6.22.2007
3,000 Year Old Egyptian Mummy Discovered...
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Offering the king gives to Osiris, Lord of Eternity, so that he might provide bread and beer, meat and every good and pure thing for the ka of Sennefer purified."
Egypt's Secretary General of the Supreme Council for Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, today announced the discovery of the mummy of Sennefer in Tomb 99 in the Valley of the Kings.
Sennefer was high priest of Amun in the 18th Dynasty. Translating the hieroglyphs in this tomb is easy - as they closely approximate the standard texts used to teach 'Middle Egyptian' without either archaic forms or later ideograms thrown-in. Also, scribes and rock-cutters of this period had good penmanship and literacy, in our 21st Century view.
I believe the Tomb of Sennefer is quite well-known, featuring some famous pictures - boatmen ferrying the host and his lady to the afterlife; and details of bread and beer offerings.
Another part of the tomb features hanging grapes painted on the ceiling to cover up a bit of uneven rock...quite creative.
These vignettes were shown because the Egyptians believed you could 'take it with you' so long as you had either small models or later, painted images - of your helpers, livestock, agricultural plenty, and other status symbols which would be transformed by the magic of Osiris and the ennead into facsimiles of the original form...
read the Yahoo! Story, which missed some of these details.
Egypt's Secretary General of the Supreme Council for Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, today announced the discovery of the mummy of Sennefer in Tomb 99 in the Valley of the Kings.
Sennefer was high priest of Amun in the 18th Dynasty. Translating the hieroglyphs in this tomb is easy - as they closely approximate the standard texts used to teach 'Middle Egyptian' without either archaic forms or later ideograms thrown-in. Also, scribes and rock-cutters of this period had good penmanship and literacy, in our 21st Century view.
I believe the Tomb of Sennefer is quite well-known, featuring some famous pictures - boatmen ferrying the host and his lady to the afterlife; and details of bread and beer offerings.
Another part of the tomb features hanging grapes painted on the ceiling to cover up a bit of uneven rock...quite creative.
These vignettes were shown because the Egyptians believed you could 'take it with you' so long as you had either small models or later, painted images - of your helpers, livestock, agricultural plenty, and other status symbols which would be transformed by the magic of Osiris and the ennead into facsimiles of the original form...
read the Yahoo! Story, which missed some of these details.
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