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SCRIBE : The Magazine of The American Research Center in Egypt : Fall 2022 | ISSUE 10
:
The Celebrations
Continue!
E
veryone interested in ancient Egypt knows of the events
being celebrated this year in Egypt and throughout the
world of Egyptology. It is of course the centennial of
Howard Carter?s amazing discovery of KV62, the tomb
of Tutankhamun, and also the bicentennial of Jean-Fran?ois
Champollion?s demonstration that ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs
could once again be read and understood. ARCE has thus continued
rolling out its suite of events, bringing the celebrations to fruition!
Programs
In April, ARCE held its 73rd Annual Meeting in Irvine, California
where we celebrated these momentous events with our keynote
speaker, the current and 8th Earl of Carnarvon, Lord George
Herbert. To further mark the centennial, we kicked-off our national
chapter lecture tour in June with Dr. Marc Gabolde, who shared the
fascinating story of the fate of several missing artifacts ?diverted?
away from Tutankhamun?s tomb.
The Virtual Annual Meeting also connected researchers and
members from around the world, to participate and share their
own research findings. Both virtual and in-person lectures were
recorded and are all now online, helping more members experience
the lectures at their own convenience. A sincere thank you to all
the ARCE staff and members who helped make both the virtual and
in-person Annual Meeting such a well-organized and successful event.
We also have a number of exciting events coming up including
the continuation of the Tutankhamun Centennial Chapter Lecture
Tour with Dr. Betsy Bryan, who will be travelling to Chicago, Kansas
City, North Texas, and Atlanta chapters between September 26th
and October 3rd. The special event Transcending Eternity: The
Centennial Tutankhamun Conference carried out in partnership
with the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities will take
place in Luxor from November 4th-6th, 2022, and we are honored
to continue our partnership with National Geographic through our
collaboration with their Beyond King Tut: The Immersive Experience
project in providing content and partnership programming. See
their advertisement in this issue for a discount code to visit the
exhibition and stay tuned to ARCE.org for more information!
Fieldwork
In Luxor, the renovations of Howard Carter?s house continue thanks
to the generous donation by long-time ARCE board member Adina
Savin. In this issue of Scribe, ARCE?s Sally El Sabbahy and Nicholas
Warner review the fascinating history behind the construction of
Carter?s house and its use in the years following the discovery of
KV62. In the next issue coming out in early 2023, the team will
review the outcome of the conservation efforts and report on the
grand re-opening of the house scheduled for November of this
year, on the actual centennial of Carter opening the tomb on the
4th of November, 1922.
Media Tour
In June, ARCE hosted a special media tour to highlight ARCE
Antiquities Endowment Fund (AEF) projects, Research Supporting
Member projects, and past USAID-funded projects in Cairo. The
tour included a visit to the Great Pyramid to see the results of the
Ancient Egypt Research Associate?s (AERA) AEF-funded project
to record and better-protect Khufu?s Mortuary Temple. The most
visible change is the installation of a new access walkway encircling
the remains of the temple?s formidable black basalt pavement,
which should provide a more secure and less damaging path from
which to see the surviving monumental remains. The tour also
visited the Fatimid-era Bab Zuwayla gate, one of three surviving
entrances that controlled access to the fortified medieval city of
Old Cairo, where from 1998-2003, ARCE spearheaded an intense
conservation project, with support from USAID and under the
supervision of Nairy Hampikian, to remove, restore, and re-install
the Bab Zuwayla?s sizable wood and iron doors. The final site visited
was the Church of the blessed Virgin Mary, Saint George, and Abu
Sefein to see some of the many Coptic icons that that were restored
thanks to conservation efforts led by ARCE between 1998-2004.
It is so important to revisit these successful projects in
conjunction with the media and our colleagues from the Ministry
of Tourism and Antiquities. They show just how great an impact
the USAID grants, member donations, and endowments funds
have ?in the field?.
The Lost Throne of Queen Hetepheres from Giza: An Archaeological Experiment in Visualization and Fabrication /
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In 1925, one of the greatest discoveries made at Giza revealed a small, unfinished chamber (labeled “G 7000 X”) more than twenty-seven meters underground, just east of the Great Pyramid. The Harvard University–Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition found there the deteriorated burial equipment, sarcophagus, and other objects belonging to Queen Hetepheres I, presumed consort of Snefru and mother of Khufu. Since the discovery of this rare Old Kingdom royal assemblage, the thousands of small fragments have remained in storage in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Meticulous documentation allowed the excavators to reconstruct some of the queen’s furniture. However, the most exquisite piece, her “second” chair or throne, made of cedar with hundreds of faience inlays and completely gilded, was never reconstructed. This paper describes an interdisciplinary collaboration initiated by the Giza Project at Harvard University to create a full-scale reproduction of Hetepheres’s second chair in modern cedar, faience, gold, gesso, and copper. The goals for this visualization experiment were to reconstruct the excavation history, the iconography, and to document, insofar as possible, the ancient workflow the Egyptians used to construct this Old Kingdom masterpiece. The final results produced a new museum display object and research/teaching tool. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5913/jarce.53.2017.a001
Aslam al-Silahdar Conservation and Documentation
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The mosque of Aslam al-Silahdar was built in 1344 by a Mamluk prince and features jewel-toned inlaid marble and glittering glass mosaics. The American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) carried out the comprehensive conservation of the monument directed by Christophe Bouleau. ARCE and skilled laborers from the surrounding neighborhood worked on the structural and aesthetic conservation of the mosque.
Repairs first began on the exterior of the mosque and the interior was used as a workspace to clean and conserve smaller movable components like doors, wooden paneling, metal grilles, and windows. A geotechnical survey assessed the mosque’s structural stability and cleaning and documentation work began on the exterior façades, roof, dome, and minaret. A new ablution was also constructed to replace the original one, which had posed a conservation risk to the mosque due to water leakage.
The team removed and replaced decayed stones and cleaned the minaret and dome with micro sandblasting. They replaced the wooden roofing and then carefully insulated it against the weather and moisture. Inside the mosque, the project plastered and repainted walls, installed new windows, and conserved and reinstalled original inlaid doors and wooden paneling. Cracks in the walls were consolidated and new brickwork fitted where necessary to reinforce the walls and fill gaps. Finally, conservators cleaned and fully restored all of the mosque’s stunning gypsum and stucco decorations to their original vibrancy.
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737 pic, :
Conservation of the monument was funded through the American Research Center in Egypt's Egyptian Antiquities Conservation Project (ARCE-EAC) under the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Agreement No. 263-A-00-04-00018-00, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC), and the U.S. Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation.