More on the So-called “Caves” at Giza
September 16, 2009
Recently Andrew Collins and Nigel Skinner-Simpson have been in the press concerning “newly discovered” caves and catacombs underneath the Giza plateau. An informative short blog entry by Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the SCA, has also recently appeared. Dr. Hawass sets the record straight, and indicates the location of the tomb in question, an undecorated rock-cut series of rooms west of the pyramids and the Western Cemetery (see fig. 1; to zoom in on this Quickbird satellite image on the Giza Web site, click here).
Figure 1. Quickbird satellite image of the Giza plateau, showing the location (marked in red) of two of the rock-cut tombs in the northern cliffs (January 5, 2009).
He mentions the excellent reference work known in the field as the Topographical Bibliography by Porter and Moss. The Giza pages from volume III of Porter-Moss are available on our Giza Digital Library page. However, that volume was last updated in 1974. The Giza Web site contains much more up-to-date information on the Giza plateau, and includes links to photographs, drawings, plans, manuscripts, and other documents absent from the Porter-Moss volumes.
Members of the Harvard University-Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition, directed by George Reisner, were indeed aware of several rock-cut tombs during their excavations between 1904 and 1947. One of them lies about 160 meters north of “Harvard Camp,” as the Expedition’s dig house was then called. The tomb in question is one of three rock-cut structures in the cliffs, numbered by the Expedition as NC1 (for “North Cliff”), NC2, and NC3. In fact, Reisner designated NC3 as the air raid shelter for his Egyptian workmen during World War II. (Reisner himself and other crew-members used tombs on the east side of the Great Pyramid when the air raid sirens sounded.) I recently visited the area with two sons, now in their 70s, of one of Reisner’s foremen (see fig. 2).
Figure 2. The facade of rock-cut tomb NC3, looking south (Peter Der Manuelian, January 16, 2006; PDM_06228).
The view from the façade looks north towards the location of the future Grand Egyptian Museum site and greater Giza (see fig. 3).
Figure 3. The view northwards from the entrance to tomb NC3 (Peter Der Manuelian, January 16, 2006; PDM_06235).
The Harvard-MFA Expedition also produced preliminary plans of these North Cliff tombs. Tomb NC2 does not yet have an individual tomb record on the Giza Archives Project Web site, but it will eventually, as will its companions NC1 and NC3. In the meantime, one archaeological drawing at the MFA in Boston, by Expedition draftsman Alexander Floroff, is dated April 29, 1939. The inked version of this pencil drawing (figure 4 below) shows the façade of NC2 (see figure 5), the pillared chamber behind, and the long corridor extending further to the south.
Figure 4. Plan of rock-cut tomb NC2 by Nicholas Melnikoff (1939). Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Figure 5. Entrance to tomb NC2 during recent SCA excavations, with the pyramid of Khafre in the background (SCA photo).
A new clue as to the possible original date of this rock-cut tomb is provided by a pencil note added to the inked version of this plan, drawn by Nicholas Melnikoff. It is written in the hand of MFA Egyptologist William Stevenson Smith, and notes: “Rock cut tombs due north of Harvard Camp. Used as air raid shelters during War. In 1930 I saw traces of painting on columns in central one. Had the idea that this was an 18th Dyn. tomb or N.K. W[illiam] S[tevenson] S[smith] 1946” (see fig. 6 below).
Figure 6. Handwritten notation by William Stevenson Smith added to drawings of tombs NC1, NC2, and NC3 (1946). Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Old plans and notes such as these indicate how valuable archaeological archives can be in reconstructing the history of the Giza Plateau. In fact, we are preparing about 5,000 additional archaeological drawings from the MFA for the Giza Web site before the end of 2009. And more documents, from our partner institutions in Berkeley, Berlin, Cairo, Hildesheim, Leipzig, Philadelphia, Turin, and Vienna, are on the way. Our work is an international collaboration that is steadily growing to cover the entire Giza Necropolis, not just the Harvard-MFA Expedition concession.
