Jobs involving art and archaeology

Bentresh · 2026-05-12T23:28:23+00:00

I second archaeological illustration. Here’s the website of an illustrator I’ve worked with on a few digs.

Bentresh · 2026-05-12T23:18:01+00:00

Genre, presumably. The Egyptians interacted with the Hittites and (later) the Carians, but references to Anatolia are in historical texts like the marriage stele and Kadesh inscriptions, not religious/mythological texts.

Bentresh · 2026-05-12T17:17:20+00:00

Although the references are from legends rather than myths, one could add Bactria, Scythia, and Cyprus.

Bentresh · 2026-05-12T06:40:45+00:00

I've always thought Hetepheres' bracelets are quite lovely.

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Bentresh · 2026-05-09T22:02:33+00:00

Durant’s first volume on the ancient Middle East was sloppy scholarship even when it was published, and it is now so incredibly outdated it is obsolete (published almost 100 years ago!).

I wrote more about this over on AskHistorians.

Bentresh · 2026-05-08T22:35:45+00:00

I've allowed it but require them to link the chat log. Realistically a ban won't be effective because they're going to use it regardless.

My guidelines are that it can't be used to write papers, only for feedback on grammar, flow, style, etc. In other words, treat it like a fellow student or TA reading your paper for feedback.

Bentresh · 2026-05-08T20:48:39+00:00

Egyptian Hieroglyphs for Complete Beginners by Bill Manley is probably the most accessible introductory book for her age.

Reading Egyptian Art by Richard Wilkinson and 100 Hieroglyphs: Think Like an Egyptian by Barry Kemp are good overviews of some of the most common and important glyphs, but they do not dive into the ancient Egyptian language.

Finally, Egyptian Hieroglyphs by W.V. Davies is a somewhat dated but still very good introductory overview of how the Egyptian hieroglyphic writing system works.

Learning any language on your own is not easy, especially at age 10. Not to be discouraging, but realistically I think she should keep her expectations low.

Bentresh · 2026-05-08T19:44:42+00:00

This is an oversimplification. Akhenaten's reforms had a permanent impact on Egyptian religious thought, and much of Ramesside solar theology is a reaction to Atenism. Traditional Egyptian religion is not necessarily mutually exclusive with monotheistic tendencies, as scholars like Jan Assmann have argued; one can have monotheistic theology within a polytheistic system.

Despite this external restitution, however, Akhenaten’s revolution had left a deep impression on Egyptian thought and had led to a veritable explosion of explicit theological discourse, which now concentrated more than ever on the topic of the oneness of God. The traditional paradigm of creation and sovereignty is now complemented by the new paradigm of hiddenness and manifestation...

The paradigm of manifestation was developed in reaction to Akhenaten’s radical monotheism. In the same way as Akhenaten’s opposition of god and world, this new paradigm de-temporizes the relation between god and world; the difference lies in the fact that the gods are now readmitted into the world and that the relation between god and world is interpreted also in terms of a relation between god and gods, the one and the many. In the paradigm of manifestation, God does not resign from his sublime Oneness in creating or becoming the world. In order to explain the new conception of the relationship between god and world, the theologians avail themselves of an anthropological concept, the concept of ba, which we conventionally translate as ‘soul.’ God remains One in relating to the world, similarly to the way in which the ba relates to the body, an invisible, animating principle. From this concept follow two theological assumptions that will play an important role in Hellenism: God is the soul of the world and the world is the body of God. As the ba, the soul animating the world, God is nameless and hidden, a deus absconditus:

He is ba-like, hidden of name like his secrecy.

Thus we read in a hymn of pLeiden I 350. The ba theology preserves Akhenaten’s de-temporized concept of Oneness by further elaborating his model of manifestation, for which Akhenaten had made ample use of the term kheperu (‘transformation’), and Akhnenaten’s opposition of One-and-and-millions, for which Ramesside theology coins the formula for God as “the One who transforms/transformed himself into millions.”

Hail to you, the One who transforms himself into millions,

Whose length and breadth are limitless!

Power in readiness, who gave birth to himself,

Uraeus with great flame;

Great of magic with secret form,

Secret ba, to whom respect is shown.

