The pharaonic Beautiful Festival of the Valley has already been studied extensively by various scholars. However, no adequate research has hitherto been carried out into the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods. This paper proposes what the final phase of the festival would have looked like and argues that it did not merge with the Decadal Festival, as became the opinio communis. The Graeco-Roman archaeological

This paper explores 32 inscribed objects from foundation deposits of the Temple of Thutmose III, Djeserakhet, at Deir el-Bahari. They contain ointment jars, chisels, saws, axes, surveyor’s stakes, ‘Opening of the Mouth’ adzes, a grinder, and a model of a rocker. They are kept at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and the museum database records that they were found at Sheikh Abd el-Qurna; however, the method

This field report covers the work of the Egypt Exploration Society and Macquarie University Joint Mission during the period of 2018 and 2019 at Qubbet el-Hawa (third to fifth field seasons). Excavations focused on the infrastructure of the Lower Necropolis (Sites B and C) and the discovery of the causeway of Tomb QH90 (Site E). A detailed analysis of the pottery found and archaeometrical results complement

The collections of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow and the Benaki Museum of Athens contain terracotta figurines with unusual iconography. These figures have been interpreted in numerous different ways, and the authors do not think that a completely correct interpretation has yet been found. The ‘problematic’ elements are the pose, gestures and the headdress of the figurines, which resemble

This paper reviews the monuments built in the Theban area during the reigns of Hatshepsut and Thutmosis III, and their stone materials. This period witnessed a shift from limestone to sandstone in the second part of the Hatshepsut coregency with Thutmosis III, when the queen commissioned an ambitious architectural program. In his autonomous reign, Thutmosis III reused limestone in various monuments

Departing from the traditional approaches taken toward ancient Egyptian potmark interpretation, this paper draws on modern conventions of commodity branding to show how internally placed textual markings on bread moulds functioned as brands for marking the surfaces of select loaves at Tell Gabbara during the late Second Dynasty. Specific properties of three potmarks are examined with the aims of elucidating

After long neglect by Egyptologists, recent decades have seen coffins finally become a serious object of study. This not only embraces the work of individual scholars, but also international study-projects and dedicated exhibitions and conferences. The volume under review is a fruit of the latter, held in conjunction with an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, in April 2016.

This article is the publication of the sarcophagus lid British Museum EA 1640 belonging to the nb-nḫt (nebnakht) Iahirdis. The present study focuses in particular on the dating and origin of this object, as well as on the priestly titles held by its owner and his father. Interestingly, the graphic peculiarities analysis of the signs used in the inscriptions also revealed that the scribe sometimes chose

Thonis-Heracleion and Saïs, located close to each other geographically, have shared a common history over several centuries. Numerous bronze objects dating from the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty were brought to light in the northernmost waterway leading from the Canopic mouth east to west across Thonis-Heracleion. Among these artefacts are four bronze plaques engraved with the names of kings, one displaying

The colophon of BD supplementary chapter 166 states that the text had been found at the neck of Ramses II’s mummy. Dahms, Pehal, and Willems had argued in JEA 100 (2014) that the original document had not formed part of the original tomb equipment of Ramses II, but had been added in the course of the Twenty-First Dynasty after the tomb robberies in the Valley of the Kings. In 2016, J. Quack raised

Fieldwork at Amarna from autumn 2018 through autumn 2019 included excavation at a previously uninvestigated cemetery, the North Desert Cemetery, located approximately 600 metres south-west of the North Tombs. Several post excavation projects also continued. Those reported on here comprise the study of skeletal materials from the North Cliffs Cemetery, hair and textiles from the North Cliffs and North

Much of the research conducted into the history of Egyptology as it transitioned during the first half of the twentieth century from a collector’s backyard into an area of western-sanctioned archaeological research focuses on the experiences and perceptions of western scholars, with little attention given to the involvement or presence of Egyptians. The recent discovery of thousands of archival documents

