Ancient Egypt’s links with the eastern Mediterranean and Western Asia are well known and much studied, but its connections with the continent of Africa are more obscure. The Nile Valley’s geographical ties to Africa are obvious: and culturally, ancient Egypt owed much to its North African roots. Indeed, anthropologists of the early twentieth century remarked on the African-ness of some key aspects of ancient Egyptian culture, including its defining feature, the doctrine of divine kingship. Such views are rarely expressed today, yet the fact remains that Egypt had every reason, political as well as economic, to take an interest in its African neighbours. In an attempt to re-balance the accustomed view of pharaonic foreign relations, this article looks again at the evidence for ancient Egypt’s interactions with other parts of the African continent.

Relations with Libya can be traced back to the late Predynastic period. The so-called ‘Libyan Palette’ apparently recorded the results of a military skirmish or plunder mission launched by a pre-First Dynasty ruler (c.3100BC) against the Tjehenu. Over the course of pharaonic history, various different names occur in Egyptian texts to refer to the inhabitants of Libya. It is likely that Tjehenu referred to (the people of) eastern coastal Libya and the region immediately to the west of the Nile Delta, while Tjemehu designated the tribes people living further south, in the deserts of the west of Upper Egypt and Nubia. By the late new Kingdom, these names largely disappear from the Egyptian record, to be replaced by the new terms  Ma(shwash) and Libu, both apparently referring to the increasingly urbanised inhabitants of coastal Libya (classical Cyrenaica) with the later term the origin of the name ‘Libya’.

Despite the changing character of Libyan society, reflected in these  changes of terminology, Egypt’s relations with the region as a whole remained fractious: and successive generations of Egyptian rulers regarded their western neighbours with a mixture of condescension and suspicion. Hence, while Narmer (c.3000BC) asserted his superiority by having  himself depicted smiting the Tjehenu, Ramesses II (c.1279-1213BC) took the more practical step of building a series of fortresses along the approaches to the western  Delta (such as Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham, currently under excavation)to prevent Libyan infiltration. Yet, despite these defensive measures, Egypt faced a large-scale military invasion by the Libu in the reign of Merenptah. The Battle of Perirer (c.1209BC) marked a turning point in Egyptian-Libyan relations, and sowed the seeds for the eventual take-over of political power in Egypt by Libyan military elite at the end of the Twentieth Dynasty. When a Libyan acceeded to the throne of Horus in c. 975BC, the histories of the two regions effectively became entwined, and remained so throughout the late and Ptolemaic periods.

The fringes of the Sahara may have been the abode of rebellious tribespeople, but that did not stop the ancient Egyptians from exploring the desert and exploiting its abundant mineral resources. The gneiss quarries at Gebel el-Asr in the southern Libyan Desert, 65 kilometres north-west of Abu Simbel, witnessed a frenzy of activity in the reign of Khafra (c.2500BC), when expeditions toiled to extract blocks of the distinctive black-and-white banded rock for the king’s statuary in his valley temple at Giza. Further into the Sahara, evidence has recently come to light for mining and mineral-gathering expeditions of an even more ambitious nature. Late in the reign of Khufu (c.2520BC), an expedition of 400 men left the Dakhla Oasis, heading south-westwards into the desert to collect ‘mefat’, probably a mineral pigment. On arrival at an isolated outcrop of rock, the two overseers in charge of  the expedition, Iymeri and Bebi, carved an inscription recording their exploits, while their men made camp and ate freshly caught and roasted locusts – a handy source of protein in such inhospitable environment.

But even this remote outpost did not represent the furthest reach of the pharaonic state. The desert explorer Carlo Bergmann has discovered a series of about thirty sites with Egyptian pottery from various periods, stretched out along a distance of 350 kilometres all the way from the Dakhla Oasis to Gilf Kebir/Uweinat in the extreme south-west corner of modern Egypt.  They include a site, dubbed Abu Ballas, 200 kilometres beyond Dakhla which, to judge from the quantity of pottery found there, was a re-victualling stop for Egyptian expeditions heading even further into the Sahara – perhaps as far as the Kufra Oaisis in south-eastren Libya or even the Ennedi Mountains of Chad. Clearly the ancient Egyptians of the Fourth Dynasty were seasoned desert explorers, possessed of great self-confidence and a pioneering spirit.

The same sense of adventure characterised the exploration of Upper Nubia (modern Sudan) later in the Old Kingdom, as described in the famous autobiographical inscription of Harkhuf. In the reigns of Merenra and Pepi II (c.2260BC}, Harkhuf made four epic journeys to the far-off kingdom of Yam, a land on the Upper Nile, some 900 kilometres south of Elephantine, perhaps in the vicinity of modern Khartoum – or even further south, along the Shendi Reach of the Nile. As in the Sahara, so in Yam, Egypt’s interest was primarily commercial: although, on the return leg of his second expedition, Harkhuf took the opportunity to report on political developments, too. His third journey is perhaps the most interesting, for instead of following the Nile Harkhuf took the oasis road – the Darb el-Arba’in still used by camel-drivers today. On arrival at Yam, he discovered that the ruler ‘had gone off to Tjemeh-land to smite the Tjemeh to the western corner of heaven’: clearly the Tjemeh had enemies besides the Egyptians. Harkhuf followed the ruler of Yam all the way to Tjemeh-land – a major detour on an already long journey – before returning to Egypt with a Yamite escort for his caravan of 300 donkeys laden with precious products: incense, ebony, precious oil, panther skins and elephants’ tusk.

Of all the products of ‘god’s land’ (the Egyptian name for tropical Africa), none was more precious, however the incense. Made from the resin produced by a species of the Boswellia tree, incense played an important role in ancient Egyptian religious ritual and was both a valuable and a sacred product. At least as early as the Fifth Dynasty, Egypt established a reciprocal trading partnership with the kingdom of Punt on the Red Sea coast (near the modern border between Sudan and Eritrea). Where incense trees grew in abundance. Expeditions to Punt, departing from ports on the Red Sea, are attested throughout pharaonic history, from the reign of Isesi (c.2350BC) to that of Ramesses III (c.1167BC). The most famous expedition was led by the treasurer Nehsi (‘the Nubian’) in the reign of Hatshepsut (c.1460BC), scenes from which are carved on the walls of her mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri. The lively tableaux included the Puntites’ stilt-houses, the exotic fauna and flora of their tropical homeland, and the all-important incense trees, taken on board the Egyptian sailing-ships in specially made baskets.

The voyages to Punt underline the ancient Egyptians’ sea-faring skills and their willingness to travel long distances in search of precious commodities. The culmination of these two trends may have occurred in the reign of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty king Nekau II (610-595BC), if the fifth-century BC Greek historian Herodotus is to be believed. According to his account of Egyptian history, Nekau II’s interests in expanding Egyptian trade were not confined to the digging of a canal linking the Nile to the Red Sea. Herodotus recounts how Nekau II sent a fleet of Phoenician sailors – unsurpassed mariners of the ancient world – on a circumnavigation of the Africa. They departed from a Red Sea port, sailed past the Horn of Africa and southwards down the Indian Ocean coast, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and returned to Egypt via the Straits of Gibraltar. The expedition is said to have kept itself fed by landing periodically to sow and harvest crops. According to Herodotus, the whole journey lasted nearly three years.

