Antinoupolis at the British Museum – a project

I was delighted to discover that the British Museum has initiated a project to catalogue its holdings from Antinoupolis in Egypt.  It seems that in 1913-14, John de Monins Johnson excavated at the site; but did not publish his work.  All that appeared in print was literary and documentary texts on papyrus!  The link above takes you to a bunch of objects that the BM holds; and they intend to sort the matter out and publish his papers, etc.

Truly this is a solid and worthwhile enterprise – but then I expect no less from the British Museum, an organisation that has consistently understood what the internet age means for museums and outperformed expectations.

One item on their site caught my eye:

EA1648. Limestone(?) monumental inscription broken away at the right-hand side and bearing seven lines of Greek. The text honours Flavius Maecius Severus Dionysodorus, Platonic philosopher, in a dedication by the Senate of Antinoopolis.

Here it is:

antinoupolis_bm_inscription

The British Museum link gives a transcribed text, and a translation:

For Good Fortune.
Flavius Maecius Sev[erus]
Dionysodorus, one of those
maintained by the Museum, exempt from taxes,
Platonic philosopher and
bouleutes (is honoured by)
the Boulê of the new Hellenes of Antinoupolis.

The city was founded in 130 AD.  The item was purchased on site, not excavated.  If it relates to the Platonic philosopher Severus – quoted by Eusebius, Porphyry and Proclus – then it must be late 2nd century.  This I learn again from the exemplary British Museum page.

An interesting item, on an interesting web site.

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Antinoupolis in 1843 – the traveller John H. Allan

The English traveller John H. Allan went up the Nile, and published his account, with drawings, in 1843, under the name A Pictorial Tour in the Mediterranean (online here).

Coming back down the Nile from Nubia, he visited Antinoe or Antinoupolis, and included a sketch:

John H. Allan. Antinoe. 1843
John H. Allan. Antinoe. 1843

He wrote as follows:

January 31st. – Sheik Abadeh, site of the ancient Antinoe, founded by the Emperor Hadrian.  A walk the village brought us to the remains of a colonnade of granite pillars without capitals. At the back of heaps of rubbish containing many architectural remains we saw a large enclosure said to be the ancient Hippodrome. The direction of its streets is still to be traced running in a regular manner, and judging from the fragments, it must have been a city of great magnificence. A large portion of the ruins were used in constructing the Pasha’s sugar manufactory at Al Rairamoun, on the opposite side of the river, amongst large plantations of sugar cane.

I wonder what became of the granite columns?

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Antinoupolis today

After my last post about Antinoupolis in Egypt in the Napoleonic period, I find that Google Maps can give us interesting pictures of the modern site, a village named Sheikh Ibada / Abada / Ebada (etc).

I also learn from this site that the revolution in Egypt has been a disaster for the site, where the locals have been bulldozing the Hippodrome and other sites.  James B. Heidel, president of the Antinoupolis Foundation writes:

“Each year vast new swathes of ancient cemetery, parts of the ancient city wall, and in the last two years even half of the ancient hipprodrome, have been bulldozed flat, raked with a front loader and marked out with white blocks for new cemetery plots,” Heidel says.

“Two years ago fully half the hippodrome was leveled, and in spite of our protests to the Ministry of Antiquities, no protections were put in place,” he says.

“This year a further, smaller area of it was bulldozed flat, and the construction of walls for tomb plots were completed which were the year before only marked out with pebbles,” he adds.

Those wishing to locate the site will find that the name is given as El-Shaikh Ebada, 10km north of Mallawi in Menia governorate, which is here on Google Maps.

antinoupolis_googlemaps

The satellite view of the ancient city area is as follows, with the Hippodrome clearly visible!  The dark area is the ancient city:

antinoupolis_googlemaps_satellite

Zooming in, I get this:

antinoupolis_googlemaps_satellite_hippodrome

This shows the damage to the Hippodrome clearly, and the encroachment of the fields of modern tombs.

