This richly detailed wall scene, originally painted in the tomb of Seti I (KV17), presents two distinct groups of foreigners. The four men on the left, dark-skinned and clad in white garments with red sashes, are Nubians. Each of their cartouches contains the word nḥsj, meaning “Nubian,” occasionally accompanied by ḥqꜣ nḥsj, meaning “Chief of...
Amenhotep III and his Great Royal Wife, Tiye‘s firstborn son, was a prince named Thutmose. As the eldest royal son, he was heir to the throne, and so Thutmose bore prestigious titles such as High Priest of Ptah, indicating his early grooming for both religious and royal responsibilities. A carved statuette depicting him as a...
Wrestling in Ancient Egypt was a highly respected and ancient discipline, among the earliest documented sports in recorded history. It was not a brutal or theatrical display, like the choreographed sword duels shown in The Mummy Returns, but rather a structured and skilful activity that combined physical prowess with cultural and symbolic significance. The earliest...
To the Ancient Egyptian imagination, the blue lotus (Nymphaea caerulea) was far more than a waterborne bloom. Each evening, its petals folded and sank beneath the surface, only to rise and open anew with the sunrise. This daily rhythm made the flower an emblem of cosmic rebirth, mirroring the sun-god’s own journey through the night...
The wooden figure depicts a naked woman holding what is identified as a cat to her chest, though the animal’s form is somewhat indistinct. Though undated in the museum’s entry, the figure was acquired by the early 19th-century Scottish traveller and collector Robert Hay of Linplum, who amassed a substantial number of antiquities during his...
Strung some four-and-forty centimetres in length and weighing scarcely fifty grams, this Middle Kingdom girdle (c. 2055–1650 B.C.), said to be from Thebes, is a miniature treasury of electrum, silver, and semi-precious stone. Six hollow electrum cowries, each painstakingly punched in two halves, soldered, and pierced for threading. With oblate lapis-lazuli and green-feldspar beads, amethyst...
Queen Elizabeth II reigned for over 70 years, making her the longest-reigning monarch in British history and one of the longest in the world. Only a few monarchs, such as Pepi II of Ancient Egypt (who is traditionally said to have ruled for 94 years) are believed to have reigned longer, though ancient records are...
Beneath the sunlit shimmer of Abu Qir Bay two cities once garlanded with lilies and incense, its stone courtyards ringing with hymn and trade, the ancient twin ports of the twin ports of Canopus and Heracleion. Stood like jewels at the mouth of the Nile, a confluence of gods and cultures, where Ancient Egyptian ritual...
Horus of Buto (also known as Horus the Behdetite or Horus of Pe) is a potent manifestation of the falcon god Horus, closely tied to the ancient northern city of Dendera (Per-Wadjet), one of Egypt’s oldest and most sacred cult centres. This revered Delta city, home to the cobra goddess Wadjet, guardian of Lower Egypt,...
With gentle elegance and silent dignity, a woman emerges from the linen folds of this Roman-period funerary shroud, painted in vibrant tempera nearly two thousand years ago. Hailing likely from Antinoöpolis or the Faiyum region, this remarkable textile, measuring over two metres in length, blends the funerary traditions of Pharaonic Egypt with the fashion sensibilities...
Akhenaten’s devotion to the Aten was not just religious; it was artistic and philosophical. In hymns likely written or commissioned by the king himself, such as the Great Hymn to the Aten, Akhenaten exalts the sun’s warmth as the giver of all life, with language that reads more like sacred poetry than royal decree. This...
King Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV), often thought of as a dreamer-philosopher in a land of warrior-kings, cast aside the mighty pantheon of deities and raised his gaze to a single blazing sun: the Aten. With eyes wide to the heavens and feet planted in the desert dust, he declared a revolution not of armies, but of...
Amenemipet was a distinguished priest of Amun during Egypt’s Third Intermediate Period, roughly between 950 and 900 B.C. (Late 21st–early 22nd Dynasty) who steps from the painted panels of his own coffin as a figure of refined piety and quiet authority, likely serving at the cult centre of Deir el-Bahari where he acted as a...
