News — Egyptology

Sekhmet (Sakhmet) is an Egyptian goddess depicted with the body of a woman with a lion head wearing a sun disk. She is one of the oldest known Egyptian deities. Her name means: “She who is powerful” and she was the goddess of the desert sun, plague, chaos, war, and healing. For her friends she could avert plague and cure disease. In order to stay on her good side they offered her food and drink and played music for her. As a result, this often ferocious deity was called the “lady of terror” and also the “lady of life”.  ...

The Nile River is the central artery of Egypt. It is the sole source of drinking water and brings fertilization to the fields with the rich silt carried from deep inside Africa. The Nile is a major transportation corridor, ferrying people between the east bank and the west bank and facilitating commercial barge movement. But even with all that traffic, it is also the place where sailboats and motorboats cruise while filled with locals and tourists enjoying the sights.   In Cairo, the noise, traffic, sand, dirt, hustle-bustle and general commotion gets left behind the minute you depart from the...

In ancient Egypt, scribes were the select people who learned to read and write. Since not everyone could read and write, the scribes had to go to a special school where they learned the hieroglyphic and hieratic scripts. The scripts were challenging and they spent many years in this process. Scribes generally wrote on papyrus with reed brushes dipped in ink.  One of the most famous scribes was called Imhotep. Imhotep was the architect of the Egyptian Pharaoh Djoser and was said to be responsible for the Step Pyramid at Saqqara. Our statue was made to honor the scribes in ancient Egyptian...

Medinet Habu is known to be the mortuary temple of Ramesses III. It is located on the West Bank of Luxor in Egypt. Inside the Medinet Habu Temple are beautifully decorated columns and pillars. We loved visiting these archeological wonders in Luxor, Egypt. The temple is best known as the source for reliefs and hieroglyphic writings depicting the happenings during the reign of Ramesses III. At then end of this post is a photo of the cartouche in the temple depicting Ramesses name. In archaeology, a cartouche is an oblong enclosure of a group of Egyptian hieroglyphics, typically representing the name and...

Karnak, as the complex is referred to, is the largest religious site ever made, spanning more than 200 acres. It is located in Luxor which is just east of the Nile river and near the Luxor Museum.   The temple has been developed over a period of 1500 years and added to by different pharaohs. That resulted in a collection of temples, sanctuaries, pylons and other decorations that is unlike any other holy place in Egypt. Karnak is divided into three compounds for each of the different religious centers: Amun, Mut and Montu. Modern day visits to Karnak involve nightly shows with light...