Joann Fletcher’s story of Egypt is a personal one. And she is a good storyteller. She writes expressively, making you hear the primordial Nile waters flooding and the evening fires in the desert crackling. Her story is inevitably a history of ancient Egypt, divided in the all too well-known kingdoms and dynasties, substituted by alliterative chapter names…
Travels in Cairo and Luxor
Ever since visiting Egypt in February of this year, I’ve been meaning to write a travel blog. Together with Marein Meijer, who works at the National Museum of Antiquities (check out the awesome exhibition she made), I spent a couple of days in Cairo and over a week in Luxor. In light of the recent troubles in Egypt, I thought…
Bread and beer for Hetepherakhet
The offering chapel of Hetepherakhet, now housed in the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, was once part of a mastaba tomb in the Old Kingdom necropolis at Saqqara. The chapel was excavated hurriedly by the famous archaeologist Auguste Mariette in the 1860’s. At that time, Mariette fanned around Egypt like an archaeological sandstorm, undertaking…
Everyone can 3D
Note: This article was updated on 20/10/2018 to reflect changes in software used. On my quest to introduce 3D applications into the world of Egyptology, I stumbled upon this video, which shows how to 3D scan an object using just a camera and free software (Visual SFM, CMVS and MeshLab). I tried this method, but unfortunately, my former…