Shopping by Culture, Ancient Egypt
As the King Tut exhibit makes its way through the United States, we're hearing from our grandchildren that they're studying a unit on Egypt, which perhaps now exceeds dinosaurs in popularity and interest.
Spending time at the British Museum site led us to, of course, their shop, prompted by a pair of Shokugan canopic jars of Neshkons. You say, 'what'? Okay, we perhaps didn't know what these attractive jars were but ...
"Stone jars made to store the liver, lungs, stomach and intestines of a mummified body. When a body was preserved as a mummy, the internal organs were taken out quickly after death. The heart, the 'seat of understanding' was left in place. The liver,lungs, stomach and intestines were placed in four different containers. The wooden lids of these jars represent the Sons of Horus, four minor gods who protected the organs that they contained. The stomach was protected by Duamutef (jackal), the liver by Imsety (human), the lungs by Hapy (baboon), and the intestines by Qebehsenuef (falcon)." Perhaps not the most appealing of all descriptions, but certainly different. And for £3.99, not an outrageous amount of money.
For a little under £10, a book on the The Cat in Ancient Egypt is available: "Many modern cats are descendants of the cats of Ancient Egypt. These beautiful creatures thus represent a living link between the modern world and the Ancient Egyptian civilization. Cats in Egypt were probably domesticated by around 4,000 BC, from wild ancestors. Over the following centuries, they became popular household pets; they are regularly shown in tomb paintings of family life. They were also seen as manifestations of the goddess Bastet, and Dr Malek draws on a vast range of artistic and written sources to show how they became one of the most widely esteemed and revered animals in Egypt. In the Late Period, enormous numbers of mummified cats were buried with honours, and bronze statuettes of cats were dedicated to temples during religious festivals. Dr Malek ends by describing how cats fared in Egypt in the post-pharaonic period." You can add to the fascination we have for these tomb cats by a necklet portraying the graceful and iconic Gayer Anderson Cat.
Or perhaps a book, An Ancient Egyptian Herbal, might fascinate: An for £9.99: "The Ancient Egyptians were highly skilled in the use of herbs and spices for medicines, cooking, cosmetics, perfumes and many other purposes. Drawing on texts written by the Egyptians and their neighbours, and on works by classical authors and the Copts, Lise Manniche has reconstructed an herbal of 94 species of plants and trees used from before the pharaohs to the Coptic period. Each plant is named in Latin and English and, where known, in ancient Egyptian, Greek and modern Arabic. An account is given of the plants' special properties, with authentic recipes for cosmetics and cures. In her introduction, the author discusses the many uses the Ancient Egyptians made of herbs and flowers, and the importance of plants for funerary and festive occasions. This updated edition includes an expanded introduction with information from the latest analyses from the Louvre and L'Oreal laboratories on the use of 'wet chemistry' in the preparation of cosmetics ..."