In fact the blog post linked above gives the following picture of the damage, recorded by the Italian excavation team.

antinoopolisdestruction22

Few of us perhaps would ever visit Antinoupolis.  But somehow we are all impoverished by this useless, needless destruction.

UPDATE: I found this small satellite image, from a site dated 2008.  At that time, the left hand side of the Hippodrome was complete.  Apparently “building cemeteries” is a standard ploy for those wishing to dig without permission in Egypt.

2008 Roman circus of Antinoupolis.
2008 Roman circus of Antinoupolis.
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The lost city of Antinoupolis in Egypt, as seen by Napoleon’s expedition

The emperor Hadrian founded (or refounded) a city in Egypt which he called Antinoupolis or Antinoe, in memory of his favourite Antinous.  The city was of considerable extent, and existed into the Islamic period.

The ruins were destroyed in the 19th century for building materials to erect a sugar factory.  However they were still visible as late as 1798, and the Napoleonic Description de l’Egypte (list of volumes here) contains plans and drawings which are, frankly, rather impressive.

Book 14 (1809), Volume IV – Planches : Antiquités, online at Heidelberg, gives us the pictures and plans.  Planches 53-61 are the images from Antinoupolis.  Here is a view of the site:

The ruins of Antinoupolis. Description de l'Egypte.
The ruins of Antinoupolis. Description de l’Egypte.

And here is the plan of the city, albeit at low resolution.  Note the Hippodrome at the top, and the Nile and the modern village at the bottom.

Antinoupolis.  Plan of the city ruins.
Antinoupolis. Plan of the city ruins.

I recommend downloading the PDF from Heidelberg – you can zoom into the pictures and see incredible details.

There are still ruins at Antinoupolis, of course.  A Pharonic temple of Ramasses II still stands, sort of.  Modern excavators have been at work.  But I think we must all mourn the loss of the magnificent colonnades still visible to Napoleon’s men.

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Anthony Alcock: translation Wansleben’s1671 account of Coptic church

Anthony Alcock has translated a curiosity for us: an account of the state of the Coptic church in Egypt made by a certain Johann Michael Wansleben, and published in 1671.[1]  Wansleben was a Lutheran traveller who hoped to reach Ethiopia.  His book is an account of Egypt as it then was.

Here is Dr Alcock’s translation of Wansleben’s account:

Such an early account must be of great interest.  Indeed it would be nice to have all of Wansleben in English.  Thank you, Dr. A., for translating this section.

Here’s a taster from the end, which is interesting in its own right for how Coptic books tended to be alienated from their holders, and why so many Coptic churches were in a disgraceful state when the British arrived in the 19th century:

The Turks genuinely allow each person a free conscience, not only in Egypt but in all their countries, provided it does not affect them. Nonetheless they often deprived Christians of their best churches and monasteries. Some years ago the Monastery of the Raven in Manfalut was turned into a mosque.

Similarly the late Pasha Ibrahim, three years ago, built a mosque in the village of Matariya outside Cairo five miles away where the was a small chapel; behind it a porphyry appeared to foreigners, on top of which the Virgin used to stretch out the clothes of the baby Jesus to dry them after washing. Nearby is the spring that miraculously started to dispense water, thanks to the omnipotence of Jesus, when on His arrival in Egypt he was suffering from great thirst. To this day it still dispenses water so sweet that surpasses in goodness all other waters, whether from the fountains of Cairo or the Nile itself. The Pashas themselves, notwithstanding the distance from their castle or being enemies of Christians and their things, used this water in their refectories. Past the chapel the way leads down to a garden with the fig tree behind which, according to an ancient tradition, Our Lord hid during the persecution by Herod. Opening in the trunk by itself, the fig wove spiders’ webs so thick and old in appearance that they concealed Our Lord from his enemies as they went by and did not look for him. Today no Frank is allowed to visit these places since it is now a mosque.

The Turks also took the Church of Anastasius in Alexandria from the Copts and turned it into a mosque. They make no effort to restore churches fallen into ruin as a result of penalties. Indeed, the Christians are not keen on removing the spiders’ webs for fear that Turks find them attractive.

