Neil Faulkner considers the Pyramids and alternative facts
Apparently, we now live in a ‘post-fact’ world. The new American president denounces the truth as ‘fake news’. A leading White House spokesperson rejects the truth in favour of ‘alternative facts’....
View ArticleForgotten kingdom: Searching for lost royalty from the days of the Aksumite...
In 2015, CWA reported on the discovery by Louise Schofield of the remarkable grave of a young woman she nicknamed ‘Sleeping Beauty’. Now further excavation in in Ethiopia’s Tigray Province has revealed...
View ArticleUnlocking Egyptian Secrets
Joyce Tyldesley, Manchester University Egyptology is a relatively new and fast-moving science: it is not yet 200 years since Champollion decoded the hieroglyphic script (1822) and revealed Egypt’s...
View ArticleLearning from Mummies
Prof Rosalie David, University of Manchester & former Director of the KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology Biomedical Egyptology, a multidisciplinary study based on analytical investigation of...
View ArticleTravel: Africa Vetus
Caitlin McCall explores Roman remains in the land of Dido, Hannibal, and Caesar. Tunisia, with its glorious sandy beaches wedged between Algeria and Libya on the north coast of Africa, covers an area...
View ArticleTravel: The many lives of Luxor temple
How did an Egyptian pharaoh rejuvenate after a demanding year? The annual Opet festival at Luxor was dedicated to renewing the semi-divine ruler’s lifeforce, but mortals will also benefit from a visit...
View ArticleThe Valley of the Kings revisited
It may be the royal tombs that spring to mind when we think of the Valley of the Kings, but you did not have to be pharaoh to secure space in the cemetery. More modest tombs exist in greater numbers,...
View ArticleObject Lesson: Serabit Sphinx
What is it? This small Egyptian figure, carved out of red sandstone around 1800 BC, depicts a familiar mythical creature: the sphinx. It was perhaps a votive offering to the goddess Hathor; Egyptian...
View ArticleTravel: Roman Algeria
Some of the finest surviving remnants of the Roman Empire can be found in Algeria. But how easy are they to visit? Philip Kenrick is our guide. For the tourist who is interested in the Classical...
View ArticleThe power of Saharan rock art
Creating images in a changing world Today, it seems hard to imagine that the Sahara was once populated by people with large herds of domestic cattle. While the grasslands and lakes that were so...
View ArticleTutankhamun: a teenager’s journey to the afterlife
As the centenary of Howard Carter’s discovery looms, the largest collection of Tutankhamun’s grave goods ever to leave Egypt has embarked on a world tour. The objects, ranging from glittering...
View ArticleBringing a pharaoh’s tomb to Bolton
In 1898, a team led by French archaeologist Victor Loret excavated the tomb of the 18th Dynasty pharaoh Thutmose III. It was given the number KV34, though it had originally been one of the first tombs...
View ArticleRare painted leopard revealed
Archaeologists with the Egyptian-Italian Mission at West Aswan have digitally restored fragments of a very fragile painted leopard’s head from a 2nd century BC sarcophagus, discovered at the Egyptian...
View ArticleMotion capture
As they walked across Engare Sero in northern Tanzania, a group of people left their mark in the soft surface of volcanic ash beneath their bare feet. Preserved for thousands of years in material...
View ArticleParanthropus robustus
The discovery of a two-million-year-old skull in South Africa is shedding important new light on microevolution in an early hominin species, as Jesse Martin and Angeline Leece reveal. The post...
View ArticleTravel: The Horizon of Khufu
It is not unknown for children to try to outdo their parents. When it comes to tombs, though, pharaoh Khufu must have thought he was on safe ground. Everything about the vital statistics of the...
View ArticleRevealing a pharaoh’s violent death
Pharaoh Seqenenre-Taa-II (c.1558–1553 BC) ruled southern Egypt at the end of the 17th Dynasty, during a time when the northern part of the country was controlled by a group called the Hyksos, who...
View ArticleReview: A virtual visit to Wahtye’s tomb
The Saqqara necropolis, located 30km west of Cairo, is home to a wealth of ancient Egyptian tombs and pyramids. The burial ground was established near the ancient administrative city of Memphis during...
View ArticleSunken treasures
A cargo of ancient African ivory recovered from a 16th-century shipwreck is shedding light on early trade networks and historical elephant populations. The post Sunken treasures appeared first on World...
View ArticleLost Dixon Relic
This cigar box, containing several wooden splinters that make up a piece of cedar discovered in the Great Pyramid of Giza, was recently found in the University of Aberdeen’s collections. The piece of...
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