THE MUMMIFICATION OF ANTINOUS AS IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN CARRIED OUT

THE newly ordained priests of Antinous were busily overseeing the mummification of his body in the 72 days between his death in late October of the year 130 and early January of 131, many experts believe.

Hadrian founded the city of Antinoopolis on the banks of the Nile where Antinous died and proclaimed the new religion.

While the Emperor continued his tour of Egypt, the priests scurried to carry out his imperial commission.

We do not know for certain what transpired with the remains of Antinous ... or whether they were ever retrieved from the Nile. Perhaps they were cremated. But perhaps the body was mummified.

Using an Antinous Action Figure, we can demonstrate how it may have been done:

We prepared the body by cleansing it with wine. Then we removed the Intestines, Liver, Lungs and Stomach (placing them in Canopic Jars). 

There is a incision mark down his left side to represents where he would have been cut open for the removal of these organs. 

Next we removed the Brains with a hook through the nose (hence the black dot on his nostril). 

The brains were thrown away because the Egyptians felt the heart was the seat of intelligence, not the brain.

We used a basting brush to cleanse him although a hair-dye or cosmetics brush is also applicable. 

The red heart represents the fact that they left the heart in tact, later it will be used in the Weighing-of-the-heart ceremony. 

In the back corner you see Anubis (the God of Embalming) present during this embalming.

We put him in Sea Salt which represents the Natron Salt that the priests would have used. (Himalayan Salt works just as well). 

Then we let him sit in the salt for 40 minutes ... 1 minute for each day the priests would have left the body in the Natron Salt.

Next we wiped him down with spices of Cinnamon, Nutmeg and Allspice with olive oil.

Then the priests would have replaced the eyes with onions stuffed into the sockets. 

Because the salt desiccated the body, then they stuffed the body with mud, sawdust, rags and chaff to make it appear nicely contoured.

Next we began the wrapping process. We used muslin and a mixture of flour and water (1 part to 3 parts) for the paste. 

In ancient times, it took about 15 days to wrap the body and about 20 layers of linen bandages. 

We put Amulets between the layers of Linen … a tiny scarab beetle and a miniature protective eye of Horus.

We allowed him to do a little drying before the final wrapping.

In ancient times the process took 72 days.

In the case of Antinous, this meant his mummy would have been ready for the final ceremonies on January 11th of 131 AD.

By that time Hadrian would have completed his tour of Egypt and would have returned to Antinoopolis for the "Opening of the Mouth Ceremony."

Afterwards, his tomb would have been sealed and the first priests of Antinous would have begun their sacred watch … and the establishment of the new religion.

No one knows the location of the Lost Tomb of Antinous.

ANTINOUS-ERA EGYPTIAN HANGOVER CURE WAS ALSO A FASHION STATEMENT

A crumbling papyrus found near Antinoopolis offers a sure-fire hangover cure ... and one that is also a fashion statement.

A leafy wreath of curative herbs was just the thing to clear your day-after head, according to a newly translated and published papyrus written in Greek with the prescription for "A DRUNKEN HEADACHE" cure. 

The alcohol victim would have strung together leaves from a shrub called Alexandrian chamaedaphne (Ruscus racemosus L.), possibly wearing the strand around the neck or forehead, not unlike this Classical youth wearing a victory wreath by John Singer Sargent.

The 1,900-year-old papyrus dating back to the time of Antinous containing the hangover treatment is one of over 500,000 such documents found in the ancient Egyptian town of Oxyrhynchus not far from Antinoopolis by researchers Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt about a century ago.

But the study and publication of so many papyri is a long and slow task that has been going on for a century. 

Only recently, volume 80 was published, containing studies and decipherments of about 30 medical papyri found at Oxyrhynchus, including the papyrus with the hangover treatment.

This newly published volume represents "the largest single collection of medical papyri to be published," wrote Vivian Nutton, a professor at University College London, at the beginning of the volume. 

The collection includes medical treatises and treatments for a wide variety of ailments, including hemorrhoids, ulcers, tooth problems and even some fragments discussing eye surgery.

The writers of these ancient papyri relied heavily on Greek knowledge. The ancient residents of Oxyrhynchus strongly embraced Hellenistic (Greek-influenced) culture, something that spread throughout Egypt, and the wider Middle East, after the conquests of Alexander the Great, Nutton said.

