Ancient New Year's scene from Egypt uncovered on roof of 2,200-year-old temple News
By Owen Jarus published October 19, 2023 Researchers restored an ancient painting of the gods depicted at New Year's during restoration work at the Temple of Esna in Egypt
The paintings show the Egyptian deities Orion (also called Sah), Sothis and Anukis on neighboring boats with the sky goddess Nut swallowing the evening sky above them — a mythology that details the Egyptian New Year, according to a statement from the University of Tübingen in Germany, which jointly led the restoration with the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.
The New Year's artwork is the latest of several discoveries scientists have made at the Temple of Esna, whose paintings were obscured by two millennia's worth of soot, grime and even bird droppings. For the past five years, scientists have been cleaning the ceiling, revealing a variety of imagery including depictions of the ancient zodiac and various astronomical constellations, mythological goddesses and more than 200 inscriptions that were previously unknown, according to the statement.
Now that the ceiling's restoration is complete, the team is cleaning the temple's walls, columns and pronaos (the front area). This restoration is expected to reveal new colors and details of images that can faintly be seen through the grime, such as the "thrones of the gods" and details about their clothing, Leitz said.
So they were cleaning and revealing ^^^ all the soot and grime from over the centuries .
there are many articles on this, due in large part to the zodiac element probably
Research team uncovers further ceiling paintings in the temple of Esna Complete representation of the zodiac - Cooperation between Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and University of Tübingen
An Egyptian-German research team has uncovered yet another series of colorful ceiling paintings at the Temple of Esna in Upper Egypt. The researchers reported that the Egyptian restoration team, led by Ahmed Emam, succeeded in completely restoring and re-coloring a representation of the heavens. The images, executed in relief, include a complete depiction of the signs of the zodiac. Other reliefs show the planets Jupiter, Saturn and Mars, as well as a number of stars and constellations used in ancient times to measure time. The overall project is in the hands of Hisham El-Leithy of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and Professor Christian Leitz of the University of Tübingen.
"Representations of the zodiac are very rare in Egyptian temples," Leitz says, adding "The zodiac itself is part of Babylonian astronomy and does not appear in Egypt until Ptolemaic times."
I didn't copy all the text of these articles but if you go to the first article at the top in Live Science and in some of the other articles they make no mention of re-coloring
Here is the University of Tübingen' project page on this:
A few years ago the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities launched a conservation project with the aim to remove the centuries-old layers of soot, dust, and dirt. This initiative formed the nucleus of the current project. By removing these layers the original colour of the decorations was again brought to light (Fig. 3 and 4).
A first joint mission in Esna took place in December 2018, during which a full photographical documentation of the exterior walls was launched that continued into 2023 and is almost completed. First, we intend to publish a volume of the photographic documentation of the scenes and inscriptions of the exterior wall (Esna VII, probably as an IFAO publication). This volume will also include the results of the text collation efforts which were carried out at the same time. Conservation efforts were continued on the northern interior wall, exposing and recovering the ancient colouration. Additionally, work began on cleaning and restoring the astronomical decoration on the ceiling (Travée A).
Several subsequent campaigns between 2019 and 2023, which now also included the columns, allowed us to conclude the conservation work until Travée E on the southern side of the edifice.
Fig. 5: Restoration of a text on column 7.
^ but they don't mention re-coloring, only in the press release
Amazing New Discoveries .. The New Sky over Esna الكشف_الأثري_الجديد# Luxor Times
video description:
Oct 19, 2022 #الكشف_الأثري_الجديد #ancientegypt #egypt The New Sky over Esna The Astronomical Ceilings of the Pronaos After Conservation
Prof. Dr. Christian Leitz (University of Tübingen) Dr. Hisham Elleithy (Undersecretary of State for Documentation of Egyptian Antiquities)
On the occasion of celebration of the anniversary of the 200 years of Egyptology, the lecture which took place on Thursday 6th of October 2022 at 5pm at the Mummification Museum lecture hall, Luxor presented the progress of the conservation work of the joint Egyptian-German mission at Esna under the direction of Dr. Hisham El-Leithy and Dr. Christian Leitz.
The three ceiling (travées) of the northern part of the pronaos as well as the central travée regained their original colours. The lecture focused on ceiling A to C, presenting the until present unknown constellations of travée A whose names are now visible as painted inscriptions in red ink which are missing in the standard edition of Serge Sauneron. Travée B deals with the decans and so-called southern and northern constellation (i.e. Orion and Sothis respective the Foreleg of a bull (Mesekhtyu) and a hippopotamus deity, the subject of travée C is the daily course of the sun.
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^ go to time 5:13
he says:
quote:
...the middle is still full of black soot and you can barely see any colors here you see the same situation on another part of column 5 which I should mention that the reliefs are only cleaned and in no case repainted the result of now four years work have been highly promising as a complete and original coloration is now visible again
So at this point in time Oct 19, 2022, Dr. Hisham Elleithy (Undersecretary of State for Documentation of Egyptian Antiquities points out "in no case repainted "
but later, in the University of Tübingen press release:
2/20/2023 An Egyptian-German research team has uncovered yet another series of colorful ceiling paintings at the Temple of Esna in Upper Egypt. The researchers reported that the Egyptian restoration team, led by Ahmed Emam, succeeded in completely restoring and re-coloringPosts: 42930 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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Is it just me, or did they make all the dark colored body parts light and the light colored body parts dark??
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