In recent years, the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, under the direction of Dr. Wafaa el-Saddik, has mounted a number of important exhibitions highlighting the discoveries of foreign excavations working in Egypt. This month, it is the Japanese who are honored. Dr. Sakuji Yoshimura has worked in Egypt for forty years, and made many valuable contributions to our knowledge of ancient Egypt. On the blog page of SCA director Dr. Zahi Hawass, you will find a statue of a lion with the cartouche of Khufu. Dr. Yoshimura’s particular interest is Giza and the Great Pyramid. And the best may be yet to come, as his team has been entrusted with raising and restoring the second boat of Khufu.
Aerial view of the Great Pyramid of Khufu, showing the location of the excavated (left) and unexcavated (right) boat pits (marked with white arrows).
This boat is still buried on the south side of the Khufu pyramid, just west of the famous first boat, and discovered by Kamal el-Mallakh in 1954. One of the best-preserved examples of naval architecture from the ancient world, the Khufu boat is well worth the price of admission; don’t miss it if you go to Giza!
The first Khufu boat pit, with of its huge limestone covering slabs. The Khufu Boat Museum is constructed directly on top of the boat pit, with the reconstructed boat displayed above it.
Dismantled and carefully placed into the pit in hundreds of pieces by the Egyptians of Dynasty 4, the Khufu boat was painstakingly reconstructed in the late 1900s by distinguished Egyptian conservator Hagg Ahmed Youssef. It represents one of the greatest conservation triumphs in all of Egyptian archaeology.
Hagg Ahmed Youssef as a young man, working on the curtain box (and reproduction) of Queen Hetepheres (G 7000 x), discovered in 1925 by the Harvard-MFA Expedition. This photo was taken on May 12, 1939.
Mr. Youssef also worked for George Reisner’s Harvard-MFA Expedition in the 1920s, and helped to restore much of the Hetepheres furniture discovered in 1925. I was privileged to meet Mr. Youssef during my first season at Giza, in August 1977.
The famous Khufu boat, as it is displayed today at Giza, beside the Great Pyramid.
There is talk of moving the boat northwest to the Grand Egyptian Museum, and dismantling the current structure on the south side of the Great Pyramid, which some find to be an eyesore that distracts from the ancient site. Meanwhile, what will the second boat pit reveal? A camera placed into the pit in 1987 by National Geographic revealed much more insect damage to this vessel. Today, another camera provides a live feed into the boat. Dr. Yoshimura will have his hands full with this important project; we wish him all success!
Side view of the cabin of the Khufu boat. Was it built solely for Khufu's funeral, or used in everyday life? One clue: there are no windows to the cabin!
President Obama at Giza with Zahi Hawass
June 5, 2009
In addition to my comments in the previous post about President Obama’s visit to Giza, click here for Zahi Hawass’s description of the 80-minute tour of the site.
President Obama talks with Zahi Hawass on the north side of the Great Pyramid (June 4, 2009).
For a video look at the US President’s visit to Giza, this clip was posted on the official Web site of Zahi Hawass.
President Obama Visits Giza
June 4, 2009
President Obama toured the Giza Pyramids today. Zahi Hawass showed him around, and also took him into the tomb of Qar, a small Dynasty 6 subterranean chapel with engaged statuary on the east side of the Great Pyramid.
Zahi Hawass tours President Obama around the Pyramids.
This tomb, numbered G 7101, was excavated in 1924-25 by the Harvard University–Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition. The tomb is published in Giza Mastabas 4: The Mastabas of Qar and Idu, by William Kelly Simpson, and a free download of the entire publication is available on our Giza Digital Library page.
The tomb of Qar (G 7101), as it appeared shortly after excavation, on December 6, 1924. Today the tomb is protected by a modern roof.
The president saw a hieroglyphic her face, a sign that is carved frontally, and he remarked that the prominent ears reminded him of himself.
The hieroglyphic face sign pronounced 'her' (sounds like "hair") that President Obama saw in the tomb of Qar.
This hieroglyph, often standing for the preposition meaning “because, on account of,” is a standard sign, and was not intended to show the likeness of Qar himself.
Interior chambers and statues in the tomb of Qar, as it appears today.
For more photos of this tomb, simply type “G 7101″ in the Search box on the Giza Archives Web site. Qar’s tomb page also contains QTVR 360-degree interactive panoramas showing every chamber of the tomb.
