Miss the belly-dancing and dervish-whirling at World Trekkers: Egypt? Join us Aug. 9 for World Trekkers: France!

Published by Caroline on May 8, 2013 at 9:47 am in World Trekkers

If you didn’t make World Trekkers: Egypt last Friday, we hate to break it to you, but you missed out.

There were belly dancers, a whirling dervish and TWO congenial camels, named Gunther (above) and Teddy (not pictured). Even our own Director of Social Media and Assistant Director of Public Relations & Marketing tapped into their Arab roots and delighted our younger guests as Cleopatra and King Tut.

Gunther was quite the hit with the kiddies.

Face painters kept it festive.

Belly dancers got hips swiveling.

Damien and Ernesto from Cat Eyes Makeup Artistry made everyone look like Egyptian royalty.

And our brilliant volunteers designed crafts to take home AND teach you something.

So if you’re feeling a twinge of regret, file that away for now. Just don’t miss our next World Trekkers event Aug. 9, when we indulge our inner Francophile in France!

Unravel the coldest case on record: Talk Otzi the Iceman in a Distinguished Lecture on May 14

Published by Amy P on May 7, 2013 at 4:17 pm in Education

“Otzi the Iceman,” a 5,300-year-old Copper Age/Neolithic man, was found in 1991 preserved in the Similaun Pass of the Otztal Alps at 10,500 feet between Italy and Austria. Since the discovery, extensive ongoing scientific investigations indicate that he is unique because “Otzi” is practically an archaeological site in himself.

Unlike any other human remains of this age discovered to date, nearly every bit of Otzi is preserved, including his clothing, tools, gear, weapons — even his last meals. Amazing forensic science has recovered many details about his life through the material technology he carried, including a rare and precious copper axe, and vital medical and bioarchaeological data. This includes his DNA and a full genome record, where he lived in the prehistoric Val Senales, and reconstructions and possible scenarios of how he was killed.

Not only did Otzi treat his own parasites, showing prehistoric human medicine, but he used and carried more than 10 different tree and plant products that survived in his glacial context. Even his weapons demonstrate early archery using spiraling arrows, suggesting prehistoric knowledge of aerodynamic stabilizing technology. For those fascinated with forensic and C.S.I. investigation, Otzi may be the “coldest case” on record.

Dr. Patrick Hunt of the Stanford Alpine Archaeology Project has studied Otzi’s tools and paleobotanical specimens in Bolzano, Italy, where Otzi resides frozen, as well as in the Otztal Alps where he lived and was found.

Meet Dr. Hunt at a Distinguished Lecture at HMNS on May 14. This lecture is co-sponsored by Archaeological Institute of America – Houston Society with support of Applied Diagnostics and Dr. and Mrs. Arthur Bracey.

What: Distinguished Lecture: “Frozen in Time – The Story of Otzi the Iceman”
When: Tuesday, May 14, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Houston Museum of Natural Science main campus
How Much: $12 for members, $18 for general public. Tickets available here.

Emails from the other side: Our correspondence with a corpse continues

Published by Caroline on May 6, 2013 at 3:22 pm in Egyptology

For those of you just checking in, our Museum Mummy, Ankh Hap, is getting some majorly upgraded digs when our Hall of Ancient Egypt opens to the public this month. Unfortunately, it seems he was the last to know that the luxurious new living space would also come with new roommates.

Ankh Hap wrote us from the afterlife to get more info about our new Egyptian artifacts, and the resulting back-and-forth ended up being very educational and more than a little flirtatious (more on that later.)

We’ll be posting excerpts here each Monday. Here’s the latest:

Field Notes: The vividness of Ramesses II at Abydos

Published by Guest Contributor on May 3, 2013 at 10:43 am in Egyptology

Editor’s Note: Peter Lacovara, Senior Curator at Emory University’s Carlos Museum, has worked on numerous expeditions in Egypt and published several books on his work and experience, including The Pyramids and Sphinx, Tombs and Temples of Giza, and Excavating Egypt: Great Discoveries from the Petrie Museum of Egyptology. Other blogs in this series can be found here.

While not nearly as well known as his father’s temple at Abydos, Ramesses II also built a temple there which is open for tourists to see. While it is smaller, less well-preserved and not as finely carved as Seti’s temple, Ramesses II’s monument is notable for the vivid color that is preserved on many of the remaining walls.

Many of the kings of the New Kingdom built temples at Abydos to honor Osiris at the edge of the desert, but few are well preserved. Ramesses’ temple used both limestone and sandstone along with black granite for the doorways and alabaster for the central shrine. This temple was built during his early reign, when he ruled alongside his father, and the quality of some of the carving approaches that of Seti.

While Osiris was the chief god worshiped here, many other deities where honored in the temple. A head of the god Amun with ram horns and filled in with blue paint, now in the Michael C. Carlos Museum, may have come from this very destroyed structure.