As with many of Herodotus’ stories, there are compelling cultural and literary arguments against the circumnavigation actually having happened. However, it is striking that, whenever archaeology has illuminated an event or circumstance from Egyptian history described by Herodotus, the Greek historian has invariably been proved right. It is tantalising to consider that he may have been right about Nekau II, too, and that the ancient Egyptians – or at least the Phoenicians in their employ – may have accomplished the feat of sailing right around Africa, two thousand years before Vasco da Gama. If so, the ancient Egyptians knowledge of their continent may have extended beyond Libya, the Sahara and Sudan to encompass the distant shores of Cape Agulhas and Table Bay.

Further reading

Rudolph Kuper and Frank Foster, ‘Khufu’s ‘mefat’ expeditions into the Libyan Desert’’                                        Egyptian Archaeology 23 (2003), pp. 25-28                                                                                         

David O’Connor, ‘Where was the Kingdome of Yam?’, and Dominic Montserrat, ‘Did Necho send a fleet around Africa? in Bill Manley (ed.), The Seventy Great Mysteries of Ancient Egypt {London: Thames and Hudson, 2003), pp. 155-157 and 254-255.                                                                                                                                                            Toby Wilkinson, ‘Egyptian explorers’, in Robin Hanbury-Tenison (ed.), The Seventy Great Journeys in History (London: Thames and Hudson, 2006), pp.29-32

By Dr. Zahi Hawass

The discovery of more than one hundred Greaco-Roman mummies in Bahariya Oasis has swept the media worldwide with a force not seen since the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb. The Valley of the Golden Mummies at Bahariya Oasis is the final resting-place for what is estimated to be thousands of the most beautiful and remarkably well-preserved mummies ever found in Egypt. The excavation has only just begun, but 105 mummies have already been uncovered. The mummies found exhibit a variety of shapes and styles, some of which are lavishly gilded from head to chest with an extravagance reminiscent of King Tut’s burial.

We announced our discovery in the beginning of June, and I found the media to be incredibly excited by the news. Reporters who came to investigate our findings were eager to record every detail of the mummies and both National Geographic TV and magazine came to Bahariya Oasis and stayed with me during the excavation season. Lisa Truit, producer of National Geographic TV, along with three of her staff members, documented the story day by day. Mark Linz, Director of the American University in Cairo Press visited the site and said, “The mummy site is very impressive and unique.” He still sees the Mummies in his dreams. Mark Linz loves Bahariya. One night we were standing in the courtyard of El- Beshmo Hotel and Linz said “Zahi, I feel that this discovery will be as important as King Tut.” Also, Victoria Owen, Ambassador of Australia, came to visit our excavations and entered the tomb that contained 43 mummies. She said, “Bahariya Oasis will be crowded this winter, tourists from all over the world will arrive to witness the magic and mystery of the mummies.”

The story of our discovery begins back in 1996 when an Antiquities guard of the Temple of Alexander the Great was crossing the desert on his donkey. Suddenly the leg of the donkey buckled and it fell. There was a small hole in the desert floor where the donkey had fallen. The guard left his donkey in the area and ran to Mr. Ashry Shaker to report the incident.

Shaker and his colleagues visited me at the Department of Antiquities at the Giza pyramids to report this unusual find. I instructed him to appoint an Inspector to excavate that hole and report the result to me. Mohamed el-Taib and Mohamed Aiad, Inspectors of Antiquities, began the excavation and soon discovered a tomb full of mummies.

The Inspectors were unable to conserve the mummies on their own, and we made the decision to launch a full-scale joint excavation and conservation of the site. I selected a team of twelve young members including archaeologists, architects, engineers, conservators, restorators, a draftswoman, a pottery analyst, and a photographer, and on a sunny march afternoon we packed our bags and headed west to the oasis.

I kept my eyes shut all the way to Bahariya, about 225 miles away from Cairo. I could not believe that I was leaving the shadow of the Great Pyramids for a completely new and isolated site out in the middle of nowhere. Bahariya really is a world away from the bustling pyramids that swarm with tourists, horses, and camels.

As we turned onto the oasis road, it occurred to me that many major discoveries in Egypt have occurred entirely accidentally, just as in the case of our Valley of the Golden Mummies. For example, a stumbling horse played a significant role in Carter’s excavation of the Valley of the Kings in 1899, before the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb. When Carter was returning to his rest house on the West Bank at the end of the day, his horse fell and exposed a shaft in the ground. Upon investigating the shaft, Carter found a sealed chamber that contained an empty coffin bearing no inscribed name; this chamber is known today as the Tomb of Bab el Hosan, “The Tomb of the Door of the Horse.”

Inside the tomb, Carter found a statue wrapped in a linen shroud, resting beside the coffin. It is presumed to be a statue of Mentuhotep, the first king of Dynasty II. The king is shown wearing the red crown of the Delta and a short skirt with an Osirid-shape. The function of this statue remains unexplained by Egyptologists, but it is now on display at the Cairo Museum.

Around the same time, a second major discovery was made by a similar accident in Alexandria. In 1900, the site of Kom El-Shokafa was used as a quarry. One day as Ahmed Kasbara was riding his donkey, the leg of the animal fell into a hole in the desert floor. The incident revealed a labyrinth of underground tunnels that later came to be known as the Catacombs of Kom El-Shokafa.

A horse has also led the way to one of my most significant discoveries. This occurred in August 1990. An American woman was riding a horse southeast of the Sphinx when her horse stumbled to the ground after hitting its leg against a small mud-brick structure. That structure turned out to be the first of a huge series of tombs of the pyramid builders. Although excavation of this site has only just begun, it is estimated to be one of the largest ancient Egyptian cemeteries ever found. I had been searching for this very same cemetery only months earlier but had closed our original excavation due to a lack of decisive findings. Ironically, the horse discovered the first tomb in this cemetery only 9 meters from my original excavation location.

Of course, the most recent discovery made by a donkey was the amazing Valley of the Golden Mummies at Bahariaya Oasis. Bahariya is among the most beautiful oases of Egypt. It falls under the Giza governorate, and therefore it is within the jurisdiction of the Giza Department of Antiquities.

This coming November, the Antiquities Department will open a number of major sites in Bahariya Oasis to the public, such as the tomb of Amenhotep-hwy, the mayor of Bahariya Oasis during the 19th Dynasty. We will also open two other tombs from the 26th Dynasty, the tombs of Banentiu, a wealthy merchant, and that of his father, Zed-Amon-Iuf-Ankh. Another major site to be opened is the temple of Ain El-Moftella, built by the mayor of the oasis in the 26th Dynasty during the reigns of kings Apris and Amasis (Ahmose II). The temple consists of chapels decorated with scenes of kings presenting offerings to the gods. Finally, the lovely temple of Alexander the Great will also be opened to the public.

The site of Bahariya Oasis is located in kilometer No.6 on the road to Farafra Oasis. During the excavation, we worked on digging every day from 6am to 2pm. After the day’s digging, we recorded and photographed the artifacts that had been previously found at the oasis.

On the first three days of the excavation, as I was performing the survey, I explored the entire area surrounding the place where the donkey had fallen. This area began at the paved road to the south of the site and extended all the way to the Temple of Alexander the Great to the north. I collected pottery sherds and bones along the way, and we made sondages in the west and east to discern the boundaries of the site. I estimate that the site is about 6 square kilometers in size and should contain in total of around 10, 000 mummies. Never before have such a number of mummies been found in a single site anywhere in Egypt.

Mummies conjure up so many images in people’s minds. Most people are first introduced to mummies in scary movies. They inspire a sense of terror and awe connected with the world beyond our own, but they also have brought the thrill of Egypt-mania to popular culture. I must confess that I also feel this thrill, but I don’t identify with the frightening aspects of mummies. To me, Egyptology is a science, and this remarkable find of mummies provides us with an outstanding opportunity to learn so much more about this civilization of another place and time.

This excavation revived the adventurous spirit of archaeology inside all of us who worked at Bahariya, because we were not merely uncovering the objects used by people or the tombs they were buried in, we were uncovering the very people who made them.

An important key to understanding the site was exploring its relationship to the Temple of Alexander the Great. This temple was built in 332 BC, when Alexander the Great came to Egypt. Initially, he traveled from Memphis northward to establish the new city of Alexandria. Later he made a long journey to visit Siwa and to meet his father, the god Amun, whose temple was built in this area. I believe that Alexander the Great traveled two different routes on these two journeys and on his journey to Memphis he passed through Bahariya Oasis. This is one major reason that a temple dedicated to Alexander the Great was constructed at Bahariaya Oasis. This temple is unique because it is the only one in Egypt that was built for a living pharaoh. After Alexander the Great left Bahariya, he stayed for one month in Memphis, ruling the country as pharaoh.

I believe that, in Graeco-Roman times, people chose the area as their burial place because of its proximity to the Temple of Alexander the Great. It appears that the cemetery was in use until the 4th century AD. The temple was excavated by the late Egyptian Egyptologist Ahmed Fakhry, who dedicated part of his life to excavating and exploring sites in various Egyptian oases such as Bahariya, Siwa, Farafra, Kharga, and Dakhla.

Alexander’s temple consists of two chambers built of sandstone, a common construction material in Bahariya. An enclosure wall surrounds the temple, and behind it the priests built their homes. To the east of the temple, the administrator of the temple constructed his home, and in front of the temple were built forty-five storerooms of mud-brick. The temple’s entrance and stone gateway opens to the south, and a granite altar about 1.09m in height was erected to the south of the entrance. The altar, inscribed with the name of Alexander the Great, has been removed and placed in the Cairo Museum.

Fakhry found a small statue of the priest of Re, among many other artifacts in the mud-brick storerooms, during his 1938-1942 excavation of the temple. Examination of these objects led the excavator to believe that the temple was in use from the time of Alexander the Great until the 12th century AD. Many pieces of broken pottery decorated with human figures and geometrical designs were uncovered. A number of pottery sherds inscribed with the Greek and Coptic languages, known as ostraca, were also found. One of the ostraca was inscribed with Syric and has been dated to the 5th century AD. Other artifacts, such as lamps and pottery vases, were also found.

The inner sanctuary of the temple is beautifully decorated with scenes of Alexander the Great presenting offerings to his father, Amun, and of Alexander the Great, accompanied by the mayor of Bahariya Oasis, presenting offerings to the god Amun. The cartouche of Alexander the Great was once inscribed in the sanctuary walls, but no trace of it remains.

Our excavation of the Valley of the Golden Mummies was rigorously scheduled. We spent our first two days surveying and photographing the site, while Abdou El-Hamied Kotb, architect of the Giza plateau, composed a grid that divided the entire site into 10m by 10m squares with ropes. Within the first four squares we excavated, we found four separate tombs. Excavation of the first square was directed by Mansour Boraik, the second square was directed by Mahmoud Afifi, the third square by Tarek El-Awadi, and the fourth square by Aiman Wahbi. Each square was also assigned two conservators. Nasry Iskender, known in the field of conservation for his work with the royal mummies in Cairo Museum, and Mostafa Abdou El-Kader, Director of Conservation and Restoration at Giza, supervised the conservation of the mummies. Noha Abdou El-Hafiz, a woman with golden hands, drafted the plans of the squares and sketches of the scenes on the cartonage covering the mummies’ chests. Also, the electrical engineer, Mahmoud Helmy, prepared generators for the lighting of the tomb interiors. Three tents were set at the site, one of them as an office for the administration of the excavation. I supervised the digging in each square.

As the first tomb was opened, the brilliance of gold shone in the sunlight among the piles of sand. Soon I was able to discern the figure of the mummy of a woman, about 1.55m in height. Her mask and waistcoat were coated with gold, the decoration of this waistcoat being divided into three equal sections marked by two circular disks representing breasts.

Mansour was working, cleaning the mummies of tomb 54, when he said to me, “I never imagined that one tomb could contain so many mummies.” The restorators used brushes and other cleaning equipment to clean the sand from the chests of the mummies, and it took two weeks to clean all of them. The ceiling of the tomb had been destroyed and the sun shone down, reflecting the gold of the mummies’ cartonage and masks onto our faces as we worked.

Each mummy was as distinctive as the individual it represented, and no two were alike. Some mummies were decorated with painted scenes on plain cartonage; others were covered in gold. There were mummies of old men, their wives, and young children, lying side by side. The one unifying characteristic of these mummies was that they were all smiling. As I walked through the tomb, there were dozens of mummies to my left and dozens more to my right.

Glancing in a corner, I noticed a particularly touching pair; a woman lying beside her husband with her head lovingly turned towards him. It seems that the husband had died before the wife, and she had asked her family to bury her next to him, where she could gaze at him forever. Looking to the left, I saw a man with stones placed beneath his head. I also noticed families with children laid to rest beside their parents. What could have happened to these families? Did they die together in an accident? These are questions that will never be answered.

Each of the four tombs we unearthed had a distinctive architectural style. Tomb 54 is cut into the sandstone and is composed of an entrance hall, a delivery room, and two burial chambers. The entrance is located to the northeast of the tomb. Its width is about 1.25m and its length is about 2.5m. The entrance extends southward through a corridor with a depth of 1.9m, containing eight steps carved into the sandstone.

The delivery room had a ritual function. Relatives of the deceased placed the mummy in the so-called delivery room, and two people stood on each side of the mummy in order to deliver the mummy to one person waiting inside the burial chamber. The tomb’s door of wood opened into this delivery room and, on the south side of the room, an opening .80m wide leads to the burial chambers.