Rituals against enemies, including the execration rituals and texts, have been studied at some length. However, the gaps in knowledge about the rituals, and the potential sources that must remain unexcavated in the field or unrecognized in museum storerooms have been lamented by scholars. Often overlooked in storage or even on display, many execration figures lack the definitive provenance that might

This article discusses the meaning and function of the act of measuring ancient Egyptian architecture in the present-day context, in which the advent of digital culture has allowed the accumulation of extremely precise and accurate data. Our expectations on our modern measurements may lead us to select the ancient data through a filter that does not correspond to the ancient perspective, thus affecting

The Northern Necropolis of Gebelein was a place of important discoveries, e.g. an archive of Old Kingdom papyri, the Tomb of Unknowns, and the Tomb of the General Iti II. Several excavations have taken place there, but none have been sufficiently published. The archaeological contexts of these discoveries are poorly known, which limits their research value. Archival data from two unpublished excavations

Graffiti game boards attest to the presence of historical populations at an archaeological site and, in some cases, assist in dating an archaeological context. While games suggest the presence of a social activity, their contextual significance compared to the graffiti of texts and images, pottery finds, and other diagnostic tools of archaeology is open to further enquiry. The presence of multiple

A gypsum plaster relief fragment from the Amarna Royal Tomb is currently kept at the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology of the University of São Paulo, Brazil. The fragment consists of an addition to the corpus of relief fragments from the Royal Tomb compiled by G. T. Martin. This paper presents the object and contextualises the relief fragment within the decorative scheme of the Amarna Royal Tomb

This article gives a new reading and interpretation of a Coptic legend accompanying a wall-painting in a medieval church at Tebtunis, first published by C. C. Walters in this journal in 1989. Among depictions of the punishment of various sinners, the figure of a woman whose breasts are attacked by snakes can be connected with a belief in the sinfulness of wet-nursing, which is paralleled in Byzantine

In this article, we take a closer look at the process and contents of caching in the Sacred Animal Necropolis at North Saqqara. Most of the contents of the approximately 68 caches are unpublished, but we are using the information preserved in the excavation archive held at the Egypt Exploration Society in London. This study has three parts. First, we take a closer look at the conceptual categorization

In the Twenty-first Dynasty, ancient Egypt was facing a number of economic, political, and religious challenges and transformations. To compensate for a lack of imported resources and subsidized incomes, the Egyptian people were robbing and reusing the tombs of their predecessors. Royal coffins and mummies were collected by priests and placed in tomb caches, supposedly for their protection. In this

This article is the publication of a beaded scarab from a mummy-net, excavated at Lahun in 1889–90 and donated to the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The mission of the University of Hawai’i at Tell Timai in 2009 began excavating the remains of a limestone temple foundation platform in the north-west area of the site. The foundations had been partially recorded in survey work conducted in 1930 by Alexander Langsdorff and Siegfried Schott, and again in the 1960s by New York University, however no known investigations of the structure were conducted

‘Marea’ is situated on the south-western shore of Lake Mareotis, some 40 km south-west of Alexandria and 4 km south of the Mediterranean coast, in a region that enjoyed considerable economic significance in the Graeco-Roman Period due to wine production. In 2011, a Polish expedition from the Archaeological Museum of Kraków, on behalf of the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, initiated excavations

This paper is the publication of the amulet Papyrus British Museum EA 10732 written for the protection of Amennakhte, born of Tarekhânou, against the srf-inflammation. The text is very close to P. Chester Beatty VII verso 7, with some variations in text and images. A partial doublet of P. Chester Beatty VII, verso 7 has been published by Yvan Koenig (Papyrus Deir al-Médîna 42). The nature of the relationships

The article publishes a set of three previously unknown writing boards from the Carnarvon and Carter excavations in the lower Asasif area at Thebes in the period 1908–13. Dated on palaeographical grounds to the Second Intermediate Period, they constitute the earliest manuscripts identified so far of two classical literary compositions: Khakheperreseneb and The Instruction of a Man for His Son. The

