Temple libraries were for a constant, ongoing ...

The daily operation of the Egyptian temples involved a series of complicated ritual performances - so complicated that the priests developed various ‘handbooks’ in order to carry them out correctly.

This is why the temples gradually developed the large-scale temple libraries, according to Professor Kim Ryholt of the Carsten Niebuhr Institute.

»All temples have a library attached to it. But this is not a library in a modern sense, not a public service. The temples were not open to the public except at festivals, and no one but the priests had access to the libraries« he explains.

Fragments shed new light on the old Egyptians

Take 400 jigsaw puzzles, each of 1000 pieces. Empty all of the pieces into a box, shake the box, and then discard 90 per cent of the pieces into the waste paper basket.

Now empty the remaining pieces onto a big table, and reconstruct the 400 jigsaw puzzles from the remaining pieces.

This is like the job of Egyptologist Kim Ryholt. But only almost, as he explains with a wide grin:

»In our papyrus texts, we don’t have the interlocking joins«.

See picture gallery here.

Priestly writings

Historians debate Copenhagen links to Nazis

Researchers from the University of Copenhagen and other Danish educational institutions had extensive scientific cooperation with Germany after Hitler's takeover in 1933, shows recent historical analysis.

At a two day conference entitled 'Danish Science, Universities and the Challenge from Nazism 1933-1945', the participants discussed the details.

Ancient societies were more complex

Here you have the Babylonians, here you have the Egyptians, here you have the Phoenicians, and here you have early Islam. And this is what they were about. Possibly the normal way to look back at Near Eastern ancient history.

But now a conference organised by the University of Copenhagen’s Center for Canon and Identity Formation intends to show how these different civilisations interacted with each other.

Researcher to unearth origins of agriculture

12,800 years ago a global climactic cooling event occurred. Low temperatures marked the beginning of 1,300 very cold years. University of Copenhagen associate professor, Tobias Richter, argues this may have been one of the reasons for the emergence of agriculture.

Last month Richter and fellow researchers from Jordan, UK, and US announced the discovery of 20,000 year old hut structures at the archaeological site of Kharaneh IV in eastern Jordan. Findings suggest that the area was once intensively occupied, changing our understanding of humanity's development in the region.

Medieval knights were stressed out

Knights in medieval battles were not all that hard under their suits of chainmail and armour.

A study by a University of Copenhagen historian Thomas Heebøll-Holm suggests that they had the same symptoms as modern troops in battle. This includes the scourge of modern troops returning from war, post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD).

Factors that dispose combat troops to post-traumatic stress were there in abundance according to his analysis of the medieval treatise ‘On Chivalry’, a kind of combat manual from around 1350 written by the French knight Geoffroi de Charny.

World’s biggest Maya conference

Spreading knowledge of the Maya language and strengthening research dialogue. The two main goals of a conference on ancient Maya culture at the University of Copenhagen.

New stories from old bones

He was struck down from behind with something blunt and hard, and his skull cracked.

He then lived on for several days, most likely in agony. This is what the lesions on his skull can tell us.

Maybe his injury was a battle wound, maybe it was just some kind of brawl. Maybe his friends helped him, transporting him by cart, maybe for days on end, to finally reach the monastery of Æbelholt in northern Sjælland. We don’t know. But he was buried - no coffin, head towards the west as is the custom - in the monastery’s churchyard.

Freak rain storm drowned skeletons

A cloudburst that dumped two months of rain on the inner city in two hours on 2 July also swamped the Æbelholt skeleton collection at the University’s Medical Museion.

The collection of 600 skeletons from the medieval Æbelholt monastery’s ruins stored in the cellar all turned out to be waterlogged after the 30 centimetre surge of water into the museum’s yard and cellars finally had subsided.