The first burial chamber can be entered from the delivery room, with three steps cut into the rock. The last step is carved in a semi-circular shape. This chamber is the largest part of the tomb and is comprised of four rooms cut from the sandstone. Two rooms are located on the western side, and two are on the eastern side. All four rooms were used for burials. The second burial chamber is distinguished by two niches in the east and west walls, with two other niches in the south wall. This second chamber is reached through an entrance with a width of 1.08m and a height of 1.35m.

The tomb that Aiman Wahby supervised also has a unique style. It reflects the shape of the catacombs of Kom El-Sokafa in Alexandria. A third style of architecture is seen in the tomb Tarek El-Awady supervised. It is a large shaft in the ground, with niches cut into its walls. The tomb that Mahmoud Afifi supervised also has a unique form with an entrance and a single, large room cut into the rock that is full of mummies.

There are four general styles among the mummies we found at Bahariaya. The first type of mummy has a gilded mask covering the face and a gilded waistcoat decorated with scenes of gods and goddesses covering the chest. About 60 mummies of this kind were found. The Valley of the Golden Mummies is named for this very special style of mummy.

The second style of mummy is covered with cartonage that depicts scenes of various gods like Anubis, god of mummification, and the four children of Horus. Also shown are Isis, Osiris, and Toth, who were in charge of judgement of the deceased’s soul.

The third type of mummy was not decorated with gold or cartonage, but was placed inside an anthropoid, or human-shaped, pottery coffin.

The final type of mummy was covered entirely with linen. This kind of mummy is unique and, in my opinion, the most interesting because they remind us of mummies of the New Kingdom.

When I visited the site directed by Mahmoud, I found a female mummy about 1.55m in length and .46m in width. The face and waistcoat are covered in gold, and the waistcoat is divided into three sections and displays two conical disks representing breasts. The mummy’s gilded covering is damaged on the face, neck, and breastplate.

In spite of the damage, the scenes etched into her waistcoat are still discernable. At the top of the center section is a box or coffin, out of which appears a head with two wings. This scene may represent the soul of the deceased during her rebirth in the afterworld. Five decorative circles define the base of this register. The second register shows the recumbent Anubis with a row of triangles beneath him. The lowest register is composed of two superimposed squares, one gold and the other light red, with a black ox painted in the center. The left side of the mummy first depicts three cobras bearing the sun-disk on their heads in the top register. A band of five circles divides this scene from the next two scenes that depict the four children of Horus. The decorative scenes on the left side of the mummy are again mirrored on the right side.

The woman’s crown is covered by four decorative rows of reddish curls. The third and fourth rows of curls are missing significant pieces. Beneath the crown, the hairstyle is similar to that of terracotta statues. Behind the ears appears the goddess Isis on one side and Nepthys on the other, protecting the deceased with their wings. The face is covered with plaster and thin layers of gold, and the facial features are well defined. This mummy was found near the mummy of a man, possibly her husband.

The headdress of another mummy displays rows of curls framing the forehead and extending behind the ear to both sides. A braid surrounds these curls. These features lead me to believe that this mummy is of a woman. It has been suggested that the decoration of mummies should be analyzed from bottom to top, just as scenes on temple walls are read. The scenes on the lower registers of the waistcoat depict two figures; the one on the left is of a man holding a standard with a jackal resting on top, signifying the god Wepwawat, and the one on the right is a man displaying the uraeus on his forehead and holding the symbol of royalty, signifying the god Horus. Between the two figures stands the god Toth, god of wisdom, in the form of an Ibis, wearing the double-crown with two horns.

The god Toth is also represented on the cartonage waistcoat of another mummy. Here, he is flanked by two figures of the god Anubis, guardian of the key to the underworld. The depiction of winged figures on the waistcoat could represent the deceased in “ka” form.

The decorative scenes also often show an abbreviated form of the Judgement of the Dead. In these scenes, we see the god Osiris on his throne while the god Anubis weighs the heart of the deceased against the feather of Maat. Toth looks on, records the results of the weighing process, and reports the results to Osiris. Anubis here plays an important role in several ways. He is most well known for the role of operating the scale on which the heart of the deceased is weighed, as indicated by his familiar epithet of “ib ibw”, or “reckoner of hearts.” His second role is performance of the embalming, a fundamental condition for rebirth. Thus, Anubis protects the body of the deceased and assists in its revival. For this reason, we find him represented on coffins and mummy masks performing mummification rites. Finally, he is guardian of the key to the netherworld.

Wepwawet is the herald and guide of souls to the netherworld, particularly during the New Kingdom. In judgment scenes from the Late Ptolemaic and Roman periods, he is often shown guiding the deceased into the presence of Osiris.

The presence of an uraeus on the foreheads of masks belonging to two non-royal persons probably indicates a desire of the deceased to have a kingly transfiguration in the afterlife. A similar desire is seen through scenes of royal baptism or coronation on the waistcoats of non-royal mummies. In the Roman period, other elements such as crowns, sematawy scenes, royal and divine beards, and the uraeus were taken from the cache of royal symbols and appropriated by the public.

The masks in the Egyptian Museum have been particularly important in our study. Likewise, the research of previous scholars has been essential to understanding the finds at Bahariya Oasis. For example, the German scholar, Grimm, provides the most comprehensive and fundamental discussion of dating artifacts. He classifies objects according to their pertinence to three groups: Lower, Middle, and Upper Egypt. Nonetheless, Grimm’s work does not provide accurate dates for the masks we encountered.

Throughout Ancient Egypt, masks were crafted from a variety of materials such as stucco, cartonage, and wood. The diversity of materials can be attributed to the diverse traditions of local workshops in cities across Egypt. Material alone is not a substantial criterion for dating. This is because, while masks from Upper Egypt (Thebes and Akhmim, for example) are primarily composed of cartonage, these mummies differ in both typology and style from the mummies of Middle and Lower Egypt which are generally made of stucco (particularly masks from Meir, Antiopolis, and Hermopolis).

Unlike the mummy portraits, the mummy mask does not represent the image of an individual, but rather it is the result of series production. The masks are hardly the products of cheap, mass production, however, because they, like the mummification process, probably cost the deceased’s family a significant amount. These masks should be considered the treasures of wealthy and influential people.

The mummies were not all we found in the tombs; artifacts were abundant throughout the graves. Of particular interest were the statues of mourning women, their hands eternally raised upwards toward the sky in a posture of excruciating grief for the loss of their loved ones. We also found earrings, necklaces and amulets, and pottery with a variety of functions and styles from food trays to wine jugs. There were also many Ptolemaic coins, the most fascinating of which struck the image of Cleopatra VII, the famous ill-fated lover-queen of Alexandria.

At this point, I gave instructions for the cleaning of the mummies, for photographs to be taken, and for measures to be secured towards their conservation. I then moved to square No.2 where Mahmoud Afifi and I together began the cleaning of the chest cartonage, or gypsum covering, of some of the mummies.