Despite the variety of formulae on Coptic epitaphs, some of them have become a feature of specific districts. The commemorative formula is one of these types, which were commonly used to commemorate the subject of the epitaph. The aim of the present article is to publish six unknown Coptic epitaphs belong to this type of formula and which are now kept in the Abou El-Goud region storage magazine in

An expedition of the Egypt Exploration Society in 1913–14 discovered four fragments of the Hebrew Bible (from the books of Kings and Job). This article presents the first critical edition of the fragments. With a few minor exceptions, the fragments conform to the Masoretic Text. The possible datings of these fragments range from the third to the early eighth centuries ce. Very little is known about

Research for the final report of a large Middle Kingdom tomb dug jointly by the fifth Earl of Carnarvon and The Metropolitan Museum of Art provides provenance information for 12 writing boards from Carnarvon tombs on the West Bank at Luxor. Through disparate records at the Griffith Institute Oxford, Egyptian Museum Cairo, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, the tablets can now be assigned

This article is the publication of Ashmolean Museum AN 1888.561, a small, damaged limestone object carved with images of deities and texts relating to the Nineteenth Dynasty high priest of Onuris, Minmose. These features, as well as the object’s distinctive form, are described, and a brief commentary is given for the texts. It is suggested that the object might be a votive Isis-throne.

The Egypt Exploration Society archive contains unpublished pencil drawings by A. Klasens of seal impressions found in the Step Pyramid complex of Saqqara. Digitally inked versions of these drawings are published here for the first time. The seal impressions can be sourced to the Northern Galleries of the complex. The impressions were sealed on clay formerly plastered on a wall, and also bore the imprints

TT 209 was built in a wadi, a location that means it has been affected by flash floods since ancient times. The team in charge of its study and conservation has initiated a systematic programme of environmental data collection (temperature and relative humidity) in order to understand the natural conditions of the tomb and any transformations caused by archaeological work in its underground chambers

Egyptian senet boards follow a very consistent morphology that varies in small but notable ways throughout the 2000-year history of the game. A previously unpublished board, in the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose, California, may provide new insight into the evolution of the game in the early New Kingdom. A game table with markings distinctive of the Thutmoside Period, but oriented like Middle

The ostracon oBM EA 65597 contains two extracts from The Teaching of Khety, also known as The Satire of the Trades. It was used as a school exercise. On the recto a teacher wrote the first chapter of Khety in a small, neat hand. The text continues on the verso, but written by a student in an inexperienced hand. Various parallels are discussed, including the unpublished ostracon Cairo SR 12191, which

Two colossal quartzite statues from Ihnasya el-Medina, now Egyptian Museum Cairo JE 45975 and JE 45976, dating to the late Middle Kingdom but reworked under Ramesses II, were recently attributed to Amenemhat IV. Examining the inscriptions, iconography, and style of the statues, it is argued here that they represent Senwosret III. Remarkably, the statues depict the king with both hands lying flat on

The aim of the article is to reconsider the question of the co-regency of Thutmose III and Amenhotep II in the light of recent research casting into doubt the existence of this institution in the Middle Kingdom. The author re-examines the sources cited in favour of the co-regency, showing that the co-regency hypothesis generates more problems than it allegedly solves. Instead of searching for one simple

An area of 306 sq m was excavated in the Main City South at Tell el-Amarna between 7 October and 2 November 2017. The work focused on the area of a building complex denominated M50.14, M50.15 and M50.16 by C. L. Woolley, who initially excavated these buildings in 1922 on behalf of the Egypt Exploration Society. After an initial season of re-excavation in 2014, the 2017 work encompassed the northern

The Valley of the Kings is one of the most famous and to a certain extent also one of the most prestigious archaeological sites in Egypt with several almost intact tombs discovered over the last 120 years. In contrast to the importance of the place, there are surprisingly few final excavation reports. Excavation results have most often been presented in short preliminary reports, leaving many questions

