Brooklyn Museum: Egyptian, Classical, and Ancient Middle Eastern Art

Showing objects 1 - 48 of 1,245Next

Canopic Jar with Lid of the Royal Scribe and Chief Lector Priest Thenry

Tile Frieze Representing Lotus and Grape

Outer Sarcophagus of the Royal Prince, Count of Thebes, Pa-seba-khai-en-ipet

Scribe Statue of Amunhotep, Son of Nebiry

Statue of a Priest, Wen-amun Son of Nes-ba-neb-dedet and Ta-sherit-Khonsu

Temple Statue of Pawerem, Priest of Bastet

Relief of Winged Man-Headed Figure Facing Right with Basket and Fircone

Sheet from an Amduat: What is in the Netherworld

Showing objects 1 - 48 of 1,245Next

Recent Blog Posts

Mut Expedition Reports Online In the final dig diary posting for 2009, I talked about the importance of publishing the results of our work at the site. The first phase of publication is the read more...

Mut Expedition Reports Online

Richard Fazzini on September 25, 2009

In the final dig diary posting for 2009, I talked about the importance of publishing the results of our work at the site. The first phase of publication is the preliminary report (in English and Arabic) that we are required to submit to Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) each season describing that year's work. These reports eventually appear in the journal, Annales du Service des Antiquités de l'Egypte.

With the gracious permission of Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the SCA, we are now able to make the English and Arabic reports for the 1996 through 2009 seasons available online as well through the museum's website. We hope the reports will be a useful resource for anyone interested in the Mut Precinct and the museum's work there.

We are in the midst of planning for the next season of fieldwork, scheduled for January-March 2010. Watch for the 2010 Dig Diary, starting in mid-January.

Hieroglyphs for Mut and Sakhmet on the Propylon (main gate) of the Mut Precinct.

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Season Finale of True Blood - We'll be watching for the Bird Lady! You better believe we are going to be watching the True Blood season two finale, which is airing on HBO this Sunday night at 9pm! If you read the blog, read more...

Season Finale of True Blood - We'll be watching for the Bird Lady!

Shelley Bernstein on September 10, 2009

You better believe we are going to be watching the True Blood season two finale, which is airing on HBO this Sunday night at 9pm! If you read the blog, you saw Madeleine blogging about the discovery that our Bird Lady statue was spotted in the first episode of the season. Soon after, the awesome people at HBO got us in touch with Production Designer, Suzuki Ingerslev, who answered our questions about why this object was selected and they gave us some subtle hints as to the significance. Throughout the season we've continued to see various references to our object, but things started to really heat up again in episode ten...

Here's the character Maryann creating a "meat tree"...see the resemblance to the Bird Lady? Michelle Forbes (the actress who plays Maryann) gave an interview for TV Guide in which she talks about the tree: "It was filled with real meat and reeked as the weeks wore on. There are bobcats and coyotes roaming around that ranch where we shoot, so they had someone sit by the tree with a gun at night to protect it." Love that—all bird ladies warrant protection.

(Conservators please avert your eyes!) Bird Lady is spotted several times in Sookie's house where Maryann is squatting. Seen here in episode ten, she's covered in eggs and eggshells and if you watched episode eleven those eggs have even more meaning. Now, as we *try* to wait patiently for Sunday's season finale, we'll leave you with a few things to ponder....

...this quote we found from Michelle Forbes:

...this awesome finale still shot (!!!!!) sent to us from the fabulous people we've been speaking with at HBO:

...lastly, don't forget to stop by and see our Bird Lady—she's 5,500 years old and waiting for you on our third floor in Egypt Reborn....

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Male and Female Mummies: Bad Grammar, Bad X-rays, Bad Judgment It should not be so hard to tell a woman from a man. Yet three of the five male mummies from the Brooklyn Museum that were CT-scanned in the last read more...

Male and Female Mummies: Bad Grammar, Bad X-rays, Bad Judgment

Edward Bleiberg on July 17, 2009

It should not be so hard to tell a woman from a man. Yet three of the five male mummies from the Brooklyn Museum that were CT-scanned in the last eighteen months at North Shore University Hospital were at one time thought to be women. One of the clearest benefits of the recent CT-scans performed on Brooklyn’s mummies was clarification of their sex. Why were they once thought to be women? These determinations were made on the basis of bad grammar, bad x-rays, and bad judgment.

Mummy and Portrait of Demetris, Hawara, Egypt, Painted cloth, gold, human remains, wood, encaustic, gilding (13 3/8 x 15 3/8 x 74 13/16 inches), 50—100 C.E., Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 11.600.

Demetris entered the Brooklyn Museum collection in 1911. He lived in the first century C.E. when many Egyptians had Greek names, the result of Alexander the Great’s conquest in the fourth century B.C.E. Demetris was thought to be a woman because his name—written on his linen wrappings—ended in “is,” a feminine grammatical ending in classical Greek. Scholars early in the twentieth century thought that a man could only be named “Demetrius.” One early curator commented that Demetris’ portrait represented a particularly “homely” woman. Later x-rays proved that he was anatomically male and showed he was an example of a particular Egyptian custom of Greek, male names ending in “is.”

Coffin and Mummy of Thothirdes, Saqqara, Egypt, Wood, paint, linen, human remains, (7 x 10 x 56 inches), Dynasty 26 (664-525 B.C.E.), Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 37.1521E.

Thothirdes’ masculinity was questioned because of bad x-rays. In spite of the beard of Osiris on his coffin, in spite of his red face—a trait traditionally associated with portrayals of Egyptian men—an x-ray very early in the twentieth century suggested to an early curator that he was “clearly female.” The most recent CT-scan showed, on the contrary, that Thothirdes is unquestionably anatomically male. This is a particular relief since it means that his beard and red face make better sense.

Cartonnage of Hor, Thebes, Egypt, painted linen, gesso, human remains, (69 3/4 x 18 1/16 inches) Late Dynasty 25 (712-656 B.C.E.), Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 37.50E.

Finally, “The Lady Hor” was identified as female because of her lovely face, “clearly feminine” in the judgment of an early curator. Again the face was red, but the lack of a beard on the cartonnage coffin and the face’s delicacy was taken as proof that Hor was a woman.

CT-scan of Hor at North Shore University Hospital. Photo by Adam Husted.

The CT-scan, however, left no doubt that he was a man. Sometimes judgment alone is too subjective to make this determination.

As a curator, I now miss the opportunity to compare male and female mummification practices in Brooklyn’s galleries. But I hope that we have now settled this issue for good.

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