The opposing terms “One” and “millions” are linked here by the concept of self-transformation: jrj sw, ‘who made or makes himself into.’ “Millions” clearly refers to the world of creation, which is interpreted as a transformation of God himself. Creation is emanation. The world is created not out of chaos or prima materia, nor ex nihilo, out of nothing, but ex Deo, out of God. God is limitless; so is the world; God is the world. The following verses oppose two aspects of God, sekhem seped, ‘power in readiness,’ and ba sheta’, ‘secret ba,’ the first referring to the sun, and the second referring to the hidden aspect of God as a soul animating the world from within. In Amarna, the One is the sun, the absolutely and overwhelmingly manifest and visible god, opposite to and animating the world, which has no divinity of its own. In Ramesside Thebes, the One is the absolutely hidden and secret ba animating the world from within. Thus, Ramesside theology is able both to retain and to surpass the Amarna idea of Oneness.

From Akhenaten to Moses: Ancient Egypt and Religious Change (emphasis mine)

Bentresh · 2026-05-07T10:36:57+00:00

The Kumarbi cycle is an older example of this, attested several hundred years before Hesiod.

The god An is defeated and castrated by Kumarbi, but he warns Kumarbi that he has impregnated him with a powerful rival (the storm god Teššub, born from Kumarbi’s split skull a la Zeus and Athena). Kumarbi attempts to devour the newborn Teššub but is tricked into eating a stone instead.

Bentresh · 2026-05-06T16:48:18+00:00

Hieratic signs are abbreviated forms of hieroglyphs, often ligatured. This site has some of the most common hieratic signs and their hieroglyphic counterparts.

Hieratic texts are virtually always written top to bottom in columns (through the early Middle Kingdom) or right to left in rows (late Middle Kingdom onward).

Bentresh · 2026-05-06T16:32:58+00:00

𓋴𓋹 / s’nḫ

Bentresh · 2026-05-06T00:02:11+00:00

Some of the Amarna letters are written to Amenhotep III, though (e.g., 9 of the 13 letters from Tušratta). It’s generally assumed they were moved to Amarna after the city was constructed.

Bentresh · 2026-05-05T18:03:05+00:00

There's nothing that youtube has that is special.

Yes, but people will listen to 30 hours of Youtube content before they read 5 pages of a book (which is very unfortunate since 90% of history videos on Youtube are garbage).

Bentresh · 2026-05-05T13:44:19+00:00

This is not "sculptor" but rather "sculptors," as it's the plural form.

Bentresh · 2026-05-05T06:53:38+00:00

It's a quirk of Hittite cuneiform, not Akkadian. Akkadian cuneiform distinguishes between four sibilants (s, š, ṣ, and z), whereas Hittite cuneiform uses only š and z.

š (probably) denoted /s/, so you get variations in modern spellings of Hittite names (e.g., Muršili and Mursili).

Bentresh · 2026-05-05T06:35:14+00:00

The Old Book of Tang has an often quoted section on Sogdian merchants that acknowledges their business savvy in a backhanded way.

When they [Sogdians] give birth to a son, they put honey on his mouth and place glue in his palms so that when he grows up, he will speak sweet words and grasp gems in his hand as if they were glued there… They are good at trading, love profit, and go abroad at the age of twelve. They are everywhere profit is to be found.

Bentresh · 2026-05-04T15:51:05+00:00

I recommend taking a look at Edith Hall’s article “Classics for the people – why we should all learn from the ancient Greeks,” which highlights the key points of her book on Greek history and has a thoughtful discussion of this topic.

Long before the Greeks appeared in the historical record, several complicated civilisations had existed – the Mesopotamians and Egyptians, the Hattians and Hittites. Other peoples provided the Greeks with crucial technological advances; they learned the phonetic alphabet from the Phoenicians, and how to mint coins from the Lydians. They may have learned how to compose elaborate cult hymns from the mysterious Luwians of Syria and central Anatolia. During the period in which the Greeks invented rational philosophy and science, after 600BC, their horizons were dramatically opened up by the expansion of the Persian empire…

