Dominique Navarro's Blog, page 13
March 6, 2015
AUC Press Nature Foldouts at Deir el-Medina!
Thank you to Ayman for sharing a photo of his book booth in Deir el-Medina, on the west bank of Luxor, where he is selling copies of the AUC Press Nature Foldouts! He says: I’m very happy about your book “Cats of Egypt” and all your books.
Thank you Ayman!
Deir el-Medina (Arabic: ������ �����������������) is an ancient Egyptian village which was home to the artisans who worked on the tombs in the Valley of the Kings during the 18th to 20th dynasties of the New Kingdom period (ca. 1550���1080 BC). The settlement’s ancient name was “Set Maat” (translated as “The Place of Truth“), and the workmen who lived there were called ���Servants in the Place of Truth���.
[Previously published December 15, 2013]
On the way to Deir el-Medina in a tuk-tuk, passing the Colossi of Memnon.
At the ticket office…
View from the empty parking lot of Deir el-Medina. Once again, I am a lone tourist here.
In 1922 a team led by Bernard Bruy��re began to excavate the site. This work has resulted in one of the most thoroughly documented accounts of community life in the ancient world that spans almost four hundred years. There is no comparable site in which the organization, social interactions, working and living conditions of a community can be studied in such detail.
During their days off the workmen could work on their own tombs, and since they were amongst the best craftsmen in Ancient Egypt who excavated and decorated royal tombs, their own tombs are considered to be some of the most beautiful on the west bank.
Filed under: AUC Press Nature Foldout News Updates, Ventures & Vistas in Egypt
March 4, 2015
BBC’s “The Conversation” with Salima Ikram
BBC’s “The Conversation” with Salima Ikram about her work as an Egyptologist and studying animal mummies.
“Archaeologists are people who never grew up.” She describes the opening of a tomb and smelling the incense that was burned two thousand years earlier; her tools and equipment; her childhood exposure to ancient Egypt; and humanizing mummies: “when we think it is a great divide, it really isn’t; people who lived not just so long ago but in different places all share so much.”
She also discusses that 90% of her Egyptology students are female. “Girls and women have been increasingly empowered…” “Sexual harassment actually in the West I find much worst, in a way, then it is in the East��� one is often given far more respect.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02kmqsz?fb_ref=Default
Filed under: AUC Press Nature Foldout News Updates, Meet the Team!
March 2, 2015
Lockwood De Forest (1850-1932)���Forgotten Paintings of Egypt
Ramesseum at Thebes, Egypt, circa 1876, oil on canvas (Debra Force Fine Art)
Pyramid of Sakkara, Egypt, 1878��(Debra Force Fine Art)
On the Nile below Cairo, 1876 ��(Debra Force Fine Art)
S
unset over Pyramids
, 1875 (Sullivan Goss Gallery)
Lockwood de Forest had a long, successful career as an American painter and designer during his lifetime.��When only 22, de Forest already had two of his paintings on exhibit at the National Academy of Design in New York. He traveled the world and the United States, from New York to Santa Barbara where he retired and continued to paint landscapes of the California coast.
In 1875, 25 year old de Forest traveled to Egypt, sailing along the Nile in a dahabeah for two months, drawing in his sketchbook and creating oil sketches of the views. Unlike his predecessor���the artist David Roberts whose lithographs have remained some of the most popular illustrations of Egypt’s ancient sites in the 19th century���de Forest’s paintings often captured the light of the sky, the darkness of evening, and the ambiance of the stark landscapes. His paintings and oil sketches are filled with the silence of the desert and the solitude of the river.
Today, appreciation for de Forest’s artwork is being revived by galleries and collectors. Though Egypt has changed, developed, and overpopulated over the past century, de Forest’s paintings remain contemporary and poignant, encompassing the light and the mood of the country which can still be found, though ever more remotely.