I cleaned one mummy with a brush, I noted that it likely belonged to a man. The mummy is completely wrapped in linen, with a waistcoat covered in cartonage. Both the mask and waistcoat were coated with a fine patina of gold. The face of the mummy is long and seemed to be that of a fifty-year-old man. A fillet is placed across the forehead, decorated with a spectrum of colors, such as blue, dark red, and turquoise. The left and right sides of the crown are ornamented with scenes of plants and images of the goddesses Isis and Nepthys, who guard the deceased with their wings. After completing my work, I asked Afifi to continue with his excavation and to clean the other mummies inside this square.

The residents of the Valley of the Golden Mummies reveal much about the lives of citizens of Bahariaya Oasis during the Roman era. They also provide us with information about the art of mummification and the belief in an afterlife at that time. Evidently, Roman Bahariya was a substantially affluent community, given that many of its members could afford burial extravagantly ornamented with gold and cartonage.

I can visualize the style of embalming workshops in Bahariya. We know that Egypt’s population during Roman rule was about 7 million. Thus, I would estimate the population of Bahariaya during this period at roughly 30,000 people. Today, the population in the oasis is about 450,000, according to local authorities.

The main product of ancient Bahariaya was wine, made from dates and grapes. This wine was exported everywhere in the Nile valley, which, I believe, accounts for the wealth of residents of the oasis. We even excavated an ancient wine factory near the Valley of the Mummies. In ancient time, wine from Bahariya was exported throughout the Nile Valley. The god governing wine and pleasure within the Oasis was Bes, and during our excavation we discovered a large statue of the god Bes near the site of the mummies.

The god Bes was one of the most popular domestic deities of Ancient Egypt. He was generally represented as a squat figure with the ears and mane of a lion, and bow-legs. He was usually shown naked, except for a headdress of tall plumes, and he sometimes carried a drum, a tambourine, or a knife in the Graeco-Roman period.

Bahariya today is a very quiet place, where people take life easy and in peace. This was probably as true in Roman times as it is in our own.

The Bahariya discoveries demonstrate that mummification reached its peak during the Roman period, rather than declining as many have proposed. The most important point about the Roman approach to mummification at Bahariaya is that sticks made of reeds were placed on the right and left sides of the mummy before the body was wrapped in linen. This method made the mummy very strong and explains why more have survived from this period than from the Pharaonic era. Mohamed Goneim, First Under Secretary of the State for Culture Foreign affairs said, ” I have never seen any archaeological discovery get so much coverage like the Mummies in Bahariya. I hope that I can visit this site soon”.

On the morning of my departure from Bahariya, I made two important decisions. The first was to move 5 mummies (two women, a man, and two children) to a room within the Inspectorate of Antiquities at Bawiti. This allows visitors to see the best-looking mummies without having to disturb the tranquility of the tombs.

The second decision was to transport a mummy covered entirely in linen to the x-ray lab in Cairo. With the members of our dedicated team all gathered together, the workmen took down the tents which we had set up one month before. The conservator wrapped the mummy chosen for tests and placed it inside a wooden box. The workmen put the mummy in a truck bound for Giza.

Ashry Shaker asked me, “How will we identify this mummy?”

“We’ll call him Mr. or Mrs. X,” I replied.

The next day, I met with radiology expert Dr. Aza Sari El-Din at my office beside the Great Pyramid of Khufu. We went to the lab in a building on the Giza plateau and saw the mummy who had journeyed from Bahariaya. X-Rays revealed that it was the body of a man who had died at the age of 35, without sign of either disease or injury.

In a different way than before his trip, Mr. X is now immortal–in the annals of archaeology and science.

Our goal for the future is to continue our excavation for one season each year in order to unearth and preserve all residents of the Valley of the Golden Mummies. At the same time, we hope to continue our scientific research in the x-ray laboratories.

Julie Holmes, accounting consultant in Los Anglos, who visited Bahariya said “I believe that Bahariya Oasis will be the most famous site in Egypt.” I told Julie that when I arrived in Bahariya a man come to me and asked, ” Please, sir, mention our town in your talk on T.V. ”

Two months later, Bahariya become the most famous town in Egypt.

The year 2000, Bahariya will hit the limelight when the public opening of new sights in the area is announced. Among these sites are the Roman temple at Ain El-Moftella, the Temple of Alexander the Great, a tomb dated to Dynasty 19, and another tomb dated to Dynasty 26. We will not, however, put the mummies in the site on display because I do not believe that bodies of the deceased should be exposed to the public as a thrill. Instead, I hope to treat these bodies as respectfully as possible by preserving them within their final resting grounds.

PTOLEMY I SOTER (367/6 – 282 BC)

 I find the career of the eponymous founder of the dynasty which bears his name an extremely interesting personality, particularly when viewed through the lens of ancient Egypt. There a tradition maintains that Ptolemy was a son of Philip born to one of his many loves so that he came to be regarded as Alexander’s half-brother. The friendship between the two apparently so disturbed Philip that he was exiled, doubtless because Philip feared that the recognized abilities of the ten-year older Ptolemy might be advantageously utilized by Alexander to Philip’s detriment. Upon Philip’s death, however, Ptolemy was recalled at the insistence of Alexander himself who bestowed upon him dignified court titles. He served Alexander well, fighting with distinction during the campaigns, which, with hindsight, justified the meaning of his Greek name, Ptolemaios, “war-like.”

 Ptolemy, perhaps like Julius Caesar, was not only a warrior but was also an astute politician, as we will see, and an author. He described the campaigns in an account which, alas, has not survived, but is either quoted or referenced by subsequent ancient historians, particularly Arrian (about AD 86-160) in his Anabasis of Alexander, and described as one of the most accurate, objective accounts ever-penned on the subject.

The political acumen of Ptolemy is perhaps best exemplified by the results of his participation in the events which occurred after the death of Alexander the Great at Babylon in June 323 BC. It soon became evident to all that no single member of Alexander’s entourage would emerge as his sole successor. The most powerful among these individuals, collectively termed the Diadiochi, “the Heirs,” intrigued to obtain parts of the empire as their own kingdoms. Ptolemy was involved in the plotting and instrumental in determining that division as the clever allocation of  Egypt to himself so clearly reveals. At the same time, Philip Arrhidaeus, the  (some maintain mentally-challenged) half brother of Alexander, was charged with the funeral arrangements which took almost two years to complete. The body of the hero was mummified in accordance with Egyptian practice, an elaborate hearse was designed and constructed, and plans were set into motion to convey the body in a cortege throughout the lands the hero had conquered so that all could pay their final respects before the planned interment was performed, arguably in a dynastic vault at Aegae, Greece. The cortege, moving westward, was hijacked by Ptolemy who seized the body of Alexander and conveyed it to Memphis, the administrative center of Egypt and location of Ptolemy’s royal palace. Ptolemy reverentially erected a tomb at Saqqara, the traditional, millennia-old necropolis of Memphis, in which the body of Alexander was initially laid to rest.

