Ancient

“3,300-Year-Old Tomb with Pyramid Entrance Discovered in Egypt”

3,300-Year-Old Tomb with Pyramid Entrance Discovered in Egypt

by Owen Jarus via “Live Science

3,300-Year-Old Tomb with Pyramid Entrance Discovered in Egypt

A tomb newly excavated at an ancient cemetery in Egypt would have boasted a pyramid 7 meters (23 feet) high at its entrance, archaeologists say.

 The tomb, found at the site of Abydos, dates back around 3,300 years. Within one of its vaulted burial chambers, a team of archaeologists found a finely crafted sandstonesarcophagus, painted red, which was created for a scribe named Horemheb. The sarcophagus has images of several Egyptian gods on it and hieroglyphic inscriptions recording spells from the Book of the Dead that helped one enter the afterlife.

There is no mummy in the sarcophagus, and the tomb was ransacked at least twice in antiquity. Human remains survived the ransacking, however. Archaeologists found disarticulated skeletal remains from three to four men, 10 to 12 women and at least two children in the tomb. [Gallery: See Images of the Newly Found Tomb]

Newly discovered pyramid

The chambers that the archaeologists uncovered would have originally resided beneath the surface, leaving only the steep-sided pyramid visible.

“Originally, all you probably would have seen would have been the (more…)

Art in Architecture: Salamanca Cathedrals

There are two famous cathedrals in Salamanca, Spain–the first is the old portion first built in the 12th century and  renovated in the 14th century.  Within are dozens of antique works of art depicted throughout the tower.  

This smaller tower was then built on out in the 16th and 18th centuries into the New Cathedrals that still stand there today.  Because the Cathedrals were built and renovated so many times, they reflect centuries of architectural styles and are an amalgam artistic history. 

by Laurenz Bobke

Statue of Maya and Merit

Egyptian Statue of Maya and Merit Currently on display at the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities

 

“Walking Among the Etruscans”

“Walking Among the Etruscans”

by Michael Bleibtreu Neeman via “Epoch Times

“Now disappeared, the Etruscans have left a cultural legacy, which influenced ancient Rome. The Etruscan people, composed of merchants and traders, settled on a fertile land rich in resources; they established their power not by force, but through social and economic means.

In a new exhibition, the Musée Maillol (Maillol Museum) in Paris presents the daily life of the Etruscans, unveiling a cosmopolitan and culturally rich civilization in which women played a role as important as men’s, which is an exception among ancient civilizations.

Because its origins remained an enigma, and has only been known for its funerary culture, the richness of the Etruscan culture was long ignored. However, archaeological excavations of the last few decades reveal new surprising aspects of this mysterious people coming from the Middle East.

The Maillol Museum traces the history of the Etruscans from their settlement in the Italian Peninsula in the ninth century B.C. with 250 objects coming from European museums and institutions, in particular from those in Italy. . . . .”

 

“Rediscovering China, India and Southeast Asia at the Cleveland Museum of Art: The new West Wing”

“Rediscovering China, India and Southeast Asia at the Cleveland Museum of Art: The new West Wing”

by Steven Litt via “Cleveland Art

Exhibition: “Chinese, Indian and Southeast Asian Galleries”

Location: 

The Cleveland Museum of Art
11150 East Blvd., Cleveland

Opening Date: Jan. 2., 2014

Cost of Admission: Free

Further Informationwww.clevelandart.org

“They were destinations of conquest and desire for millennia. Reaching them by caravan or by sea was dangerous, if not deadly. Yet traders and invaders from across Europe and Asia couldn’t resist the allure of China, India and Southeast Asia.

Thanks to the completion of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s new West Wing, Northeast Ohioans can now travel with ease – artistically speaking – to places that once fired the imaginations of Alexander the Great, Marco Polo, Columbus and Magellan.

 On Thursday, the museum will launch a members-only preview of six new galleries containing nearly 500 works of art in jade, silk, bronze, gold, porcelain, ink on paper and dozens of types of stone, including the blue-gray schist of Afghanistan and the red sandstone of the Ganges Valley. . . . .”