ferocious debate With the last colossus of Ramses II at Luxor Temple

With the last colossus of Ramses II restored and erected to rejoin its five counterparts at Luxor Temple, ferocious debate on its location and restoration has broken out among Egyptologists. Some oppose the placement of the colossus before the first pylon of the temple. They say the colossus has the Osirian position (crossing the hands on the chest), which contradicts with neighbouring colossi, who have their left legs before the right. Ahmed Arabi, director of Luxor temple and Raymond Johnson, director general of the Chicago House mission, and head of the restorers team, say that the colossus has been placed in the correct location and has the right body position to accord to the original temple layout . Johnson asserted that the outermost colossal statues in red granite on the far eastern and far western sides of the pylons were both part of a revised plan for the pylon façade, and that the reconstruction is correct. Egyptian restorers have done an extraordinary job, he said, and have brought the Luxor Temple pylon façade back to glorious life.
All Egyptian temples of the New Kingdom were decorated in a similar manner, but Luxor Temple is now the only temple in Egypt that has all six of its original colossal sculptures in their original places.

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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 ...

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...

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...

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