KMT 7:3, FALL1996 © KMT Communications
As I Write This Installment of FTR, summer has officially begun, but will be on the wane when Journal readers receive this issue. In the mean- time, there are lots of Egypt-themed books and TV to catch up on in prep- aration for a busy fall which will include two new exciting museum ex- hibitions and enough lectures and symposia here and abroad to keep us all busy!
PUBLICATIONS
Books
On a recent visit to the ever-well-stocked bookstore of the Metropolitan Museum, I noted several recent publications that should be of interest to Journal readers. The American Discovery of Ancient Egypt: Essays (Abrams, 1996), edited by Nancy Thomas, is priced at $60, so is more- expensive than the companion exhibition-catalogue; but it has lots of great vintage photos of excavations and pioneer American Egyptologists to accompany the several excellent essays concerning Nineteenth and early- Twentieth Century American archaeological activities in Egypt and Nubia. The catalogue for the recent Cleveland Museum show, Pharaohs: Trea sures of Egyptian Art from the Louvre, is a little slim for the $19.95 price, but has good color photos of the objects exhibited. And excellent text and a wealth of new color-photos are to be had for the relatively modest price of $39.95 in Werner Forman and Stephen Quirke, Hieroglyphs and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt (University of Oklahoma Press, 1996).
The British Museum Press has issued two Egyptological titles in its new Pocket Treasury series: Mummies and Gods. These easily portable little volumes (4x4 inches) at $8.95 each are profusely illustrated in color. SImilar in size are two well-designed books of postcards ($9.95 each) from Pomegranate Art Books: Sifting the Sands of Time (historic photos from the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago), published in 1993; and Views of Egypt and Nubia (paintings by David Roberts), pub- lished in 1995.
Two recent British Museum Press titles reviewed in the summer number of KMT, The Kingdom of Kush: The Napatan and Meroitic Em- pires and Ancient Egyptian Medicine, are now at the Met (and presumably available elsewhere in the States), as if in answer to the reviewer s ex- pressed wish! I should note that the Met (which heretofore has not carried guide books to Egypt) is stocking Egypt in the new Knopf Guides series (1995/96). While this vinyl-bound pocket-sized volume is beautifully il- lustrated with scores and scores of vintage paintings and photos, and con- temporary photography as well, I wish that an editor had more carefully checked the text and especially the illustration captions for the numerous errors which abound (particularly since Egypt is priced at $25!).
Three other titles appearing for the first time on the Met s shelves are Decouvert‚ a Saqqarah: Le Vizier Oubli‚ by Alain Zivie (Éditions du Seuil, 1990, $88), which documents Zivie s excavation of the Tomb of Aper-el; La Collection Egyptienne du Muse‚ de Picardie (Reunion des Muse‚s Nationaux, $50), a recently published catalogue of the Egyptian collection in the Picardie Museum (Amiens, France); and Pharaonen und Fremde: Dynastien Im Dunkel (Eigenverlag der Museen der Stadt Wien, $45), the catalogue of a 1994 exhibition in Vienna of objects of the Twelfth through the Eighteenth dynasties, including several artifacts excavated by Manfred Bietak at Tell ed Daba. These are all three excellent books, but we English-only readers might wish that they would appear in translations!
Also new is T.G.H. James's A Short History of Ancient Egypt: From Predynastic to Roman Times (Cassell Pubishers Ltd., 1995), priced at a modest $21.95 and written in James s always easily readable style. It has several excellent maps and lots of new color photos (albeit quite a few of these are a bit over-exposed or under-inked ).
Recently reviewed in the New York Times was The Pyramid by Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare, translated from the French of Jusuf Vrioni by David Bellos (Arcade Publishing, 1996). The story is set in Egypt of the Twenty-Sixth Century B.C. and centers on the construction of the Great Pyramid of Cheops [sic]. Kadre has based the story on his own experience living in Communist Albania, with parallels drawn between that country and Fourth Dynasty Egypt, and between Albania's former strongman general and leader, Enver Hoxha, and Egypt's King Cheops [sic].
