Carolyn - ToutankhamonThursday 16 April 2009
Student Projects
Daisy and Zoey - Egyptian clothing
Darienne and Catherine - Pyramids
Paige - The Godsy of Egypt
Lea and Evan - the Sphinx
Rankyn, Brennan and Tanner - Egyptian Burial
Wednesday 15 April 2009
Technology, famous tombs and final words
Andie said...
LAST PART
Lots of advanced technology is being used in the Valley of the Kings to try to locate any remaining royal tombs. An unexcavated tomb known as KV64 has been found using technology which can find big holes in the ground, but it seems very small. We will have to wait and see what is found when it is excavated!
Sadly there are only a few pharaohs whose tombs have not yet been found. Most of the royal (and elite) tombs were emptied by tomb robbers. Of the ones left to be found, it is unlikely that any will have escaped the tomb robbers but we all hope that something as special as Tutankhamun's tomb will be found. Tutankhamun was not an important king, and his tomb was very small. If the tombs of the famous kings Seti I and Ramessess II had not been robbed I am sure that they would have produced some amazing artefacts.
I hope that in the future we weill find tombs that have not been robbed but I think that new technologies will be most useful for discovering settlement sites and small cemeteries for ordinary people rather than rich royal tombs.
I think that I have covered all the questions but do let me know if I have missed anything!Thanks so much for all your questions.All the bestAndie
Thursday, 09 April, 2009
LAST PART
Lots of advanced technology is being used in the Valley of the Kings to try to locate any remaining royal tombs. An unexcavated tomb known as KV64 has been found using technology which can find big holes in the ground, but it seems very small. We will have to wait and see what is found when it is excavated!
Sadly there are only a few pharaohs whose tombs have not yet been found. Most of the royal (and elite) tombs were emptied by tomb robbers. Of the ones left to be found, it is unlikely that any will have escaped the tomb robbers but we all hope that something as special as Tutankhamun's tomb will be found. Tutankhamun was not an important king, and his tomb was very small. If the tombs of the famous kings Seti I and Ramessess II had not been robbed I am sure that they would have produced some amazing artefacts.
I hope that in the future we weill find tombs that have not been robbed but I think that new technologies will be most useful for discovering settlement sites and small cemeteries for ordinary people rather than rich royal tombs.
I think that I have covered all the questions but do let me know if I have missed anything!Thanks so much for all your questions.All the bestAndie
Thursday, 09 April, 2009
Andie becomes an Egyptologist
Andie said...
Hello to everyoneIt is lovely to read all your questions. I hope that all of the answers are included here and in my next replies.
I am 45 years old. I first became interested in archaeology on a family holiday in England, where we saw ancient burial places in modern fields. My father bought me a book on the subject and I decided that I wanted to study it at university. So I studied archaeology at university in Scotland in the 1980s.
My interest lies with the period before the pharaohs, usually referred to as prehistory, so that's where I do most of my research. I spend most of my time in Egypt in the desert areas, which used to be green enough to support wild herds and nomads who herded sheep and goat. The climate changed before Egypt became a single country, so now we find artefacts in one of the most arid places on the planet. The most interesting things that I have found in Egypt are everyday life items used by people many thousands of years ago rather than the more glamorous items associated with kings like Tutankhamun. This is because when I pick them up I know that I am the first person to handle them in all that time. It is like holding hands with someone in the past. I once found a mummified Ibis (an Egyptian bird) but my favourite artefact was an ostrich egg which had been decorated witht he picture of a bird and had been used to carry water.
Hello to everyoneIt is lovely to read all your questions. I hope that all of the answers are included here and in my next replies.
I am 45 years old. I first became interested in archaeology on a family holiday in England, where we saw ancient burial places in modern fields. My father bought me a book on the subject and I decided that I wanted to study it at university. So I studied archaeology at university in Scotland in the 1980s.
My interest lies with the period before the pharaohs, usually referred to as prehistory, so that's where I do most of my research. I spend most of my time in Egypt in the desert areas, which used to be green enough to support wild herds and nomads who herded sheep and goat. The climate changed before Egypt became a single country, so now we find artefacts in one of the most arid places on the planet. The most interesting things that I have found in Egypt are everyday life items used by people many thousands of years ago rather than the more glamorous items associated with kings like Tutankhamun. This is because when I pick them up I know that I am the first person to handle them in all that time. It is like holding hands with someone in the past. I once found a mummified Ibis (an Egyptian bird) but my favourite artefact was an ostrich egg which had been decorated witht he picture of a bird and had been used to carry water.
Thursday 9 April 2009
Horus vs Ra
Andie said...
PART 5
Ra and Horus are different gods but even the ancient Egyptians sometimes got a little confused about some of their gods and would associate one with another. This is partly they are both shown as birds of prey, partly because different gods were preferred at different times in Egyptian history, and also because some gods were more revered in some cities than others.
Ra is a very ancient god, the sun-god who is often shown as a hawk, who the earliest pharaohs thought was the father of all the gods, including the pharaohs themselves. The pharaohs were always called "son of Ra".
Some other gods were also given the name of Ra eventually because they had so many features in common. We therefore see Amon-Ra (who used to be Amon).Horus looks similar to Ra and can be shown as a falcon or hawk. He was the son of the god Osiris and the goddess Isis. He was a sky god but he was also responsible for the welfare of the kings, so he is often shown in tombs.The Egyptians clearly realized that Ra and Horus had a very similar job so in some places the two gods are shown as one god, named Ra-Horakhty.
