Ancient History Magazine

Editor-in-chief: Jasper Oorthuys Editor: Sandra Alvarez Image and production editor: Lauren van Zoonen Proofreading: Naomi Munts Design & Media: Christianne C. Beall Design © 2017 Karwansaray Publishers Contributors: Murray Dahm, Colleen Darnell, Joh

Ancient Egypt’s history spans over 3000 years. This gives an editor plenty to choose from when trying to decide on a topic. While I’m interested in most of its incredibly long history, I decided to pick a period that I initially knew relatively littl

Some 500 years before Tutankhamun was buried with jewellery that would become renowned worldwide, the artisans of the Middle Kingdom created refined and elegant pieces. These are beautiful examples of adornment, but besides that, they also tell us ab

The Thirteenth Dynasty appears in our sources as a period of decline. Several dozen kings ruled, each for a very short period of time. Kings were still buried in pyramids, but these were modest in size and mostly unfinished. The local centres so famo

Next to statuary and stelae production, other arts flourished too. The production of faience is remarkable. Small figures made of faience showing animals, such as hippopotami, mice, dogs, and cats, have been found in many tombs. The function of these

‘Pyramid cake’ sounds like a real treat to me! Because there are no ancient Egyptian recipes handed down to us, I looked at other sources for some clues. I found a recipe for ‘pyramides’ in Athenaeus of Naucratis’ Deipnosophistae (second century AD):

It is impossible to overestimate the importance of the nameless medieval scribes who copied ancient texts and made sure they survived. However, these unsung heroes were only human. They made mistakes and copied only texts they believed to be useful.

Our first example comes from the Egyptian town of Hermopolis and contains the myth of the battle between the gods Horus and Seth, a story we know primarily thanks to papyri. This fragment is not written in hieroglyphs. That script was designed for in

By Amber Gartrell ISBN: 978-1108477550 Cambridge University Press (2021) – $99.99 www.cambridge.org Once upon a time there were two brothers. The Greeks knew them as the Dioskouroi, the Romans as the Dioscuri. Sons of Leda, queen of Sparta, they had

By Barry Kemp Routledge, 2018 ISBN: 978-0415827263 This updated edition seeks to identify what gave ancient Egypt its distinctive and enduring characteristics. Kemp explores the ideas and experience of the Egyptian world using texts as well as art an