Every Egyptologist is probably familiar with the sonnet ‘Ozymandias’ written by Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1818: I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert… Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer…
Archaeogaming and Egyptology
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 computer game, the use of archaeological methods to approach video games,…
A short update on projects
I apologise for my utter absence during the past few months. Ever since I returned from Luxor halfway through February, I’ve been incredibly busy. Apart from working two jobs at Leiden University, I’ve been guiding a reading group in hieroglyphs for Mehen, designed a website and book, joined two boards, wrote an article, provided classes…
New adventures in Luxor
In February of this year I again visited Luxor with a small company. This time especially to try the Luxor Pass and to visit the tombs of Seti I and Nefertari. After an hour’s delay due to snowfall in Amsterdam, extensive security checks at the various airports and a rather awful flight on a cramped…
Mrs. Naunakhte
AUC Press 2016 264 pp. Hardbound $34.95 ISBN 9789774167737 Stand-up Egyptologist Koenraad Donker van Heel is at it again with a third popular book about business-minded ancient Egyptians. This time he chooses to resurrect a woman called Naunakhte who lived in the artist community of Deir el-Medina around 1150 BCE. Her village was home to…
Digital epigraphy
Digital methods in Egyptology pt. 1 For a while I’ve been wanting to write about the various digital methods that have been developed in the last few years to make our Egyptological lives easier, and more importantly, more exciting. As 3D modeling and scanning used to be costly enterprises, cheap alternatives have cropped up in…