The tomb of queen Nefertari
In 1904, archaeologist Ernesto Schiaparelli discovered the splendid tomb of Ramses II’s favorite wife in the Valley of the Queens. Her beautiful paintings showed the different stages of the queen’s journey to the kingdom of Osiris. In 1255 BC, Queen...Read more
Crocodiles in ancient Egypt: Feared and revered
These massive reptiles, which posed a threat to those living along the banks of the Nile, were both objects of fear and devotion among the ancient Egyptians. Within the diverse fauna of the Nile, crocodiles have always been one of the most distinctive and unsettling...Read more
The City of the Sun: Akhetaten
Tell el-Amarna is the Arabic name of a region located on the eastern bank of the Nile River, famous for being the territory where the city of Akhetaten (Akhetaton) was built in the middle of the 14th century BC. The pharaoh Akhenaten gave the order to build this city...Read more
The Five Names of Each Pharaoh
While we commonly recognize Egyptian pharaohs by a single name today, they actually held as many as five or six names. Alongside their birth names, upon ascending the throne, they assumed four additional names associated with their respective titles. Since the dawn of...Read more
Tomb of Yuya and Tjuyu in the Valley of the Kings
In 1905, 17 years before the sensational discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb by Howard Carter, the Valley of the Kings was the scene of another finding that aroused enormous enthusiasm. Its author was Theodore M. Davis, a wealthy New York patron who financed...Read more
The Old Kingdom, the best time of ancient Egypt
Geography greatly influenced the way the ancient Egyptians understood the origin and reality of their world. Thus, the marked contrasts offered by the landscapes of the Nile and those of the desert, for example, or those of the river valley and those of the delta,...Read more
The Magical Pyramid of Unas at Saqqara
The pyramid of Unas, the last pharaoh of the Fifth Dynasty, is located in Saqqara, between the enclosure of Djoser and that of Sekhemkhet. Its ancient name was ‘Beautiful are the places of Unas’ and it is one of the smallest in Saqqara; square base has...Read more
Ramses II: His reign in 7 keys
On the death of his father, Seti I, after fifteen years of reign, Ramesses ascended the throne. The third pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt rose to power. From that coronation ceremony, Ramses II would become a distant and sacred figure for his...Read more