Skip to content

Margaret

“Mighty in Waking and Great in Sleeping: the History of Beds in Ancient Egypt” Manon Y. Schutz

At the beginning of April Manon Y. Schutz came to talk to us at the Essex Egyptology Group about beds in Ancient Egypt. She’s a D.Phil student at Oxford University, and beds in an Ancient Egyptian funerary context are the subject of her thesis. She has chosen to look at the funerary context because most of the evidence of beds that survives is from tombs. Her talk was divided into two parts – first an introduction to the topic of beds in Ancient Egypt, and then an overview of beds throughout Ancient Egyptian history. Schutz started by talking about the basics of the subject – what is a bed? It’s important to start by thinking about our modern preconceptions of the subject so that one can hopefully avoid jumping to unwarranted conclusions when thinking about Ancient Egyptian beds. She gave a detailed modern definition of a bed, and then looked… Read More »“Mighty in Waking and Great in Sleeping: the History of Beds in Ancient Egypt” Manon Y. Schutz

“New Texts from Ancient Egypt: Revisiting the Egyptian Alabaster Quarries at Hatnub” Roland Enmarch (EEG Meeting Talk)

At the beginning of March Roland Enmarch came to the Essex Egyptology Group to talk to us about the ancient texts left on the walls of an Egyptian alabaster quarry in Middle Egypt. He started his talk by giving us the geographical and geological context for the quarry. Hatnub is in the Eastern desert fairly close to Amarna. The name “Hatnub” (hat-noob) is how the original excavators of the site in the 1890s pronounced the ancient name that they read on the walls (which is transliterated ḥwt-nbw). Modern Egyptologists would pronounce it more like “Hut nebu” (hoot neb-oo) because the assumptions made about how the vowels sound have changed, but the name has stuck with the original pronunciation. It’s quite likely that neither pronunciation bears much resemblance to what an actual Ancient Egyptian would’ve said. The name means “Mansion of Gold” which is reminiscent of the names of areas in… Read More »“New Texts from Ancient Egypt: Revisiting the Egyptian Alabaster Quarries at Hatnub” Roland Enmarch (EEG Meeting Talk)

“Ancient Egyptian Jewellery” Carol Andrews (EEG Meeting Talk)

In February Carol Andrews came to talk to the Essex Egyptology Group about Ancient Egyptian jewellery – in particular that worn by women. She structured her talk as an overview of the various types of jewellery and for each type she looked at both the archaeological evidence and at the artistic representations of the jewellery. Men wore as much jewellery as women, and in fact there are very few if any forms that were specific to women. One of the common forms of jewellery worn by both sexes is the broad collar, constructed of several concentric strings of beads with pendants on the outermost string. At the ends of the strings there may be large ornate terminals, and the heavier collars needed a counterpoise at the back to keep it attractively balanced around the neck. The first surviving example dates to the Middle Kingdom, but they are depicted on statues… Read More »“Ancient Egyptian Jewellery” Carol Andrews (EEG Meeting Talk)

EEG Trip to Manchester Museum, November 2016

In November last year the Essex Egyptology Group organised a trip to Manchester to visit the museum there and to get a behind the scenes tour of the Egyptian collections from Campbell Price, the curator of Egypt and Sudan at the museum. I took quite a few photos on this trip, some are in this post and they are all up on flickr, click here to get to the album or on any photo in this post to go to flickr. We arrived at the museum about an hour before it opened to the public and were met by Campbell Price in the foyer. He took us up to the Egyptian gallery, but first we stopped in one of the other galleries where there was a bust of Jesse Haworth so that Price could tell us about the history of the collection. As with so many other museums the earliest… Read More »EEG Trip to Manchester Museum, November 2016

“Inside the Step Pyramid” Vincent Oeters (EEG Meeting Talk)

At the November meeting of the Essex Egyptology Group Vincent Oeters talked to us about the Step Pyramid of Djoser – in particular the inside of it. He doesn’t himself work on the Step Pyramid, but while he was working (as an archaeologist) nearby he was able to go into it three times (with the permission of and accompanied by an Inspector from the Ministry of Antiquities, as it’s not generally open to tourists). And one of those times he was also allowed to take photos! And it was those photos that formed the core of his talk. He started his talk with a bit of geographical and historical scene setting. We don’t actually know all that much about Djoser – he reigned c.2640 BCE, and the names of his wife and daughter are known and that’s about it. There are two known statues of him – one is in… Read More »“Inside the Step Pyramid” Vincent Oeters (EEG Meeting Talk)

