The Egyptian Museum collection in Berlin is one of the world's great collections of antiquities from Ancient Egypt. Among its many masterpieces is the famous bust of Queen Nefertiti, the internationally celebrated object star of the collection. The collection's origins were in the 1698 purchase of the antiquities assembled by Giovanni Pietro Bellori, and it was greatly augmented by expeditions in the 19th and early 20th centuries. During the Cold War the works were divided between East and West, but they have since been reunited on Berlin's Museum Island, and will now be at the heart of the rebuilt Neues Museum that opens in October 2009 for the first time since World War Two. Featuring beautiful all-new photography, an authoritative text and stunning new design, this book works equally well as a guide to a great museum collection or as an illustrated general introduction to the world of Ancient Egypt. AUTHOR: Professor Dietrich Wildung is a world expert on Ancient Egypt and Sudan. Until 2009 he was the Director of the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection, Berlin. 150 colour illustrations

An accompaniment to the Egyptian Museum of Berlin’s special exhibition celebrating the discovery of the Nefertiti bust in 1912, this catalog presents never-before-seen artifacts and objects from the Amarna period of Egyptian history. The book also explores religion, craftsmanship, daily life, and sculpture in Amarna and the world famous Nefertiti bust.

The famous German excavations between 1906 and 1908 of Elephantine Island in Egypt produced some of the most important Aramaic sources for understanding the history of Judeans and Arameans living in 5th century BCE Egypt under Persian occupation. Unknown to the world, many papyri fragments from those excavations remained uncatalogued in the Berlin Museum. In New Aramaic Papyri from Elephantine in Berlin James D. Moore edits the remaining legible Aramaic fragments, which belong to letters, contracts, and administrative texts. To view supplementary material from the volume go here.

The composition, which the editors entitle the "Book of Thoth", is preserved on over forty Graeco-Roman Period papyri from collections in Berlin, Copenhagen, Florence, New Haven, Paris, and Vienna. The central witness is a papyrus of fifteen columns in the Berlin Museum. Written almost entirely in the Demotic script, the Book of Thoth is probably the product of scribes of the "House of Life", the temple scriptorium. It comprises largely a dialogue between a deity, usually called "He-who-praises-knowledge" (presumably Thoth himself) and a mortal, "He-who-loves-knowledge". The work covers such topics as the scribal craft, sacred geography, the underworld, wisdom, prophecy, animal knowledge, and temple ritual. Particularly remarkable is one section (the "Vulture Text") in which each of the 42 nomes of Egypt is identified with a vulture. The language is poetic; the lines are often clearly organized into verses. The subject-matter, dialogue structure, and striking phraseology raise many issues of scholarly interest; especially intriguing are the possible connections between this Egyptian work, in which Thoth is called "thrice-great", and the classical Hermetic Corpus, in which Hermes Trismegistos plays the key role. The first volume comprises interpretative essays, discussion of specific points such as the manuscript tradition, script, and language. The core of the publication is the transliteration of the Demotic text, translation, and commentary. A consecutive translation, glossary, bibliography, and indices conclude the first volume. The second volume contains photographs of the papyri, almost all of which reproduce their original size.

A Companion to Ancient Egyptian Art presents a comprehensive collection of original essays exploring key concepts, critical discourses, and theories that shape the discipline of ancient Egyptian art. • Winner of the 2016 PROSE Award for Single Volume Reference in the Humanities & Social Sciences • Features contributions from top scholars in their respective fields of expertise relating to ancient Egyptian art • Provides overviews of past and present scholarship and suggests new avenues to stimulate debate and allow for critical readings of individual art works • Explores themes and topics such as methodological approaches, transmission of Egyptian art and its connections with other cultures, ancient reception, technology and interpretation, • Provides a comprehensive synthesis on a discipline that has diversified to the extent that it now incorporates subjects ranging from gender theory to ‘X-ray fluorescence’ and ‘image-based interpretations systems’

Essays on the magical handbooks of Greco-Roman Egypt

The Carlsberg Papyri, vol. 13, presents an exhaustive catalogue of Egyptian funerary manuscripts in Danish collections. The volume includes sixteen papyrus manuscripts, two of which are preserved intact, and smaller pieces of inscribed linen from six mummies. The material spans a period of more than a millennium, ranging from c. 1200 BC to AD 100. Most of the manuscripts are guides to the afterlife; eighteen of them contain texts and vignettes from the Book of the Dead, while a minor fragment preserves an illustration from the Book of Amduat. The three remaining manuscripts has previously been published.