Ta-wer Egyptology news updates:
Trip to Egypt November 2022
It was so good to finally be back in Egypt again. This time we based ourselves near Medinet Habu but also spent a night at a little guest house in Abydos. We then proceeded to Sohag to check out the new museum and also Athribis temple.
The Luxor pass was a great purchase - we went for the premium version which included entry into the fabulous tombs of Seti I and Nefertari. The pass can be purchased from an office at Karnak temple or at the Valley of the Kings. You need to take your passport, photocopies of your passport and passport photographs, the fee in Euros or Dollars (cash) plus a tip for the officer who staples and stamps your golden ticket together. I took well over 2000 photographs which will be the start of the Ta-wer photo resource library. A list of sites photographed can be found here.
Coming up in October 2022:
Paul Whelan will be delivering a lecture at the University of Pisa Conference: Clay Figurines in Context: Miniatures as Crucibles of Nile Valley Societies in the Second Millennium BC (Egypt and Nubia)
Egittologia Universita di Pisa, 17, 18, 19 October 2022
Paul's lecture is 'A Canine Conundrum?'
Abydos has yielded a considerable number of Early Dynastic faience and mud figurines, most discovered by Flinders Petrie in the main temple zone, a small minority of which represent dogs. This presentation considers their possible significance in the broader context of royal presence at Abydos in the First Dynasty.
September 2022: Current projects:
Paul Whelan has recently completed several drawings for the Ancient Egyptian Heritage and Archaeology Fund’s excavations at the site of Deir el-Ballas in Upper Egypt led by Peter Lacovara.
The drawings are of some timbers re-used in the construction of an early 18th Dynasty palace that may even have come from ships used by Ahmose during his battles with the Hyksos.
https://www.ancientegyptarchaeologyfund.com/project/deir-el-ballas-fieldwork/
August 2022: Current projects:
Paul Whelan continues to work on the publication of Christine Lilyquist’s project on the Carter/Carnarvon and Metropolitan Museum of Art excavations in the Asasif . Currently, he is preparing the catalogue volume of over 1,600 objects from these excavations. The completed works will be published by GHP in a number of volumes.
Summer 2022:
Although I have not posted updates, we have been very busy as Paul is now working full time on his Egyptology projects. As soon as we have sorted out his new lifestyle, we will be back with more lectures!
August 2021
Paul's article on Old Kingdom Abydos for the prestigious new Brepols journal Aegyptologica pisana is due to appear in the first volume expected in 2022 (after some delays due to Covid). He has just completed another 22 drawings for a soon to appear publication of ancient Egyptian magical wands by Fred Vink and Professor Hartwig Altenmüller. This work will revise and substantially augment Prof. Altenmüller's 1965 publication of these distinctive objects.
Currently, Paul is working on the Metropolitan Museum of Art material relating to their early 20th century excavations in the Assasif as well as those of Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon as collated by the Met's curator emerita Christine Lilyquist. This monumental archive of highly important material is set to appear in several volumes published by Golden House.
February 2021
Paul Whelan delivered a very interesting lecture for The Southampton Ancient Egypt Society on Saturday 20th February.
The Symbiosis of King & Cult – Abydos in the Old Kingdom
This lecture looked at the ancient cult centre of Abydos during the Old Kingdom, which was one of the most formative periods in its history. Looking primarily from a royal perspective, the available evidence reveals the evolving physical and spiritual landscape at Abydos from the 4th - 6th Dynasties and how the royal presence there changed over this time.
New ideas were presented which will be published in the forthcoming Pisa University journal later this year. A version of this talk was first given in Pisa in 2018 but new information and links have since been added.
Paul Whelan's map of Abydos
Trip to Egypt November 2022
It was so good to finally be back in Egypt again. This time we based ourselves near Medinet Habu but also spent a night at a little guest house in Abydos. We then proceeded to Sohag to check out the new museum and also Athribis temple.
The Luxor pass was a great purchase - we went for the premium version which included entry into the fabulous tombs of Seti I and Nefertari. The pass can be purchased from an office at Karnak temple or at the Valley of the Kings. You need to take your passport, photocopies of your passport and passport photographs, the fee in Euros or Dollars (cash) plus a tip for the officer who staples and stamps your golden ticket together. I took well over 2000 photographs which will be the start of the Ta-wer photo resource library. A list of sites photographed can be found here.
Coming up in October 2022:
Paul Whelan will be delivering a lecture at the University of Pisa Conference: Clay Figurines in Context: Miniatures as Crucibles of Nile Valley Societies in the Second Millennium BC (Egypt and Nubia)
Egittologia Universita di Pisa, 17, 18, 19 October 2022
Paul's lecture is 'A Canine Conundrum?'
Abydos has yielded a considerable number of Early Dynastic faience and mud figurines, most discovered by Flinders Petrie in the main temple zone, a small minority of which represent dogs. This presentation considers their possible significance in the broader context of royal presence at Abydos in the First Dynasty.
September 2022: Current projects:
Paul Whelan has recently completed several drawings for the Ancient Egyptian Heritage and Archaeology Fund’s excavations at the site of Deir el-Ballas in Upper Egypt led by Peter Lacovara.
The drawings are of some timbers re-used in the construction of an early 18th Dynasty palace that may even have come from ships used by Ahmose during his battles with the Hyksos.
https://www.ancientegyptarchaeologyfund.com/project/deir-el-ballas-fieldwork/
August 2022: Current projects:
Paul Whelan continues to work on the publication of Christine Lilyquist’s project on the Carter/Carnarvon and Metropolitan Museum of Art excavations in the Asasif . Currently, he is preparing the catalogue volume of over 1,600 objects from these excavations. The completed works will be published by GHP in a number of volumes.