Friends who visited the two Egyptian-themed exhibits in St. Petersburg (FL) this past spring have gifted me with some interesting books picked up there: Splendors of Ancient Egypt by Robert S. Bianchi; Antike Welt im Pelizaeus-Museum; and The Lure of Egypt: Land of the Pharaohs Revisited. The first is the catalogue for the originally planned exhibit of objects from Cairo s Egyptian Museum; since this turned out to be a non- event, its catalogue will no doubt become a collector s item in time! The Pelizaeus Museum volume is not, strictly speaking, a catalogue of the revamped exhibit, but does illustrate several of the some 175 objects which were displayed in Florida, on loan from Germany. The third volume is a slim catalogue for the St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts exhibit, which illustrates a few of the European and American Nineteenth Century Egypt-themed paintings, sculpture, photographs, decorative arts and funerary objects that were in the show.
Speaking of catalogues, John William Pye and Maurizio Martino have announced a reprint of Catalogue of the Egyptological Library and Other Books from the Collection of the Late Charles Edwin Wilbour by William Burt Cook, Jr. Prepublication price through August 31 is $60. As most Journal readers probably know, Wilbour s incredible book collection (including the library of Richard Lepsius) was bequeathed to the Brooklyn Museum and became the foundation of the Wilbour Library of Egyptology there.
Due in September from Birch Lane Press is The Moses Mystery ($24.95) by Gary Greenberg, president of the Biblical Archaeology Soci- ety of New York. Good report has it that this work which will deal with Moses, Akhenaten and the Israelites will likely ignite major controversy among Egyptologists, biblical scholars and lay readers. One more item to note is yet-another Time-Life Books series on ancient cultures, this one titled What Life Was Like. The first volume, On the Banks of the Nile ($9.99, plus handling and shipping), covers the long span from 3050-30 B.C. Like similar series from T-LB, this one will no doubt be well-done and do well.
Magazines
The April 1, 1996, issue of The New Yorker has an amusing cover depicting a crane and wrecking ball and a nearly demolished old building, behind which can be seen the wall of an Egyptian temple brightly painted with several familiar New Kingdom tomb and temple scenes. The May/June 1996 issue of Archaeology has a review of a new CD-ROM, Ancient Lands, which covers the worlds of Egypt, Greece and Rome. According to the review, the video is comically narrated by an Egyptian mummy named Akhtuten-mossus and includes comments on daily life, architecture, politics and warfare. In the same issue, Archaeology an- nounces a new spin-off magazine for kids called Dig. Featured on the cover of the premier issue is an Egyptian coffin, referring to an article inside titled Discover a mummy s 2,600-year-old secrets!
The May/June 1996 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review has a short item titled Female Pharaoh's Cracked Temple to be Restored, re- ferring to the structure as Hatshepsut s Temple of Amun in Luxor. This is somewhat misleading, until one realizes that the temple meant is actual- ly the Eighteenth Dynasty edifice situated within the precincts of Rameses III s mortuary-complex at Medinet Habu on the West Bank across the Nile from Luxor. Work on the temple, which is being overseen by the Oriental Institute's Chicago House, will be funded by a grant of $455,000 from the Egyptian Antiquities Project, a program administered by the American Research Center in Egypt. The University of Chicago Magazine for April 1996 has a similar but better-written article, which also mentions the provision of an additional $135,000 for continuing work on the stabilization of the Luxor Temple.
The May/June 1996 issue of the British bi-monthly Minerva features three Egypt-themed articles. In The Fayum Portraits, the author of the sumptuous 1995 publication on the subject (reviewed in the summer 96 KMT), Euphrosyne Doxiadis, gives a general introduction to the portraits (several of which are illustrated in color) and presents three she has researched since the publication of her book. Burton and KV5 is a brief portrait of James Burton (the first person to have entered the now-famed Kings Valley tomb) by Neil Cooke, who has spent the last six years gathering material for a biography of this Nineteenth Century explorer cum Egyptologist. Lastly, Minerva's publisher, Jerome Eisenberg, reports on the Seventh International Congress of Egyptologists at Cambridge in Sep- tember 1995, giving a short synopsis of twenty of the some 170 papers presented.