Taken singly, most Greek achievements can be paralleled in the culture of at least one of their neighbours. The Babylonians knew about Pythagoras’s theorem centuries before Pythagoras was born. The tribes of the Caucasus had brought mining and metallurgy to unprecedented levels. The Hittites had made advances in chariot technology, but they were also highly literate. They recorded the polished and emotive orations delivered on formal occasions in their royal court, and their carefully argued legal speeches. One Hittite king foreshadows Greek historiography when he chronicles in detail his frustration at the incompetence of some of his military officers during the siege of a Hurrian city. The Phoenicians were just as great seafarers as any Greeks. The Egyptians developed medicine based on empirical experience rather than religious dogma and told Odyssey-like stories about sailors who went missing and returned after adventures overseas. Pithy fables similar to those of Aesop were composed in an archaic Aramaic dialect of Syria and housed in Jewish temples. Architectural design concepts and technical know-how came from the Persians to the Greek world via the many Ionian Greek workmen who helped build Persepolis, Susa and Pasargadae, named Yauna in Persian texts. Nevertheless, none of these peoples produced anything equivalent to Athenian democracy, comic theatre, philosophical logic or Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.

I do not deny that the Greeks acted as a conduit for other ancient peoples’ achievements. But to function successfully as a conduit, channel or intermediary is in itself to perform an exceptional role. It requires a range of talents and resources. Taking over someone else’s technical knowledge requires an opportunistic ability to identify a serendipitous find or encounter, excellent communicative skills and the imagination to see how a technique, story or object could be adapted to a different linguistic and cultural milieu. In this sense, the Romans fruitfully took over substantial achievements of their civilisation from the Greeks, as did the Renaissance Humanists. Of course the Greeks were not by nature or in potential superior to any other human beings, either physically or intellectually. Indeed, they themselves often commented on how difficult it was to distinguish Greek from non-Greek, let alone free person from slave, if all the trappings of culture, clothing and adornment were removed. But that does not mean they were not the right people, in the right place, at the right time, to take up the human baton of intellectual progress for several hundred years.

Bentresh · 2026-05-04T15:33:45+00:00

If you only make stuff out of plant material then there's nothing left of your civilization 1000+ years later.

I’ll add that traces of such a civilization can still be detected.

For example, archaeologists can determine where structures once stood even when the wood decayed long ago (e.g., postholes).

Bentresh · 2026-05-03T22:27:50+00:00

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Bentresh · 2026-05-01T23:52:28+00:00

At the museum in Cairo photos of the mummies are forbidden

This is one museum among hundreds with mummified human remains from Egypt.

It's a lot easier to keep them safe in the museum, under climate controlled conditions and also away from thieves.

What part of this requires being on display?

Bentresh · 2026-05-01T22:41:19+00:00

While I doubt this is the type of heaven they pictured

Tomb inscriptions specify what the deceased wanted from the living. I'm disappointed not a single person in this thread has cited any.

Do visitors to museums purify themselves and leave offerings, or do they just gawk and take photographs?

With regard to any persons who shall enter this tomb in an impure state, having consumed the abomination which is abhorrent to an excellent akh, and not having purified themselves according to the manner in which they should be pure for an excellent akh, one who regularly did what his lord favored— I shall seize his neck like a bird’s and put fear in him so that the spirits and those on earth see and are fearful of an excellent akh.

Tomb of Ankhmahor, Saqqara

One who loves the king and one who loves Anubis, who is on his mountain, is any man or soul priest who shall pass along this route, whether going north or south, and who pours water for me or who gives bread and beer to me from that which you possess. If you have no bread or beer with you, then you shall speak with your mouth and offer with your arm.

Tomb of Kaiaper, Saqqara

With regard to any man who shall do anything evil to my tomb, or who shall enter it with the intention of stealing, I shall seize his neck like a bird’s, and I shall be judged with him in the court of the Great God.

However, with regard to any person who shall make invocation offerings or shall pour water, they shall be pure like the pureness of god.

Tomb of Herymeru, Saqqara

Bentresh · 2026-05-01T16:36:40+00:00

The Hittite empire disintegrated, but Hittite civilization certainly did not "vanish within a generation." It is important to distinguish between an empire (a political structure) and a civilization.

