The head of Foreign Missions of the Egyptian Antiquities Service accused the museum in a leaked email of “falsifying history” due to the “Afrocentric” lens of the show’s storytelling, the Dutch news site NRC reported on Monday. The news was confirmed by the museum’s managing director, Wim Weijland, in a statement to CNN.

Saqqara, a sprawling burial site some 20 miles south of the capital, Cairo, is home to Egypt’s oldest pyramid, the pyramid of Djoser. The museum has been consistently excavating Saqqara for more than 40 years, and most recently returned in February for a monthlong dig.

“The Rijksmuseum van Oudheden has been working at Saqqara since 1975,” Weijland told CNN. “For the upcoming season, the museum has been denied the permit to excavate here.”

Weijland added that the museum is attempting to “open the dialogue” with the Egyptian Antiquities Service about the ban. The aim of the “Kemet” exhibition, according to Weijland, was to “show and understand the depiction of ancient Egypt and the messages in music by black artists,” and to “show what scientific, Egyptological research can tell us about ancient Egypt and Nubia.”

The ancient Nubian empire in northeast Africa extended from Aswan, Egypt, down to Khartoum, the modern-day capital of Sudan. Nubia hosted several significant empires, the most important being the Kingdom of Kush, whose so-called “Black Pharaohs” ruled Egypt in the 8th century BCE in the 25th Dynasty. Per the museum’s website, the “Kemet” show examined “the influence of ancient Egypt and Nubia … in the works of a multitude of musicians of African descent, including icons of jazz such as Miles Davis and Sun Ra and contemporary artists such as Beyoncé and Rihanna.”

The show was met with criticism almost immediately upon opening. The Leiden National Museum of Antiquities’ social media accounts were bombarded with negative comments, some of which expressed veiled or explicit distaste over the show’s imagery of dark-skinned ancient Egyptians. In response to the backlash, the museum added a note on its website with additional information on its curatorial goals, as well as a warning that any offensive or racist comments posted to its social channels will be deleted.

The workshops contained stone beds, clay pots, natron salt, resin material, and linen gowns used in the mummification process for humans and sacred animals, as well as ritual vessels, according to Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, in his comments to the press. Waziri said the artifacts date back to the 30th Pharaonic Dynasty (380 BCE to 343 BCE) and Ptolemaic period (305 BCE to 30 BCE). He also unveiled a colorful sarcophagus.

According to Sabri Farag, head of the Saqqara archaeological site, the tombs were for Ne Hesut Ba, a top official from the Old Kingdom of the fifth dynasty of ancient Egypt, and Men Kheber, a priest from the New Kingdom’s 18th dynasty.

Reuters reported that officials said the walls of Ne Hesut Ba’s tomb had inscriptions of cultivation, hunting, and other daily activities, while Men Kheber’s tomb was engraved with “scenes showing the deceased in different positions”.

The archaeological discovery was made after a year-long excavation near the sanctuary of the goddess Bastet, which is home to the catacombs of mummified cats in Saqqara, some 19 miles south of Cairo, according to Reuters. The sanctuary is the same location where hundreds of mummified animals and statues were discovered in 2019.

The National Museum of Antiquities has been excavating at Saqqara since 1975, but the area has been an especially rich source of high-profile discoveries recently. In 2022, Egyptian archaeologists uncovered five painted tombs, the tomb of an ancient dignitary, and a sarcophagus belonging to King Ramses II’s treasurer. Earlier this year, they found an intact 52-foot-long papyrus from 50 BCE, a 3,200-year-old necropolis for the elite, and the oldest known mummy in the country.

Many of these items will be displayed at The Grand Egyptian Museum, a 5.2 million square foot state-of-the-art facility near the Giza Pyramids on the outskirts of Cairo, is scheduled to open later this year after construction is completed. It will house all of the treasures discovered in King Tutankhamun’s tomb, as well as 100,000 antique artifacts.