Moreover, the Turks tax the churches and monasteries heavily, as happened with the Abyssinians in Cairo fourteen years ago. The Pasha of that time, out of a certain apprehension he felt towards them, threatened to take away their churches if they did not pay a certain large sum of money. They were forced to sell the property of the church and their manuscript books to pay this tax, These books, about forty of them, had been sent by Father Eleazar, a Capuchin, to Mgr Pierre Seguier the Great Chancellor of France, in whose house I saw them. That is also the reason why I was able to find almost no Ethiopic book in Cairo, except for four in the possession of the Father, which I copied. These taxes gradually began to annoy the Christians so much that they were no longer able to resist. The number of Coptic churches is constantly being reduced, and I have no doubt that the Turks will soon confiscate the remainder. The Franks are in a better situation than the Copts, because the Turks not only allow them to attend church services without harassing them, but they also have more respect for the missionary Capuchins and Franciscans, who both have their chapels behind their place of residence, each wearing the dress suitable to their order.

All of this harassment and discrimination was normal in Egypt, then as now, as we find from accounts in the History of the Patriarchs of the Coptic Church of Alexandrai.  It was intended as a means to induce the Copts to convert to Islam.  It is remarkable, if we consider that they have suffered thirteen centuries of it, that the Copts have managed to remain in existence.

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  1. [1]J. M. Wansleben, Relazione dell Stato presente dell’Egitto. 1671.  Online here; PDF via here.

List of volumes of the “Description de l’Égypte, ou Recueil des observations et des recherches qui ont été faites en Égypte pendant l’expédition de l’armée française”

Today I found that I needed to consult a plate in the Napoleonic Description de l’Egypte.  I had some difficulty in finding online volumes, and so I compiled the following list.  Please feel free to offer additions in the comments.

 First edition (Imperial edition)

  • Book 01 (1809), Volume I – Antiquités, Descriptions. Heidelberg.
  • Book 02 (1818), Volume II – Antiquités, Descriptions.  GoogleGoogleHeidelberg.
  • Book 03 (1809), Volume I – Antiquités, Mémoires. Google. Heidelberg.
  • Book 04 (1818), Volume II – Antiquités, Mémoires.  Google.
  • Book 05 (1809), Volume I – Etat Moderne. GoogleGoogle. Heidelberg.
  • Book 06 (1822), Volume II – Etat Moderne.  GoogleHeidelberg.
  • Book 07 (1822), Volume II – Etat Moderne (2´ Partie).  Google.  Google. Heidelberg.
  • Book 08 (1809), Volume I – Histoire Naturelle.  GallicaGoogle. Heidelberg.
  • Book 09 (1813), Volume II – Histoire Naturelle. Heidelberg.
  • Book 10 (18xx), Volume I – Préface et explication des planches.  Toulouse.
  • Book 11 (1809), Volume I – Planches : Antiquités.  Heidelberg.  Toulouse.
  • Book 12 (1809), Volume II – Planches : Antiquités.  Heidelberg.  Toulouse.
  • Book 13 (18xx), Volume III – Planches : Antiquités.  Heidelberg.  Toulouse.
  • Book 14 (1809), Volume IV – Planches : Antiquités.  Heidelberg.  Toulouse.
  • Book 15 (1822), Volume V – Planches : Antiquités.  Heidelberg.  Toulouse.
  • Book 16 (1809), Volume I – Planches : Etat Moderne.  Heidelberg.  Toulouse.
  • Book 17 (1817), Volume II – Planches : Etat Moderne.  Heidelberg.  Toulouse.
  • Book 18 (1809), Volume I – Planches : Histoire Naturelle.  Heidelberg.  Toulouse.
  • Book 19 (1809), Volume II – Planches : Histoire Naturelle.  Heidelberg.  Toulouse.
  • Book 20 (1809), Volume IIbis – Planches : Histoire Naturelle.
  • Book 21 (18xx), Volume I – Planches : Antiquités. (“Mammutfolio”)
  • Book 22 (18xx), Volume I – Planches : Etat Moderne. (“Mammutfolio”)
  • Book 23 (1818), Volume I – Planches : Carte géographiques et topographique.(“Mammutfolio”)  Heidelberg.

