Egypt
The National (Hadeel al Shalchi)
See the above page for more.
- How Did They Build The Pyramids…?
Egypt at the Manchester Museum (Campbell Price) Manchester Museum has a unique collection of objects connected with pyramid building. Many everyday tools have survived from a settlement specially-planned to house workers who built the pyramid of King...
- Updates From Dr Hawass On Sites And Museums
drhawass.com (Zahi Hawass) Here's an exerpt but see the above page to see reports on museum restorations and more about Qantara East where 800 items haev been stolen (mostly, according to Hawass, pottery). At Lischt, a famous site containing the...
- Second Dynasty Tomb Found At Lahun
Reuters Archaeologists have found a nearly 5,000-year-old tomb near Egypt's mud brick Lahun pyramid, in a sign that the site held religious significance a millennium before previously thought, the site head said Tuesday. The find, down crumbling...
- More Re Lahun Finds
Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El-Aref) A short summary of the recent finds made near Lahun. It took a couple of minutes for this page to load, but I left it to its own devices and it got there in the end. A large necropolis of 53 rock-hewn tombs of various...
- Granite Sarcophagus Of Senusret Ii Found (?)
Talking Pyramids (Vincent Brown) On the above blog Vincent says that he's not sure what to make of this news release because Petrie examined the sarcophagus of Senusret II in detail in 1889. The news source was MENA. I've checked up on other sources...
Egypt
Watching the Lahun excavation - one journalist's perspective
The National (Hadeel al Shalchi)
A photographer, driver and I left the chaos of Cairo for the green fields of Fayoum Oasis, about an hour and a half outside the capital. It is an agricultural area where people live quite simply, farming their land, selling crops and living in small communities. To get to the grave site we had to drive another half hour to Lahun village – a primitive and ancient community that dates back to the Middle Kingdom of the pharaohs. People still live as farmers here, riding their donkey carts with their wares under the watchful eye of the King Senusret II pyramid, a deformed hunk of rock created for the King in the Middle Kingdom (1991-1783 BC).
The area around the pyramid was excavated in 1889 but abandoned when the British archaeology team found little of interest.
The site was revisited last November when a group of Egyptian archaeologists led by Dr Abdelrahman al Ayedi started digging. Dr al Ayedi said he was inspired to go back to the site because he had faith that there was something there to be found.
Sure enough, four months later, he was standing in a baseball cap and worn out clothes, a pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket, giving his workers orders to be careful as they dusted down the 53 tombs they had unearthed.
I stood on the barren hillside, along with my fellow journalists, and stared down as a couple of workers at the bottom of the three-metre shaft gently lifted the lid of a coffin inscribed with prayers in hieroglyphics.
See the above page for more.
- How Did They Build The Pyramids…?
Egypt at the Manchester Museum (Campbell Price) Manchester Museum has a unique collection of objects connected with pyramid building. Many everyday tools have survived from a settlement specially-planned to house workers who built the pyramid of King...
- Updates From Dr Hawass On Sites And Museums
drhawass.com (Zahi Hawass) Here's an exerpt but see the above page to see reports on museum restorations and more about Qantara East where 800 items haev been stolen (mostly, according to Hawass, pottery). At Lischt, a famous site containing the...
- Second Dynasty Tomb Found At Lahun
Reuters Archaeologists have found a nearly 5,000-year-old tomb near Egypt's mud brick Lahun pyramid, in a sign that the site held religious significance a millennium before previously thought, the site head said Tuesday. The find, down crumbling...
- More Re Lahun Finds
Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El-Aref) A short summary of the recent finds made near Lahun. It took a couple of minutes for this page to load, but I left it to its own devices and it got there in the end. A large necropolis of 53 rock-hewn tombs of various...
- Granite Sarcophagus Of Senusret Ii Found (?)
Talking Pyramids (Vincent Brown) On the above blog Vincent says that he's not sure what to make of this news release because Petrie examined the sarcophagus of Senusret II in detail in 1889. The news source was MENA. I've checked up on other sources...