For those ever-curious about hidden chambers inside the Great Pyramid, the wait won’t be much longer. Zahi Hawass plans his next steps for July 2009. Click here for more.
George Reisner Dug Elsewhere Too!
May 6, 2009
George A. Reisner (1867-1942), photographed on June 26, 1933.
Although our Giza Archives work focuses on one archaeological site alone, it’s worth remembering that George A. Reisner dug no less than 23 sites up and down the Nile, in Egypt and Nubia (ancient Sudan). From 1908 to 1910 he even directed excavations at Samaria on behalf of Harvard University. A new Web site at Harvard showcases this work, along with many other expeditions around the world. Called “Expeditions & Discoveries: Sponsored Exploration and Scientific Discovery in the Modern Age,” it is an excellent example of assembling long inaccessible documentation online for all the world to study. The new collection offers important—often unique—historical resources for students of anthropology, archaeology, astronomy, botany, geography, geology, medicine, oceanography, and zoology. The collection includes digitized copies of more than 250,000 pages from 700 books and serials, as well as 50,000 pages from Harvard’s manuscript collections, more than 1,200 photographs, 200 maps, 21 atlases, and numerous drawings and prints.
Distinguished guests visit the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston all the time, but on Monday, May 4, we were especially fortunate to welcome Dr. Wafaa el-Saddiq, Director of the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, and her husband, Mr. Asmi el-Rabbat. After showing her award-winning documentary film, “Unlocking Pharaoh’s Cellar,” about the fabulous storage basement at the Museum, Dr. El-Saddiq joined us in the Giza offices to discuss collaboration between our two institutions.
Half of the Giza objects discovered by the Harvard University–Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition went to Cairo, while the other half came to Boston, as per a formal excavation contract with the Egyptian Antiquities Service (now Supreme Council of Antiquities). So it is only fitting to reunite this collection “virtually” on our Giza Web site, as well as add all the other Giza objects in the Cairo Museum from German/Austrian, Italian, and Egyptian expeditions.
Wafaa el Saddiq, Peter Manuelian, and Asmi el Rabbat at the Giza Archives, MFA Boston.
For me personally, it was a privilege to welcome back a colleague whom I have known since we both worked together at Giza in the summer of 1977. We look forward to fruitful collaboration in order to make our spectacular Giza collections more accessible to the world community.
The world-famous Egyptian Museum, Cairo welcomes well over 1 million visitors per year.
“How do I . . . ?”
April 27, 2009
Database engines are are curious beasts. Even the best of them doesn’t always return results the way you’d expect. And sometimes it’s hard to know just how much information is actually available, “hidden” behind a Web site’s homepage.
The new "how to" videos page is full of searching tips, tutorials, and general demos about the Giza Archives
To help make the Giza Archives easier to navigate, and to highlight some of the more exciting bells and whistles lurking on these pages, we are pleased to offer a series of short videos on how to search for the many types of photos, documents, and other items on www.gizapyramids.org. Available from the “Search the Archives” menu (choose “How to Use this Web Site“), these videos should show you how to get to where you’re trying to go. Let us know what you think!
End of Spring Semester
April 26, 2009
Some of the spring semester 2009 crew at the Giza Archives offices, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
As the trees and flowers bloom in Boston after a long winter, the ritual of winding down the teaching semester begins. What does this mean for work at the Giza Archives? Many of the dedicated undergraduate and graduate student helpers will soon be departing for other cities, archaeological digs, or other summer work. Each year we try to focus Tufts University Giza seminar students on a major archiving goal. A few semesters ago, it was scanning all 4,000 pages of Arabic Expedition Diary books recently discovered in Cairo. This spring the crew expanded the Giza Digital Library, proofing, reading, and linking scholarly books and articles to the appropriate tombs, objects, photos, and people in the database. The fruits of their labors are available on our main Giza Library page.
More than 450 people have contributed their time and expertise to the Giza Archives work since we began many years ago.
