Hamunaptra - The City of the Dead

Hamunaptra - City of the Dead 

Hamunaptra built circa 1998 A.D.
 

Luxor built circa 1200 B.C.
 

First let us look at the architecture of Hamunaptra. As you realise there are many temples in Egypt which the designers could have used as their inspiration. I have just put an example of the temple Ramses (Seti I's son) built at Luxor here as a reference, but you can play 'spot the column' and see if you can see a similar one in the two pictures. You see the problem with Hamunaptra is that it is a big mess of many parts of temples and many periods Egyptian Archintecture built higgledy piggledy with no logic to it. I would love to see the original plans used by the designers and see if I can locate the where and when of all the pieces of the architecture which they have used to make up the temple.

Now then, those jars.... I could jump up and down and fume about these for several days because of the mess the film made of things.

There never should have been five jars, only four as this picture of some from the British Museum shows.

The inscription on the jars comes from King Tut-ankh-amen's canopic chest, it held the four little coffins he had instead of jars. Ankh's jars even have his name (Neb-kepheru-ra) shown right) on in a cartouche if you look.

Canopic Jars were fashioned with heads in the shape of the four sons of Horus and each held part of the deceased's internal organs.

Imsenti had a human head and held the liver.

Hapi had a baboon's head and held the lungs, the jars used in the film were also far too small - about 4x too small and did not smash when they were finally knocked off the altar in the final fight between O'Connell and the mummies. There was no way that anyone could have carried a real jar about in their pockets. Interestingly however there is a dummy jar their size in the British Museum created later in history when dummies were used to reperesent the real thing.

Duamutef had a jackal's head and held the stomach. Qebehsenuef had a falcon's head and held the intestines.
 
The Book of The Dead does exist - there are lots of copies in many museums but it was nothing but prayers and spells to keep the soul safe in the underworld. You might be interested to see the drawing which is a copy done by Sir Wallace Budge of Ani's book of the dead kept in the Egyplology department at the British Museum and compare it with the film version.

Secrets of Egypt

It may simply have been the luck of the draw, but no one has probably furthered the interests of Egyptology, and indeed the world's archaeological focus on Egypt more than Howard Carter. His discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun has inspired almost a century of Hollywood movies, books and media attention for this greatest of all living museums we call Egypt.

While Howard Carter's find of the mostly intact tomb of a pharaoh may have been lucky, it was the result of a dedicated career in Egyptology and the culmination of consistent exploration.

Howard Carter was born on May 9th, 1874 in the small town of Kensington, London, England. His father, an artist named Samuel John Carter who drew portraits (mostly of animals) for local landowners, trained Howard in the fundamentals of drawing and painting. He was Samuel Carter's youngest son. But Howard Carter developed an early interest in Egypt, so when he was 17 years old, under the influence of Lady Amherst, a family acquaintance, he set sail for Alexandria, Egypt. It would be his first trip outside of England, and he hoped to work with the Egyptian Exploration Fund as a tracer. Tracers copied drawing and inscriptions on paper for further study.

His first assignment came at Bani Hassan, where he was tasked with recording and copying the scenes from the walls of the tombs of the princes of Middle Egypt. It is said that he worked diligently, throughout the day, and slept with the bats in the tombs at night.

It was under the direction of William Flinders Petrie grew into his own as an archaeologist. Considered as one of the best field archaeologists of this time, Petrie really did not believe that Carter would every become a good excavator. Yet Carter could have had no better teacher at this point in time. At el Amrna, Carter proved Petre wrong by unearthing several important finds. During this training period, Carter also worked under Gaston Maspero, who would later become the Director of the Egyptian Antiquities Service.

After being appointed as the Principle Artist of the Egyptian Exploration Fund's excavations at Deir el Bahbri under the direction of Edouard Naville, the temple of Queen Hatshepsut, Carter was able to perfect his drawing skills and strengthen his excavation and restoration techniques. His admirable efforts on the project led to his appointment by the Director of the Egyptian Antiquities Service, at age 25, as the first Inspector General of Monuments for Upper Egypt. This was obviously an important area of Egypt that included the ancient Thebes area. He became responsible for supervising and controlling archaeology all along the Upper Nile Valley. It is interesting to note that during this time, he erected the first electric lights in the Valley of the Kings (in various tombs) and at the temples at Abu Simbel.

Regrettably, he was forced to resign from the Antiquities Service in 1905. An incident occurred between Egyptian archaeology site guards at Saqqara and a few drunken French tourists. When the tourists became violent, Carter allowed the guards to defend themselves. The tourists protested to various high officials including the Egyptian Consul General Lord Cromer. Cromer called for Carter to make formal apology, but Carter refused, and was relieved of his post and re-stationed to Tanta, a place with very little archaeological involvement. Carter had very little choice but to leave the service.

After his resignation from the Antiquities Service he spent the next four years as a watercolor painter and dealer in antiquities. However, seeking private funding for excavation work, Carter became the Supervisor of Excavations for the 5th Lord of Carnarvon (George Herbert). While World War I delayed Howard Carter's work, by 1914, Lord Carnarvon owned one of the most valuable collections of Egyptian artifacts in private hands. He would eventually discover six tombs in the Valley of the Kings on the West Bank at Luxor. But Carter had become somewhat obsessed with finding the tomb of a fairly unknown pharaoh named Tutankhamun, and year after year, searched in vane for this the pharaoh's lost tomb.

In fact, Lord Carnarvon was becoming frustrated with Carter's efforts, and by 1922, issued an ultimatum to the Egyptologist that this would be his last season of funding. Confident of his eventual success, on November 1, 1922, Carter began digging for his final season and three days later unearth the staircase to Tutankhamun's tomb. After excavation down to the plaster blocks of the tomb, at 4 PM on November 26, 1922, Howard Carter broke through and made one of the 20th century's most amazing discoveries. It would take another ten years just to catalog the artifacts from this one tomb, which are currently in the Egyptian Antiquities Museum in Cairo, though they are scheduled to be moved in the near future.

During this time, Lord Carnarvon died in Cairo of pneumonia. This sent the already sensational press into a frenzy. Media hype about the mummy's curse set the media on fire, and much to Carters displeasure, he began receiving letters from spiritualists from around the world. Legend has it that by 1929, eleven of the people connected with the discovery of the tomb had died, including two of Lord Carnarvon's relatives, and Carter's personal secretary, Richard Bethell. This would spawn mummy movies through the end of the the twentieth century and beyond.

After his discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb, Howard Carter retired from active field work. He began collecting Egyptian antiquities himself, and became moderately successful. He could often be found at the Old Winter Palace Hotel in Luxor, mostly keeping to himself. He returned to Kensington, England in 1939, and died on March 2nd in that year at the age of 65.