All posts in Egyptian Art

1

ASK and Young Museum Visitors: On the Hunt

Sometimes we plan and execute ASK-related projects on a long timeline, but occasionally a project will happen organically and almost take us by surprise. Using…

Read More

Is Bigger Better? Some Most-ASKed About Artworks

In a recent conversation with colleagues from the Peabody Essex Museum, Sara and I fielded a question that frequently arises: which works of art do…

Read More

The End of the Season

Working together with the ARCE project team we got a great deal accomplished this season in preparing the site to open to visitors. Most of…

Read More

Our last week of excavation

Our last day of excavation was February 28, but we still have work to do. Since we are leaving Luxor next week, this will be…

Read More

Old projects, new projects

Jaap’s wife, Egyptologist Julia Harvey, arrived on February 15, completing this season’s small team. Julia has agreed to take on the pottery, with which she…

Read More

Our first week

According to the late French scholar, Agnes Cabrol, these 3 badly damaged sphinxes sitting east of Chapel D date stylistically to the reign of Ramesses…

Read More

Back at Mut – How things have changed!

Our first day at the site this year was February 6, so most of this first posting will be about how the site has changed…

Read More
Mummy Mask of a Man Consisting of the Face Only

A New Addition from our Old Collection

Every museum strives to enrich its collection even further, but acquiring new objects is not always possible. Luckily, our storerooms have much to offer and…

Read More
07.447.501

Meet Another Charming Lady

All of us were a little sad to see “Bird Lady” go, even if it is only for a brief period of time, but we…

Read More
07.447.505

Where is our Bird Lady?

Many of you may be wondering where our beloved Female Figurine, nicknamed the “Bird Lady” is. One of the stars of our Egyptian collection, she…

Read More
6
Senwosret III

Vetting Wikipedia for WikiLink

In Shelley’s previous post, she announced the installation of QR codes installed in exhibitions that lead visitors to Wikipedia articles for further information. These QR…

Read More
Raw/Cooked: Lan Tuazon

What drew you to the Egyptian Galleries?

One morning in late September, I went to Lan Tuazon’s studio in Bushwick with Pierce Jackson, who is making the videos for Raw/Cooked. Lan was…

Read More
Detail of Book of the Dead of Sobekmose

Repairing the Book of the Dead

Repairing papyrus can be a little like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. In order to make sense of the many small pieces at hand, we…

Read More
Instagr.am

35 Animal Mummies meet Twitter and Instagr.am

If you read Lisa’s post on the animal mummy field trip to the Animal Medical Center and got as excited as we did, follow us…

Read More
Falcon X-ray

Animal Mummies – X-radiography, and coming soon – CT scans!

These past few weeks we have been steadily packing and preparing to transport a group of animal mummies to the Animal Medical Center (AMC) for…

Read More
Inner Cartonnage of Gautseshenu

Lady Gautseshenu goes to the Hospital

Yesterday, a team of curators, conservators, and art packers and handlers took the last of our human mummies to North Shore University Hospital to be…

Read More

Name That Bronx Zoo Cobra? “Wadjet” Of Course!

Last Friday, my husband came home with a New York Post article announcing that the young female cobra who escaped from the Bronx zoo, thus…

Read More
Detail from the Book of the Dead of the Goldworker Amun, Sobekmose

Radiocarbon (carbon-14) Dating of Book of the Dead of Sobekmose

Our research to further understand the Book of the Dead of the Goldworker Amun, Sobekmose continues. Carbon-14 (C-14) dating was one of the first scientific…

Read More

The end of a short season

Because of potential unrest, no foreign missions were allowed to work in the field on Saturday, January 29, so we weren’t able to get back…

Read More
DD4 paving

Our last full week

This is the posting intended for January 28 but not sent because of the lack of internet service in Egypt at that time. Richard and…

Read More
FTIR device

Looking for Adhesives and Identifying Binders in the Book of the Dead Using FTIR

Another scientific analytical technique commonly used in art conservation is called Fourier-transform Infrared Spectroscopy, or FTIR.  The Brooklyn Museum’s Paper Conservation Lab employed this technique…