Whenever I am asked about the location of the tomb of Alexander the Great, I invariably ask, “which tomb?,” because there was more than one. I can, however, point to an area in which his first tomb, the one at Saqqara, was doubtless located. It has been suggested, and I would whole-heartedly agree, that the often overlooked semi-circle of poets and philosophers, sculpted in friable Egyptian limestone and now irreversibly effaced, which is presently within an orchestra-like concrete dome in the vicinity of the tourists’ path to the sepulchers of the Apis Bulls marks the area in general in which this tomb was located. This monument, conspicuous because of its totally Hellenic style, stands in marked contrast to all of the pharaonica in the area. Each of the individuals depicted in those statues resonate with associations of Alexander from Homer, whose Achilles in the Iliad  served as his avatar, to Pindar, whose house he spared when he sacked Greek Thebes.

At about this same time, according to the information contained on the Stela of the Satrap, the Persian noun for governor, in which capacity Ptolemy asserted he was ruling, he repatriated statues and temple scrolls which the Persian king Cambyses had apparently removed as examples of  trophy art during his conquest of Egypt between 525-522 BC.

Political attempts to challenge Ptolemy failed because he initially maintained with a straight face that he was merely ruling as the satrap of the province of Egypt for members of Alexander’s immediate family, until each in turn died, either naturally or by foul-play, by November 305 BC. In that year, Ptolemy took the unprecedented step of proclaiming himself pharaoh of Egypt, thereby inaugurating the Macedonian Greek dynasty whose members were to rule for almost three centuries until the death by suicide of his last descendant, Cleopatra VII, in 30 BC.

Military action against Ptolemy by the any of the Diadiochi proved futile, particularly the one concerted attempt in 321 BC when his opponents were stymied by both natural and artificial obstacles from gaining access to valley of the Nile. So ensconced had Ptolemy become that a persistent legend arose equating possession of the body of Alexander the Great with the sovereignty of Egypt. His body became a touch-stone which is the reason it was so ardently visited by any number of subsequent emperors of Rome.

Ptolemy proved to be an astute administrator. In addition to appointing Greeks to high bureaucratic positions, he followed the lead of Alexander the Great and likewise permitted Persians as well as Egyptians to remain in positions of authority within Egypt provided they demonstrated their unfailing allegiance to him. He did little to alter the nome, or provincial, administration of Egypt, so that Egypt’s pharaonic institutions continued to function unchanged. His name in Egyptian and his titulary were composed in concert with Egypt’s learned priestly-scribes who employed the same writing for his prenomen written with the first cartouche as that used earlier for Alexander the Great. By his second regnal year he was styled in Demotic, “the protector,” providing the equivalent, “Soter,” his Greek epithet.

His positive interaction with the Egyptian priesthood was furthered by his renovations of Egyptian temples. Although these architectural programs are not on the monumental scale of those of some of his successors, an inventory of his name preserved at these sites indicates that his architectural program effected virtually every major temple throughout the entire land. In this regard it is interesting to note his activities at Karnak between Pylons 8 and 9, where the foundations of an exterior wall composed of re-used talatat from the Amarna Period were replaced with sandstone blocks usurped by his agents from an unknown structure of post-Ramesside date. The artistic style of the relief decoration associated with these architectural programs reveals that the craftsmen in his employ perpetuated the style of the immediately preceding pharaonic dynasties, as is evident if one compares images inscribed in his name from Iseion in the Delta or from the Chapel of Thoth, now in Hildesheim, from Tuna el-Gebal with relief inscribed with the names of Nectanebo II of Dynasty XXX.

 In addition to his financial support of these Egyptian institutions, Ptolemy I Soter, as he is now universally known, was doubtless responsible for sowing the seeds of what was to grow into the famous Library and Mouseion at Alexandria. He seems to be the individual responsible for acquiring the private library of Aristotle, which formed the core collection of the Library’s holdings. In this endeavor he seems to have engaged the services of Demetrius of Phaleron, a suburb of the city of Athens. Realizing the need for providing his immigrant Greek entourage with an understanding of the country they were now administrating, Ptolemy commissioned the Egyptian priest Manetho from the Delta city of Sebennytos to compose a history of his country in Greek.

Toward the end of his life, Ptolemy elected to avoid a dynastic crisis by appointing his son, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, to share the throne as his co-regent. Well into his 80s, Ptolemy died, peacefully, in his own bed, the only Diadioch to have lived to such a ripe age and the only one not to have had his life taken by foul-play.

Ptolemy II Philadelphus honored his father by instituting a great festival at Alexandria in which the cult of Ptolemy I Soter was established. He had, like Alexander before him, become posthumously deified. That cult was long-lived. Ptolemy I Soter was in fact the only male member of his dynasty whose cult was celebrated well into Roman times of the second century AD at a time when the cults of all the other male members ceased to be observed in the principal cities of Upper Egypt.

Robert Steven Bianchi

Holiday, FL

USA

Dr Robert Steven Bianchi is an independent scholar who serves as the chief curator for the Ancient Egyptian Museum Shibuya [Tokyo] and as the curator responsible for ancient art in the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art. He is internationally recognized as a consult because of his specialization in ancient art and aesthetics, is extensively published, and has been featured in almost 80 telecasts worldwide.

Two are masterpieces ranking among the greatest in art history. The discovery transforms our understanding of Egypt and Africa in the ancient world. Nubia was important to Egypt’seconomy from early times because the requirements of a highly developed civilisation demanded raw materials and minerals that were unavailable in Egypt. They were imported from many sources, including the agriculturally impoverished land of Nubia, between Egypt’s southern border at Aswan and Sudan, in exchange for grain, oil and honey. In the Middle Kingdom, between2133 and 1786BCE,  Egypt colonised
Nubia  as far as the Second Cataract,where powerful pharaohs built a series of impenetrable fortresses.

Each was defended by a massive mud-brick wall and was surrounded by dry moats and walls with bastions and loopholes for archers. Through its domination of Nubia, Egypt was assured of the produce from this great gold and copper-producing country and was also in an ideal position to trade for other prized commodities. Generation after generation of Egyptian soldiers and settlers lived in or around the fortress  towns that bore names like “Warding off the Bows” and “Curbing of Foreign Lands”. The people of these lands were the vigorous and courageous Medjay of Kush (Sudan), who strongly resisted Egyptian occupation of Nubia and were finally suppressed by Pharaoh Senusert III. During the Hyksos occupation many of the
 fortresses were burnt or abandoned, but the leaders of the New Kingdom (1567 to 1080BCE) again turned their attention to Nubia and Kush, and established a trading post in Kerma. The first excavations carried out there by George Reisner of Harvard University  between 1913 and1915, he  regarded the site from a colonial perspective – a mighty state occupying and exploiting backward and  impoverished peoples.

Since 1973, however, excavations carried out by Charles Bonnet and his team have provided an Afrocentric take on ancient history, enabling scholars to face questions that have previously been overlooked. Their main goal was to reconstruct the evolution of society from the last hunter-gatherers up to the emergence of the civilisation of Kerma,the capital of the first Kingdom of Kush, whose peoples lived on the edge of theEgyptian empire and who were already in contact with the populations of central Africa and the Red Sea coast.

