Egyptomania

A 3,000-Year old artificial toe from Ancient Egypt is thought to be the world’s earliest functional prosthetic body part. It was discovered in a tomb near the city of Luxor in 1997 attached to a mummy of a woman named “Ta bakit an mut”. This woman was the daughter of “Amun” a priest who lived in Egypt during the transition period of the 3 rd dynasty of ancient Egypt (710-915 B.C) . Necessity is the mother of invention “Ta bakit an mut” suffered from Atherosclerosis and had her big toe (the hallux) amputated through a skillfully performed surgical procedure using advanced medicine in ancient Egypt. This resulted in complete healing of the skin naturally. It is known that the big toe carries 40% of the body weight and is responsible for forwarding propulsion. Since the ancient Egyptians used to walk in sandals, it was necessary to make a prosthetic device so that “Ta bakit an mut” can lead a normal life. The ancient prosthetic toe display at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization,...

We aren’t exaggerating when we say that most of our knowledge of ancient Egypt is owed to the hard work of the scribes. It is a fact. Scribes used to work for the Pharaohs or temple priests. They wrote everything down starting from the procedures in courts, magic spells, legal contracts, all the way to tax records for the government. They wrote on different mediums like obelisks, pyramids, tombs, sarcophagi, statues, and papyrus scrolls . The scribe’s equipment The scribes used specific equipment to help them write easily. This kit is called "sesh" in hieroglyphics. The term is more accurately translated as “to draw” or “to create” rather than “to write”. The most common equipment was a rectangular palette or a case with a very small leather bag to hold pigments and a long pen case to hold reed pens. The scribes also used a pot of water to wet the pigments and the reed pens. We can also see small circular cavities to hold the pigment on the palette itself. We found m...

Black is the colour of the land after the flood and is the symbol of the fertility it brings to the land. In Ancient Egypt, the colour was frequently used for eye make-up as well as wall paintings, statues' coatings and tombs.  Black pigment rarely had the inorganic origin of the Pyrolusite (Manganese dioxide) mineral. Galena (lead sulphide) was used a bit more commonly for cosmetic purposes until it was replaced by carbon black and Kohl sticks. All the mineral  ores were simply ground to produce the pigment, whereas Kohl was only soot from burning plant. The most common pigment of all is  carbon black. It was extracted from organic charcoal. Charcoal was made mostly from burned plant material. Pyrolusite appears to have been much less robust than carbon black.  When it comes to coatings on statues and coffins, black was made with bitumen or heated-till-blackened pistacia resin (yellow mastic). The resin was either used as both the pigment and the binding material si...