The volumes at Heidelberg. have a 300mb or 80mb download of PDF for each. The Toulouse volumes mostly seem to be imperfect.

Second edition (Panckoucke edition)

  • Book 01 (1821), Volume I – Tome Premier Antiquités-Descriptions. GallicaArchive.
  • Book 02 (1821), Volume II – Tome Deuxième Antiquités-Descriptions.  GallicaArchive.
  • Book 03 (1821), Volume III – Tome Troisième Antiquités-Descriptions.  GallicaArchive.
  • Book 04 (1822), Volume IV – Tome Quatrième Antiquités-Descriptions. Gallica.
  • Book 05 (1829), Volume V – Tome Cinquième Antiquités-Descriptions. GallicaGoogleGoogle.
  • Book 06 (1822), Volume VI – Tome Sixième Antiquités-Mémoires.  Gallica.  GoogleArchive.
  • Book 07 (1822), Volume VII – Tome Septième Antiquités-Mémoires. GallicaGoogleArchive.
  • Book 08 (1822), Volume VIII – Tome Huitième Antiquités-Mémoires. Gallica.  Google.
  • Book 09 (1829), Volume IX – Tome Neuvième Antiquités-Mémoires et Descriptions. Gallica.
  • Book 10 (1823), Volume X – Explication Des Planches, D’Antiquités.  Gallica.  GoogleArchive.
  • Book 11 (1822), Volume XI – Tome Onzième Etat Moderne. GallicaArchiveArchive.
  • Book 12 (1822), Volume XII – Tome Douzième Etat Moderne. GallicaGallicaGoogleArchive.
  • Book 13 (1823), Volume XIII – Tome Treizième Etat Moderne.  Google.
  • Book 14 (1826), Volume XIV – Tome Quatorzième Etat Moderne.  Gallica.  Archive.
  • Book 15 (1826), Volume XV – Tome Quinzième Etat Moderne. Gallica.  Archive.
  • Book 16 (1825), Volume XVI – Tome Seizième Etat Moderne.  GallicaGoogleArchive.
  • Book 17 (1824), Volume XVII – Tome Dix-Septième Etat Moderne. GallicaArchive.
  • Book 18 (1826), Volume XVIII – Tome Dix-Huitième Etat Moderne.  Gallica.  GoogleArchive.
  • Book 19 (1829), Volume XVIII – Tome Dix-Huitième (2´ Partie) Etat Moderne.  Gallica.  GoogleArchive.
  • Book 20 (1830), Volume XVIII – Tome Dix-Huitième (3´ Partie) Etat Moderne.  GallicaGoogleArchive.
  • Book 21 (1824), Volume XIX – Tome Dix-Neuvième Histoire Naturelle, Botanique-Météorologie.  Gallica.
  • Book 22 (1825), Volume XX – Tome Vingtième Histoire Naturelle. GoogleArchive.
  • Book 23 (1826), Volume XXI – Tome Vingt-Unième Histoire Naturelle, Minieralogie – Zoologie. GallicaArchive.
  • Book 24 (1827), Volume XXII – Tome Vingt-Deuxième Histoire Naturelle, Zoologie. Animaux Invertébrés
    (suite). GallicaGoogleArchive.
  • Book 25 (1828), Volume XXIII – Tome Vingt-Troisième Histoire Naturelle. Zoologie. Animaux Invertébrés
    (suite). Animaux Venteures. GallicaGoogle.
  • Book 26 (1829), Volume XXIV – Tome Vingt-Quatrième Histoire Naturelle, Zoologie. GallicaGoogle.
  • Book 27 (1820), Volume I – Planches : Antiquités.
  • Book 28 (182x), Volume II – Planches : Antiquités.
  • Book 29 (182x), Volume III – Planches : Antiquités.
  • Book 30 (182x), Volume IV – Planches : Antiquités.
  • Book 31 (1823), Volume V – Planches : Antiquités.
  • Book 32 (1822), Volume I – Planches : Etat Moderne.
  • Book 33 (1823), Volume II – Planches : Etat Moderne.
  • Book 34 (1826), Volume I – Planches : Histoire Naturelle.
  • Book 35 (1826), Volume II – Planches : Histoire Naturelle.
  • Book 36 (1826), Volume IIbis – Planches : Histoire Naturelle.
  • Book 37 (1826), Volume I – Planches : Atlas géographique.