NEFERTITI SURVIVED THE FALL OF EGYPT AND EVEN THE FALL OF THE 3RD REICH

AN alluring mystery has surrounded this famous bust of Nefertiti since its discovery on December 6, 1912, incredibly intact and sporting vibrant colours, after lying in forgotten in the sands since the tumultuous days at the close of the reign of Pharaoh Akhenaton, one of the most enigmatic rulers of all time.

It was found by a German archaeologist in the ruins of a sculptor's house at Tell el-Amarna ... 20 km south of ANTINOOPOLIS.

In 1913, the Ottoman Empire agreed to allow its finders, part-time German-Jewish archaeologist and full-time entrepreneur James Simon and his Prussian colleague Ludwig Borchardt, to retain possession of the bust.

The simmering controversy between Egypt and Germany boiled over anew when a German news magazine printed excerpts from documents which allegedly indicated Borchardt deliberately used subterfuge to "smuggle" the bust out of Egypt. 

The documents are not new to scholars, however, who say Borchardt and Simon did not need to be devious. 

Instead, the Ottoman Empire officials simply failed to appreciate the artistic value of the artefact.

Despite persistent rumors that Borchardt and Simon smuggled out the bust under a coating of mud, the plain truth of the matter is that Ottoman authorities failed to recognize the bust as a masterpiece. In those days, the stark style of the Amarna Period was not viewed to be as valuable as more traditional styles of other periods.

Borchardt and Simon, however, immediately recognized the bust's appeal to European tastes for Art Nouveau and other post-Victorian styles. They did indeed breathe a sigh of relief when the Ottoman authorities blindly gave their stamp of approval to their request for removal from Egypt.

Borchardt and Simon carted it off to Europe where Simon displayed Nefertiti prominently in his home in Berlin before later lending it to the Berlin museum and finally donating it in 1920 to the Berlin collection.

The discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922 spawned an Egypto-mania craze as well as the Art Deco style.

King Tut's treasures flaunted the "decadent" style of the late 18th Dynasty, and Nefertiti suddenly was a fashion trend-setter.

Crowds flocked to the Berlin museum in to see Nefertiti and shame-faced Egyptian authorities realized they had made a ghastly mistake a decade earlier.

"They suddenly realized that this bust, which had been dismissed as 'un-Egyptian' in 1913, was in fact one of the most exquisite examples of Egyptian art," the Berliner Zeitung newspaper quoted one expert as saying.

In 1933 the Egyptian government demanded Nefertiti's return - the first of many such demands over the decades to come. One of the many titles Hermann Goering held was premier of Prussia (which included Berlin) and, acting in that capacity, Goering suggested to King Fouad I of Egypt that Nefertiti would soon be back in Cairo.

But Hitler had other plans. Through the ambassador to Egypt, Eberhard von Stohrer, Hitler informed the Egyptian government that he was an ardent fan of Nefertiti:

"I know this famous bust," the fuehrer wrote. "I have viewed it and marvelled at it many times. Nefertiti continually delights me. The bust is a unique masterpiece, an ornament, a true treasure!"

Hitler said Nefertiti had a place in his dreams of rebuilding Berlin and renaming it Germania.

"Do you know what Im going to do one day? I'm going to build a new Egyptian museum in Berlin," Hitler went on.

"I dream of it. Inside I will build a chamber, crowned by a large dome. In the middle, this wonder, Nefertiti, will be enthroned. 

"I will never relinquish the head of the Queen," Hitler vowed. 

(Cartoon by ALLYSTERIO)

While he did not mention it at the time, Hitler envisioned more for the museum. There was to be an even larger hall of honour, with a bust of Hitler.

It was rumoured immediately after World War II that Hitler had commissioned a copy of the bust for possible handover to the Egyptians after a Nazi victory. 

American Allied art experts claimed they found two wooden crates in a salt mine south of Berlin where the German capital's museum art treasures had been placed by the Germans for safekeeping during bombing raids. The two crates allegedly contained identical Nefertiti busts.

But in post-war confusion, one of the crates got lost. The whereabouts of the "other Nefertiti" are unknown - assuming it ever existed to start with. 

From time to time over the years, there have been reports suggesting that the fake bust survived and that the genuine bust is lost. A recent documentary on Germany's ZDF television network revived that theory.

But a series of new CT scans come to the rescue. 

They prove once and for all that the bust on view in Berlin is indeed genuine. 

Whether there ever was a duplicate is now a moot point.

The exquisite limestone bust of Queen Nefertiti forms the focal point of the Berlin collection, which ranks among the top two or three collections in the world outside Egypt itself.

