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Ancient Egypt Magazine Issue Five - January / February 2001
Netfishing
by Hapy In
keeping with items on the Old Kingdom in Ancient Egypt this issue, I went in
search of sites specifically related to OK matters and found a good choice of
informative items. Let’s start with the official web site of the Hierokonpolis
expedition, www.hierokonpolis.org with
its invitation to “Explore the City of the Hawk”. The
city of Hierokonpolis played a significant role in both late predynastic and
early dynastic Egypt, and some of the most tantalising evidence in the search
for the roots of Egyptian civilisation has come from this site. Tantalising,
because, of course, most of it predates written records as we understand them,
although the images in at least one famous tomb from Hierokonpolis could
probably be “read” if the vocabulary of the artist were understood. Excavations
in recent years under Barbara Adams and Renee Friedman have discovered evidence
that finally begins to bring to life these most ancient people of Egyptian
civilisation. Firstly, the excavators make a claim for the earliest attempts
at a form of mummification in Egypt, dating back to 3,600 BC. It was more than
500 years later, points out Friedman, before the threads of this process could
be picked up again. The
cemeteries of ancient Hierokonpolis, (“Hawktown”, the Greek version of the
city the Egyptians knew as Nekhen) are grouped according to the status of the
occupants, and it was amongst the burials of 150 “working class” inhabitants
of the town that the “first lady” was discovered. Her head and hands had
been padded and wrapped with strips of linen, a process that was confined only
to women, and in her grave was bread – of a kind, as only chaff had been used
in its manufacture. This, suggests Friedman, shows that there is nothing new in
making fake offerings to the dead, who presumably can’t complain to customer
services. (It has just been pointed out to me that you might as well be dead
when you try to complain to some customer services departments. True. This
theme, of specially manufactured offerings for dead ancestors and relatives, is
strongly in evidence at the Heaven and Hell” exhibition at National Museums of
Scotland.) Another
burial showed evidence of the first use of henna as hair dye, and the first use
of hair “extensions”, not only in Egypt, but also possibly in the world. The
hairdressing was complex and must have required assistance. Is another Egyptian
first on the way…the first known hairdressing salon? The site promised a list
of videos, to which I was looking forward, but actually only one was listed.
Otherwise, there is a useful follow-up reading list. There
are two sites devoted to King Narmer, one of which is under construction, the
other being http://homepage.ntlworld.com/neil.milner which looks
as though it is going to be both provocative and in-depth and has already
provided entertainment in the office. We are looking forward to the next
installment. Those
of us predating the days of the Internet will remember that before the World
Wide Web, there was Encyclopaedia Britannica. Now we suffer from repetitive
strain injury; then it was strained backs and neck ache from carrying the large
volumes around and spending rainy Sundays crouched over them. Britannica
hasn’t gone away, it has just metamorphosed into britannica.com, and there
you will find a section devoted to matters Old Kingdom, although there seem to
be few crossed wires. Also,
the site pointed out some of the most irritating aspects of the Net: standard
advertising links. Want great prices on Old Kingdom at top rated stores? Visit
Bizrate! And visit the Britannica Shopping Channel to shop across the web for
Old Kingdom. No thanks. (If you do want to find a decent reading and source
list, try www.mala.bc. ca/~mcneil/oldking.htm - and for a decent
teaching resource, try www.trinity.edu/mgarriso/EgyptSyllabus.html ) Now,
there are two sites that also turn up if you search for Old Kingdom, and they
are petragrail.tripod.com/newhistory.html Now,
for just the most fun web site I’ve seen in a long time, go to the new site of
the Montreal chapter of the SEEA, which is http://go.to/ssea/mtl
We’ve given this lively society some coverage in the past, but they
always manage to come up with something new, and on their site at the moment
there’s a Father Christmas doing a sand-dance and a “momie qui bouge”…a
running mummy. Check it out for yourselves. You could also fish for a new
cursor instead of a boring arrow. The Montreal chapter is offering a pyramid to
find your way round the site. Go there now, before you do anything else! (Also
check out the site of Glenbow.org and see just what interest there is in Canada
as a whole, and the huge range of Egyptology activities on offer there.) And finally…if you’ve been having problems with the Sussex Egyptology Society site, try http://website.lineone.net/egyptology-sussex Good fishing in 2001!
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