Latest news with #EgyptianHistory
The National
7 days ago
- The National
Grand Egyptian Museum: Six things to look forward to when doors open on November 1
Creating the Grand Egyptian Museum has become a seemingly Sisyphean task, with years of delays suggesting it would be eternally on the verge of opening. These setbacks are understandable. Egypt has undergone revolution, political uncertainty and economic crises since the museum was announced in 2002 – when a foundation stone was laid at the site, two kilometres away from the Giza pyramids. The museum held a soft launch in October 2024, partially opening to the public, but even then an official launch date seemed elusive. The museum was then scheduled for a July 3 opening, which was pushed back following the Israel-Iran conflict. Now, the museum has a new opening date: November 1. With the hilltop in sight and 700,000 years of history waiting inside, here are six things to look forward to at the Grand Egyptian Museum. Architecture Under construction for 21 years, the museum took almost as long to build as its ancient neighbours. Architecturally, it is no less impressive. Designed by Heneghan Peng Architects, a Dublin firm, the museum draws on Pharaonic styles. The structure is shaped like a chamfered pyramid. Its north and south walls are aligned with the Great Pyramid of Khufu and the Pyramid of Menkaure. Its entrance features translucent alabaster stone. The complex is decorated with triangles, some more apparent than others, so the entire site will resemble a conglomeration of pyramids. A diorama of the museum is on display inside, by the window that overlooks the Great Pyramids. This is one of the best views of the tombs – provided you visit during the day. Hanging obelisk The first of the museum's attractions is outside its entrance. The hanging obelisk was created in the name of King Ramesses II. It was discovered in two pieces at Tanis in the eastern Nile Delta. After a meticulous restoration process, the obelisk now stands on a platform that allows visitors to walk underneath the towering structure and admire its base. Statue of King Ramesses II Walking into the museum, visitors immediately see a lofty statue of Ramesses II. The 11-metre statue is made of red granite, weighs 83 tonnes and is more than 3,000 years old. The statue was discovered in the early 19th century in the village of Mit Rahina, near the ancient city of Memphis. It was split into six pieces. Initial attempts at restoring the statue failed until 1955, when the fragments were moved to Cairo's Bab Al Hadid Square. The statue was put back together and the square became known as Ramses Square. It was transported to Giza in 2006 and finally made it to the Grand Egyptian Museum in 2018. Journey to Eternity The entrance to the museum's galleries is in itself a remarkable experience. Statues of deities, sarcophagi, columns, sphinxes and obelisks are arranged on the steps. There are pharaohs such as Ramesses II, Merneptah, Amenhotep III and Senwosret I; deities including the falcon-headed Horus; Sekhmet, mother of lion-headed war god Maahes; and Serapis, the Graeco-Egyptian god who is believed to have been a merging of Osiris, god of the afterlife and the sacred bull Apis. Visitors can either climb the wide steps and take their time admiring each piece, or they can briskly head up via a travelator. Called Journey to Eternity, this area aims to reflect the burial rituals of ancient Egypt, specifically of a royal's soul travelling to Heaven to become a star. Curation Curating hundreds of thousands of years of historical artefacts is no straightforward task. Chronological curation is the most obvious approach and, while the museum does that, there are also thematic divisions to the collection. The galleries are arranged in three spaces. Each is dedicated to a specific time period, beginning with the Prehistoric Period, Predynastic Period and Old Kingdom, before transitioning to the Middle Kingdom, the New Kingdom, and finally the Late Period and Graeco-Roman Period. Each gallery is then segmented into three spaces, which touch upon everyday society, the royal class and belief systems. Every artefact is an important historical piece. You will find Pharaonic busts in marble, baboons carved into limestone, colossal statues of kings and queens, granite stela marking key moments and, of course, funerary items. Tutankhamun's tomb The boy king is arguably the star of the museum, and artefacts found in his tomb are being kept under wraps until the official opening. King Tutankhamun is one of Ancient Egypt's most famous rulers. He ruled from just nine years old until his death at about 19. His short reign was during one of Ancient Egypt's wealthier periods and made a profound impact. He was instrumental in promoting traditional Egyptian religion and art, restoring tombs and statues dedicated to the old deities. His penchant for art is reflected in the items found in his tomb that will be on display. These include the famous gold mask to protect him in the afterlife. His golden throne, chariots and golden shrines will also be exhibited.
France 24
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- France 24
Egypt's $1 billion marvel: Arts24's exclusive look inside the Grand Egyptian Museum
11:55 Join arts24 presenter Eve Jackson on an exclusive journey inside the Grand Egyptian Museum – a colossal cultural masterpiece just a mile from the Great Pyramids of Giza. The museum's grand debut has faced multiple delays and was set to open this July, but ongoing tensions in the Middle East have pushed back the opening once again, making this your rare opportunity to explore its wonders ahead of time. After two decades and a billion-dollar build, this stunning museum showcases over 100,000 artefacts, including the full collection of Tutankhamun's treasures – reunited under one roof for the very first time. With cutting-edge restoration labs, sustainable design that cuts energy use by 60 percent and panoramic views of the ancient pyramids, this is more than a museum — it's Egypt 's bold statement to the world, bridging 7,000 years of history with modern ambition. Watch Eve uncover the stories behind colossal statues, revolutionary architecture and the experts bringing the past back to life.
Yahoo
04-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
First Human Genome from Ancient Egypt Sequenced from 4,800-Year-Old Teeth
Teeth from an elderly man who lived around the time that the earliest pyramids were built have yielded the first full human genome sequence from ancient Egypt. The remains are 4,800 to 4,500 years old, overlapping with a period in Egyptian history known as the Old Kingdom or the Age of Pyramids. They harbour signs of ancestry similar to that of other ancient North Africans, as well as of people from the Middle East, researchers report today in Nature. 'It's incredibly exciting and important,' says David Reich, a population geneticist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, who was not involved in the study. 'We always hoped we would get our first ancient DNA from mummies.' [Sign up for Today in Science, a free daily newsletter] Numerous labs have tried to extract DNA from ancient Egyptian remains. In 1985, evolutionary geneticist Svante Pääbo reported the first ancient DNA sequences from any human: several thousand DNA letters from a 2,400-year-old Egyptian mummy of a child. But Pääbo, who won a Nobel prize in 2022 for other work, later realized that the sequences were contaminated with modern DNA — possibly his own. A 2017 study generated limited genome data from three Egyptian mummies that lived between 3,600 and 2,000 years ago. The hot North African climate speeds up the breakdown of DNA, and the mummification process might also accelerate it, said Pontus Skoglund, a palaeogeneticist at the Francis Crick Institute in London who co-led the Nature study, at a press briefing. 'Mummified individuals are probably not a great way to preserve DNA.' The remains that Skoglund's team sequenced pre-date widespread mummification: the person was interred instead in a ceramic pot, a sign of high, but not elite, status. The remains were found at an archaeological site called Nuwayrat, 265 kilometres south of Cairo along the Nile river. The teeth and bones were discovered in 1902, when Egypt was under British colonial rule. They were donated to institutions in Liverpool, UK, where they have been ever since, even surviving German bombing during the Second World War. Skoglund says his expectations were low when his team extracted DNA from several teeth from the Nuwayrat individual. But two samples contained enough authentic ancient DNA to generate a full genome sequence. Y-chromosome sequences indicated that the remains belonged to a male. The majority of his DNA resembled that of early farmers from the Neolithic period of North Africa around 6,000 years ago. The rest most closely matched people in Mesopotamia, a historical Middle Eastern region that was home to the ancient Sumerian civilization, and was where some of the first writing systems emerged. It's not clear whether this implies a genetic direct link between members of Mesopotamian cultures and people in ancient Egypt — also hinted at by similarities in some cultural artefacts — or whether the man's Mesopotamian ancestry arrived through other unsampled populations, the researchers say. The rest of the ancient Egyptian man's bones revealed more details about his life. Evidence of arthritis and osteoporosis suggest he died at an advanced age for the time, possibly in his sixties. Other signs of wear indicate a life of physical toil, sitting hunched over on hard surfaces. On the basis of this and imagery from other tombs from this period, he might have been a potter, said co-author Joel Irish, a bioarchaeologist at Liverpool John Moores University, at the press briefing. 'The publication of a whole-genome data set of an ancient Egyptian constitutes a significant achievement in the field of molecular Egyptology,' says Yehia Gad, a geneticist at Egypt's National Research Centre in Cairo, who praises the researchers for presenting the provenance of the remains clearly. But he points out that the genome is from one individual and might not fully represent ancient Egypt's gene pool, which was probably a melting pot of different ancestries. For this reason, researchers are eager for more ancient Egyptian genome data — perhaps even from a mummy. Advances in ancient-genomics technology and local capacity — Gad supervises an ancient DNA lab at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairo — means it hopefully won't take another 40 years. This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on July 2, 2025.