The Headlines

ARTIST ILYA KABAKOV, whose imaginative and incisive installations helped rocket him from the Soviet Union’s underground art scene to international acclaim, died on Saturday at the age of 89. His “visions were unsparing, sad, and explicitly critical of the state, and were, in that way, quite unlike the government-approved art being made in the Soviet Union,” Alex Greenberger writes in ARTnews. Collaborating with his niece and later wife, Emilia, beginning in 1989, he exhibited widely, from the Grand Palais in Paris, which staged a major display in 2014, to the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, which presented a 2008 retrospective. Writing in Artforum in 2018, art historian Claire Bishop in termed Kabakov “the paradigmatic installation artist.”

OFF COLOR. The rippling Snøhetta-designed facade on SFMOMA’s east side, which is normally white, is covered with “multistory smears of dirt and grime,” urban design critic John King reports in the San Francisco Chronicle. Its custom-built cleaning device is broken, according to a SFMOMA spox, who said, “We are aiming to identify alternate ways of cleaning the facade.” Over in Venice, part of the Grand Canal turned bright green on Sunday, baffling observers, per the Guardian. Police reportedly investigated if climate activists were responsible (the Ultima Generazione group said it “wasn’t us,” NPR notes), and tests revealed the cause: fluorescein, which is used to test wastewater. Officials did not say from where the substance may have come.

The Digest

Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities said that archaeologists have unearthed embalming workshops in Saqqara, about 20 miles south of Cairo. They are believed to date to the fourth century B.C.E. [Reuters/Yahoo!]

Three years after the explosion in Beirut’s port damaged the Sursock Museum‘s building and art holdings, the institution reopened on Friday. More than $2 million has been raised to support its restoration efforts. [The Associated Press]

At a charity auction at last week’s amfAR Cannes gala, which raises money for AIDS research, Damien Hirst’s 2016 “Spin Painting” portrait of actor Leonardo DiCaprio sold for $1.3 million. The piece was donated by collector Christian Levett, according to Simon de Pury, who gaveled the sale. [Variety and @simonedepury/Instagram]

A late-18th-century painting of a dog—perhaps Marie Antoinette’s Pompon!—by the little-known French artist Jacques Barthélémy Delamarre sold at Sotheby’s on Friday for $279,400, quite a bit above its $5,000 high estimate. [Hyperallergic]

ARTISTS SPACE. Sculptor Thomas J. Price, now showing at Hauser & Wirth in L.A., is in the L.A. Times; the category-eluding Darren Bader, who is selling his practice, is in the New York Times; and painter Hurvin Anderson, exhibiting at the Hepworth Wakefield, is in the Financial Times, with a guide to Cambridge, England, where he lives.

ON THE MOVE. Artist Anicka Yi has addedEsther Schipper as one of her dealers, per Ocula; Mirela Back has been tapped to run the Salzburger Kunstverein, per Artforum; and Dennis Scholl is retiring as president and CEO of Oolite Arts, per ArtDaily.

The Kicker

ELITE INSIGHTS. In this week’s New Yorker, Evan Osnos has a rollicking article about the market for superstar musicians playing private concerts that features a guest appearance from Anthony Scaramucci. The financier and ill-fated White House comms director offered some thoughts about how people spend money. “You’ve got to think about it as a pyramid,” he told Osnos. “The widest part is eating at McDonald’s. The narrowest part is ‘I paid two hundred million for the Basquiat.’ Because that’s one of a kind. I’m taking a piece of the immortality that artist created, and I’m owning it. Freud said we’re ultimately hysterical because of our own demise.” [The New Yorker]

According to a press release by National Museum of Antiquities of Leiden, the dig was led by Lara Weiss and Daniel Soliman, curators of that institution’s Egyptian and Nubian collection, and Christian Greco, who serves as the director of the Museo Egizio in Turin, Italy.

The dig team found several tombs shaped like small temples, many with detailed information about who had been buried there. The largest tomb belonged to Panehsy, a steward of the Amun Temple in Karnak. The temple in Panehsy’s tomb was elaborate, with a gated entrance, a courtyard, columned porticoes, and a tunnel that leads to underground burial chambers, according to Archeology.org.