The British Museum, the Louvre in Paris and the Metropolitan in New York are the only chief rivals to Berlin's collection, which spans all eras from the pre-Dynastic period all the way through to Roman times.

Hitler's dreams of a monolithic new Egyptian museum never materialized. Hitler and his mad dreams are long dead. But Nefertiti continues to smile serenely. As she has for 3,300 years. As if to say, this too shall pass. And I shall endure.

NIANKHKHNUM and KHNUMHOTEP SAINTS OF ANTINOUS

ON November 11th the Religion of Antinous honors two men whose love for each other has survived the fall of all ancient civilizations.

We honor Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep, Blessed Saints of Antinous.They lived in Egypt 2,000 years before the siege of Troy. 

They had been dead and forgotten for 2,650 years when Hadrian and Antinous visited Mennefer (Memphis) Egypt in 130 AD. 

Most likely Hadrian and Antinous stood directly on top of (or very nearly on top of) the lost tomb of these two men — two men who were buried together at the Memphis necropolis some 4,500 years ago.

When the tomb was discovered in 1964 it sent shock waves through the dusty world of Egyptology. The vividly painted reliefs on the walls of the tomb showed an intimate embrace between two male Royal Manicurists — the first recorded depiction of an openly homosexual couple.
Prudish Egyptologists have argued ever since that the two men were "just good friends" or perhaps that they were possibly "twin brothers".

But recent research by more open-minded archaeologists, such as California-based EGYPTOLOGIST GREG REEDER, has offered compelling evidence that the two men were more than "just good friends" or "close brothers."

Greg Reeder has written and lectured extensively on this extraordinary tomb, which was uncovered in 1964 in the necropolis of Saqqara at Memphis, on the west bank of the Nile. The site atop a cliff overlooking the Nile has drawn tourists since ancient times. Julius Caesar and Cleopatra stood atop this cliff and gazed in awe at its ancient tomb structures.

Hadrian and Antinous almost certainly stood on this very same spot in October of the year 130 AD, only weeks before Antinous drowned in the Nile. Beneath their feet was the Lost Tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep. The sand has been removed and now that long-lost tomb is no longer lost.

And what a tomb it is! It has a splendid entrance and charming layout befitting a pleasant gay holiday retreat cottage — for an eternal, never-ending holiday vacation.

While grave robbers stripped the tomb of relics in antiquity, the wall paintings reveal tantalizing hints about its original occupants. The men are repeatedly depicted together, sometimes holding hands, sometimes with their arms around each other.

In two instances they are shown with their noses touching — the most intimate embrace permitted in Egyptian art of the time — tantamount to kissing. Their bodies are pressed so closely together that their groins rub against each other in a decidedly intimate sort of way. 

In Ancient Egypt, such male-male depictions were reserved for kings who merged with gods, not for two mortal men.

They are so close together that some Egyptologists have theorized that they may have been Siamese twins joined at the hips.

Other figures, identified as wives and children, are relegated to the background. In one scene, in which the two men share a final banquet before their journey into the afterlife, Niankhkhnum' s "wife" has been plastered over by the craftsmen who decorated the tomb. Khnumhotep's spouse fails to make an appearance at all — highly unusual in Egyptian tomb art, if not totally unprecedented.

Throughout the tomb, the two men are depicted in joyous pursuits, such as this relief vignette (right) showing one of them playing flute accompaniment as the other sings.

The magnificent reliefs show a variety of scenes involving nude or semi-nude males involved in all sorts of artistic and manly activities, such as one scene (below left) of a sort of "Egyptian Rodeo" bull-roping tournament with accompanying scenes of a raucous "beef barbecue" feast.

Or the scene (below right) of athletic youths — so sparingly attired you can see they are circumcised — engaged in a playful mock battle using reed skiffs on the Nile.

Throughout the tomb, the reliefs show men, men, men (and a few token females) engaged in service to the tomb's two male occupants who are — unprecedented in Egyptian Sacred Art — wholly committed to each other. Other tombs invariably show man-and-wife. Not this one.

Hieroglyphs describe the men as "Overseers of the Royal Manicurists" to pharaoh. 
Ostensibly, they were responsible for the care of the pharaoh's hands and were among the select few permitted to touch the ruler. 

However, it is also possible that the title "Royal Manicurist" could be a ceremonial honor similar to the "Order of the Garter".

Though the hieroglyphs say nothing of the two men's relationship, Greg Reeder, an Egyptologist based in San Francisco, believes the wall paintings suggest homosexuality is the answer. Reeder points out that Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep clearly chose to depict themselves in poses usually restricted to husbands and wives in other tombs. 

