounter will be a newly discovered original bronze sculpture of a nude athlete, scraping his body with a metal tool after exercise and before bathing. Raised off the seabed near Lošinj, Croatia in 1999, this rare survival of an ancient bronze statue will be shown for the first time in Britain after years of conservation.

For the first time, six Parthenon sculptures will be taken out of the permanent Parthenon gallery and will be installed in the temporary exhibition in order to contribute to a different narrative from their usual context. As a supreme example of the work of the sculptor Phidias, the river god Ilissos will be shown in dialogue with the work of two of the sculptor’s contemporaries; the Townley Discobolus, a Roman copy of the lost original by Myron, and Georg Römer’s reconstruction of the Doryphoros by Polykleitos. The three great sculptors of the age, Myron, Polykleitos and Phidias, were said to have been trained in the workshop of a single master and each motivated by a strong impulse to outdo the other. In addition to the figure of Ilissos, other examples of sculpture from the Parthenon temple will be shown in different sections of the exhibition including a metope, two blocks from the frieze, one figure from the West Pediment and one figure from the East Pediment group.

The exhibition will also explore the revival of the Greek body in the modern era following its destruction and disappearance at the end of pagan antiquity. Prior to the arrival of the Parthenon sculptures in London in the early 1800s, Greek art was viewed through Roman copies of lost Greek originals, such as the Belvedere Torso, which will be lent by the Vatican Museum. This seated hero, perhaps Herakles, was regarded by Michelangelo as the finest fragment of classical sculpture that could be seen in his day. It will be shown alongside his drawing of Adam for the Sistine Chapel ceiling. These masterpieces will be displayed in a unique combination with a reclining nude figure from the East pediment of the Parthenon. Thus the school of Michelangelo will be brought together with the school of Phidias for the first time.

The exhibition will explore how, in Greek art, the body acts as a pictorial language for articulating the human condition. It can represent every aspect of mortal and divine experience, in fulfilment of Protagoras’s statement “Man is the measure of all things”. This exhibition will be the first in a series to focus on important areas of the Museum’s famous permanent collection to guide future thinking about the display of one of the most important collections of sculpture in the world, allowing for a greater dialogue between the sculptures of different cultures.

Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum said, “This exhibition will be a celebration of the beauty and ideals of ancient Greek art. Some of the most beautiful works in the world will be brought together for the first time in a narrative exploring the highest achievements of ancient Greek artists and philosophers, exploring what it is to be human. I am hugely grateful to Julius Baer for their generous support of the exhibition”.

Adam Horowitz, Head of Julius Baer International Limited, United Kingdom, said: “Julius Baer, the international reference in pure private banking, with a large footprint in the UK, is renowned not only for its long tradition in wealth management but also for its engagement with arts and culture over many decades. Both areas rely on partnerships, which are founded on trust and sharing a common goal. We are very proud to sponsor a major exhibition at the British Museum for the third consecutive time. Defining beauty: the body in ancient Greek art will provide exciting and vivid insights into the human body as it was expressed in ancient Greek art and thought.”

When: 26 March – 5 July 2015

Where: Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery

Source: The British Museum [March 16, 2015]