Read More
Book of the Dead

Analyzing Pigments in the Book of the Dead Using XRF Spectroscopy

One of the many scientific analytical techniques used in art conservation is called X-ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy, or XRF.  The Paper Conservation Lab here at the…

Read More
bottom of mystery object

The Second Week

On January 15 we finished removing the baulk stub over the remains of the southern boundary wall of the Taharqa Gate approach. In this view…

Read More
Qufti for season 2011

Season 25 is underway

We began what will be mainly a study season on January 11 with the traditional cutting of the camel thorn. Fortunately there isn’t much as…

Read More
Taharqa Gate

2010 Mut Reports and Dig Diary 2011

The formal report on the 2010 season of work at the Mut Precinct, in English and Arabic, is now available online in the Mut feature…

Read More
Fragment from Book of the Dead

IR and UV Examination of Egyptian Papyrus

Following Rachel’s previous discussion on pigments and inks used in our Book of the Dead of the Goldworker of Amun, Sobekmose, I will begin here…

Read More

Pigments and Inks Typically Used on Papyrus

This is the third blog post on the Museum’s extraordinary New Kingdom papyrus, the Book of the Dead of the Goldworker Amun, Sobekmose.  My colleagues…

Read More

The Egyptian Papyrus “Book”

Once a papyrus sheet was formed it was joined together with other sheets to form long rolls. The papyrus roll format dates back to ~3,000…

Read More

Making Papyrus in the Conservation Lab

Before we began treatment on the Book of the Dead of the Goldworker of Amun, Sobekmose papyrus scroll, the staff of the paper conservation lab…

Read More

Wilbour and the Stela of the Seven Years’ Famine: Part II

The first part of this story showed the American Egyptologist Charles Edwin Wilbour discovering and translating a long rock-cut text on the island of Sehel….

Read More

Wilbour and the Stela of the Seven Years’ Famine: Part I

Wilbour’s letters to his family, kept in the Museum Archives, give a vivid picture of his travels in Egypt and the research he carried out…

Read More

Papyrus: Secret of the Egyptians

Although the making of papyrus as a writing support is almost 5,000 years old, not a single written description by the Egyptians exist to explain…

Read More

Object of the Month: April 2010: Pair Statue of Nebsen and Nebet-ta

It is pretty timely that this month’s object for discussion is the Pair Statue of Nebsen and Nebet-ta .  I absolutely adore this sculpture because…

Read More

The End of the Season

In this last dig diary for 2010 I want to acknowledge the hard work, skill and patience of some of the most important members of…

Read More

The season’s almost over

The base of this sphinx east of the precinct entrance is made up mainly of re-used blocks dating to Dynasties 25-26. The one under the…

Read More

It’s Hot!

A general view of the excavation area on Thursday around noon. What you can’t see is how hot it is: 100°F on the site every…

Read More

A new project and a few surprises

To the ancient Egyptians, magic (heqa in ancient Egyptian) was a potent force that could be used by deities and humans to influence the mortal…

Read More

More brick

A view south from the precinct’s north enclosure wall of the whole area where we are now working. At the left are Chapel D and…

Read More

The Week of the Brick

Tracing mud brick takes skill, patience and lots of scraping and brushing. It is paying off for Ayman and his team, though. By Tuesday, they…

Read More

We’re up and running

   On Sunday, Abdel Aziz began looking for more of the mud brick found last week. He had no luck, as the northern part had…

Read More

The Start of Another Season

The Brooklyn Museum Mut Expedition’s 2010  season of fieldwork is just getting underway. Once again we will be posting a blog each Friday describing the…

Read More

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…

Read More

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!…

Read More

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…

Read More

Mummy Transport

As some of you may have seen from the recent press coverage, we took four of our Egyptian human mummies to North Shore University Hospital…

Read More

HBO’s True Blood team kindly answers our “Bird Lady” questions!

Many thanks are due to our faithful community. Their tweets helped us get in touch with @TrueBloodHBO, the official True Blood twitter feed and they…

Read More

Live Tweeting Mummy CT Scanning Today!

