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February 2016

“The Sacred Site of ‘Quesna’: Multi-disciplinary Investigations and Analyses in the Cemetery and Falcon Necropolis” Joanne Rowland (EEG Meeting Talk)

On Sunday Joanne Rowland came to talk to us at the Essex Egyptology Group about her work on two sites in the Nile Delta. Her talk was split into two parts – the first was about her work at Quesna (with the title that I’ve used on this blog post) on Old Kingdom and Ptolemaic era structures. After our coffee break she moved on to telling us about work she’s done at the nearby Wadi Gamal looking at much older prehistoric sites. “The Sacred Site of ‘Quesna’: Multi-disciplinary Investigations and Analyses in the Cemetery and Falcon Necropolis” Quesna is situated towards the southern edge of the Nile Delta, between two sites known to have been Nome capitals: Athribis and Busiris. It sits on a sand formation called a Gezira (I think) or turtleback, which sticks out above the silt deposited by the Nile floods. The site was discovered in 1989,… Read More »“The Sacred Site of ‘Quesna’: Multi-disciplinary Investigations and Analyses in the Cemetery and Falcon Necropolis” Joanne Rowland (EEG Meeting Talk)

“At the Gate of the Ancestors: Saint Cults and the Politics of the Past at Abydos” Janet Richards (Sackler Lecture at the British Museum)

The 2015 Raymond and Beverly Sackler Foundation Distinguished Lecture in Egyptology was given by Janet Richards, on the subject of saint cults in general and specifically the one of Idy at Abydos and how that fits into the wider sacred landscape there. The lecture was part of a colloquium about Abydos in general, which I didn’t go to (although J did) and I remember the lecture as including a lot of references back to things they’d discussed in the colloquium. I’m rather more reliant on my notes than usual when writing this up – as it’s nearly half a year since I went to the talk at the time of writing (and you’re reading this at least 2 months after that). Richards is interested in saint cults in ancient Egypt, but in the introductory part of her talk she contextualised them for us in more modern terms (which was very… Read More »“At the Gate of the Ancestors: Saint Cults and the Politics of the Past at Abydos” Janet Richards (Sackler Lecture at the British Museum)