Among the decorations were a statue of Panehsy worshiping the goddess Hathor, mother of Horus, who was often depicted as a beautiful young woman wearing a headdress of cow horns that once framed a great sun disk, a lioness, or a cow. Also discovered was a carving of Panehsy with his wife Baia, “the singer of Amun,” sitting at an offering table. 

Four smaller tombs were found at the site, Hyperallergic reports, including one for Yuyu, who made gold foil for the royal treasury, and three for unidentified persons. Weiss, whose research is focused on Egyptian social dynamics, told Hyperallergic she was fascinated by the glimpses into daily life the cemetery brought into focus: “The choices people made in their tomb decoration, how they were inspired by others, and what all this says about the social relations of people.”

The National Museum of Antiquities has been excavating at Saqqara since 1975, and in 2015, the Museo Egizio became an official partner in the project. Earlier this year, archeologists found at Saqqara what could be the oldest known mummy in Egypt.

The archaeologists have been working to restore the temple, which lies on the West Bank of the Nile, near the city of Luxor, which was once known as Thebes.

“The zodiac was used to decorate private tombs and sarcophagi and was of great importance in astrological texts, such as horoscopes found inscribed on pottery sherds,” Dr. Daniel von Recklinghausen, a Tübingen researcher, said in a press release. “However, it is rare in temple decoration: Apart from Esna, there are only two completely preserved versions left, both from Dendera.”

The zodiac was introduced to Egypt late in its history by the Greeks when they established their Ptolemaic Kingdom in the North African state. The zodiac is originally of Babylonian origin, though there is a long and diverse astrological tradition with its attendant symbols across the world.

The Temple has a complete depiction of all twelve signs, though some are more recognizable than others. The sign of Sagittarius, for example, is represented as a centaur with a bow and arrow, which is how the sign is depicted in modernity. However, in the Egyptian version, Sagittarius wears a lion mask, has the tail of a scorpion, and wings.

Other reliefs uncovered in the Temple show the planets Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars as well as stars and constellations. There are also depictions of fantastic beasts, such as a snake with a ram’s head, a bird with a crocodile’s head and many winged snakes.

All of the reliefs are very well preserved. As archaeologists have cleaned the temple, the original colors have begun to shine through. Restoration work has been going on for the past five years.

The discovery was made by a team from the Ain Shams University led by Dr. Mamdouh Al-Damati, former minister of archaeology and a professor of archaeology at the university.

The Sphinx, which was found along with a limestone shrine, date back to the Roman era in the Qena Governorate of Egypt, according to a post by Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

The shrine consists of a platform with two levels and features a basin for storing water made of red brick covered with slate. The mini-Sphinx was discovered while archaeologists were cleaning the basin according to the Ministry.

Al-Damati described the statue as “magnificent” with meticulously depicted “royal features,” including a light smile across the lips framed with two dimples. A slab of stone inscribed with hieroglyphics and demotic script was found below the statue.

The archaeological team began excavation work in mid-February, starting with a radar scanning of the ministerial halls at the Temple of Dendera in southern Egypt. They also performed a magnetic scan and radar scan of the area located east of the Sur surrounding the temple in front of the Isis Gate.

The team worked in collaboration with a team from the National Institute for Astronomical and Geophysical Research.

The mission will continue excavation work in the area of the Temple of Horus east of the Temple of Dendera and in front of the Isis Gate to reveal the road that connects them, the Ministry said.

The remains were found among a group of tombs dating to the 5th and 6th century BCE, at the bottom of a 49-foot shaft near the Step Pyramid at Saqqara. Experts say the mummy, which was in a limestone sarcophagus that has been sealed with mortar, could be 4,300 years old.

“This mummy may be the oldest and most complete mummy found in Egypt to date,” said Zahi Hawass, one of Egypt’s former ministers of antiquities.

The mummy belonged to a man named Hekashepes, according to the Guardian, and was not the only one found in the tombs. One tomb that was decorated with scenes of daily life belonged to a priest and supervisor of nobles named Khnumdjedef, who served under last pharaoh of the 5th dynasty, Unas.

