Jozef Hudec

A new Egyptian human mummified head in the Slovak National Museum, Bratislava

A mummified human head was recently anthropologically investigated and its provenance checked in the Anthropological Department, Slovak National Museum, Bratislava. The head is of a 35- to 45-year-old male. Its original provenance is unknown but both historical sources and the testimony of the first Hungarian Egyptologist Eduard Mahler suggest that the mummy head belongs to the Fifteenth Dynasty (Second Intermediate Period). However, the present study shows a mummification technique practised until the end of the New Kingdom, so the head could be later.

Tell el-Retaba: season 2016

Excavations of the Polish–Slovak Archaeological Mission in Tell el-Retaba in 2016 were continued in the western part of the site, uncovering remains of domestic and funerary structures from the Second Intermediate Period in Area 4. Houses from the first half of the Eighteenth Dynasty were also investigated in this area. In Area 9, several houses from the Third Intermediate Period were explored and, for the first time, also substantial remains of a Late Period settlement, including at least one “tower house”.

Grabungsvorberichte/Preliminary Excavation Reports: Egyptian Mission Rescue Excavations in Tell el-Retaba. Part 2: The Second Intermediate Period Cemetery

The present article about the first excavated part of an extensive cemetery of the Second Intermediate Period in Tell el-Retaba is one of the outcomes of the scientific co-operation between the Egyptian rescue excavation mission led by M. Nour el-Din and the joint Polish-Slovak archaeological mission in Tell el-Retaba. Seventeen mudbrick tombs dating to the mid – late 15th dynasty were unearthed during two campaigns in 2011– 2012. The tomb architecture and the grave goods found with the buried individuals which are presented in this article offer an insight into the burial customs of the inhabitants of Tell el-Retaba during the end of the Second Intermediate Period. Furthermore, they can help us to shed more light on the settlement history and material culture of this still somewhat controversial period of Egyptian history.