I would like to thank this year’s crop of talented students for their hard work on making so many aspects of Giza scholarship available to the world community. As these students disappear for the summer months, we are extremely fortunate to fill their places with our summer staff. During May through August, we’ll continue to process 5,000 line drawings of Giza tomb wall scenes and inscriptions, thousands of pages of “Packing lists” detailing the shipping arrangements of excavated objects to Cairo and to Boston, and we’ll expand our Visual Search pages with hundreds of additional 360-degree interactive panoramas. Translations of the Arabic Expedition Diaries, prepared by Dr. Ramadan Hussein, newly appointed Director of the Documentation Centre of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, are also continuing. 3D modeling of the Giza tombs and experiments with Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are also in the works.
Search Tip of the Week: See Everything at a Glance
April 20, 2009
Click “Complete Archive Summary” to see the current totals on the Giza Web site.Ever wonder just how much “stuff” there is to see on the Giza Archives Web site? Just go to “Search the Archives” and choose “Complete Archive Summary.” Currently there are eight categories of items, and you’ll see a one-page summary of all the hundreds of thousands of items: tombs, photos, objects, people, expedition diaries, plans & drawings, published and unpublished works. You can browse, enlarge and download just about everything!
The totals are always changing.
Giza Archives Web Site Redesigned
April 8, 2009
Since our formal launch in January 2005, the Giza Web Site has undergone several enhancements and makeovers. But today we launch an entirely new homepage and organization, while preserving and expanding on all the search capabilities users have come to know.
Screenshot of the new Giza Archives homepage (www.gizapyramids.org). Click the refresh button to see a different background photo each time. There's a lot of them!
Everything is now housed under five main buttons. Hundreds of text-searchable Giza publications, available for free download, are in the “Giza Library.” All kinds of searches are now listed under “Search the Archives.” Save and share your own research and collections in “My Giza Research.” The “News” section will keep you updated; in fact, that’s where this Director’s Blog is housed. And finally, “Contact” provides several methods for sending us feedback, learning about copyright issue, joining our subscriber list for news and announcements, and supporting the Giza Archives with donations towards our Mellon Foundation Endowment Challenge grant. And for quick searching across all database fields, there is always the faithful Search box handy.
Some quick tips: under “Search the Archives,” try “Search Giza from Above” for new ways to visit the Pyramids without buying a plane ticket. To see the total numbers and types of documents at any time, choose “Complete Archive Summary.”
Soon we plan to add a number of short “How to…” videos on our “How to Use this Web Site” page (located under “Search the Archives”). These will make it easier to find what you’re looking for, as well as provide some educational videos about Giza, its history and significance (to be located under “My Giza Research,” on the “Ancient Egypt Educator Resources” page). Whether you’re an armchair archaeologist or professional Egyptologist, our goal is to make the art and archaeology of the Giza Necropolis as accessible as possible.
And as always, we need and look forward to feedback from you!
Peter Der ManuelianPeace Chain Surrounds the Khufu Pyramid
April 2, 2009
The Giza Pyramids no doubt held great symbolic significance for ancient Egyptians of all periods. And now these ancient wonders continue to serve as a ceremonial backdrop for events and ideas of all types.
Participants take part in a human chain around the Great Pyramidof Khufu. More than 1500 students, teachers and parents from 50 nationalities formed a circle that symbolized peace in the world. (Photo: Nasser Nasser, AP)
Whether it is the international symbol of community pictured here, a performance of the opera “Aida,” an international squash tournament, the Pharaoh’s race car rally, or a protest using garbage in new and creative ways (see below), it seems the Pyramids as “stage setting” always helps to carry the message farther throughout the world.
An army of "trash people" in front of the Pyramids; an installation by artist HA Schult (May 15, 2002).
Peter Der Manuelian
Egypt to Open Snefru’s “Bent Pyramid” at Dahshur
March 29, 2009
Khufu’s father, Snefru, built no less than four pyramids, three of them towering structures. The famous Bent Pyramid at Dahshur is in many ways the most intriguing, and not least for the change of angle due to cracks and construction miscalculations. Soon it will be open to the public:
The Associated Press: Egypt to open inner chambers of ‘bent’ pyramid.
The Bent Pyramid of Snefru at Dahshur (Dynasty 4) (Photo: Frank P. Roy)
Giza Pyramids Go Dark Today for Earth Hour
March 28, 2009
At 8.30 pm on March 28, the lights went out on the Sphinx and Great Pyramids of Giza, as modern day Egyptians joined Earth Hour’s global call for action on climate change. Read more.