The raw list of volumes is from Wikipedia, which unfortunately had no links.

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More Egypt vandalism: the museum in Minya attacked and looted by Muslim Brotherhood

Minya_Malawi_Museum_2013_5From the Daily Mail (h/t Nebraska Energy Observer):

Looters ransack Egyptian antiques museum and snatch priceless artefacts as  armed police move inside stormed Cairo mosque

  • Museum in the Upper Egyptian city of  Minya was broken into on Thursday.
  • Ministry accused Muslim Brotherhood  supporters of breaking in.

Egypt’s famous Malawi National Museum has  been ransacked, looted and smashed up by vandals in another example of the  recent unrest in the country.

Photos of the damaged artefacts and empty  display cases were released this afternoon as supporters of deposed President  Mohamed Morsi fought a gunbattle with security forces in a Cairo  mosque.

According to a statement made by the Ministry  of Antiquities, the museum, in the Upper  Egyptian city of Minya, was allegedly broken into and some artifacts were  damaged and stolen on Thursday evening.

Scroll down for videos

It not yet clear what is missing – a list is  being compiled to ensure the artefacts are not smuggled out the country.

All of which is very bad.  But there is worse yet, improbable as it may seem.  At the bottom of the article we read:

We are no longer accepting comments on this article.

We need hardly ask, in these days of political correctness, when expressing negative opinions about certain favoured groups is a matter for the police, why the proprietor of the newspaper has instructed his staff to ensure that ordinary mortals are not permitted to express their disgust.  What hope for the civilised world, when the defenders of it are not permitted even to object to the actions of the barbarians?

It is as if Luke Skywalker were not permitted to mention that Darth Vader had something to do with the Death Star.  Such a path must bring ruin on the world.

While we are still permitted to say anything — the BBC has omitted to report on all this — here are some more of the photos that the Mail posted.

Minya_Malawi_Museum_2013_1Minya_Malawi_Museum_2013_2Minya_Malawi_Museum_2013_3Minya_Malawi_Museum_2013_4

Update: I see no sign of BBC reporting this story.  Protect the Pope has a list of further attacks on churches, equally unreported.

Update2: With some difficulty, I eventually found a BBC story by John McManus, reporting on some of the attacks on churches, from yesterday (16 August 2013).  It’s not very good, nor very visible:

Egypt crisis: Churches ‘under attack’

At least 25 churches across Egypt have been attacked by arsonists in a wave of anti-Christian violence, a non-governmental group has said.

Homes and businesses have also been targeted, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) says.

Witnesses described the attackers as shouting slogans in support of ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.

But his Muslim Brotherhood supporters say it is the military regime that is instigating the violence.

It is impossible to say whether the decision to break up the pro-Morsi camps in Cairo was the trigger for the church attacks.

But Egypt’s minority religion has often borne the brunt of discrimination and violence from some Islamists.

The article does not state at any point who is actually doing the violence, preferring to suggest that these are claims by one group.

We should note the scare quotes in the heading, and the claim that violence is from “some Islamists”.   Perhaps the BBC could do a little more, and use its correspondents on the ground to investigate the facts?

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The man who discovered Egypt – a BBC TV programme on Flinders Petrie

Last night, quite by accident, I found myself watching The man who discovered Egypt, an hour-long documentary on the founder of modern archaeology (and Egyptology), Flinders Petrie.  For the first time in a long time I watched a TV programme all the way through.  It was excellent!