We’ve got something very cool going on!  Follow us on Twitter today to get our updates—we are going to be tweeting live as curators and…

Read More

“Bird Lady” on HBO’s True Blood

     We were first notified of this surprise appearance from a comment in our online collection by Marlene F. Emmett, who spotted a statue that…

Read More

Thothirdes

Thothirdes may be familiar to those of you who have seen her on display in the 3rd floor Egyptian Galleries.  She was deinstalled and brought…

Read More

More on mummies…

In addition to continuing to x-ray the animal mummies,  the Conservation Lab has started preparing to send several human mummies to North Shore University Hospital….

Read More

The results are in!

I have been interested to see the results of our online quiz. I think the main problem with it was the software we had to…

Read More

And now it’s back to research and writing

The season is over. We finished digging on Tuesday and spent the rest of this week cleaning up, checking notes and taking final photographs. Our…

Read More

This week in conservation at Mut

   During this past week I continued to treat small finds excavated from the west side of the Taharqa gate, and to watch the progress…

Read More

Time Flies

It’s hard to believe that the season is almost over: this was our last full week of work, and it has been hot. Still, we…

Read More

The Work Goes On

  Late last week we uncovered the top of a fairly substantial mud brick wall running across the Taharqa Gate square (left), but we only…

Read More

Back on Site

I’ve been back on site for a week now and am happy to rejoin the team for my second season. It’s great to see Richard,…

Read More

Pop Quiz!

One of the most interesting aspects of preparing the Late Antique Egyptian sculpture exhibition has been sorting out the modern forgeries from the ancient works…

Read More

Imsheer Winds

The month on the traditional Egyptian calendar known as “Imsheer” (mid-February to mid-March) began this week and so far is living up to its reputation…

Read More

Animal Mummy Research

This past Saturday as part of programming for 1stfans at the Brooklyn Museum, I gave a presentation on the animal mummy research the Conservation Department…

Read More

Unearthing the Truth

Unearthing the Truth opens on Friday, February 13th. Now that this rather unusual exhibition is ready to go, I am glad to have this opportunity…

Read More

Restoring Taharqa

This week we were able to start putting the north wing of the Taharqa Gate back together, restoring fallen blocks to their original position. We…

Read More

Progress on all fronts

We are so happy that William and Elsie Peck could join us again this year. After a look around the site first thing Saturday morning…

Read More

Our First Week

At the end of last season we covered the baked brick building north of the Sacred Lake with plastic and sand to protect it and…

Read More

The First Day

We flew up to Luxor from Cairo on January 13. The view out the window was absorbing: the mountains of the eastern desert always take…

Read More

The 2009 Mut Expedition – back in the field

The Mut Precinct’s front gate The Brooklyn Museum Mut Expedition’s next season of fieldwork will take place between mid-January and mid-March, 2009. Once again we…

Read More

The Description de l’Egypte in the Wilbour Library of Egyptology

If you have been following the numerous blogs on this website you are aware that the Brooklyn Museum has organized an exhibition of Egyptian objects…

Read More

Conservation Treatment of Demetrios Continues

To recap previous blogs, the mummy of Demetrios is wrapped in linen, then the entire surface of the linen is painted with red lead. On…

Read More

Who Was Demetrios and How Old Was He When He Died?

The mummy of Demetrios raises a large number of questions that can only be answered with the help of a team of scholars. Each of…

Read More

Conservation Treatment of Demetrios Begins

I’m back from leave, and during the last several months we’ve been busily getting all of the objects ready for the “To Live Forever, Egyptian…

Read More

Parting Shots

Richard and I spent most of our last days at Mut photographing pot sherds, a necessary but decidedly unphotogenic task. However, I did have time…

Read More

The End of the Season

Thursday, February 28 was our last day of work. It has been a very satisfactory season. We accomplished most of what we set out to…

Read More

Wrapping up

The final week on site was spent finishing up various small projects, catching up on treatment notes, and packing up the tools and supplies for…

Read More

Adjusting to life in the field…

After my second week on site I feel a bit less dazed and confused by the layout, the routine, and the scope and direction of…

Read More

Our Last Full Week

You are looking northwest at the Taharqa Gate late Thursday morning. We are now down to the paving in the whole gateway, except for a…

Read More

Arriving on site

My first day on site was Saturday, February 9th and I’m amazed at how quickly the week flew by. One of the things I did…

Read More