A combination photo of a night view of the site of the ancient Giza Pyramids before and after switching off the lights for the Earth Hour, in Cairo, Egypt Saturday March 28, 2009. (AP Photo/Nasser Nouri)
Giza Goes Digital in Hildesheim, Leipzig & Vienna
March 26, 2009
This six-minute video documentary (in German) describes the Giza Project at the Pelizaeus-Museum in Hildesheim, the Ägyptisches Museum of the University of Leipzig, and the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, that are sharing their archaeological documentation with the Giza Archives Web site at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Egyptologists Bettina Schmitz, Antje Spiekermann, and Katja Lembke are interviewed.
Peter Der ManuelianGiza Photos from Vienna Now Online
March 26, 2009
The first 1,400 German/Austrian Expedition photos, kindly supplied by the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, and the Institut für Ägyptologie of the University of Vienna, are now online. In 1912, Hermann Junker took over from Georg Steindorff to lead the German/Austrian Expedition to Giza. Images and discoveries from this important excavation are spread today through museums and institutes in Cairo, Vienna, Leipzig and Hildesheim. They show objects and excavations in the central strip of the Western Cemetery, and the so-called G I-South Cemetery, the row of mastabas immediately south of Khufu’s Great Pyramid, flanking his famous funerary boat and boat pits.
G 4000, Hemiunu, corridor chapel, serdab behind north niche, seated statue of Hemiunu (Hildesheim 1962) in situ, looking west
In addition to the historic dig photos, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna has also supplied stunning new color photography of its Giza collections. As always on our Web site, all images and documents can be magnified for detailed study.
Standing pair statue inscribed for Kapuptah and his wife Ipep from G 4461: Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna ÄS 7444
Thanks are due to Dr. Regina Hölzl, curator of the Ägyptisch-Orientalische Sammlung, and her staff for their hard work in scanning and shipping the digital images. We are also grateful to Dr. Manfred Bietak and Dr. Peter Jánosi of the University of Vienna, for their expertise and collaboration in bringing the Junker material online. In Boston, the scans were edited, and descriptive metadata was added by our Giza Research Associate Dr. Diane V. Flores. To browse the Vienna photos, simply type “AEOS” or “o_neg_nr” into the Search box. More Vienna images to come!
This marks the second collection of non-Museum of Fine Arts images and documents to join the Giza Archives online. In January 2008, just under 100 Giza objects housed in the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, Berkeley, California, appeared online. Most of the images show new photography taken by Egyptlogy Ph.D. candidate Elizabeth Minor.
Additional groups of images and documents have arrived in Boston from Berlin and Philadelphia; these are currently in preparation for posting on the Giza Web site.
Peter Der ManuelianA New Web Site Design; A New Giza Blog
March 1, 2009
Welcome to the new Giza Archives Director’s Blog. On this page I hope to keep you abreast of our progress as we strive to create and maintain the world’s first centralized repository for the archaeology of the Giza Necropolis.
We continue to process and add images and documents from the Harvard University-Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition, directed by George Reisner from 1902 to 1947.
We also have international partners around the world, representing all the major Giza collections that had or have a direct archaeological connection to the Pyramids. So watch for the addition of materials online from museums, universities, and institutes in Berkeley, Berlin, Cairo, Hildesheim, Leipzig, Philadelphia, Turin, and Vienna.
In collaboration with colleagues such as Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, and Mark Lehner of Ancient Egypt Research Associates, we hope to include not just Giza’s past, but its present and its future as well.
Peter Der Manuelian Giza Archives Director Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
- Peter Der Manuelian and King Menkaure, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Photo: Mark Thomas)
“New” Old Kingdom Statue Found at Giza
February 24, 2009
Ancient statue found buried at Egypt Giza pyramids | Science & Health | Reuters.
A newly discovered statue made from quartzite stone is seen in the tomb of Pharaoh Mycerinus, on the outskirts of Cairo, in this handout photo released February 24, 2009 (Photo: REUTERS/Egyptian Supreme Council Of Antiquities/Handout)
Peter Der Manuelian