Far from being destitute, this population was well aware of the requirements of the pharaonic civilisation and of the advantages of trade. While allowing Egyptians to satisfy their mineral requirements, they themselves acted as entrepreneurs, opening up markets in Sudan and facilitating trade in precious items, including ivory, diorite, gold and supervised shipments to the north. They developed a protected area, a central city, where spacious homes were built for the dignitaries who monitored the trade in merchandise from far-off lands,and they protected their storage areas and administrative buildings with buttressed walls and rectangular and semi-circular bastions, even moats.Within this protected area, the team unearthed a palace and religious sanctuary as well as about 200 houses. The palace evolved from a large, round building about 12m in diameter to a rectangular structure more than four times as large. The Kushite king’s audience chamber (rebuilt at least 10times on the same spot) bears no resemblance to any Egyptian building.

On the contrary, most ancient architecture of Kerma clearly revealed roots in an African heritage, both in construction techniques and the
materials used. Indeed, the king’s chamber might be seen as a prototype for the large princely and royal huts discovered in Africa south of
the Sahara in the last 100 years. It was within a temple compound,then known as Pnubs (literally “the cityof the jujube tree”),  that Bonnet
 and his team found the cache containing monumental black granite statues, magnificently sculptured and excellently preserved.

They portray five pharaonic rulers including Taharqa and Tantamani, the last members of Egypt’s Kushite dynasty,  powerful leaders from
modern-day Sudan who governed a combined kingdom of Egypt and Nubia, an empire stretching from the Delta to the upper reaches of the  Nile. It was an era of pharaonic history that has been categorised as a period of decline, but which was, in fact, a renaissance. Under the last of the Ramesside pharaohs, about 1000BCE,  the country fell increasingly under the control of the priests of Amun. As their power grew, they demanded blind conformity to a system that gave them control and wealth, and a struggle for power ensued.

The internal disorder was such that Hrihor,  High Priest of Amun, was able to usurp the throne and the country became divided; a local dynasty in Tanis ruled the Delta, and Hrihor UpperEgypt. The latter declared himself Viceroy of Kush. Meanwhile, a powerful Kushite chieftain named Alara – who was credited by his descendants with the foundation of a line of distinguished
kings – instigated an active policy of territorial expansion. One of the most famous of this line was Piye (Piankhi),who erected a granite stela in the temple at Kerma describing Egypt’s decline and political breakdown due to disputes among its princes.

 He records how his army marched northward into Egypt, fought battles with Tefnakht, ruler of Sais, and his allies, and that one by one he gained control of the cities until the whole country was under his control. Piankhi did not come to Egypt as an invader but as a liberator; he felt bound to free the country from decline. Having seized the ancient religious capital of Thebes, he marched on the state capital of Memphis where he stormed the fortifications. Tefnakht, anticipating the attack, had heightened and reinforced the battlements, but he neglected the east side of the city which was protected by flood waters. The  Egyptian fleet floated high enough to fasten the bow ropes, and it was here that Piankhi struck.

He captured Tefnakht’s fleet and combined it with his own, using it as a landing base. His army surged over the ramparts, and within the city walls a great slaughter ensued. The  inhabitants were finally forced to repudiate Tefnakht and recognise Piankhi, a black man, as king. In a demonstration of respect and protection Piankhi made offerings to temples and other sanctuaries in the city before returning to Kush, where he died, only to be succeeded by an equally powerful leader — his brother Shabako, it being the custom in Kush for brothers of a ruler to have priority over sons in succession. Shabako succeeded in uniting Egypt and Nubia under his rule in 747BCE, becoming the first Kushite king of both Upper and Lower Egypt.
Internal stability returned. Trade and commerce were revived, and grand temples were built in which the pharaohs were portrayed as black,
adorned in Egyptian royal costume and the Double Crown of Upper and LowerEgypt. They adopted the burial rites of the pharaohs, but retained
their Nubian names.

How long Kushites might have remained on the throne of a united Egypt and Nubia, is difficult to say, because the Assyrians marched on the Delta in 671BCE and, although Shabako’s younger brother Taharqa made plans to meet his rival, his forces – composed of local militia and recruits from the Nile Delta – was no match for the mighty Esarhaddon. The black pharaohs were finally vanquished in 656BCE and withdrew to a new capital at Napata, south of Kerma. About 600BCE, when this was no longer considered safe, or suitable for the expanding economy, they transferred the capital to Meroe (Shendi) on the east side of the Nile between the Fifth and Sixth Cataracts. In this newly chosen location,  rich in mineral wealth (especially iron ore and wood for iron-smelting), a new and distinctly African culture developed. While African, it was at once a continuation of the Egyptian-influenced Napatan culture, and its main phases of the development rival the great
ancient civilisations.

The significance of the discovery in Kerma, and of monumental granite statues of such African kings as Taharqa and Tanutamun, reveal them as tough individuals with strong features and powerful bodies. Such able leaders ruled pharaonic Egypt for half a century.And when they were driven out by the Assyrians and withdrew to their own land, their leaders continued a policyof expansion through  northern Sudan and Upper Nubia. Once-powerful Egypt succumbed to two Persian invasions (in 525 and 345BCE), while the Meroitic Empire  flourished. By the reign in Egypt of Ptolemy IV (222 to 204BCE), King Argamanic of Kush controlled the Nile to within sight of Elephantine Island on Egypt’s southern border.

SHEMU October 2009

Earl L. Ertman

Several writers have discussed the jewelry found in the tomb of King Tutankhamun ¹ as well as the pectoral under review that was found in a chest in the tomb’s Treasury. Among the treasures from this tomb are a variety of rings and pectorals. One of the many beautiful pectoral examples illustrates both solar and lunar symbolism. (Cairo Museum no. 61884 ).² (pl. I ) The design of this piece is rather crowded when compared to surviving examples from the Middle Kingdom in which the ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ areas are more balanced.³  Thc craftsman who fashioned this piece was interested in including the appropriate symbolism and not producing a balanced and effective design that modern viewers might favor.

 Many times elements coalesce in Egyptian art and that occurs here also with symbols of the sun god (the scarab and the falcon) combining to create the hybrid form of a scarab with beetle forelegs and falcon wings, tail and rear legs. Two uraei wearing sun disks are placed frontally on the bark of the moon, above the outstretched forelegs of the scarab. These are common elements found in many of Tutankhamen’s individual pieces of jewelry. Another pair of uraei, this time placed in profile in the design, flanking the falcon legs which hold plants of Upper and Lower Egypt are also common elements seen in this king’s objects. These four uraei have their inlays formed in the champlevé manner with areas hollowed out (recessed) in which the colored inlays of glass or stone are placed.