Newspapers
A recent New York Times article about the excavator of KV5, Kent R. Weeks, described how he had been inundated with requests for interviews, films and articles, to the point where these were interfering with his work. Professing to know nothing about dealing with the media, Weeks decided he should interpose someone between himself and everybody else. Consequently, he is now the first Egyptologist/archaeologist to be represented by the William Morris Talent Agency! Weeks purportedly has six (!) agents handling him in the areas of books, movies, television, corporate-liaison, lectures and new communications technology, such as the Internet and CD-ROMs. In the works, according to the Times, are two books one a popular account of KV5, the other scientific and there is a discussion of doing CD-ROMs.
A short piece in the New York Post, with the headline H Wood wants its Mummy , recently caught my eye. According to the article (which appeared just before Mother s Day), Hollywood is planning an updated remake of Bram Stoker s The Mummy. The new version is set in Ireland rather than Egypt, and follows a young woman who is traveling to her ancestral home with her husband and child, as she attempts to rid herself of a substance-abuse problem (tanna leaves, no doubt!). She encounters a mummified Druid, who may be one of her ancestors. Sounds pretty dull, after the 1932 Karloff classic and all those corny-but-fun spinoffs in the 1940s!
And more on the mummy-beat, Dr. Mummy, Bob Brier was back in the news in late-June with a New York Times article reporting that the Long Island University professor believes he has found good evidence that King Tut was the victim of foul play in the R.G. Harrison x-ray of the boy-king s mummy s skull made in 1968. Brier, who is researching a three-part series on ancient Egyptian rulers for The Learning Channel (TLC), brought in trauma specialist, Dr. Gerald Irwin, for an opinion on what the old x-ray shows. Irwin concluded that Tut may have suffered a blow to the back of his head, and that a thin white line on the film could indicate the presence of a blood clot, which would mean that death was not immediate. Brier was awarded the newspaper's Quote of the Day for June 26, 1996: " It looks probable that he was murdered. Probable, but not certain." New Yorkers consider Quote a really big deal !
Lastly, the New York Post ran an item early in July reporting that Tutankhamun Ale had gone on sale in London, the first bottle bringing $7,800, with the remaining 999 bottles of the brew available for just $78 each! The ale is based on analysis of sediment found in a brewery at El Amarna and only enough of the raw materials could be grown to produce the 1,000-bottle batch.
TELEVISION
This summer's re-run season following the May Sweeps has been a good time to catch up on Egypt-themed programs on cable's The Learning Channel, Discovery, Arts & Entertainment, TBS and the History Channel. Repeats included Karnak on the Nile and Great Pyramid on TLC, and Cleopatra: Destiny s Queen and TravelQuest: Egypt on A&E. The History Channel checked in with Lost Pharaoh: The Search for Akhenaten (on Donald Redford's excavations at East Karnak, way back in 1981) and a repeat of the four-part BBC series The Face of Tutankhamun.
The NBC network repeated Mysterious Origins of Man, with sonorous narration by Charlton Moses Heston, and followed it with a new segment in its occasional series Ancient Prophecies, narrated by an equally sonorous David McCallum, speaking from within a many corridored pyramid. NBC also broadcast a new Unsolved Mysteries which included a piece on the curse of King Tut's tomb. Among those interviewed were the always-pompous Thomas Hoving (once of the Metropolitan Museum), mummy-expert Bob Brier and ubiquitous Egyptian spokesperson Zahi Hawass. A medical doctor gave purported explanations for the deaths which followed the tomb's opening, and the Met Museum movie footage of Carter and Carnarvon was shown, along with recreations, one of which showed Carnarvon consulting a medium. The incidents associated with Carnarvon's death (the canary eaten by a cobra, the dog howling at Highclere Castle, the lights of Cairo going out) were cited, and Hawass remarked that Arab tomb-workers today do not shave (a reference to Carnarvon). Other interesting reactions of the time were also noted, like the rush by tourists to return antiquities they had purchased and the contemplation of passing a law banning the exhibition of Egyptian artifacts in museums!
