Just Who is this Chick Nefertiti?

Her image is literally everywhere. It can even be found on stamps and paper money in the Arab world. One would have to believe, from all this exposure, this fame, that she was the quintessential Ancient Egyptian queen. The epitome of the Ancient Egyptian lady of antiquity. Small problem though, she doesn't look Egyptian! She doesn't even look like the other portraits we have of her - the ones we rarely see. In fact she looks like a white woman! Strange? Well, so is the story behind this famous bust:
   A German excavator by the name of Ludwig Borchardt 'discovered' the painted limestone bust in 1912. (The same year Charles Dawson 'discovered' the fake - British missing link - the Piltdown man. This hoax lasted 40 years.) The circumstances of its export to the Berlin museum were the source of controversy at the time. (Some suggested that Borchardt did a little of the painting himself.) It did not go on exhibit until 1924!
   One is immediately reminded of the fake Egyptian figure of Tetisheri, Queen mother of the 17th and 18th dynasties, which also did not look Egyptian. It too, looked like a white woman. The figure was part of an exhibit held by the British museum in 1990. The exhibit was titled "Fake? The Art Of Deception." The Testisheri hoax lasted 100 years.
   Is the Berlin bust also a hoax? Inquiring minds want to know.

Nefertiti Resurrected
(as seen on the Discovery Channel)

This is what a team of British scientists, using modern forensic
methods on the mummy believed to be that of Queen Nefertiti,
have determined what she looked like in life.

Irrelevant ScepticismThis discovery has engendered
the inevitable debate as to whether or not it is actually
the remains of Queen Nefertiti. Whether or not it
is the mummy of the celebrity queen or not is irrelevant.
It is an Egyptian Royal mummy.
This is what Ancient Egyptian royalty looked like
. And that, quite simply, is the more important point.

Nefertiti as she appeared in life - Nefertiti Resurrected (The Discovery Channel)

Comments

The bindweeds of Egypt and their symbolic role for the deceased

http://www.egyptraveluxe.com/cairo_half_day_tour_to_cairo_egyptian_museum.php From the Middle Kingdom until the 18th Dynasty, representations are found of a parasitic bindweed associated with the stems of papyrus, . Its representations increase and refine themselves during the Amarnian period because of the naturalistic leaning to nature; but it is in Ramesside times, and more particularly that of Ramesses II, that the images become more beautiful and most detailed. The plant is frequently attached to the stem of the papyrus, or to bouquets, but being also able to, more rarely, exist separately. After the 20th Dynasty, if the theme persists, the quality of the representations decrease (as do all more representations of nature). This success under the Ramesseses is probably linked with the specific beliefs of that time, and notably the eminent place that the solar cults occupy. The nature of the plant has been under debate a long time ...

what exactly happened to the Sphinx's nose?

The Sphinx's Nose The nose of the Great Sphinx at Giza is made conspicuous by its absence. What happened to it? The popular story is that the troops of Napoleon Bonaparte used the nose for target practice in 1798. Drawings done for La Description de L'Egypte depict a noseless Sphinx. The Sphinx, 1743. In 1737, British traveler Richard Pococke visited Egypt and made a sketch of the Sphinx that was published six years later. The nose is shown intact, but Pococke likely exercised his poetic license by adding it when it was not there (earlier, in 1579, Johannes Helferich had further taken an artist's liberties by depicting the Sphinx with a nose -- and with decidedly female features). Frederick Lewis Norden, an artist and marine architect, also sketched the Sphinx in 1737. His detailed drawings, published in 1755, were more realistic and showed the Sphinx with no nose. It is very unlikely that Norden would omit the nose if it was present. We can conclude that the...

US authorities return eight stolen ancient Egyptian artifacts

US authorities agreed to return eight ancient Egyptian artifacts stolen and illegally smuggled out of the country. Today, upon his arrival from the United States, Minister of Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim announced that US authorities agreed to return eight ancient Egyptian artefacts stolen and illegally smuggled out of the country. The objects are to arrive next month. The pieces include the upper part of a painted anthropoid wooden sarcophagus from the Third Intermediate period depicting a face of a woman wea ring a wig decorated with coloured flowers. Two linen mummy wrappings covered with plaster and bearing paintings showing winged amulets pushing the sun disc are also among the artefacts. Hieroglyphic text showing the name and titles of the deceased are also found on the plaster cover. The third piece is a cartonage painted mummy mask from the Third Intermediate period while the fourth and fifth items are Middle Kingdom wooden boats. The other three items are lim...

Search This Blog