This Monday Colin Reader brings a strange tale of pharaohs and outer space!!!!!

An ornate gold and bejewelled pectoral with a green scarab at its centre was one of the many treasures discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter and his team in Tutankhamun’s famous tomb, KV62. Although perhaps not one of the most celebrated pieces from Tutankhamun’s trove, interest in this piece increased in 1996 when a mineralogist spotted that rather than a piece of relatively ordinary semi-precious stone, the green scarab was carved from a far more exotic material: silica glass.

Although silica glass is relatively well known in Egypt, this is the only known example used in a pharaonic artefact. Generally, silica glass is found in fragments in a remote part of the Western Desert, north of the Gilf Kebir and close to the Libyan border. The mystery is how had this chunk of silica glass found its way to the Nile Valley in the New Kingdom, and why was it so admired by the ancient Egyptians that it was used as a finely carved centrepiece for a prominent item of royal regalia? Surely, neither the royal court nor the craftsmen of New Kingdom Egypt could have known how strange this material really is?

As an engineering geologist and former Chairman of MAES, Colin was first attracted to ancient Egypt as a result of the controversy over the age of the Great Sphinx at Giza and what its weathering and erosion could tell us about its age. Although his ideas on the Early Dynastic origins of the Sphinx are controversial, they have been published in peer reviewed journals and have featured in a number of TV documentaries. Colin’s initial interest in the Sphinx led him to research wider issues associated with the geology of Egypt and during the COVID lockdown, he wrote a book focussing on what the geology and landscape of Egypt meant for the people of the Nile Valley.  The book is planned for publication in October 2022 and elements of today’s talk have been taken from the manuscript.

All welcome! Monday 27th February at the Pendulum Hotel, Sackville Street, Manchester, M1 3BB.

Doors open 7:30pm; lecture 8pm. Members £3, Guests £5 on the door. Parking round the corner in the Charles Street Multi-story.