Petrie Museum Friends in Egypt Tour 2016

In early October members of the Petrie Museum Friends (and others) went on a trip to Egypt organised and led by Lucia Gahlin which visited several less visited sites as well as some very thorough looks at more well known places. There were thirteen of us on the tour, and we were accompanied by Lucia, Youssef Ramsis (our guide) and Galal Alsenusy (from Egypt Archaeological Tours which was the company the tour was organised through). The holiday was in two parts, firstly based around Cairo and then travelling south to Middle Egypt where we stayed at the New Hermopolis retreat. Each day Youssef would start his introductory remarks with “and today is the highlight of our tour!”, which was both entertaining and true – it was very much a selection of cool and interesting places to see. Lucia had also arranged talks from several guest speakers – as well herself… Read More »Petrie Museum Friends in Egypt Tour 2016

“Pyramid Evolution and Construction in Ancient Egypt” Stuart Baldwin (EEG Meeting)

The talk at the Essex Egyptology Group meeting this September was given by one of our members – Stuart Baldwin. He’s interested in the development of the Egyptian pyramids over time, and in how the Egyptians managed to build such monumental structures with such early technology. His talk presented what he’s learnt about the subject, as well as several entertaining asides (which I generally shan’t try and reproduce in this writeup, translating someone else’s jokes from speech to text is an exercise doomed to failure!). Baldwin started by giving us a bit of an overview of Egypt from a geological perspective – the country sits on the north-eastern corner of the African plate, near the boundaries with the Indo-Australian plate and the Eurasian plate. The northern part of Egypt around Cairo is blessed with many of the rocks and other things that the Egyptians used. To the west of the… Read More »“Pyramid Evolution and Construction in Ancient Egypt” Stuart Baldwin (EEG Meeting)

“The Recently Discovered Naqada III Settlement at South Abydos” Yaser Mahmoud Hussein (EEG Meeting Talk)

At the beginning of August Yaser Mahmoud Hussein visited the Essex Egyptology Group to talk to us about his work on very early sites at Abydos. He is an Antiquities Inspector and archaeologist, and has been Field Director of the excavations at the Early Dynastic Cemetery at Abydos since 2008. The site is to the south of the New Kingdom temples at Abydos – the ones of Seti I and Ramesses II that are what you go to see if you visit Abydos as a tourist. It’s very close to the modern village, and so the first purpose of Hussein’s team’s excavations was to find out if there was anything interesting there before it was built over. Even now that it’s known to be an archaeologically interesting site it’s still not safe from destruction as when the archaeologists are not actually working there the villagers walk across it the way… Read More »“The Recently Discovered Naqada III Settlement at South Abydos” Yaser Mahmoud Hussein (EEG Meeting Talk)

“Howard Carter: An Alternative View of the Man Through His Art” Lee Young (EEG Meeting Talk)

At the beginning of this month Lee Young came to the Essex Egyptology Group to talk about Howard Carter as an artist (rather than as an archaeologist). She is an independent researcher associated with the Griffith Institute in Oxford where the bulk of Carter’s notes and archives are kept. Although she was talking to us today about Carter she said that her real research interest is in the female artists whose works are represented in the Griffith Institute collections. She began by sketching us a quick verbal picture of Howard Carter’s character: he was contrary, stubborn, opinionated and sometimes rude. He was short-tempered and didn’t suffer fools gladly. He also had a chip on his shoulder about his humble origins – going so far in later years as to re-write his background into something that he felt was more “suitable”. But to offset this picture of a proud man Young… Read More »“Howard Carter: An Alternative View of the Man Through His Art” Lee Young (EEG Meeting Talk)

Ancient Egypt Transformed: The Middle Kingdom (exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

When we visited New York last year we timed our visit to coincide with the opening of an exhibition that the Metropolitan Museum of Art was putting on: Ancient Egypt Transformed: The Middle Kingdom. The Middle Kingdom was regarded by later Ancient Egyptians as their “classical” age – for instance one of the teaching texts from the New Kingdom is about this era. It was probably composed in the 18th Dynasty, but it tells of a vision that Senwosret I has of his father Amenemhat I after Amenemhat’s death. In that vision Amenemhat I talks about the proper ways to be a king. We often almost overlook the Middle Kingdom nowdays, as being “just” that bit between the Giza Pyramids and the time of the Valley of the Kings. Certainly I don’t think I’ve been to another large exhibition concentrating on this era. They let us take photos inside the… Read More »Ancient Egypt Transformed: The Middle Kingdom (exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art)