Egyptology, decoded
Unlocking the Secrets of Ancient Egypt: History, Archaeology, and Mythology
Archaeologists keep finding ancient Egyptian mummies with tongues of solid gold — at Quesna, Taposiris Magna, and Oxyrhynchus. Here's why embalmers placed them in the mouths of the dead, and what the golden tongues…
Who was Ramesses II, and why is he called "the Great"? From the Battle of Kadesh to Abu Simbel — plus the lost statue…
On July 12, 2026, Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced a Luxor tomb discovery archaeologists dream about: a previously unknown, 3,000-year-old tomb near…
In 2015 the Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves proposed that Nefertiti lay behind a wall in Tutankhamun’s tomb. Radar surveys followed. The first seemed promising. Later,…
Egyptian school meant one thing: learning to write. There was no general education. A boy sent to school was being trained for a job…
Most Egyptian children worked. They helped in the fields, minded animals, fetched water, carried things in workshops and learned their parents’ trade by doing…
An ordinary Egyptian house was made of mud brick: Nile mud mixed with chopped straw, pressed into moulds and dried in the sun. It…
Most ancient Egyptians ate bread and beer, every day, for their whole lives. Onions, and whatever vegetables were in season. Fish out of the…
In 2023 a team pushed an endoscope through a narrow gap in the north face of the Great Pyramid and switched on a light.…
Howard Carter’s team catalogued 5,398 objects from Tutankhamun’s tomb. It took them ten years. Hold that number against what we know about the king.…
Stand at Giza today and the pyramids sit in open desert. There is no water in sight. That has always been the awkward part…
In 1927, the archaeologist Herbert Winlock stood in a quarry pit near Deir el-Bahri looking at thousands of smashed statue fragments. They were the…
In the New Kingdom you could walk into a workshop and buy a Book of the Dead ready-made. The scribe had already written the…