Thursday, 09 April, 2009
PART 5
Ra and Horus are different gods but even the ancient Egyptians sometimes got a little confused about some of their gods and would associate one with another. This is partly they are both shown as birds of prey, partly because different gods were preferred at different times in Egyptian history, and also because some gods were more revered in some cities than others.
Ra is a very ancient god, the sun-god who is often shown as a hawk, who the earliest pharaohs thought was the father of all the gods, including the pharaohs themselves. The pharaohs were always called "son of Ra".
Some other gods were also given the name of Ra eventually because they had so many features in common. We therefore see Amon-Ra (who used to be Amon).Horus looks similar to Ra and can be shown as a falcon or hawk. He was the son of the god Osiris and the goddess Isis. He was a sky god but he was also responsible for the welfare of the kings, so he is often shown in tombs.The Egyptians clearly realized that Ra and Horus had a very similar job so in some places the two gods are shown as one god, named Ra-Horakhty.
Thursday, 09 April, 2009
Becoming an archaelogist
Andie said...
PART 2
I started working in Egyptian archaeology quite by accident. I went on holiday to Egypt and found prehistoric flint artefacts at a Roman fort which were so interesting that I decided to move into research in Egypt. That meant re-training and going back to university. It takes time!I don't spend much time looking for artefacts.
My job is usually to try and learn from the items that other people dig up. I spend a lot of time in museums. When I am looking for artefacts it tends to be in places where we have good reason to find them so it may take years to uncover an entire area, but we tend to find lots of things as we go.My favourite part of working in archaeology is the sense that something new is always around the corner, and that nothing is ever predictable.
I also love Egypt and the desert, so it is always a pleasure to be there.The only time I dislike archaeology is when it is cold outdoors (and it can be even in Egypt!), when we have had to camp for over a week in the heat without access to showers, or when I am trying to finish a report to a deadline which is very near!
Do you think this would be an interesting job?
Pyramids
Andie said...
PART 3
Because the pyramids of the Old Kingdom near Cairo are so famous it sometimes seems as though they appeared out of nowhere, but this is far from the truth.Before the pyramid there was a type of tomb called a "mastaba" which was used by the earliest kings. These were vast mud brick structures with storage rooms which sat over undgerground burial chambers.
Mastaba tombs were often decorated, sometimes with decoration in paint and gold, and hundreds of artefacts were buried so that the dead person could take his property into the afterlife. The first pyramid, which is called the Step Pyramid of the pharaoh Djoser, started off as a mastaba but its design was changed many times and it grew into the first stone pyramid. A man called Imhotep is thought to be the architect and he became a god himself in ancient Egypt thanks to his invention. Even after the invention of the pyramids the mastaba tombs continued to be built for important people attached to the royal court, and these still surround the pyramids.
Mastaba tombs were no longer built after the end of the Old Kingdom but pyramids were still built, although they were never as magnificent as the Great Pyramid. The favoured form of royal tomb after the Old Kingdom was the rock cut tomb, like those in the Valley of the Kings where Tutankhamun was buried in the New Kingdom.
PART 4
Not all pyramids were as big as the famous ones on the outskirts of Cairo, but it is true that several were huge. There are lots of theories about why they were so enormous. One idea is that they pharaohs thought that when they died they joined the other gods in the sky as stars and that the pyramids were so high that they could reach the stars. Another view is economic and suggests that when the Nile flooded and the land could not be worked so all the men were employed to build pyramids, which was a good way of making sure that everyone was usefully employed all year round.
It is also possible that these pyramids were so big because the Pharaoh wanted to leave a monument for all time to show how important he was.The truth is that no-one knows why they are so big, but they are a wonderful testiment to ancient engineering.
Thursday, 09 April, 2009
Why do you think that the pyramids were built?
PART 3
Because the pyramids of the Old Kingdom near Cairo are so famous it sometimes seems as though they appeared out of nowhere, but this is far from the truth.Before the pyramid there was a type of tomb called a "mastaba" which was used by the earliest kings. These were vast mud brick structures with storage rooms which sat over undgerground burial chambers.
Mastaba tombs were often decorated, sometimes with decoration in paint and gold, and hundreds of artefacts were buried so that the dead person could take his property into the afterlife. The first pyramid, which is called the Step Pyramid of the pharaoh Djoser, started off as a mastaba but its design was changed many times and it grew into the first stone pyramid. A man called Imhotep is thought to be the architect and he became a god himself in ancient Egypt thanks to his invention. Even after the invention of the pyramids the mastaba tombs continued to be built for important people attached to the royal court, and these still surround the pyramids.
Mastaba tombs were no longer built after the end of the Old Kingdom but pyramids were still built, although they were never as magnificent as the Great Pyramid. The favoured form of royal tomb after the Old Kingdom was the rock cut tomb, like those in the Valley of the Kings where Tutankhamun was buried in the New Kingdom.
PART 4
Not all pyramids were as big as the famous ones on the outskirts of Cairo, but it is true that several were huge. There are lots of theories about why they were so enormous. One idea is that they pharaohs thought that when they died they joined the other gods in the sky as stars and that the pyramids were so high that they could reach the stars. Another view is economic and suggests that when the Nile flooded and the land could not be worked so all the men were employed to build pyramids, which was a good way of making sure that everyone was usefully employed all year round.
It is also possible that these pyramids were so big because the Pharaoh wanted to leave a monument for all time to show how important he was.The truth is that no-one knows why they are so big, but they are a wonderful testiment to ancient engineering.
Thursday, 09 April, 2009
Why do you think that the pyramids were built?
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