Summer 2022:
Although I have not posted updates, we have been very busy as Paul is now working full time on his Egyptology projects. As soon as we have sorted out his new lifestyle, we will be back with more lectures!
August 2021
Paul's article on Old Kingdom Abydos for the prestigious new Brepols journal Aegyptologica pisana is due to appear in the first volume expected in 2022 (after some delays due to Covid). He has just completed another 22 drawings for a soon to appear publication of ancient Egyptian magical wands by Fred Vink and Professor Hartwig Altenmüller. This work will revise and substantially augment Prof. Altenmüller's 1965 publication of these distinctive objects.
Currently, Paul is working on the Metropolitan Museum of Art material relating to their early 20th century excavations in the Assasif as well as those of Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon as collated by the Met's curator emerita Christine Lilyquist. This monumental archive of highly important material is set to appear in several volumes published by Golden House.
February 2021
Paul Whelan delivered a very interesting lecture for The Southampton Ancient Egypt Society on Saturday 20th February.
The Symbiosis of King & Cult – Abydos in the Old Kingdom
This lecture looked at the ancient cult centre of Abydos during the Old Kingdom, which was one of the most formative periods in its history. Looking primarily from a royal perspective, the available evidence reveals the evolving physical and spiritual landscape at Abydos from the 4th - 6th Dynasties and how the royal presence there changed over this time.
New ideas were presented which will be published in the forthcoming Pisa University journal later this year. A version of this talk was first given in Pisa in 2018 but new information and links have since been added.
Paul Whelan's map of Abydos
News Archive:
2020
Thank you to everyone who attended our first Zoom study day and for all your kind comments. I must admit I was a bit anxious about how it would turn out - would the internet bandwidth be ok, what if there was a powercut? etc etc. In the end it was a great way to spend an incredibly wet October Saturday. Now to start planning the next one!
Other lectures:
'Move over Osiris here comes Serapis'.
Paul Whelan will be delivering the Philip Wickens Memorial lecture on Saturday 9th November for the Thames Valley Ancient Egypt Society.
The talk will look at the introduction of Serapis at Abydos and how the cultic life there, for so long focused on Osiris, changed as a result. It's a fairly under-explored period in the history of Abydos, but has some quite interesting and unusual aspects that people maybe unaware of. For more details - see the TVAES website
2019:
Here's a little puzzle for you:
Two luminaries from early 20th century Egyptology made the most important contribution to our understanding of the significance of these crude objects.
All will be explained on our study day on the 18th May.
Copyright ref for Carnarvon pic: By Harry Burton - Originally from en.wikipedia, Public Domain, httpscommons.wikimedia.orgwindex.phpcurid=2971980
Copyright ref for Carter pic: Chicago Daily News, Inc., photographer - The Library of Congress (USA), Public Domain, httpscommons.wikimedia.orgwindex.phpcurid=1822753
November 2018
We are delighted that the first study day on Abydos was so well received. Thank you to everyone who attended and contributed to the success of the day. You will find reviews and course summary here.
The venue (15Hatfields) near London Waterloo/Southwark was very comfortable for a full day course, and as Paul approved of the excellent coffee and delicious buffet lunch, we will be using the same venue for our next event! As I write this, Paul is working on a programme and will be recording a short video to introduce and promote the day. Exciting times!
Abydos Study day - Paul with some of the delegates
October 2018
Paul has been very busy with his illustrations over the summer including drawings of ivory apotropaic wands for a new catalogue written by Prof. Hartwig Altenmüller and Fred Vink.
Other projects include drawings of photographs taken during Howard Carter's excavations. Unfortunately these photographs are not available for publication but hopefully Paul's illustrations will do them justice.
This example shows Howard Carter at work (Lord Carnarvon's excavations in the Assasif 1907-11).
Pisa, April 2018
I am pleased to report that Paul's talk on 'The Symbiosis of King and Cult: Abydos in the Old Kingdom' was well received by those attending the lecture at Pisa University. Some interesting and possibly new observations were made in the presentation concerning the occurrence of Khentymentiu and Osiris on royal and non-royal monuments. We look forward to presenting a new version of this lecture in London in October as part of the Abydos study day. The talk will also form the basis of a paper to be published in a new online journal being produced by the University of Pisa. Details to follow. We were very well looked after during our visit to Pisa and would like to thank Professor Marilina Betro and Dr Gianluca Miniaci for their hospitality.
March 2018Paul Whelan and Jane Hamilton are very excited to launch Ta-wer Egyptology - with our new website and the autumn 2018 lecture programme. We will start this venture with study days, initially with lectures by Paul, but expanding to include guest Egyptologists in 2019. We also hope to launch a series of short online distance learning courses.
Currently Paul is busy working on a number of projects - his own book on Abydos, illustrations for a Metropolitan Museum of Art publication and also proof reading for the University of Vienna and Golden House Publications.
Coming up in April: Paul Whelan will be delivering a lecture on The Symbiosis of King and Cult: Abydos in the Old Kingdom at the University of Pisa on 20th April. Our thanks to Professor Marilina Betro and Doctor Gianluca Miniaci of the Egittologia Pisa for organising this.
The University of Pisa (Dipartimento di Civiltà e Forme del Sapere) has introduced a new cycle of international conferences and seminars in Pisa “EST”, acronym of “Egyptological Seminars under the Tower”. The main aim is to bring international emerging and established scholars to Pisa in order to present their recent or ongoing researches (including archaeological results) or to discuss particular targeted topics.
For more details and for information on the full programme of events in Pisa, go to:http://egittologia.cfs.unipi.it/it/est-seminars