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...
Dwarfism in Ancient Egypt was not only recognised but often respected, and individuals with dwarfism could hold positions of considerable prestige. Rather than being marginalised, many dwarfs were integrated into society, particularly within elite or sacred spheres, and there were indeed religious and mythological associations that cast their condition in a positive, even divine, light....
Carved from luminous Parian marble, this statue embodies the elegant fusion of Egyptian and Roman divinity: Hermanubis, the jackal-headed Anubis recast in the guise of Mercury. Fashioned in the 1st–2nd centuries A.D., the figure rises a modest 1.55 metres, yet commands attention. A slender solar disc poised on a crescent moon nestles between alert ears,...
Taxation in Ancient Egypt was the very lifeblood of the state, binding ploughman, priest, and pharaoh in a tapestry of obligation. Long before coinage glinted under Persian and Greek rule, dues were rendered in grain, livestock, crafted wares, and, perhaps most valuable of all, labour itself. Our clearest windows onto this bustling fiscal world are...
