Bronze head of the cat goddess Bastet with amber
inlays for eyes.
Bast or Bastet - in ancient Egypt, the goddess of joy, fun and love, female beauty and health, which was depicted as a cat-headed woman in her later form.
Late Period, 26th Dynasty, ca. 600 BC. Now in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen.
A Goddess Reimagined: The NYPL Podcast Episode 214
Madeline Miller’s latest novel, Circe, puts you inside the life of the mythological goddess, one of the great characters of Homer’s Odyssey. Miller discusses her writing process, witchcraft, and why this story resonates today with classicist and translator Emily Wilson, the first woman to translate The Odyssey into English.
Ancient Egyptian metal shrine-shaped case for an animal mummy, topped by a sculpture of a lizard. Artist unknown; 664-30 BCE (Late Period or Ptolemaic). Now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The tomb of King Senwosret III, one of the most renowned pharaohs of ancient Egypt’s Middle Kingdom, is expected to open to the public in about a year or two, allowing tourists to appreciate the architecture of Egyptian builders who constructed the burial complex almost four thousand years ago, according to Dr. Josef Wegner, Associate Curator of the Egyptian Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Penn Museum). He has been excavating in Abydos for decades.
Dated to 1850 BC, it is the largest tomb at Abydo, which is one of the oldest cities of ancient Egypt. The tomb measures 200 meters in length and 45 meters deep. To visualize how massive this is, one would need to imagine a 13 story building underground. “The architecture is amazing,” says Wegner. “It’s like going into a pyramid. It’s architecture is symbolic – depicting the sacred journey into the afterlife.” Read more.
Yesterday archaeologists, who are working at a large burial site in Eyjafjörður fjord in north Iceland, announced that they had discovered the remains of a ship burial dating back to the Viking age. A wealthy chieftain seems to have been buried in one of his boats along with some of his worldly possessions, including a sword and his dog. More unexplored burial sites are believed to be located at the site.
The grave is believed to date back to the 9th or 10th centuries. The sword, which was found close to the surface is in very poor condition. The archaeologists expect to remove the sword from the ground today.
The archaeological dig takes place north of the town of Akureyri at a site which is believed to have been of enormous local importance during the Viking age. A few hundred meters south of the burial site is Gáseyri, which was the primary trading post in Eyjafjörður fjord during the Viking age. Read more.
