The Battle of Kadesh: The First Peace Treaty
The Battle of Kadesh faced the armies of Ramses II of Egypt and Muwatalli II, king of the Hittite Empire, in 1274 BC, Kadesh, in what is now Syria. 1,200 BC is a time full of events as it marks the end of the Bronze Age, the fall of great empires and civilizations and...Read more
The luck of being a scribe in ancient Egypt: The Satire of the Trades
In ancient Egypt, several texts emerged, such as the one that concerns us here, which are part of a type of literature known as “wisdom”, in which a parent or guardian offers his or her pupil certain advice to behave and succeed in life. Egypt, Middle...Read more
Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut
The funerary temple of Hatshepsut, known as “Holy of Holies” is located in the complex of Deir el Bahari, on the western fringe of the River Nile, near the Valley of the Kings, in Egypt. This funerary temple was built in honor of Amun-Ra, the God of the...Read more
Famine Stela: The Seven Years’ Famine
In 1889 the journalist and Egyptologist Charles Edwin Wilbour, who for about ten years had spent every winter in Egypt aboard a dahabiya (a typical Nile passenger boat with two sails) that he had converted into his home and library, visited Aswan and its surroundings....Read more
The mummy with the golden tongue
16 Egyptian tombs from the Ptolemaic and Roman times have been discovered in Alexandria (Egypt). The mummies are in poor condition, but among them one stands out whose false tongue is made of gold. An archaeological mission of the University of Santo Domingo has...Read more
Egypt Before the Pharaohs
What happened in predynastic period in ancient Egypt? We all know the ancient Egypt of Tutankhamun, Cleopatra VII, Mentuhotep II, that of the Pyramids of Giza, Abu Simbel or the temple of Luxor, but … what was the land of the Nile like before the arrival of the...Read more
Ramses III against the Sea Peoples
Usermaatre Meryamun, better known as Ramses III (1184 – 1153 BC), was the second and most important king of the Twentieth Dynasty (1186 – 1069 BC). The particularities of his extensive reign, the significance of his military victories against the so-called...Read more
The Amazing Sarcophagus of the Vizier Gemenefhorbak
Gemenefherbak was a vizier. As such, he was responsible for justice, a function symbolized by the pendant picturing the goddess Maat on his collar. The chest is protected by a winged scarab, a personification of the reborn morning sun. On the back of the Sarcophagus,...Read more