Another housed the remains of a man called Meri, who was described as the “keeper of the secrets and assistant to the great leader of the palace.”

Should any of these discoveries be displayed in a British museum in the future, it’s possible that visitors will not see the word “mummy” in the description. At least three U.K. institutions recently decided to use the phrase “mummified remains of” or “mummified person” in leu of the word “mummy,” in order to “encourage visitors to think of the individual.”

“This stunning coffin was trafficked by a well-organized network that has looted countless antiquities from the region,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said three months ago, after his office determined the sarcophagus had been looted from Abu Sir Necropolis, north of Cairo. “We are pleased that this object will be returned to Egypt, where it rightfully belongs.”

An official at Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, Mostafa Waziri, told the Associated Press the sarcophagus dates back to the Late Dynastic Period of ancient Egypt, which lasted from 664 B.C.E. until Alexander the Great’s campaign in 332 B.C.E.

According to Waziri, the sarcophagus, which measures about 9.5 feet long, may have belong to an ancient priest named Ankhenmaat.  

The repatriation is part of the Egyptian government’s continued efforts to stop the trafficking and secure the return of stolen antiquities. Bragg said that the sarcophagus was smuggled into the U.S. via Germany and before being returned was featured in the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences.

In 2021, Egyptian authorities saw the return of 5,300 looted artifacts from across the globe, the Associated Press reported.

Already rich with archeological history, Esna, which sits in lower Egypt along the Nile River, has been the location of numerous structures from different periods of antiquity, from the New Kingdom, which began in 1550 BCE to the Saite Period, which ended in 525 BCE.

Today, only the Temple Khnum remains. However, archeologists continue to excavate the site and make discoveries about its historical relevance.

The temple’s inner sanctuary was built by Egypt’s Macedonian king Ptolemy V and subsequently decorated with “astronomical ceiling, religious hymns, and cryptographic texts based on crocodile and ram figures” by his descendants, Ptolemy VI, Cleopatra II, and Ptolemy VII; the outer vestibule, however, was built by the Romans, according to Heritage Daily.

During excavations archeologists uncovered another Ptolemaic structure and a Roman bathhouse behind the main temple building. The baths were fed by a channel system that poured water into the basins. The dig also revealed a hypocaust, a type of central heating developed by the Romans that produces and hot air which is then circulated below the floor of a room.

The excavations were commissioned by the Supreme Council for Archaeology.

The items are owned by University College Cork (UCC) and date from between 975 BCE and 100 CE. The sarcophagus was donated to UCC in 1928 and, based on an inscription on its surface, likely holds the remains of a man named Hor.

The university said it will return its collection of Egyptian artifacts in 2023. The group includes a set of four canopic jars, containers in which the individually mummified organs would be placed during the mummification process. The jars are recognized by their lids, which were commonly shaped in the likeness of four animal-headed guardian deities. A funerary mask and body coverings known as cartonnage will also be returned to Egypt.

There are no records detailing how the cartonnage came into the possession of UCC; the sarcophagus was excavated by Italian Egyptologist Ernesto Schiaparelli in the early 20th century. The planned restitution is part of an ongoing collaboration between the UCC, the Egyptian and Irish governments, and the National Museum of Ireland to identify and repatriated stolen cultural heritage in Irish cultural institutions. 

Ireland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney, said in a statement that he was “delighted” that his agency was involved in what he described as an “important project.” Egypt’s ambassador to Ireland, Mohamed Sarwat Selim, expressed his gratitude for the cooperation that made the repatriation possible. 

Ireland is among the growing number of countries in the Global North reckoning with the fact that some artifacts in their collections were acquired through illegal trafficking or during periods of colonization.

Many major Western museums have voluntarily returned the stolen artifacts to their countries of origin, while others have resisted the idea of dismantling their collection. Recently, the British Museum in London has made tentative motions toward loaning the Parthenon Marbles to Greece, which would fulfill a longtime goal of the Greek government to see the prized sculptures—taken from Greece by a Scottish nobleman in the 1800s—reunited with the Acropolis in Athens.