Website: Hopkins in Egypt Today, http://www.jhu.edu/egypttoday/index.html
Newswise — An unofficial summer school course in archaeology is just a hyperlink away at "Hopkins in Egypt Today," a free educational website showing a dig in progress throughout June.
Armchair scholars won't earn any college credits following this blog about an ongoing excavation at the Temple of Mut precinct in Luxor, written by renowned Johns Hopkins University Egyptologist Betsy Bryan. But clicking through this daily photo journal will give virtual visitors a taste of what life is like for the graduate students, undergraduates, artists, conservators and photographers working on a site that is rich in finds from ancient Egypt’s New Kingdom.
Those who stop by "Hopkins in Egypt Today" will see Bryan and her team members taking measurements to prepare new dirt squares for excavation, and then watch as they work their way down through the layers of soil to find and study what lies beneath. A myriad of discoveries have been showcased via Hopkins in Egypt Today over the past decade, including a major find in 2006: a 3,400-year-old nearly intact statue of Queen Tiy, one of the queens of the powerful king Amenhotep III. Bryan has said that the statue is “one of the true masterpieces of Egyptian art.” In June 2011, the team uncovered the skeleton of a man killed in the position of a bound and trussed captive, a find that will be the subject of further investigation this summer.
The website has the ability to bring ancient Egypt to any smartphone, iPad or Internet-ready device around the world. Beyond the discoveries, there is a rich educational experience on display in the teamwork among Bryan, her colleagues, students and their “gufti,” the local crew members who are trained in archaeology. That teamwork is essential to a successful dig, Bryan has said. Bryan is the Alexander Badawy Professor in Egyptian Art and Archaeology at Johns Hopkins.
"Hopkins in Egypt Today" will be updated daily through June, and the posts will remain online as part of the archives of digs dating back to 2001.
###Johns Hopkins University news releases can be found on the World Wide Web at http://releases.jhu.edu/Information on automatic E-mail delivery of science and medical news releases is available at the same address.
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