During excavations in the spring of 2015 in the settlement of Elkab, a complete and almost intact crucible was discovered on the floor level of a Second Dynasty building. This article describes the crucible and its archaeological context, it explores the design of the crucible in comparison with contemporary crucibles of a corresponding style and it foreshadows the character of on-going research. The

This article aims at presenting a methodology for Social Network Analysis (SNA) applied to Egyptology and ancient societies studies, with its benefits and issues. One of the big issues dealing with social relationships in ancient Egypt lies in the use of kinship terminology defining relations outside the family. In that sense, SNA allows researchers to partially set aside links values contrary to traditional

This article explores the cultural implications of the sign N41 used in an apparently random constellation of words related to women, water and metals. The symbolic meaning of iron and its consistent relation with the sky in religious texts is explored to determine that the Egyptian cosmovision contemplated the sky as an iron container of water, pieces of which fell to the earth in the shape of meteors

The Archives of the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam contain a stack of letters from W. M. Flinders Petrie to the German Egyptologist von Bissing, dating from between 1899 to 1911. Among other subjects, the letters refer to Petrie’s conflict with the French excavator Amélineau, his rival for the concession at Abydos, asking von Bissing to keep an eye on him. Furthermore, Petrie gives short reports

Used on both sides, the papyrus British Museum EA 9961 reproduces a marsh scene on the recto and a copy of the myth of Isis and her seven scorpions in cursive hieroglyphs on the verso. Although the high quality of the illustration is the most striking feature, the text has also been carefully laid out and written. This research seeks to investigate how, when and why this document, whose provenance

This article studies a fragment of a stele found by Clarence Stanley Fisher in 1915 at Dendara necropolis and most probably left in situ. Nevertheless, based on a photograph kept in the archives of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, it has been pointed out that the artefact, also known under the registration number D 628, presents a cut biography and a very damaged

Fieldwork at Amarna in autumn 2017 and spring 2018 included excavation at a previously uninvestigated pit-grave cemetery, the North Cliffs Cemetery, on the low desert near the North Tombs. Initial results suggest the burials here are closer in character to those at the South Tombs Cemetery (excavated 2006–13) than at the North Tombs Cemetery (excavated 2015, 2017). Several post-excavation projects

Shabti-figures are amongst the most ubiquitous of all Egyptian antiquities, but relatively few of those in museum collections have ever been properly published. This volume, covering the 108 complete and fragmentary examples in Hildesheim, is thus to be welcomed. As well as being a catalogue, the book also aims to take a broader overview of shabtis, its first section beginning by introducing the remarkably

Quantitative research in the available sources on the pr-ḥḏ in the Early Dynastic period shows that there are better arguments to translate the Early Dynastic term pr-ḥḏ as ‘House of Stoneware’ rather than ‘treasury’. This also helps in explaining the somewhat puzzling double dichotomy of pr-ḥḏ/pr-dšr and pr-ḥḏ/pr-nbw in this period. Moreover, from the results it could be argued that a theory seeing

Leather apparel is not as well documented or understood as textiles in ancient Egypt, yet leather was part of the culture as far back as the Badarian Period. Two items in the collection of the International Museum of Leather Craft in Northampton are prime examples of what scholars can learn from the study of leather goods. This article looks closely at these two items.

This article presents a stela belonging to the God’s Father Horenpe (acc. no. 6041), which was donated to the Manchester Museum by its founder and primary benefactor Sir Jesse Haworth and partly published by Amelia Edwards in 1888. The article investigates the stela’s provenance and dates it on stylistic grounds to the Twenty-sixth Dynasty. Evidence is also presented which suggests that the stela may

Beginning with Auguste Mariette, who inspired the ‘foreste imbalsamate’ (sweet-smelling forests) in Aida by Verdi, the land of Punt fascinated the imagination of modern scholars in their academic studies as much as the ancient Egyptians in their love poems. The location of Punt, where the ancient Egyptians obtained aromatic gums and other exotic products, was debated for over a century without any