On June 6 A&E broadcast a new documentary titled Ancient Mysteries: Rites of Death, which examined some of the world s most-fascinating ancient death- and burial-rituals, including Egyptian mummification, of course (with Bob Brier popping up again on this one!). A&E's big hype production, however, was its Mummies: Tales from the Egyptian Crypts, which premiered June 23 and 24 and repeated on June 28 and 29. TV Guide for June 8-14 featured a short article (illustrated with the scene of Anubis leaning over a mummy, from the Deir el Medina Tomb of Imherkau) on the new program, which read in part: Vampires are out. Mummies are in. Not only are those tightly wrapped spirits the topic of three upcoming movies, including one based on Anne Rice s mega-seller The Mummy or Rameses the Damned, they are the focus of two TV documentaries this summer.
Tales from the Egyptian Crypts was narrated by Frank Langella (remember him as the bad-guy Egyptologist in the movie version of Robin Cook s novel Sphinx?) and devoted four hours to uncovering the secrets of ancient Egyptian culture with a little bit thrown in on the art of mum- mification. On-screen commentary was offered throughout the two seg- ments by a batch of familiar experts: Lanny Bell, Mark Lehner, Bob Brier (he s everywhere!), Emily Teeter, James Allen, Peter Lacovara, I.E.S. Edwards, T.G.H. James, Peter Der Manuelian. John Taylor, Zahi Hawass, Rita Freed and Kent Weeks.
Was Tales worth the hype? Well, as previously noted in this col- umn, these A&E documentaries are presented strictly as entertainment not history lessons. This particular one was perhaps overly long at four hours, and was somewhat mistitled (mummies per se played only a rela- tively small part in the whole production, which especially focused on the Sphinx and Great Pyramid, hieroglyphs, and the discoveries of Tut s tomb and KV5); but at least there were no glaring errors that I noticed, and one certainly can t quarrel with the on-site videography. Some of the tomb- scene and statue images, however, became a bit repetitive (if you didn t blink during the credits you might have seen your FTR reporter's name as a supplier of some of these images).
A review of Tales in TV Guide remarked: Can we ever get enough of those fabulous pyramids? Yes! This four-hour documentary told me all I wanted to know and much more. A close shot of King Tut s face reveals that under that mask he s no prince. The Sphinx, re- constructed via computer fares better. With eyeliner, he/she/it actually looks like... Prince (the artist formerly known as??).
In a kind of duel of the mummies, National Geographic's Explor- er series on TBS broadcast The Mummy Hunters during the second hour of the A&E special on June 23. It dealt with the newly discovered Peruvian mummies and pet mummification in Salt Lake City, but also in- cluded a rerun of Mr. Mummy (Bob Brier s modern human-mummifi- cation project of last summer). Not to be outdone, the Discovery Channel did a show on the Peruvian mummies in July.
MUSEUM NEWS & EXHIBITS
in the United States
For Journal readers down in Texas, the good news is that the Splendors
of Ancient Egypt exhibition from St. Petersburg will open at the Museum
of Fine Arts in Houston on September 22, 1996, where it will remain until
March 30, 1997.
From October 20, 1996, to January 5, 1997, the Cincinnati Art Museum will host Mistress of the House, Mistress of Heaven: Women in Ancient Egypt, an exhibition guest-curated by Anne Capel. More than 200 works of art loaned by twenty-six American public institutions and private collectors will be on view. The exhibit, which will examine the various roles of women in dynastic Egypt, from servants and domestic workers to queens and goddesses, is divided into four sections: Private and Public Life, Queens and Female Royalty, Female Deities and Women in the Afterlife. A fully-illustrated cata- logue with essays by prominent Egyptologists ($29.95) will be available, and an audio tour will be narrated by Madam Jehan Sadat, widow of the assassinated Egyptian president.
Several events are scheduled in conjunction with the Women ex- hibit, including lectures and films. Lectures (for which a fee will be charged) will be given by Betsy Bryan (10/30), Catharine Roehrig (11/13) and Anne Capel (12/11). On November 8 Elizabeth Peters (aka Barbara Mertz) will be signing her latest novel (The Hippopotamus Pool) and will speak on A Woman Archaeologist in Egypt: The Journals of Amelia Pea- body Emerson. A two-day public symposium (reservations required; see ad this issue) on November 9-10 will feature lectures by Lana Troy, Janet Johnson, Donald Spanel, Emily Teeter, Richard Fazzini, Gay Robins, Lyn Green, James Romano, Timothy Kendall and Dorothea Arnold. October 26 is Family Day, with participants urged to dress like an Egyptian and en- joy Halloween festivities. Movies scheduled to be shown during the ex- hibit include Death on the Nile (10/13), Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (11/13) and The Mummy (11/24).