My idea in picture painting is to make everyone who looks at my pictures think of real nature, and not of me or the way the painting is done. -Lockwood de Forest
Lockwood de Forest’s Egypt sketchbook, 1875-1876 (Archives of American Art)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEJ5V8Y9YJs
In Search of the Source: Paintings of the Nile by Lockwood De Forest (1850-1932) Hardcover Book from Sullivan Goss Gallery, or available on Amazon
Current exhibitions and galleries:
Sullivan Goss Gallery, Santa Barbara���Lockwood de Forest Collection
Debra Force Fine Art, New York���An Exotic Journey: The Furniture and Paintings of Lockwood de Forest, January 27 – March 13, 2015
Filed under: Egypt News - Environment & Egyptology
March 1, 2015
February 19, 2015
Walk Like an Egyptian: A Conversation with Nigel Fletcher Jones, Director of the American University in Cairo Press
Originally posted on The Scholarly Kitchen:
���Science is the Language of the intellect of Society. Art is the language of the entire Human personality.��� This quote from Egypt���s Nobel prize-winning author, Naguib Mahfouz, from his Cairo Trilogy, is both moving and profound, with a distinctly Middle Eastern flavor. Mahfouz���s books are published thanks to the American University in Cairo Press (AUC Press) (although licensed for sale in the West by a wide range of publishers). As North American university presses struggle with identity, and seek to redefine their place in the publishing ecosystem, I felt that it would be worth exploring the activities, and outlook of the AUC Press through the eyes of its Director, Nigel Fletcher Jones. What can we learn from this publisher, who has ambition, optimism, and a recent track record of significant growth?
We started by discussing Nigel���s motivations and background. Nigel is not Egyptian ��� in fact, he is���
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Filed under: Uncategorized
February 17, 2015
Thank You Amelia! for your Amazon Book Reviews
I would like to give a special thanks to Amelia who posted her reviews of each of the AUC Press Nature Foldouts on Amazon. It’s really appreciated!
To write your review, go to Amazon and click on any of the Nature Foldouts
Filed under: AUC Press Nature Foldout Reviews
February 10, 2015
46th Cairo International Book Fair ��� AUC Press Nature Foldouts On Sale!
You can find the Egypt’s AUC Press Nature Foldouts on sale at the Cairo International Book Fair which runs until February 12. The hours are from 9:00am to 9:00pm.
Many great books, bargains, and discounts in the AUC Press Stand. The best way to reach the AUC Press Booth is from Mamdouh Salem Street (instead of Salah Salem Street). http://www.aucpress.com/images/2015CIBFFlyerMap.jpg
Photography by Sameh El Moghazy
Filed under: AUC Press Nature Foldout News Updates
January 27, 2015
Richard Hoath’s Article in Egypt Today, “Mangrove Misery”
Richard Hoath, a scientific consultant for the AUC Press Nature Foldouts, has a new article in Egypt Today, about the threat to mangroves in Egypt and abroad in the Sundarbans, the world���s largest mangrove forest and a UNESCO World Heritage Site where there was a recent oil tanker crash.
http://egypttoday.com/blog/2015/01/28/mangrove-misery/
Egypt too boasts mangroves, mainly of the White Mangrove Avicennia marina. Stands can be found along the coast of South Sinai, most notably at El Nabq and at Ras Mohamed, and along the Red Sea coast from the islands at the mouth of the Gulf of Suez south to Marsa Alam and beyond. These invaluable habitats are already threatened by rampant coastal construction, tourist development, by tourism itself and by pollution.
But one does not need to venture to the exotic Red Sea coast for the mangrove experience. There is always the desert southwest of Fayoum. Many will be familiar with Wadi Al-Hitan, the Valley of the Whales, like the Sundarbans a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Here lying out in the sand are the partially excavated fossil skeletons of whales, notably Basilosaurus isis and Dorudon atrox. Their importance lies in the fact that these fossils, dating back some 40 million years, show that these whales had external rear legs and legs with feet and toes ��� a feature found in no modern whale and that is vital in our understanding of whale evolution. But Wadi Al-Hitan has other fossils, of sea turtles and dugongs and the like. And there is a fossilized mangrove bed, a tangle of roots and pneumatophores frozen and aeons old, yet instantly recognizable.
Filed under: Egypt News - Environment & Egyptology
January 2, 2015
Ancient Egyptian Temple Tomb 3-D Rendering
Ancient Egyptian Temple Tomb belonging to a 25th Dynasty (760 BC to 656 BC) Kushite
nobleman and priest. 3-D Rendering & Epigraphic Art by Dominique Navarro
Filed under: Egypt News - Environment & Egyptology, Related Stories