Publication of the fragmentary lower portion of a limestone seated statue, now in the Manchester Museum (acc. no. 4624), from the 1907 EEF excavations at Deir el-Bahri. Although the name of the individual is not preserved, surviving titles, phraseology and the assertion that the statue was given m ḥswt nt ḫr ḥmt-nṯr ‘as favour of the God’s Wife’ allow the piece to be identified as belonging to Senenmut

The book under review comprises the publication of the Middle Kingdom (MK) and Second Intermediate Period (SIP) objects recovered from the Egypt Exploration Society excavations in ancient Memphis. Together with the site report1 and the pottery volume2 three major studies relating to the MK levels at Kom Rabia are thus available to the scientific community. Reports on the faunal remains3 and the archaeobotany4

Remains of the early Middle Kingdom coffin of a lady called Ankh (B4B) contain parts of the earliest now known version of the Book of Two Ways. The fragment published here retains parts of CT spells 1128 and 1130. The article discusses the problems involved in the publication of this particular source, and in reading the incised hieratic signs of this source. Also, the article places the version of

Memphis served as a main royal residence and the military, administrative, and economic capital of Egypt for much of its history. The city’s gradual decline had begun already under the Ptolemies, whose true capital was at Alexandria, and important changes in administrative practice during the Roman period diminished its traditional status further. The god Ptah and his earthly manifestation, the divine

This article discusses 28 attestations of Igai, ‘the Lord of the Oasis’, some of them overlooked in previous work on the god. After a survey of previous research, the question of his name will be briefly addressed, and a diachronic analysis of his attestations will be presented. A table summarising the attestations mentioned in the text can be found at the end of the article.

Egyptian scribes presented their knowledge of foreign geography in an epigraphic corpus known as the Topographical Lists. These lists are an important and often under-utilized source for Egypt’s foreign contacts in the Levant and Africa. As a list of placenames and sometimes also the names of tribes or peoples, they represent an Egyptian geographic encyclopaedia of peripheral regions as transcribed

Ein in der Vergangenheit nur wenig beachtetes, im Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology (London) unter der Inv.-Nr. UC14797 geführtes, fein reliefiertes, kleines Sandsteinfragment trägt die stilistische und ikonographische Handschrift der Regierungszeit König Amenhoteps III. Die stilkritische Analyse des Reliefs erbrachte besonders auffällige Übereinstimmungen mit den seltenen flach- und rundbildlichen

The subject of this article is a selected group of textual graffiti intended as a preview to a comprehensive hieroglyphic and hieratic corpus of Middle Kingdom rock inscriptions at Gebel el-Silsila currently being prepared for publication. All texts included were incised into the sandstone bedrock and stretched along the so-called Middle Kingdom road as well as along today’s main touristic pathway

Virtually all translators render wd.n=i išnn ḥr i3t=f in Sinuhe B 140 as ‘I raised a/my war/victory cry (išnn) over the back’ of the nḫtw of Retenu. The author argues instead that išnn is an imperfective participial form derived from the verb šni, ‘to conspire/curse’, with the verbal noun being a term of execration applied to the rebellious nḫtw. Sinuhe’s action of ‘putting’ (wdi) the condemned conspirator

The British Museum Asyut Region Project aims at reconstructing and preserving the deep history of the Asyut region through survey and documentation of its pharaonic and post-pharaonic heritage, including the varied responses of local communities who live atop the layers of history below. Two initial field seasons have concentrated on the modern village of Shutb, 5 km south of Asyut, which is believed

This brief contribution uses archaeobotanical data to quantify the edible weight and energetic value of a khar of emmer wheat and a khar of barley. It then combines these data with emmer and barley prices from late New Kingdom Deir el-Medina to argue that, contrary to conventional wisdom, emmer wheat was more expensive per calorie than barley during most of this period. It furthermore argues that emmer