In New York from April 26-June 7, the Jordan-Volpe Gallery host ed A Quiet Devotion: The Life and Work of Henry Roderick Newman, the first exhibition in almost 100 years of the work of an all-but-forgotten American artist, which featured several of his late-Nineteenth Century watercolors of Philae and Abu Simbel temples. On May 29 the British exhibit Africa: The Art of a Continent (originally at the Royal Academy, London) opened at New York City s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, where it will remain until September 30.
Also in NYC, Ancient Art from the Shumei Family Collection opened June 20 at the Metropolitan Museum, and will run there until September 1, before moving on to Los Angeles. Of particular interest to Journal readers are two exceptional Egyptian pieces in the collection: a Nineteenth Dynasty seated solid-cast silver cult-figure (probably the only such to have survived from ancient Egypt) of a falcon-headed deity probably Ptah-Sokar-Osiris that was once overlaid with gold and inlaid with lapis lazuli and rock crystal. Also in the exhibit is a near-perfect mid-Twelfth Dynasty foot-high wooden tomb-figure of an official named Wepay.
On October 8, 1996, the Metropolitan Museum's Egyptian Department will open its exciting new exhibition, The Royal Women of Amarna, which will be on view until February 2, 1997. In conjunction with the exhibit, the Met's newly refurbished Amarna Galleries will re- open on the same date. International institutions lending objects to the Royal Women show include Berlin's Egyptian Museum (but, unfortu- nately not the famous bust of Nefertiti!), museums in Munich and Copen- hagen, the Louvre, Ashmolean, Petrie and British museums, and the Brooklyn Museum.
LECTURES, SYMPOSIA & EVENTS
Abroad
KMT has just received the Egyptological Society of Ireland's Newsletters for January/February and March/April 1996 (where have you guys been?). The Society's annual general-meeting was held on March 27, followed by David Breslin's lecture and slide show, KV5, the Tomb of Rameses the Second's Fifty-two Sons in the Valley of the Kings. On May 29 the group hosted Austin Marry with his slide-lecture, Early Tombs and Pyramids of Egypt. Also noted was a lecture given at Newman House in Dublin on March 12 by American Tracy Watt, titled Lord Charlemont and the Egyptian Room, concerning Charlemont s collection of Egyptian antiquities brought to Dublin in 1780. It would be appreciated if the Society included KMT in mailings of its calender of events, so that we could report on upcoming lectures, etc.
A previously unreported lecture was given by Alain Zivie on May 5 at the Centre National de la Recherch‚ Scientifique in Paris, titled Excavating New Kingdom Rock-Cut Tombs at Saqqara, Egypt.
The Ancient Middle East Society of Lincolnshire, England, held its fourth biennial Weekend Conference on May 17-19, at the Horncastle Residential College. Speakers were Angela Thomas on Tell el Amarna Past and Present: Recent Excavations ; Arthur Boulton on Problems in Conservation of Egyptian and Other Middle Eastern Items ; Aidan Dodson on The Pioneering Years of Egyptology ; Paul Nicholson on The Animal Necropolis at Saqqara: Some Surprising Finds ; and E.W. Baker on Assyria: From City State to Empire.
On May 31, 1996, Geoffrey Martin lectured to the Friends of the Petrie Museum, University College London, on The Royal Necropolis at El-Amarna. The Friends will be visiting the Egyptian collections of Copenhagen from August 29-September 1. On August 30 Aidan Dodson is scheduled to speak at the National Museum there on Shelters for Eternity. Dodson will be relocating from London to Bristol in October, and taking up duties at the University of Bristol, where he and Pip Jones will be tu- tors for a two-year evening course titled The History, Archaeology and Culture of Ancient Egypt from c. 3500-500 B.C. For information on the course (which will lead to the award of a University Certificate of Arts and Archaeology), call 0117-928-7172.
