TT 31 OF KHONSU AT SHEIK ABD EL-GURNAH (THEBES): RESEARCHES INTO CONSTRUCTED LANDSCAPES

The Theban tomb (TT) 31 of Khonsu, First Prophet of Menkheperre, is an ideal casestudy to understand the perception of natural and constructed landscapes, throughout the analysis of their different iconographies. Starting from the description of the decorative programme of Khonsu’s tomb, it could be possible to identify elements of continuity and differences between the depictions of the different sacred structures that can be appreciated also within the Theban and Amarnian tombs of the nobles during the XVIII and XIX Dynasty. The use of specific themes and iconographies might correspond to peculiar conceptions of the most sacred space, the temple

A prehistoric Egyptian mummy: Evidence for an ‘embalming recipe’ and the evolution of early formative funerary treatments

Interdisciplinary scientific investigations utilising chemical analysis, shotgun metagenomics, textile analysis and radiocarbon dating have been applied to the study of an intact prehistoric Egyptian mummy, allowing insights into when this individual lived and died, and the funerary treatments employed in the preparation of the body. Here we present the first evidence for an extant prehistoric mummy that has undergone treatment with notably similar formative complex ‘balms’ that would later constitute the classic embalming recipes employed at the height of pharaonic mummification some 2500 years later. Making the informed assumption that the provenance of the Turin body was Gebelein, Qena or Luxor (Thebes), the findings offer the first indication that this type of funerary recipe was likely to have been employed over a wider geographical area at a time when the concept of a pan-Egyptian identity was supposedly still developing

TT 31 of Khonsu at Sheik Abd el-Gurnah (Thebes): researches into constructed landscapes

The Theban tomb (TT) 31 of Khonsu, First Prophet of Menkheperre, is an ideal casestudy to understand the perception of natural and constructed landscapes, throughout the analysis of their different iconographies. Starting from the description of the decorative programme of Khonsu’s tomb, it could be possible to identify elements of continuity and differences between the depictions of the different sacred structures that can be appreciated also within the Theban and Amarnian tombs of the nobles during the XVIII and XIX Dynasty. The use of specific themes and iconographies might correspond to peculiar conceptions of the most sacred space, the temple.</p

Ernesto Schiaparelli and the Italian Archaeological Mission (MAI): Predynastic Egypt at Museo delle Antichità Egizie (Turin, Italy)

The focus of this paper is the Predynastic collection gathered by the Italian Egyptologist Ernesto Schiaparelli (1856-1928) through his purchases on the antiquarian market and archeological excavations in Egypt as the leader of the MAI (Italian Archaeological Mission). The collection is now stored and on display in the Turin Museum – Museo delle Antichità Egizie, Torino, Italy. Schiaparelli never published extensively the results of his excavations in Predynastic sites such as Gebelein and Hemamieh, and most of his fieldwork records are still unedited. After briefly summarising the nature of the Predynastic collection and the work of the MAI in Egypt, the author presents the case study of the so-called “prehistoric village” of Heliopolis