Egyptology

The Painted Queen

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I was fortunate enough to win an Advanced Reader’s Edition of the final Amelia Peabody book, completed after the death of Eluzabeth Peters/Barbara Mertz by Joan Hess. The book is a worthy addition to the Peabody saga. In the beginning I thought the dialog was bit off, words the Peabody-Emersons would have used, but a little off tone. But that feeling soon vanished as I got caught up in the story of how the Nefertiti head “really” got found, against the back story of a series of assassins bent on doing away with Amelia and a couple of deus ex machina appearances by the “Master Criminal” Sethos.

Terribly sad the whole ride is over, but very pleased we got one last adventure. And one should go back (or forward) and read “Tomb of the Golden Bird” to see Amelia off properly.

https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062083517/the-painted-queen

Egyptology, France

Update: Butehamun’s letter is now online!

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Examining Ostracon Louvre N 698 in the Louvre archives

Today permission arrived from the Louvre to use my photos of Butehamun’s letter to the coffin of his wife, Ostracon Louvre N 698, not just in academic publications, but also online in the website I’ve created about Butehamun. You can see it here.

I’m very grateful to the Louvre for granting this permission. I’ll be linking to Dr. Pierre Grandet’s book with high resolution photos of the Deir el-Medina ostrica as soon as it is published.

The only online image of the ostracon previously available was published by Liverpool University graduate student Dan Potter on his blog, taken several years ago before it was restored, which he kindly allowed me to use in the submitted edition of my thesis.

Egyptology

Meeting Butehamun in Turin

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With Dr. Federico Poole at the Egyptian Museum in Turin, in front of the coffin of Butehamun, C 2236/1

On May 19, also thanks to the Wångstedt’s Foundation, I was able to visit the Egyptian Museum in Turin, to see Butehamun’s coffin and his other grave goods. The museum is the largest devoted solely to Egypt outside the Cairo Museum, and has an extensive collection of items from Deir el-Medina, thanks to the treasure hunting of Bernardino Drovetti in the early 19th century and the careful excavations of Ernesto Schiaparelli in the early years of the 20th century.

I was shown around the collections by Federico Poole, a curator at the museum, who was clearly an expert on Deir el-Medina.

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