On October 12 the Society for the Study of Ancient Egypt will host Carol Andrews, whose lecture-topic will be Hieroglyphics and Cursive Scripts. An editorial gaff regarding the Society in the last FTR should be noted. It is not based in Chesterfield, as reported, but in the East Midlands, specifically Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, and should be referred to as SSAE and not CSSAE. An apology for the error is in order.
Following the annual general-meeting of the Thames Valley Ancient Egypt Society on October 12, Geoffrey Martin will speak to the group on Two Officials of Tutankhamun (Horemheb and Maya) and Their Saqqara Tombs.
Two fall lectures scheduled for 6:00 p.m. in the Lecture Theatre of the British Academy are Incantations: The Spoken Word in Egyptian Religion, with Stephen Quirke on October 15; and John Tait on The Demise of Ancient Egyptian Religion, November 12. The annual dayschool of the University of Warwick will be held on October 28, with one of the lecturers being T.G.H. James. Details can be obtained from the Universty's Continuing Education Department.
As noted in the last FTR, new Egypt-focused groups keep spring- ing up. KMT has learned that, as a result of two Mexican professors at- tendance at last fall s International Congress of Egyptologists in Cam- bridge, the first Mexican association of Egyptology was formed in January 1996, with the name Asociacion Mexicana de Egiptologia A.C. (AMEA). The group, which was launched with sixteen members, now has reached 100; monthly meetings are held (with lectures) and the group is publishing a bimonthly newsletter, El Escriba.
LECTURES, SYMPOSIA & EVENTS
In the United States
On June 27 the American Research Center in Egypt/Northern California chapter hosted Noha Radwan, whose lecture-topic was Some Challenges Facing Egyptian Women Today. The same group also had a Travel Slide Night on July 25, where members had five-ten minutes to show off their favorite slides of Egypt, with a prize offered for sharing.
Summer events at the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum and Planetarium, San Jose, included a A Night at the Movies with Cleopatra (the Taylor/Burton epic) on June 15; A Taste of Egypt in San Francisco, July 27, which included a bus trip to San Francisco's recently renovated Palace of the Legion of Honor to view its ancient-artifacts display, and a dinner at an Egyptian restaurant; and An Afternoon Under the Stars August 17, a two-hour presentation titled Ancient and Modern Skies.
Stuart Tyson Smith's lecture for the ARCE/Southern California chapter ( The Price of Immortality: Burial Goods for the Discerning ) was changed from May 29 to May 28. In addition to the two speakers previ- ously reported for ARCE/SC s July 20 Eighth Annual Symposium, a third speaker, Elizabeth Wayland Barber was added to the roster. Dr. Barber, author of Women s Work: The First 20,000 Years, discussed the begin- nings of the textile industry in the earliest stages of Egyptian civilization.
Upcoming events for ARCE/SC include Zahi Hawass on August 25, when he will be signing his new book, Silent Images: Women in Pharaonic Egypt, and giving an informal talk on the latest happenings at the Giza Plateau. September 9 Geoffrey Martin will address the group on Tutankhamun s Harim Official, Pay, owner of a newly discovered tomb in Martin s ongoing Sakkara excavations. Fred Wendorf will speak to ARCE/SC on September 20, his topic being Life Beyond the Edge: People and Cows in the Egyptian Sahara. And at a yet-to-be-announced date in October, Patricia Podzorski will present Dead Bones Speak: Ancient Egyptian Remains and Their Stories.
May 21 the Denver Museum of Natural History's Egyptian Study Society hosted J. Donald Hughes, who addressed the group on The Psychology of Royal Symbolism in Ancient Egypt. Floyd Chapman made a slide-presentation on July 16, showing some of the most spectacularly painted wall-reliefs at Deir el Bahari, Medinet Habu and the Seti I temple at Abydos. Scheduled lectures for the ESS this fall include Bruce Rabe on The Geology of Ancient Egypt, September 17; Don Hughes on The Co- evolution of the Egyptians, October 15; Barry Kemp presenting A Re- port on Work at Amarna, October 28; and Dennis McDonald on The Obelisks of Egypt, November 19.
