Nile Magazine

Love ancient Egypt? Issue 42 is out now! Get a free sample at www.nilemagazine.com.au You'll find that NILE is different. www.nilemagazine.co.uk

Nile is the world's premier print magazine dedicated to your passion for ancient Egypt. It is smart, punchy and pops with fabulous, high-quality, colour photographs! If you love ancient Egypt then you'll love every bi-monthly issue of NILE Magazine.

13/02/2026

Happy Valentine's Day!

She was a priestess named Meretites, and he was a singer named Kahai, who performed at the royal palace.

They lived in an extraordinary time, when the sound of pyramids being built still filled the air. Their Saqqara tomb was likely built during the reign of the 5th Dynasty's King Niuserre, ca. 2430 BC.

Their embrace has lasted 4,400 years.

Photo: Effy Alexakis / Macquarie University's Australian Centre for Egyptology

Cheers, Jeff Burzacott, Editor.

11/02/2026

Seshat was the divine patroness of scribes. If you love reading about ancient Egypt, consider her your personal goddess.

This pristine image of Seshat is carved on the back of a colossal seated statue of Ramesses II, in the first courtyard of Luxor Temple. Here, Seshat notches a palm-leaf stalk, marking the number of royal jubilees enjoyed by the king.

At the bottom of the stalk (out of frame) is a tadpole, the hieroglyphic sign for 100,000, sitting on a shen ring, signifying eternity. The overall message is clear: Seshat is reckoning the unlimited years of the king's reign.

The goddess wears a long, figure-hugging leopard skin robe, linking her with the sem priests who officiated at funerary rites.

But what about that odd symbol on her head? That's still open to interpretation. Tucked into her headband is a seven-pointed star – or a palmette with seven leaves – on a long stem. Alternatively, it could represent a scribe's brush. Or a stylised palm tree that she uses to mark the passage of time. Above it floats two downward-pointing horns. Or the moon. Or some kind of bow. As you can tell, the Egyptological community is still working on that one.

10/02/2026

Much of the Temple of Hathor at Dendera is in amazing condition because it was built at the very end of Egypt's long history. The temple we see today was only begun in the 30th Dynasty, with much of the building undertaken by the Ptolemies and Roman emperors.

The Outer Hypostyle Hall was built by Emperor Tiberius around AD 20, and recent cleaning work has revealed spectacular colours, long hidden beneath soot and grime.

Here we see Thoth, the divine scribe, standing on the facade of a temple, and raising his hands in adoration of the lunar disk and crescent, which rests on a papyrus column. Inside the lunar disk is the Wedjat eye - the healing Eye of Horus.

Cheers, Jeff Burzacott, Editor

08/02/2026

𝗥𝗲𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝗣𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗼𝗵’𝘀 𝗝𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘆

A restoration team working on King Khufu’s second solar boat inside the Grand Egyptian Museum, carefully positioning the first wooden elements of the vessel.

Around them, visitors watch as conservation unfolds in real time, not as a finished display but as a living process. Over the next four years, the public will be able to follow the reconstruction of approximately 1,650 fragile cedar-wood elements, assembled piece by piece into a 42-metre-long vessel. Discovered in 1954 in a sealed limestone pit beside the Great Pyramid, the boat remained untouched for decades due to its extreme fragility.

Now, following years of documentation, conservation and Egyptian–Japanese collaboration, the second solar boat is finally returning to form. Distinct in design from its already restored twin, it offers fresh insights into Fourth Dynasty shipbuilding, advanced maritime knowledge, ritual symbolism and the king’s journey beyond the earthly realm.

This is conservation as living history.

Jaap at Nile Magazine

31/01/2026

“The temple of Seti I at Abydos is one of the best-preserved examples of New Kingdom temple architecture.... Behind the main temple building is a subterranean structure (which is now open to the sky) which Egyptologists call the Osireion.... The Osireion’s layout resembles the royal tombs of the early New Kingdom.... The monument might therefore be understood as a symbolic tomb for Osiris.”—Edward Scrivens.

As the Osireion was built at a considerably lower level than the Temple of Seti I, it is prone to flooding. This may have been a deliberate design feature to surround the central platform with water, reminiscent of the primordial mound rising from the waters of chaos at creation. Pictured here is the Osireion after it was cleared of water by the Egypt Exploration Society (EES) in 1925.

The latest issue of (No. 41) reviews the fabulous new book from the EES, "Ancient Egypt in 50 Discoveries", which explores the entirety of ancient Egyptian history via discoveries made on EES excavations since 1882.

Cheers,
Jeff Burzacott, Editor

29/01/2026

King Ramesses III, from his tomb (KV 11) in the Valley of the Kings, offering a cup of smoky incense to the god Osiris (not in frame).

Egyptian trade expeditions to Punt were a key source of the gum resins used to create oils and incense to bathe their divine cult statues and ensure the gods' continued favour.

Photo: Luisa Ricciarini / Bridgeman Images.

From the current issue of (No. 41).
Cheers,
Jeff Burzacott, Editor

28/01/2026

The new Grand Egyptian Museum is an incredible blend of grandeur and intimate. This winged scarab—a powerful image of solar rebirth for the deceased—is part of what is known as the Dendera Treasure Hoards.

Several caches of spectacular objects were discovered buried around the Temple of Hathor at Dendera in the early 20th century. The hoards were likely hidden by temple priests during the
Ptolemaic Period to protect them from political unrest.

Photo: Curtis Sweet.

From the current issue of (No. 41).
Cheers, Jeff Burzacott, Editor.

25/01/2026

We can thank Tutankhamun's tomb for preserving Nefertiti's burial equipment.

Each of the four compartments in Tutankhamun’s canopic chest was fitted with a beautifully-crafted, human-headed stopper, and contained an inlaid gold coffinette containing the king’s vital organs.

These stoppers, however, bear the face not of Tutankh-
amun, but of his step-mother, Nefertiti. It’s more evidence that much of the king’s burial equipment had originally been crafted for Nefertiti before she took on the role as pharaoh, and was, presumably, entitled to much grander treasures to guarantee her eternity.

Photo: Curtis Sweet.
From the current issue of (No. 41).
Cheers, Jeff Burzacott, Editor

22/01/2026

We sometimes forget that the artworks of ancient Egypt were not the bare, sandy-toned relics we often see today—they were vibrant, colourful masterpieces.

This wonderful painted limestone relief, currently in the Luxor Museum, depicts King Thutmose III wearing the atef crown, adorned with ostrich feathers, symbolising universal truth and justice.

Photo: Maceij Jawornicki, of the Polish-Egyptian Archaeological and Conservation Expedition to the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari.

20/01/2026

This is the goddess Maat, identified by the large ostrich feather on her head.

Maat is special among Egyptian deities in that she represents an idea as much as an actual divine being. She is the embodiment of order and “what is right”.

The Egyptians believed the universe had an order to it, and that Maat kept everything in balance. It was her feather that was weighed against the heart of the deceased to decide whether they were worthy of eternity.

This spectacular relief fragment comes from the tomb of King Seti I in the Valley of the Kings at Luxor, and now in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Florence (2469).

From the current issue of (No. 41).

Cheers, Jeff Burzacott, Editor

17/01/2026

A great irony.

This is the only confirmed portrait of King Khufu - the builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza. The twist is that the owner of Egypt's largest pyramid also has the smallest surviving statuette - only 7 cm tall.

This ivory statuette was discovered during Flinders Petrie's excavations at Abydos in 1903. As Marwa Abdel Razek explains in the Egypt Exploration Society's new book, 'Ancient Egypt in 50 Discoveries', "Khufu’s ivory statuette is the first (and currently the only) complete figure of that king to come to light.... The figurine’s head was accidentally broken from the body during excavation, and was only recovered after three weeks of incessant sifting of sand by workers.”

From the current issue of (No. 41).
Cheers,
Jeff Burzacott, Editor

15/01/2026

Let the looting begin!

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