Fox News
21-05-2025
- General
- Fox News
Expert identifies ancient 'propaganda' praising pharaoh who may have challenged Moses
Ancient "propaganda" that was used to support the Egyptian pharaoh who is believed to be a major character of the Old Testament has been spotted in Paris, according to an expert. Jean-Guillaume Olette-Pelletier, an Egyptologist from Paris-Sorbonne University and Institut Catholique de Paris, recently spoke with Fox News Digital about his findings, which are set to be published in the coming months. The expert found the propaganda, which is supportive of Ramesses II, on the 3,300-year-old obelisk that sits in Paris' Place de la Concorde. Olette-Pelletier saw the obelisk up close in 2021 after receiving permission to climb scaffolding to conduct research. Ramesses II, who was born in 1303 B.C. and died in 1213 B.C., is considered one of the most influential and powerful Egyptian rulers of the New Kingdom. The Egyptian monarch is often cited as the most likely candidate for the pharaoh mentioned in Exodus, though an explicit name was never given in the Old Testament. The pharaoh is said to have retaliated against Moses and refused his requests in Exodus — resulting in a series of plagues. Olette-Pelletier called the pro-Ramesses hieroglyphs "propaganda." He identified seven cryptographies, or codes, which assert Ramesses II's authority from 1280 B.C. on. "It was a message from Ramesses II to the nobility," the expert said, noting the Egyptian nobility were able to read the codes. Olette-Pelletier said Ramesses II was born before his father Seti I became pharaoh – and therefore was not conceived by the gods. Not being of divine essence could have hampered his legitimacy to the throne. "The nobility, able to read cryptographies, might be tempted by an overthrow of power since Ramesses II was not born of theogamy and therefore not divine by birth," Olette-Pelletier said. The expert added, "[Ramesses II] spent the first two years of his reign emphasizing his divinity with his wife Nefertari by paying homage at Egypt's great shrines, and by buying priests." "In the process, he changed his name from Usermaatra to Usermaatra Setepenra, [which means] 'chosen of Ra.'" The obelisk has four sides, and Olette-Pelletier noted that the side that faces the Seine (and was intended to face the Nile) shows Ramesses II "wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt." The expert also said that Ramesses II "underlined his divine knowledge" by using codes to convey the swaying messages. "The obelisk also contains hidden texts that show the nobility that he is a legitimate and divine king, thus averting a possible coup d'état," Olette-Pelletier said. "So, indeed, these are propaganda texts." The cryptographies also claim that Ramesses II was the "provider of the Nile flood and thus of the country's wealth," according to Olette-Pelletier. The discovery is one of many finds related to Ramesses II that have been uncovered in the past year. In September, an ancient sword belonging to Ramesses' military was unearthed in Housh Eissa, a city in Egypt's Beheira Governorate. In January, Egyptian officials announced they would begin to restore Ramesses II's temple in the Luxor Governorate, the Ramesseum.