Recent lectures heard by the ARCE/North Texas chapter included: Oracles of the Dead: Ancient Egyptian Necromancy from Robert Ritner on May 31; The American Exploration of Egypt from Nancy Thomas, July 13; and How Did They Do That? Secrets of the Ancient Craftsmen from Clair Ossian, August 17. Scheduled for the fall are: Mummies and Magic, a lecture and seminar with Bob Brier on September 20-21; Understanding Egyptian Art: Reality and Symbol in the Egyptian Mind with Richard Wilkinson on October 26; and Echoes of Egyptian Voices with John Foster, on November 16.
A heretofore unreported lecture-series, Reading Egyptian Art at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, included Religion with Robert Ritner (5/30); Perceptions of Women with Edna Russman (6/6); Sculpture with James Romano (6/13); Styles with Anne Bromberg (6/20); and Nubia with Timothy Kendall (6/27).
On the East Coast, I should note that the ARCE Symposium, Royal Ptolemies, scheduled for May 25 was canceled due to insufficient ad- vance registration. ARCE hopes to reschedule this all-day event for sometime in December. On May 5 a lecture by Alain Zivie (news of which arrived too late for the summer FTR ) titled Aper-El, the Forgotten Vi zier and His Neighbors: Excavating New Kingdom Rock-Cut Tombs at Sakkara, Egypt was presented to a near-SRO crowd at the Metropolitan Museum, and so engrossed was the audience that almost no one seemed to mind that Zivie spoke several minutes longer than the usual hour allotted. In fact, most agreed that they could have gone on listening for another hour or two to this engaging French Egyptologist!
A smaller, albeit just as enthusiastic, group welcomed Gay Robins on June 21 with her lecture for the Egyptological Seminar of New York, titled The Construction of Identity in the Mid-18th Dynasty: the Representational Evidence and Its Problems. Dr. Robins, who is also a member of the seminar, was feted at a reception preceding her lecture. ESNY speakers for this fall include Dorothea Arnold in October on the Met s new Amarna exhibit (see above); and possibly Lana Troy in December. First lecturer this fall for the Biblical Archaeological Society of New York will be your FTR correspondent on September 17, with The Life and Times of Hatshepsut, The Woman Who was King.
Egyptian Department curators at the Brooklyn Museum offered a three-lecture summer program for Museum members and friends, with Richard Fazzini addressing the topic Temples, Tombs and the Egyptian Universe (6/26), James Romano talking on Heretics and Conquerors: from Nefertiti to Ramesses (7/17) and Donald Spanel tackling Magic in Ancient Egypt (8/7).
On June 26 and 28, the eleventh meeting of the computer-working group, Informatique et Egyptologie was held at the Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University. Attendees included Egyptologists from Russia and Egypt.
September 27-29 are the dates scheduled for a symposium at the University of Delaware titled Return to the Source: Rediscovering Lost Knowledge and Ancient Wisdom and sponsored by the Society for Scien- tific Exploration. The eleven speakers on the program include Robert Bauval, Robert M. Schoch and John Anthony West. Attendees can look forward to presentations on the age and message of the Sphinx, lost Atlantis and like topics. Registration fee is $270 for SSE members, $295 for non-members (with most meals extra)!
Back in NYC, the Metropolitan Museum is sponsoring three lec tures in November (3,9 and 16) by marine historian John Maxtone-Graham, whose topic will be Obelisks Redux, documenting the Herculean logistical challenges of transporting obelisks to Rome, Paris, London and New York City. Cost for the three lectures is $30.
EDUCATION/COURSES
United States
Coming up at the University of California, Berkeley Extension this fall (running through December 31, 1996) is a survey course titled Ancient Egyptian Civilization.
And this fall the Oriental Institute Museum of the University of Chicago is beginning an experimental series of adult-education courses taught entirely on the Internet. The first of these, An Introduction to the History and Culture of Ancient Egypt, begins in late-October. Using electronic mail and the World Wide Web, students will come together in an electronic forum with the instructor. Readings will include original materials distributed over the WWW, as well as paper-based texts. For registration or more information, contact the Museum Office at (312) 702- 9507 or (adult_ed.orinst@m emphis-orinst.uchicago.edu)