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Noreen
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Noreen Doyle's Blog Recent posts 26 August 2009 NEWS Subject: Egyptology, Nautical Archaeology "An Exploratory Geophysical Survey at the Pyramid Complex of Senwosret III at Dahshur, Egypt, in Search of Boats," which discusses fieldwork performed by my coauthors in 2007, appears in the September 2009 issue of the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology. The abstract is available here. 5 August 2009 NEWS Subject: Photography The photo galleries are slowly going up, after a fashion. I have put up a "sampler" temporary gallery and a selection of photographs from the Egyptian site of Mo'alla, setting of my 2004 historical fantasy novelette, "Ankhtifi the Brave is dying." 8 April 2009 Wednesday NEWS Subject: Old News, Photography The jurors of the "Up Against the Wall" show at the Harlow Gallery (Michael Hudak, Judith Herman, and Kelly Herlihy) have bestowed upon "Trouble on the Tracks" an award as the show's "Most Alarming Situation." 1 April 2009 Wednesday NEWS Subject: Old News, Photography  No,
this wasn't an April Fools' Day joke! I came upon this scene in July of
2007. "Trouble on the Tracks" is featured in "Up Against the Wall:
Everyday Humor in Art," a juried show at the Harlow Gallery
on Water Street in Hallowell, Maine, 3-24 April 2009. Prints (11x14 or 8x10) are available, either matted or unmatted. Contact me for details.17 November 2008 Monday NEWS Subject: Old News, Writing  My latest anthology, Otherworldly Maine, published by Down East Books, continues to garner good reviews. Check out the anthology home page
for the latest praise--and not to mention the complete table of
contents, to see what authors have been generating all the buzz! (Hint:
Mark Twain, Elizabeth Hand, Jack Chalker, Edgar Pangborn, Melanie Tem,
Gardner Dozois, Greg Feeley... and more!) If the humble editor
may say so herself, it's a great holiday gift for those who love Maine
or, quite frankly, for anyone who appreciates good fantasy, science
fiction, and horror. (And don't just take my word for it. Check out the
reviews.)10 November 2007 Saturday Sometimes Neglect Leads to Interesting Things Subject: Photography, Writing  Story ideas are sometimes like this. You know you have something that could be interesting but you can't make anything of it yet. It seems flat, dull, ordinary. So you put it off into the back of your mind and forget about it for a while. And then, when you come to it again, maybe now enough dust and spider silk have gathered about it and you see it in just the right light. . . . COMMENTS? Would you like to buy a print or lease rights? E-mail me. 9 November 2007 Friday UPDATE: A Private Audience with the King Subject: Egyptology, Mummymania The mummy of Tutankhamun has been put on view. The one time I turned the TV on in the hotel room at the (highly recommended) Carriage House Inn in Saratoga Springs, just before leaving the World Fantasy Convention, was just in time to catch live video of the installation. News stories abound. A selection: Al-Ahram Weekly National Geographic The Associated Press The New York Times The Independent (Ireland) (an op-ed piece regarding the ethics of displaying mummies; Philip Hesner's views on the subject are not entirely mine, but I do respect what he writes and believe that all should give due consideration to the issue and decide not only what their own opinion is but why) COMMENTS? E-mail me. 24 October 2007 Wednesday A Private Audience with the King Subject: Egyptology, Mummymania September 11, 2002, while most of my fellow Americans were commemorating the first anniversary of that most awful day, I was walking in the nearly deserted Valley of the Kings. Other tourists were there, to be sure, but in no great numbers. Americans were scarce on the ground, and Egyptians tended to be shocked (and pleased, once they recovered) to be encountering an American. I had traveled from England to Egypt as part of a mixed group of tourists, mostly British, but the Netherlands and South Africa were also represented among us. In the hotels and on the sites we passed Germans, French, Italians, and Japanese, but encountered no Americans until a few days later, when I ran into one filming the Step Pyramid at Saqqara. But all tourists, it seemed, were not as thick on the ground as they might have been -- certainly compared to January of this year. Under other circumstances, I expect that my visit to the tomb of Tutankhamun would have been very different.  September 11, 2002: Valley of the Kings
©2002 Noreen Doyle
 Entrance to the tomb of Tutankhamun, 2002 ©2002 Noreen Doyle  Entrance to the tomb of Tutankhamun, 1920s-30s
Keystone stereoview card (9864T) Even before the current ban on photography in tombs and museums, cameras of any kind were not permitted in KV62, as Tutankhamun's tomb is officially known. With some trepidation I surrendered my F100 to the attendant. And with Rosemary, one of my fellow tourists, we stepped down into what is perhaps the most famous final resting place on earth, ready to jam elbow-to-elbow with whatever tour group had preceded us. The corridor leads to the Antechamber, empty now of the "wonderful things" Howard Carter glimpsed by candlelight on November 27, 1922. When we entered, it was empty of anything. No crowds stood with us. None at all. We two were alone, almost. The door to the Treasury, formerly guarded by lithe Anubis reclining atop a gilded chest, is walled off. But another wall has been taken down to give a view to the Burial Chamber, which once would have seemed a solid wall of gold. Found occupied by a series of nested, gilded shrines nearly too big for the space, the Burial Chamber, like the other rooms, has given up almost all its treasures to the Luxor Museum and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The king himself remains, as he was ever meant to. Oh, yes, Tutankhamun's intended tomb was never finished and was used to bury his successor (and, as some would have it, murderer), Ay. And yes, Carter's team broke apart Tutankhamun's body so that it is hardly in the condition that his embalmers (or himself) could have wished. But in KV62, for a while, were just the three of us: the king, Rosemary, and I. Only a few yards, a dusty Plexiglas laid atop the otherwise open sarcophagus, and a solid gold coffin separated us from Nebkheprure Tutankhamun. We three stood (and lay) in contemplative silence, watched over by the few figures that decorate the wall. The simplicity of these paintings provides stark contrast to the opulence of many of the objects once crammed into the chambers. They record events of the last day Tutankhamun spent in the world of the living, but the king himself is already dead. "The great officials of the palace" drag his mummy to the tomb. Ay, Tutankhamun's vizier and successor, raises an adze to Tutankhamun's lips in a key act of the Opening of the Mouth ceremony, restoring to the dead king the ability to hear, see, smell, and to breathe, like the living. The breaths of the living have taken a heavy toll on Egypt's monuments. Into the close air of the tombs they introduce heat, moisture, and carbon dioxide, which eat away at the paint, the plaster, even the surface of the stone. And, although he lies within a coffin of solid, incorruptible gold, the mummy of Tutankhamun likewise suffers. Carter is not alone responsible for the king's current state of decay. Beginning later in November, tourists who pay the extra price of admission to enter KV62 will see something that Rosemary and I could not. The Supreme Council of Antiquities will have the king himself on display. Not his broken, mangled body. That will remain decently shrouded. But those who enter will find his face--the gaze of the royal Presence--staring back at them. When you see him, take a deep breath. And when you let it out again, be sure to say "I'm sorry." Al Ahram Weekly reports on the upcoming display of Tutankahmun's mummy COMMENTS? E-mail me. |
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I am a writer, editor, and consultant with graduate degrees in Egyptology and nautical archaeology. As you'll discover when you learn more about my fiction, Egyptology deeply informs the stories I write, and the use of ancient Egypt as a source of inspiration in modern times--whether for novelists, architects, decorative arists, poets, or philosophers--is a particular interest of mine. |
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