(All of these recipes are authentic and were taken from the Papyrus Ebers.) Found in Egypt in the 1870s, the Ebers Papyrus contains prescriptions written in hieroglyphics for over seven hundred remedies. This prescription for an asthma remedy is to be prepared as a mixture of herbs heated on a brick so that the sufferer could inhale their fumes. Georg Ebers (1837­1898) Cure for Diarrhoea: 1/8th cup figs and grapes, bread dough, pit corn, fresh Earth, onion, and elderberry. Cure for Indigestion: Crush a hog's tooth and put it inside of four sugar cakes. Eat for four days. Cure for Burns: Create a mixture of milk of a woman who has borne a male child, gum, and, ram's hair. While administering this mixture say: Thy son Horus is burnt in the desert. Is there any water there?There is no water. I have water in my mouth and a Nile between my thighs. I have come to extinguish the fire. Cure for Lesions of the Skin: After the scab has fallen off put on it: Scribe's e...

   a scene depicting the Feast of the White Hippopotamus", which is very rare. Only one other example of this ceremony is known, from a fragment of a Saite period artifact now in the Brussels Museum. Here, the king wears the red crown and holds a baton and the white club in his hands. He wears a long ribbon hanging from his left shoulder. In back of the king are the two half-heavens that accompany the scene of the "great stride". Before him are two small dancing figures surmounted by the name of a city, and above that is a hammered-out hippopotamus with a brief caption recording the "Feast of the White [Hippopotamus]. It should be noted that the red, male Sethien hippopotamus, who was an enemy of Horus, must be distinguished from the whi...

Within one of the chapels on its southern wall is recorded the temple foundation ceremony and the consecration of the temple with natron (salt). Here, the king buries a stake in the earth with a mallet. This scene depicts "stretching the cord between the two stakes", but unfortunately it is now missing. In the second scene, the king, wearing the atef crown, digs out a furrow using a hoe and then refills it with the contents of a bushel basket. The king also molds a brick and then offers a series of briquettes, which were often made of precious material, for the four corners of the temple. We are informed by a stela that: "My majesty ordered that the foundation ceremony should be prepared at the approach of the day of the Fea...

the famous "Botanical Room", with its representations of exotic flora and fauna encountered during Tuthmosis III's foreign military campaigns. we find birds going toward the west. Two of the birds include the lapwing (Vanellus cristatus) and the red casarca (Asarka rutila). Another bird is almost certainly an ibis, while two others are not identified. Pomegranates surmount the depictions of the birds. On the northern corner of the east wall is an inscription that states: "Year 25, under the majesty of the king of Upper and Lowwer Egypt, Menkheperre, forever living, plants that His Majesty has found in the land of Retenu (Syria). Here, various plants are depicted in various stages. They include Dracunculus vulg (Arum dracunculus), a type of ...

This pair of obelisks was produced from granite on the island Sehel at Aswan under the supervision of the steward Amen-hotep. Their transport by ship and the erection of both obelisks at Karnak is shown in detail in the so-called "Hall of O" in the first portico of the temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari. A relief in her Red Chapel also provides a report about the donation of these two obelisks. The standing, northern obelisk of Hatshepsutt must be considered one of the most famous single monuments within the whole of the Karnak complex. Originally, she erected four obelisks at Karnak, but only this one remains. However, at approximately 29.56 meters tall, it is the largest standing obelisk in Egypt. Built of red granite, it ...

   we have a contemporary description of the image of the barque .That does not seem to exaggerate the beauty of this boat, and even omits the delicate reliefs the decorate its hull and still retain some traces of the yellow paint that was used to depict the vessel's gold coating. We know from the Harris papyrus that the barque Userhat was around 68 meters long. We see in the center of the boat the naos which contained the sacred barque of Amun, which is placed on a pedestal preceded by a staircase holding up the masts and the obelisks. Before this pedestal are three jackal headed figures and seven Nile gods who worship Amun. In the rear behind the naos the king is navigating the boat by holding the steering oar himself. The king also appears in th...

This is the so called magic image of Amun. Here, the pharaoh is referred to as per-aa in the two cartouches, and he is making libation in the presence of a very strange image. The representation has the head of Amun, wearing a crown topped by a solar disk surmounted by two large feathers, which emerge from a goatskin bottle embraced by the extended wings of Ma'at. In turn, this depiction surmounts a pedestal crowned by a uraeus, in front of which is a lion whose chest comes up to the level of the shafts. It would seem that this "magic image of Amun" was perhaps paraded during processions. This scene then sits upon a table fronting a series of lotuses, each of which is giving birth to a new lotus framed by two buds.