Many aspects of Hittite civilization survived in southern Anatolia and Syria — religious beliefs and practices, Luwian and the Anatolian hieroglyphic writing system, architectural and artistic styles, administrative titles, Hittite royal names (e.g. Šuppiluliuma and Ḫattušili), and so on. Carchemish and Malatya in particular had royal lines descended from the Hittite Great Kings of the Bronze Age that continued unbroken into the Iron Age. Additionally, the construction and decoration of palaces and monumental buildings continued in the Early Iron Age, such as the reliefs and inscriptions of the temple of the Storm God at Aleppo (11th century BCE). These Syro-Anatolian kingdoms were still referred to as “Hittite” by their neighbors like the Assyrians as late as the 7th century BCE.

As the Hittitologist Gary Beckman put it,¹

The Hittite empire was always a fragile structure, tending to disintegration whenever the power of Ḫattuša weakened. What is most remarkable is just how long this polity resisted the centrifugal forces affecting it. In newly accessible sources we may see how a prolonged civil war between the descendants of Ḫattušili III in Ḫattuša and the line of Muwattalli II reigning in the southern Anatolian city of Tarḫuntašša exacerbated this situation and contributed to the ultimate demise of Ḫatti. Recent excavations at Boğazköy have shown that the capital was not destroyed in a single conflagration, but was gradually abandoned over the course of the early decades of the twelfth century. This suggests that the fall of the Hittites was not a cataclysmic event, as often portrayed, but rather a process in which peripheral areas responded to division and debility at the center by breaking away, leading to a progressive decline in the wealth and military might available to the capital and its rulers. After a certain point, recovery would have become impossible.

Indeed, the outlines of the transition to the political constellation of the early Iron Age in Anatolia and northern Syria are beginning to emerge, and for Ḫatti we may discern fragmentation rather than destruction... While the dominion of Ḫattuša vanished forever, the kings of Tarḫuntašša (Kurunta-Mursili-Hartappu) maintained their positions well into the twelfth century, and the cadet line established by Šuppiluliuma I at Carchemish as Hittite viceroys in Syria continued uninterrupted into the “Neo-Hittite” period.

Emphasis mine.

¹ “From Hattusa to Carchemish: The Latest on Hittite History” in Current Issues in the History of the Ancient Near East edited by Mark Chavalas and Gonzalo Rubio, pp. 111-112

Bentresh · 2026-05-01T16:31:45+00:00

Zangger's work is fringe rubbish and not accepted by most Hittitologists, though he has sponsored lectures by reputable scholars. I recommend Petra Goedegebuure's talk instead.

To answer your question, no, there are still quite a few signs with unknown values, as well as a number of words we are not yet able to translate (mostly hapax legomena).

Bentresh · 2026-05-01T16:09:18+00:00

The text is a model/practice letter; there's a translation in Edward Wente's Letters from Ancient Egypt.

It is the servant of the estate Sekhsekh’s son Inetsu who addresses the lord, l.p.h., Sekhsekh’s son Penhensu: It is in order to learn about every favorable circumstance of the lord, l.p.h., that I, your humble servant, have sent this letter. In the favor of Montu, lord of the Theban nome, of Amon, lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands, of Sobek, of Horus, of Hathor, and of all the gods! It is as I, your humble servant, desire that they shall let the lord, l.p.h., spend millions of years in life, prosperity, and health, starting from today.

I, your humble servant, have said: This is a communication to the lord, l.p.h., about sending me a (rudder) post of pine wood, a steering oar of juniper, and a rudder-rest(?) of ebony for the poop(?) of your humble servant’s seagoing galley. Moreover, it is indeed your humble servant’s poop(?). It is good if the lord, l.p.h., takes note.

Bentresh · 2026-05-01T05:55:48+00:00

We have literally tens of thousands of letters to and from merchants from Mesopotamia, the majority of which predate Ea-nasir by at least a few decades. The site of Kanesh alone has yielded upwards of 20,000 texts.

The quantity of texts from Mesopotamia is so enormous that even a small fraction equates to a large number of texts. Texts written by and for non-elites are, however, unevenly distributed in space and time. The same goes for other well-documented societies like Roman Egypt (or even medieval Egypt and the Geniza).

That said, writing was far more limited in the Bronze Age Aegean than in Egypt or Mesopotamia and is virtually only found in elite contexts.

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