Writers commenting on the central scarab call it chalcedony. More recent analysis suggests that the material of this beetle is actually Libyan Desert glass formed from a meteorite impact in the desert. ⁴   Elsewhere on this object the feathers that cover the wings and tail of this hybrid scarab/falcon are formed with gold cloisonné’s, small strips of metal soldered to the flat surfaces of the curved out-spread wings ⁵ and tail shapes forming receptacles or compartments into which the small pieces of colored stone and glass were placed in imitation of feather-patterns. The talons of this hybrid hold symbols of a lotus and lily, symbolic of the original northern and southern kingdoms plus shen signs that stand for eternity, infinity and/or protection.

 The upper portion of this pectoral contains a stylized bark on which a wadjet (or wedjat) eye, the eye of the god Horus, is found centrally placed. When this eye symbol is created facing to the left it is identified as the left eye of Horus and is associated with the moon. Other lunar related elements are placed directly above this eye. The moon disk, made of silver (or electrum) reflecting the coloration of the moon at night, with its supporting crescent shape in gold, has three important golden figures soldered to its surface. The ibis-headed figure at the left is the god Thoth, the god of writing, who is associated with the moon. He wears a disk and crescent symbol of the moon.

 In the center of this design is the King, Tutankhamun, also wearing a disk and crescent above his khepresh crown, a most unusual and atypical element for a king to wear. The king holds the symbols of his office, the scepter and flail, carried by kings for centuries, in his right hand and these implements rest against his shoulder. The figure on the right is the god Re-Herakhty who wears a sun disk for his obvious association to the sun. The sun and the moon are thus incorporated into this triad with King Tutankhamun shown as a lunar god in this instance by the moon symbols above his crown. I have been interested in the symbolism applied here for sometime and I have noted symbolic references to the moon in other pieces of Tutankhamun’s jewelry. The reasons for this change and addition in subject matter at this particular time in Dynasty Eighteen as well as how this iconography should be interpreted requires much more investigation.

Although I have recorded examples and have been studying this phenomena for sometime, none of my thoughts on the possibilities for this added lunar symbolism have been published, but Erik Hornung and Elisabeth Staehelin, have made suggestions in print that include some of my conclusions. Their words provide some insight into this question. These writers cite a group statue from Faras where the king is named, “ He who is fully reborn every month” which they indicate is a reference to the king’s “moon-like” identity. Further, they indicate, “Thus, in both image and word, the king is ascribed divine status, uniting and embodying sun and moon together, and it is through this quality that in the beyond he is ensured regeneration every day and every month.”  ⁶   Beside the pectoral which is the focus of this research there are other examples cited by these authors which include Tutankhamun’s  throne name (prenomen) showing a winged scarab supporting a crescent moon and lunar disk. ⁷

I have recorded other examples, first pectorals then a ring that were not mentioned elsewhere that emphasize the moon or the moon in combination with the sun.  A pectoral revealing signs of wear, found in the Treasury (Cario J. d’E. 61897) shows a disk and crescent moon on a night bark. ⁸ Another pectoral (Cairo J. d’E. 61900), ⁹ with three scarabs each providing a ‘loose’ writing of Tutankhamun’s prenomen with the plural strokes omitted (probably making the design more effective, but that was not of importance to the craftsman who fashioned it).  It was found around the king’s neck in his wrappings indicating its importance. The two outer scarabs each support a sun disk while the center scarab (Cairo J.d’E. 61885) ¹⁰ features two moons and a rising sun. The latter held by the fore legs of a centrally placed scarab supporting this sun disk in its fore legs and a shen sign in its rear legs. Flanking the central scarab are two baboons frequently associated with the raising sun. Somewhat unusual is the fact that each wears a moon and crescent on their heads.

The last pectoral(Cairo J. d’E. 61887) 11 to be noted is another scarab that is read as the king’s prenomen including the plural strokes absent in a previous example …. except that it supports the moon and a crescent rather than the sun, thus providing a lunar meaning.

Rings also display the presence of lunar elements A double ring of the god Thoth (Cairo J. d’E. 62437) ¹² illustrates a baboon on the left bezel wearing a moon disk and crescent. On the right bezel the god Thoth in the guise of an Ibid-headed figure is also wearing a moon disk and crescent. Another ring (Cairo J.d’E. 62450) with the sun bark as the central image according to James, ¹³ has baboons adoring a disk and crescent in their bark that relates to the moon in the view of this writer.

       The frequent incorporation of the disk and crescent of the moon in the jewelry of King Tutankhamun as well as a representation of this king wearing these symbols, implying that he is a lunar deity, reveal a change in thought and iconography in Tutankhamun’s reign. More will surely be revealed through further study.

 Notes

1.       Among many see, C. Desroches-Noblecourt, Life and Death of a Pharaoh Tutankhamun (New York, 1963); C. Aldred, Jewels of the Pharaohs, Egyptian Jewelry of the Dynastic Period (New York, 1971); A. Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptian Jewellery (London,1971); [I. E. S. Edwaards,] Treasures of Tutankhamun (London, 1972 ) and (New York, 1976); C. Andrews, Ancient Egyptian Jewelry (New York, 1991);  T. G. H. James, Tutankhamun, The Eternal Splendor of the Boy Pharaoh (Cairo, 2000) and E. Hornung and E. Staehelin in A. Wiese and A. Brodbeck eds, Tutankhamun,The Golden Beyond. Tomb Treasures from the Valley of the Kings (Basel, 2004), pp. 81-2.

2.       Among many illustrations see, James, pp. 230-1 Andrews, pl. 20; Aldred, pl. 106.

3.     As examples see, A. Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptian Jewellery (London, 1971), pls. I and II (from the reigns of Sesostris II and III respectively); XVII, A, reign of Seaostris III. See also C. Aldred, Jewels of the Pharaohs (New York, New York, 1971), pls. 33, 41, among others.

4.       Conversions with George Johnson have indicated the material from which this scarab was undoubtedly made.

5.     For the types of winged scarabs including those used during the reign of King Tutankhamun see, E.  L. Ertman,       “ Types of Winged Scarabs: Tutankhamun’s use of H -winged scarabs” in, M. Eldamaty and M. Trad, eds. Egyptian Museum Collections around the World, vol. 1 (Cairo, 2002), pp. 333-343, especially the chart on 343

6.     A. Wiese and A. Brodbeck eds, Tutankhamun, The Golden Beyond. Tomb Treasures from the Valley of the Kings (Basel, 2004), pp. 81-2.

7.       Ibid., Wiese and Brodbeck, fig. 57 and T. G. H. James, Tutankhamun The Eternal Splendor of the Boy Pharaoh (Cairo, 2000),  p. 234 (Cairo J. d’E.61890), and a cartouche of Tutankhamun’s cartouche supporting a moon and crescent, flanked by uraei wearing sun disks, (Wiese and Brodbeck, fig. 58, Cairo no. unknown).

8.     James, pp. 210-11.

9.     Ibid ., p. 215.

10.   Ibid., pp. 216-7.

11.   Ibid., p. 218.

12.   Ibid., p. 250.

13.   Ibid., pp. 252-3

January 2009