Classical Inquiries has a guest blog post ‘Blond hair in the tomb of Meresankh?’ by Dr. Peter Der Manuelian. He is the Philip J. King Professor of Egyptology and Director of the Harvard Semitic Museum. His primary research interests include ancient Egyptian history, archaeology, epigraphy, the development of mortuary architecture, and the (icono)graphic nature of Egyptian language and culture in general. He has published on diverse topics and periods in Egyptian history, but currently focuses on the third millennium BC, and specifically on the famous Giza Necropolis, just west of modern Cairo. The Harvard University-Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition excavated major portions of the site between 1905 and 1947. Since 2000, the “Giza Archives Project” aims to collect and present online all past, present, and future archaeological activity at Giza.
The Giza Archives
Surrounding the Giza Pyramids are thousands of ancient tombs, temples, settlements, and artifacts. Archaeological discoveries continue to this day. This website is a comprehensive resource for research on Giza. It contains photographs and other documentation from the original Harvard University – Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition (1904 to 1947), from recent MFA fieldwork, and from other expeditions, museums, and universities around the world.
A 3D technology provides an interactive tool to engage with the Giza project. You can explore the insides of Giza pyramids and have a virtual tour. At the moment, the platform is available for PC, Windows only.
The Giza Digital Library provides freely accessible monographs, articles, and manuscripts on the Giza Necropolis. Converted to PDF format, these publications fill two Egyptological needs:
- they make invaluable but rare and out-of-print publications available to millions, and
- most of the publications are text-searchable PDF files, a useful aid in streamlining research, thanks to OCR (optical character recognition).
Sources: Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University
https://nelc.fas.harvard.edu/people/peter-der-manuelian
Giza Archives Project http://www.gizapyramids.org
Photo credit:
The Giza Necropolis, looking southeast across the Western Cemetery; photograph © Marcello Bertinetti/Archivio White Star
Museum of Fine Arts Boston, The Giza Archives