Ancient Egypt was vandalised by tomb raiders and treasure hunters until one Victorian adventurer took them on. Most of us have never heard of Flinders Petrie, but this maverick genius underook a scientific survey of the pyramids, discovered the oldest portraits in the world, unearthed Egypt’s prehistoric roots – and in the process invented modern field archaeology, giving meaning to a whole civilisation.

Among the material most interesting were bunches of the Fayuum mummy portraits, which Petrie unearthed at Hawara.  Most of these were unfamiliar to me.  It is worth remembering that we see the same few examples again and again; but there are a lot out there which we never see.

The Radio Times comments as well (ignore the political correctness; the film itself is pretty free of such nonsense).

 

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Egypt and Archduke Rainer

I wonder how many of us know the name of Archduke Rainer?  Very few, I would imagine.  Yet he played an important part in the history of Egyptology. 

Archduke Rainer (1827-1913) was an Austrian nobleman, some time Prime Minister of Austria.  He is notable for his collection of Egyptological items.  In particular his collection of papyri is supposedly the largest known.  He donated it to the national collection in Vienna in 1899.  It includes Arabic papyri, and shows the process of transition in documents in Egypt from papyrus to paper.[1]

In 1877 thousands of papyri were discovered in the Fayyum, at the site of ancient Arsinoe.  There were also substantial discoveries at Heracleopolis and Hermopolis, near by.  These items were recognised by those who found them as precious, and so worth preserving, and went on to the art market.[2]  They came into the hands of a Cairo dealer named Theodor Graf (1840-1903), who sold them in lots, first to the Louvre and the Berlin Museum and then, from 1883-4 on, to Archduke Rainer. Graf also owned some of the Fayyum portraits.[3]

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  1. [1]S. Adshead, China in World History, p.97: “The Archduke Rainer collection illustrates the change from papyrus to paper in Egypt. All thirty-six manuscripts from 719 to 815 are papyrus, between 816 and 912, there are ninety-six papyrus to twenty-four paper, one document apologising …
  2. [2]John Muir, Life and Letters in the Ancient Greek World, 2008, p.25.
  3. [3]Georg Ebers, Theodor Graf, The Hellenic portraits from the Fayum at present in the collection of Herr Graf, 1893, p.4-5.

Al-Maqrizi on the pyramids

Jason Colavito has done something great, and something sensible.  He has translated all the passages in al-Maqrizi’s al-Khitat which relate to the pyramids of Egypt and placed them online:

Ancient astronaut proponent Giorgio Tsoukalos claims that the fourteenth century Al-Khitat of Al-Maqrizi (1364-1442 CE) contains evidence that ancient astronauts assisted human beings in the construction of Egypt’s pyramids. This book, the most significant collection of medieval Arabian and Coptic pyramid lore ever assembled, has never been translated into English, so I have translated the passages dealing with pyramids to make this text accessible to interested readers. The following contains all of the significant references to the pyramids in the volume, though some minor allusions have been omitted.

He adds, quite properly:

I do not speak Arabic, so I am translating from the French edition published in 1895 and 1900. I cannot claim to be a professional translator, so before citing any material below, be sure to consult the original Arabic version.

The fact is, however, that this enterprise will still make these passages far more accessible.  It is rather a point against the “ancient astronauts” people that they have not made such a translation. 

It doesn’t seem to be possible to add comments, or I would have asked where he found the French edition.  I suspect it is online somewhere, and it would be nice to know where.  The book itself should plainly be translated into English in its entirety.

(Via Paleobabble)

UPDATE: From Wikipedia I get the following:

The most important is the Mawaiz wa al-‘i’tibar bi dhikr al-khitat wa al-‘athar (2 vols., Bulaq, 1854), translated into French by Urbain Bouriant as Description topographique et historique de l’Égypte (Paris, 1895–1900; compare A. R. Guest, “A List of Writers, Books and other Authorities mentioned by El Maqrizi in his Khitat,” in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1902, pp. 103–125).

Volume 1 is on Google books here.

The whole book in two volumes is at Gallica.bnf.fr here.

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