  There are only three registers that are visible today. The two lower registers begin at the western edge with acts of conquest, after which the king begins his return journey home as the scenes move toward the temple entrance, where he presents his defeated enemies to Amun. On each side of the doorway the scenes expand in height so that they take up the first two registers, and represent the "ritual massacre of the vanquished". At the east end of the southern wall is carved the narration of the Battle of Kadesh in a long text of vertical columns below a large scene in which the king and the princes are bringing a bound group of prisoners  before Amun. In addition to the reliefs concerning the Battle of Kadesh, there is also, on the wall protruding from the exterior southern wall of the Hypostyle hall, reliefs that depict the surrender of the fortress of Askalon. This was a city about ten ...

the king is wearing the blue helmet and a long coat. He stands before the barque of Amun, which terminates with a ram's head crowned with a disk, spraying incense. The barque is supported by a stretcher that is carried on the shoulders of three groups of five falcon-headed figures in the front and thirteen jackal-headed figures in the back. These are the spirits of Pe and Nekhen, though some Egyptologists have suggested that these are real priests wearing jackal and sparrow hawk masks, a notion that has been hotly debated. If indeed priests wore masks in some of the ceremonies, they must be clearly distinguished from the depictions in the sanctuaries where animal headed figures are "functional principles" and certainly not masked officials. The king facing the b...

 a scene of bird hunting with nets. The image represents a pool in the midst of a papyrus thicket out of which seven ducks are flying. The net had been open, but on the signal given by Thoth with his scarf, they are now closed over the captured birds. This scene is interesting in that it is repeated in many private tombs, where peasants close the net under the watchful eye of their master. Here, the texts describes Thoth as the "master of the city of Eight" who presides in Hesret at the heart of the "temple of nets". This refers to the sanctuary located in Heliopolis and therefore named in memory of the place where Seth was captured in a net by Horus. Furthermore, Thoth administers the "snaring" operation and it is said that he ...

In the next series of scenes on this wall, in the upper register and clearly defined, we find the king kneeling on the sma symbol. He is flanked by Thoth, master of the city of the Eight (Heliopolis) on the left and Horus, great god, master of Mesen.t. Hence, the king is joining the Two Lands of the North and South "under his feet", and the gods are assuring him of the monarchy. The horizontal bar on which the king is kneeling always indicates a significant measurement. In the lower register, the barque of Amun is resting in a large naos (of which only a small part of the uraei frieze of the dais can be seen). Before it sits the barques of Khonsu and Mut. All of these wall sculptures are rendered in sunk relief, with the exception of the naos of the barque.

the Race of the Apis Bull which is often associated with the king's sed festival. This well known ceremony is for the first time found mentioned on the Palermo Stone in regard to several archaic kings, and afterwards, on a cylinder of Horus Den, the fourth king of the 1st Dynasty, we have the first known testimony of the Apis race.During the inauguration of a monument, the sacred bull Hap, at times accompanied the king during his race, as in the image on the second register at this point on the wall. Some inscriptions provide that "the king gives the land four times", implying that this ritual race was made around the area of the temple, once for each direction. Here, this is a double scene that is often found on the lintels of doorways that provide access to the sanctuaries of temples. On one side the king wears the red crown and on the other side, the white crown. Clearly visible, the king on the right holds two libation vessels. Behind him the two symbols...

   the king, wearing a blue war helmet, kneeling in a persea tree. He has just been directed toward the sanctuary of his father Amun, by Atum, the master of Heliopolis, and by Montu, the master of Thebes. The king holds the hek and nekhakha scepters over his shoulder with one hand. With his other hand, he prop up the symbols of the sed festival that have been extended to him by Amun, who is seated in his naos. Behind the king stands Thoth, who announces various renewals to him and inscribes the throne name on one of the fruits that he holds up in his left hand. Above this scene, in a cartouche on the left surmounted by the symbols of Upper and Lower Egypt, is the throne name of Ramesses II Usermaatre. Here, a winged disk gives his cartouche life.

 coronation as king of Upper and Lower Egypt is depicted. Usermaatre, Son of Re, Ramesses (II) Meryamun is here seated on a throne and wearing the double crown representing the duality of his kingdom. In his hands he holds two, uncrossed scepters. He is flanked by two seated, female gods who grasp his shoulders. The goddess that he faces, to the east, is Nekhebet, mistress of the South. She assures him of her protection by "joining with his limbs" and of "his rejuvenation in the image of the Aten disk in heaven". Behind her, Horus of Behedet reaches over Nekhebet to present Ramesses II with the white crown set on a basket. The goddess to the west is Wadjet, mistress of the North. Behind her, Thoth is presenting the red crown to the king, while confirming his divine origin and the righteousness of his rule over the Two Lands. The three thrones of the king and the two goddesses rests upon a single pedestal, while Thoth and Horus stand on the ground.

western facade of the third pylon was inscribed with five registers of scenes surmounted by a frieze of khakeru that represent the different phases of the Ritual of the Daily Divine Worship, during the reign of Seti I. On the lower register, for example, the king breaks the clay seals, draws back the bolt, and opens the two sections of the door to heaven. In the second register, we find the king wearing a headband, a long, pleated linen robe, and a large scarf. In his right hand, he holds a key-of-life shaped vessel, while in the left hand he grasps a bundle of tied straw, which he uses to eradicate the marks of his footprints while turning his back to the neter (god). While the text of this scene is lost to us, we may interpret its meaning from the a temple at Abydos and from the Berlin Papyrus, which in sixty-six chapters, describes the Ritual of the Daily Divine Worship. In this type of depiction, the king is always represented as officiating in the temple reliefs, though...