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Editorial – Journal Edition 6

We prefer to publish both together but Journal articles tend to take a lot of editorial time.  When you read the acknowledgements for David Smith’s article you will realise that many, many people beyond Andrea and I have contributed time to help finalise the research.  We are very grateful for their assistance. Our first article […] [more…]

Solar Eclipse Events in the New Kingdom Part 2 – Astronomical Analysis

The sun played a central role in the religion and culture of Ancient Egypt. It is therefore surprising that there seems to be no unambiguous mention of solar eclipses in Ancient Egyptian texts. Eclipses would certainly have been experienced by the Ancient Egyptians and records of them would be expected to occur in the religious corpus.  [more…]

Part 1 of this paper looked at the source texts and reliefs. Part 2 now sets out the astronomical background and predicts the solar eclipse events that would have occurred during the New Kingdom. These are then correlated with the New Kingdom texts and funerary material to test the hypothesis that these might record actual eclipse events. [more…]

Public Health in Ancient Egypt by Anthony J. Cagle

Abstract. Most studies of health and illness in ancient Egypt concentrate on disease and other maladies affecting individuals and the medical treatments administered to individuals. However, the concept of public health has received comparatively little attention, largely because the practice of public health has been seen as a fairly modern phenomenon tied to purely scientific notions of the sources and causes of illness and disease and their prevention. Nevertheless, even in the absence of a true germ theory of disease, the ancient Egyptians did possess an understanding of the social context in which many disease conditions occurred and took steps to prevent and alleviate certain conditions at a group level. From fairly basic public health practices, such as the removal of trash to peripheral locations, to reasonably sophisticated theories on the origin of disease and the widespread promulgation of preventive practices, ancient Egypt shows that even in pre-scientific complex societies an awareness of the social context of health and disease existed. Egypt and other ancient societies developed strategies to deal with health and wellness on a community and national level and thus are amenable to study using modern public health theory. [more…]

Aspects of Colour in Ancient Egypt

The paper considers the colour palette found in painted works from the Old Kingdom through to the New Kingdom and considers how it evolved based on the availability of key pigment resources. Moreover the present day ensemble of colours within surviving images is not entirely representative of the original colours which have changed hue owing to the action of oxidisation and, in many cases, light bleaching. The paper compares the Egyptian palette against theories of linguistic representation of colour in various societies as well as identifying some of the key symbolisms. [more…]

The purpose is to offer a compilation of the key aspects of painted colour in Ancient Egypt drawing on multiple authorities and adding new insights from the author. [more…]