Recently I have been watching a number of films loosely related to archaeology, or more accurately, ‘digging up the past’. This includes paleontology (‘Sweet, you’re an archaeologist. What are you digging up, dinosaurs?’) and the more ephemeral digging up of memories. Here goes. In Luxor (2020), we follow British aid worker Hana taking a break…
Category: Entertainment
Order and chaos in Assassin’s Creed: Origins
So it took me a while to start playing Assassin’s Creed: Origins, and the truth is, I haven’t finished it. I who am scared of dying in videogames ever since Super Mario Bros on the original NES, has been roaming Ptolemaic Egypt for over 80 hours now, sneaking up on countless Romans in order to…
Archaeogaming and Egyptology
Digital Egyptology news can now be followed at my website https://digitalegyptology.org/ Good news: researching video games in the context of archaeology is a thing now! It’s called ‘archaeogaming’ and covers everything from the digging up of actual video games (think of the Atari video game burial) to the digitally ‘excavating’ of code inside an old…
Carnarvon and the search for Tutankhamun
In the summer of 2011, I had the pleasure to visit Highclere Castle with a tour group I was guiding together with a friend and fellow Egyptologist from the Huis van Horus foundation. Upon arrival I was impressed by its rolling lawns (lazy pheasants included), charming garden temple and majestic façade reminiscent of London’s Houses of Parliament….
Egypt in 3D adventure games
Digital Egyptology news can now be followed at my website https://digitalegyptology.org/ My love for 3D reconstructions of ancient sites is founded on those turn of the millenium computer games that were described as ‘edutainment’. As a true nerd, I revelled in 3D point-and-click adventures that brought the player back to ancient places such as Egypt,…
A note on the King Tut documentary
Tutankhamun: The Truth Uncovered aired last Sunday on BBC and has already sparked controversy. In the documentary, Tut is shown bare-boned, CT-scanned and computer modeled to an unflattering degree. Previous theories concerning his death (a blow to the head, a fall from a riding chariot) are discarded and instead, the king is presented as a…
Agatha Christie in Egypt and the Near East
Agatha Christie is world-renowned for her crime writing. Her countless mystery stories are packed with locked rooms, cracked mirrors and unreliable clocks. Trains, boats and islands provide the closed systems in which one of the characters is inevitably the murderer. Card games, hunting parties and casual vacations provide the perfect backdrop for an intricate series…