"Same-sex desire must be considered as a probable explanation," Reeder said at a lecture in Britain which made headlines a couple of years ago.

"We can only say for certain that the carvings show a profound intimacy between the two men, and the people who built the tomb were possibly unsure how to portray this," the US archaeologist noted.

The tomb was restored by German archaeologists in the late 1970s and opened to the public in the 1990s.

While gay tour operators have not targeted the site, in large part because Egypt outlaws homosexual activity, Greg Reeder's articles and lectures have created gay interest in this long-lost tomb.

"It has now become famous and lots of gay tourists go there," he says with scholarly pride.

Reeder notes that, regardless of whether the two men were sexual lovers, they were definitely two men who loved each other so much that they wanted to spend all eternity in an intimate embrace.

Even their two names are intertwined. Over the entrance to one chamber their names are mingled together so that Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep become "NiankhKHNUMhotep" — Peace and Life joined in the ram-headed Source-of-the-Nile Deity Khnum, clearly their mutual sacred patron.

Thus, their names blend together, forming a single name: "Joined in Life and Joined in Peace at the Source of All That Lives and Dies and is Born Again for All Eternity". Such is the subtlety of the Egyptian language, which turns a name into a commitment.
Our Flamen Antinoalis Antonius Subia says:

"Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep is one of the earliest and most vivid portrayals of homosexual love, crossing all boundaries, binding two men and two families for all time, and demonstrating the profound antiquity and sacredness of our form of love." 

Thanks largely to the bold and candid research of Greg Reeder, the names of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep have been rescued from oblivion, so that their KAs might live forever — together! 

ANTINOOPOLIS MUMMY PORTRAITS WERE TRUE TO LIFE, EXPERTS SAY

ANTINOOPOLIS is the site of some of the most spectacular portrait art ever found in Egypt. 

Art experts have always marveled at the exquisite encaustic (melted wax mixed with paint) portraits which were used as face plates on mummy cases at Antinoopolis and the nearby Fayoum Oasis.

At Antinoopolis, wealthy people even sheathed their mummies in gold leaf, turning their dead loved ones into virtual golden statues, according to FRENCH EXPERTS. 

But no one knew how accurate the portraits on those elaborate mummies were.

 Now experts using advanced forensic science have proved that the paintings were true-to-life portraits of the deceased when they had been alive.

“It was pretty exciting,” said Bob Brier, an Egyptologist at Long Island University and lead author of a new study published in the German Egyptological journal ZÄS Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde (Journal for Egyptian Language and Studies).  

“We didn’t know what we were going to find,” Brier said.

Brier and colleagues used a CT scanner to produce physical models of the mummies’ skulls. Then a crime artist, who only knew the mummy’s age and gender, used the models to recreate the mummies’ faces. The painstaking process took seven days per mummy.

“We were dying to see what it looked like,” Brier said.

The team then compared the faces to painted portraits entombed with the bandaged bodies.

Two of the four match-ups were strikingly similar.

A mummy from the British Museum was a small woman in her early 20s with delicate features, a narrow face and thick lips. Her face appears to match the features of her portrait. (Image credit: Caroline Wilkinson/University of Dundee Centre for Anatomy & Human Identification)

“It is believed that they were almost certainly painted during the lifetimes of the individuals and clearly were not idealized images,” Brier said of the portraits.

A second mummy from the British Museum was a large man in his 50s with a broad face, thick brow, flat nose, and heavy jaw. His face was very similar to his portrait, which may have been painted when he was younger. (Image credit: Caroline Wilkinson/University of Dundee Centre for Anatomy & Human Identification)

But one face didn’t match the portrait at all, leading the researchers to believe the ancient embalmers might have wrapped the mummy with the wrong portrait.

A mummy from the Glyptotek Museum in Copenhagen was a young man in his 30s with a wide nose, broad cheekbones, thick lips and rounded jawline.  This face looked quite different from the portrait, hinting that a switch might have occurred. (Image credit: Caroline Wilkinson/University of Dundee Centre for Anatomy & Human Identification)

“It is possible that during the mummification procedure, when several bodies were being mummified at the same time, a mismatch occurred,” Brier said.

The fourth mummy’s nose looked more refined in the portrait than in the researchers’ prediction, but his “other facial features and proportions were so consistent between the reconstruction and portrait that no mix-up was indicated here,” Brier said.

A mummy from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City was a man in his early 30s with a wide nose, square jaw and thick lips. His "touched up" portrait appears to show a younger man with a more narrow nose but similar lips and jaw. (Image credit: Caroline Wilkinson/University of Dundee Centre for Anatomy & Human Identification)

The study sheds light on the purpose of the portraits, which represented a shift from symbolic art to realistic art after the Romans conquered Egypt in 30 B.C.

“This study convinced us that some of these portraits were dead-on,” Brier said, adding that some portraits were likely styled to be more flattering to the deceased.

Brier would like to extend the study to include more mummies. But  while there are more than 1,000 mummy portraits, less than 100 are still attached to the people they depict, he said.

“The difficulty is finding portraits that are still bound to the mummy,” he said. “Many portraits were taken off the mummies and sold during the 19th century and early part of the 20th century.”

THE MUMMIFICATION OF ANTINOUS AS IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN CARRIED OUT

THE newly ordained priests of Antinous were busily overseeing the mummification of his body in the 72 days between his death in late October of the year 130 and early January of 131, many experts believe.

Hadrian founded the city of Antinoopolis on the banks of the Nile where Antinous died and proclaimed the new religion.

While the Emperor continued his tour of Egypt, the priests scurried to carry out his imperial commission.

We do not know for certain what transpired with the remains of Antinous ... or whether they were ever retrieved from the Nile. Perhaps they were cremated. But perhaps the body was mummified.

Using an Antinous Action Figure, we can demonstrate how it may have been done:

We prepared the body by cleansing it with wine. Then we removed the Intestines, Liver, Lungs and Stomach (placing them in Canopic Jars). 

There is a incision mark down his left side to represents where he would have been cut open for the removal of these organs. 

Next we removed the Brains with a hook through the nose (hence the black dot on his nostril). 

The brains were thrown away because the Egyptians felt the heart was the seat of intelligence, not the brain.

We used a basting brush to cleanse him although a hair-dye or cosmetics brush is also applicable. 

The red heart represents the fact that they left the heart in tact, later it will be used in the Weighing-of-the-heart ceremony. 

In the back corner you see Anubis (the God of Embalming) present during this embalming.

We put him in Sea Salt which represents the Natron Salt that the priests would have used. (Himalayan Salt works just as well). 

Then we let him sit in the salt for 40 minutes ... 1 minute for each day the priests would have left the body in the Natron Salt.

Next we wiped him down with spices of Cinnamon, Nutmeg and Allspice with olive oil.

Then the priests would have replaced the eyes with onions stuffed into the sockets. 

Because the salt desiccated the body, then they stuffed the body with mud, sawdust, rags and chaff to make it appear nicely contoured.

Next we began the wrapping process. We used muslin and a mixture of flour and water (1 part to 3 parts) for the paste. 

In ancient times, it took about 15 days to wrap the body and about 20 layers of linen bandages. 

We put Amulets between the layers of Linen … a tiny scarab beetle and a miniature protective eye of Horus.

We allowed him to do a little drying before the final wrapping.

In ancient times the process took 72 days.

In the case of Antinous, this meant his mummy would have been ready for the final ceremonies on January 11th of 131 AD.

By that time Hadrian would have completed his tour of Egypt and would have returned to Antinoopolis for the "Opening of the Mouth Ceremony."

Afterwards, his tomb would have been sealed and the first priests of Antinous would have begun their sacred watch … and the establishment of the new religion.

No one knows the location of the Lost Tomb of Antinous.

NEFERTITI SURVIVED THE FALL OF EGYPT AND EVEN THE FALL OF THE 3RD REICH

AN alluring mystery has surrounded this famous bust of Nefertiti since its discovery on December 6, 1912, incredibly intact and sporting vibrant colours, after lying in forgotten in the sands since the tumultuous days at the close of the reign of Pharaoh Akhenaton, one of the most enigmatic rulers of all time.

It was found by a German archaeologist in the ruins of a sculptor's house at Tell el-Amarna ... 20 km south of ANTINOOPOLIS.

In 1913, the Ottoman Empire agreed to allow its finders, part-time German-Jewish archaeologist and full-time entrepreneur James Simon and his Prussian colleague Ludwig Borchardt, to retain possession of the bust.

The simmering controversy between Egypt and Germany boiled over anew when a German news magazine printed excerpts from documents which allegedly indicated Borchardt deliberately used subterfuge to "smuggle" the bust out of Egypt. 

The documents are not new to scholars, however, who say Borchardt and Simon did not need to be devious. 

Instead, the Ottoman Empire officials simply failed to appreciate the artistic value of the artefact.

Despite persistent rumors that Borchardt and Simon smuggled out the bust under a coating of mud, the plain truth of the matter is that Ottoman authorities failed to recognize the bust as a masterpiece. In those days, the stark style of the Amarna Period was not viewed to be as valuable as more traditional styles of other periods.

Borchardt and Simon, however, immediately recognized the bust's appeal to European tastes for Art Nouveau and other post-Victorian styles. They did indeed breathe a sigh of relief when the Ottoman authorities blindly gave their stamp of approval to their request for removal from Egypt.

Borchardt and Simon carted it off to Europe where Simon displayed Nefertiti prominently in his home in Berlin before later lending it to the Berlin museum and finally donating it in 1920 to the Berlin collection.

The discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922 spawned an Egypto-mania craze as well as the Art Deco style.

King Tut's treasures flaunted the "decadent" style of the late 18th Dynasty, and Nefertiti suddenly was a fashion trend-setter.

Crowds flocked to the Berlin museum in to see Nefertiti and shame-faced Egyptian authorities realized they had made a ghastly mistake a decade earlier.

"They suddenly realized that this bust, which had been dismissed as 'un-Egyptian' in 1913, was in fact one of the most exquisite examples of Egyptian art," the Berliner Zeitung newspaper quoted one expert as saying.

In 1933 the Egyptian government demanded Nefertiti's return - the first of many such demands over the decades to come. One of the many titles Hermann Goering held was premier of Prussia (which included Berlin) and, acting in that capacity, Goering suggested to King Fouad I of Egypt that Nefertiti would soon be back in Cairo.

But Hitler had other plans. Through the ambassador to Egypt, Eberhard von Stohrer, Hitler informed the Egyptian government that he was an ardent fan of Nefertiti:

"I know this famous bust," the fuehrer wrote. "I have viewed it and marvelled at it many times. Nefertiti continually delights me. The bust is a unique masterpiece, an ornament, a true treasure!"

Hitler said Nefertiti had a place in his dreams of rebuilding Berlin and renaming it Germania.

"Do you know what Im going to do one day? I'm going to build a new Egyptian museum in Berlin," Hitler went on.

"I dream of it. Inside I will build a chamber, crowned by a large dome. In the middle, this wonder, Nefertiti, will be enthroned. 

"I will never relinquish the head of the Queen," Hitler vowed. 

(Cartoon by ALLYSTERIO)

While he did not mention it at the time, Hitler envisioned more for the museum. There was to be an even larger hall of honour, with a bust of Hitler.

It was rumoured immediately after World War II that Hitler had commissioned a copy of the bust for possible handover to the Egyptians after a Nazi victory. 

American Allied art experts claimed they found two wooden crates in a salt mine south of Berlin where the German capital's museum art treasures had been placed by the Germans for safekeeping during bombing raids. The two crates allegedly contained identical Nefertiti busts.

But in post-war confusion, one of the crates got lost. The whereabouts of the "other Nefertiti" are unknown - assuming it ever existed to start with. 

From time to time over the years, there have been reports suggesting that the fake bust survived and that the genuine bust is lost. A recent documentary on Germany's ZDF television network revived that theory.

But a series of new CT scans come to the rescue. 

They prove once and for all that the bust on view in Berlin is indeed genuine. 

Whether there ever was a duplicate is now a moot point.

The exquisite limestone bust of Queen Nefertiti forms the focal point of the Berlin collection, which ranks among the top two or three collections in the world outside Egypt itself.

The British Museum, the Louvre in Paris and the Metropolitan in New York are the only chief rivals to Berlin's collection, which spans all eras from the pre-Dynastic period all the way through to Roman times.

Hitler's dreams of a monolithic new Egyptian museum never materialized. Hitler and his mad dreams are long dead. But Nefertiti continues to smile serenely. As she has for 3,300 years. As if to say, this too shall pass. And I shall endure.

NIANKHKHNUM and KHNUMHOTEP SAINTS OF ANTINOUS

ON November 11th the Religion of Antinous honors two men whose love for each other has survived the fall of all ancient civilizations.

We honor Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep, Blessed Saints of Antinous.They lived in Egypt 2,000 years before the siege of Troy. 

They had been dead and forgotten for 2,650 years when Hadrian and Antinous visited Mennefer (Memphis) Egypt in 130 AD. 

Most likely Hadrian and Antinous stood directly on top of (or very nearly on top of) the lost tomb of these two men — two men who were buried together at the Memphis necropolis some 4,500 years ago.

When the tomb was discovered in 1964 it sent shock waves through the dusty world of Egyptology. The vividly painted reliefs on the walls of the tomb showed an intimate embrace between two male Royal Manicurists — the first recorded depiction of an openly homosexual couple.
Prudish Egyptologists have argued ever since that the two men were "just good friends" or perhaps that they were possibly "twin brothers".

But recent research by more open-minded archaeologists, such as California-based EGYPTOLOGIST GREG REEDER, has offered compelling evidence that the two men were more than "just good friends" or "close brothers."

Greg Reeder has written and lectured extensively on this extraordinary tomb, which was uncovered in 1964 in the necropolis of Saqqara at Memphis, on the west bank of the Nile. The site atop a cliff overlooking the Nile has drawn tourists since ancient times. Julius Caesar and Cleopatra stood atop this cliff and gazed in awe at its ancient tomb structures.

Hadrian and Antinous almost certainly stood on this very same spot in October of the year 130 AD, only weeks before Antinous drowned in the Nile. Beneath their feet was the Lost Tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep. The sand has been removed and now that long-lost tomb is no longer lost.

And what a tomb it is! It has a splendid entrance and charming layout befitting a pleasant gay holiday retreat cottage — for an eternal, never-ending holiday vacation.

While grave robbers stripped the tomb of relics in antiquity, the wall paintings reveal tantalizing hints about its original occupants. The men are repeatedly depicted together, sometimes holding hands, sometimes with their arms around each other.

In two instances they are shown with their noses touching — the most intimate embrace permitted in Egyptian art of the time — tantamount to kissing. Their bodies are pressed so closely together that their groins rub against each other in a decidedly intimate sort of way. 

In Ancient Egypt, such male-male depictions were reserved for kings who merged with gods, not for two mortal men.

They are so close together that some Egyptologists have theorized that they may have been Siamese twins joined at the hips.

Other figures, identified as wives and children, are relegated to the background. In one scene, in which the two men share a final banquet before their journey into the afterlife, Niankhkhnum' s "wife" has been plastered over by the craftsmen who decorated the tomb. Khnumhotep's spouse fails to make an appearance at all — highly unusual in Egyptian tomb art, if not totally unprecedented.

Throughout the tomb, the two men are depicted in joyous pursuits, such as this relief vignette (right) showing one of them playing flute accompaniment as the other sings.

The magnificent reliefs show a variety of scenes involving nude or semi-nude males involved in all sorts of artistic and manly activities, such as one scene (below left) of a sort of "Egyptian Rodeo" bull-roping tournament with accompanying scenes of a raucous "beef barbecue" feast.

Or the scene (below right) of athletic youths — so sparingly attired you can see they are circumcised — engaged in a playful mock battle using reed skiffs on the Nile.

Throughout the tomb, the reliefs show men, men, men (and a few token females) engaged in service to the tomb's two male occupants who are — unprecedented in Egyptian Sacred Art — wholly committed to each other. Other tombs invariably show man-and-wife. Not this one.

Hieroglyphs describe the men as "Overseers of the Royal Manicurists" to pharaoh. 
Ostensibly, they were responsible for the care of the pharaoh's hands and were among the select few permitted to touch the ruler. 

However, it is also possible that the title "Royal Manicurist" could be a ceremonial honor similar to the "Order of the Garter".

Though the hieroglyphs say nothing of the two men's relationship, Greg Reeder, an Egyptologist based in San Francisco, believes the wall paintings suggest homosexuality is the answer. Reeder points out that Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep clearly chose to depict themselves in poses usually restricted to husbands and wives in other tombs. 

"Same-sex desire must be considered as a probable explanation," Reeder said at a lecture in Britain which made headlines a couple of years ago.

"We can only say for certain that the carvings show a profound intimacy between the two men, and the people who built the tomb were possibly unsure how to portray this," the US archaeologist noted.

The tomb was restored by German archaeologists in the late 1970s and opened to the public in the 1990s.

While gay tour operators have not targeted the site, in large part because Egypt outlaws homosexual activity, Greg Reeder's articles and lectures have created gay interest in this long-lost tomb.

"It has now become famous and lots of gay tourists go there," he says with scholarly pride.

Reeder notes that, regardless of whether the two men were sexual lovers, they were definitely two men who loved each other so much that they wanted to spend all eternity in an intimate embrace.

Even their two names are intertwined. Over the entrance to one chamber their names are mingled together so that Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep become "NiankhKHNUMhotep" — Peace and Life joined in the ram-headed Source-of-the-Nile Deity Khnum, clearly their mutual sacred patron.

Thus, their names blend together, forming a single name: "Joined in Life and Joined in Peace at the Source of All That Lives and Dies and is Born Again for All Eternity". Such is the subtlety of the Egyptian language, which turns a name into a commitment.
Our Flamen Antinoalis Antonyus Subia says:

"Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep is one of the earliest and most vivid portrayals of homosexual love, crossing all boundaries, binding two men and two families for all time, and demonstrating the profound antiquity and sacredness of our form of love." 

Thanks largely to the bold and candid research of Greg Reeder, the names of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep have been rescued from oblivion, so that their KAs might live forever — together! 

ANTINOOPOLIS MUMMY PORTRAITS WERE TRUE TO LIFE, EXPERTS SAY

ANTINOOPOLIS is the site of some of the most spectacular portrait art ever found in Egypt. 

Art experts have always marveled at the exquisite encaustic (melted wax mixed with paint) portraits which were used as face plates on mummy cases at Antinoopolis and the nearby Fayoum Oasis.

At Antinoopolis, wealthy people even sheathed their mummies in gold leaf, turning their dead loved ones into virtual golden statues, according to FRENCH EXPERTS. 

But no one knew how accurate the portraits on those elaborate mummies were.

 Now experts using advanced forensic science have proved that the paintings were true-to-life portraits of the deceased when they had been alive.

“It was pretty exciting,” said Bob Brier, an Egyptologist at Long Island University and lead author of a new study published in the German Egyptological journal ZÄS Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde (Journal for Egyptian Language and Studies).  

“We didn’t know what we were going to find,” Brier said.

Brier and colleagues used a CT scanner to produce physical models of the mummies’ skulls. Then a crime artist, who only knew the mummy’s age and gender, used the models to recreate the mummies’ faces. The painstaking process took seven days per mummy.

“We were dying to see what it looked like,” Brier said.

The team then compared the faces to painted portraits entombed with the bandaged bodies.

Two of the four match-ups were strikingly similar.

A mummy from the British Museum was a small woman in her early 20s with delicate features, a narrow face and thick lips. Her face appears to match the features of her portrait. (Image credit: Caroline Wilkinson/University of Dundee Centre for Anatomy & Human Identification)

“It is believed that they were almost certainly painted during the lifetimes of the individuals and clearly were not idealized images,” Brier said of the portraits.

A second mummy from the British Museum was a large man in his 50s with a broad face, thick brow, flat nose, and heavy jaw. His face was very similar to his portrait, which may have been painted when he was younger. (Image credit: Caroline Wilkinson/University of Dundee Centre for Anatomy & Human Identification)

But one face didn’t match the portrait at all, leading the researchers to believe the ancient embalmers might have wrapped the mummy with the wrong portrait.

A mummy from the Glyptotek Museum in Copenhagen was a young man in his 30s with a wide nose, broad cheekbones, thick lips and rounded jawline.  This face looked quite different from the portrait, hinting that a switch might have occurred. (Image credit: Caroline Wilkinson/University of Dundee Centre for Anatomy & Human Identification)

“It is possible that during the mummification procedure, when several bodies were being mummified at the same time, a mismatch occurred,” Brier said.

The fourth mummy’s nose looked more refined in the portrait than in the researchers’ prediction, but his “other facial features and proportions were so consistent between the reconstruction and portrait that no mix-up was indicated here,” Brier said.

A mummy from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City was a man in his early 30s with a wide nose, square jaw and thick lips. His "touched up" portrait appears to show a younger man with a more narrow nose but similar lips and jaw. (Image credit: Caroline Wilkinson/University of Dundee Centre for Anatomy & Human Identification)

The study sheds light on the purpose of the portraits, which represented a shift from symbolic art to realistic art after the Romans conquered Egypt in 30 B.C.

“This study convinced us that some of these portraits were dead-on,” Brier said, adding that some portraits were likely styled to be more flattering to the deceased.

Brier would like to extend the study to include more mummies. But  while there are more than 1,000 mummy portraits, less than 100 are still attached to the people they depict, he said.

“The difficulty is finding portraits that are still bound to the mummy,” he said. “Many portraits were taken off the mummies and sold during the 19th century and early part of the 20th century.”