Category Archives: Nile Valley

Antiquity Imagined: The Remarkable Legacy of Egypt and the Ancient Near East

Posted on 17/07/2015 by dianabuja

Originally posted on HARN Weblog:
HARN member, Robin Derricourt, has sent us notification of his latest publication: Antiquity Imagined: the remarkable legacy of Egypt and the ancient Near East (London: I.B. Tauris, 2015)  Outsiders have long attributed to the Middle…

Rate this:

Posted in Egypt-Ancient, Nile Valley | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Coptic Easter and A Feast in Rural Egypt – Recipes Included

Posted on 02/04/2015 by dianabuja

With Easter upon us, I’m sharing my blog about the holiday in Upper [southern] Egypt: During the years that I spent a good deal of my time working and living in Upper [southern] Egypt while conducting  doctoral research, I was … Continue reading →

Rate this:

Posted in Coptic, Crop harvests, Cuisine, Easter, Egypt, Egypt-Ancient, Egypt-Recent, Feasts, Food, Nile Valley | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

The Egyptian Book of the Dead; what Egyptologists have to say and an imaginative reinactment

Posted on 02/05/2014 by dianabuja

For you upcoming weekend enjoyment, a reposting of this popular blog. The following videos dramatize a bit of the life of the 19th century Egyptologist E Wallace Budge and his discoveries in Egypt; together with brief remarks by several 20th and 21st … Continue reading →

Rate this:

Posted in Colonial, Egypt-Ancient, Magic, Nile Valley | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Behold: a zonkey is born … leading to thoughts about ancient Egyptian animals

Posted on 26/04/2014 by dianabuja

The bizaare hybrids called zonkeys (Equus zebra x Equus asinus) are occasionally born in Africa and elsewhere and Jerry Coyne has an excellent blog about them, referenced below. Continue reading →

Rate this:

Posted in Archaeology, Egypt-Ancient, Elephants, Great Western Desert, Nile Valley | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Soil biodiversity and ecosystem function

Posted on 06/09/2013 by dianabuja

It has long been recognised that organisms living in the soil are important for making nitrogen available to plants and for storing carbon in the soil but a new paper in PNAS by de Vries et al… Source:  canwefeedtheworld.wordpress.com diana … Continue reading →

Rate this:

Posted in Africa-East, Africa-North, Burundi, Climate Change, Desertification, Nile Valley, Research & Development, Research and Development, Sudan | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

A Grassy Trend in Human Ancestors’ Diets

Posted on 04/06/2013 by dianabuja

“For a long time, primates stuck by the old restaurants–leaves and fruits–but by 3.5 million years ago, they started exploring new diet possibilities–tropical grasses and sedges–that grazing animals discovered a long time before, about 10 million years ago,” Cerling says, … Continue reading →

Rate this:

Posted in Africa-East, Egypt-Ancient, Food, Nile Valley | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Recent Botanical Studies on Plant Materials from Ancient Egypt

Posted on 31/08/2012 by dianabuja

 Several items have recently been published or republished on botanical topics relating to ancient Egypt.  I post them below together with links for ordering.  They are all quite good. The last 5 items are available on academia.edu and if you’re not a member … Continue reading →

Rate this:

Posted in Botany, Egypt-Ancient, History-Ancient, Indigenous crops & medicinal plants, Nile Valley | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments