Painted Hieroglyphic text from TT 179, the early Eighteenth Dynasty tomb of Nebamun (detail)

Egyptologists, Egyptian art enthusiasts, travelers and hieroglyphs aficionados! We need your help in finding the most exquisite painted hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt! We need your keen eyes to uncover, photograph, and send us what you encounter during your research, field project, or pleasure trip in Egypt.

Right now, our Painted Hieroglyph database contains only a representative collection, mostly to demonstrate the power of the concept. Luckily, the core of this collection is formed by none other than the beautiful material coming from TT 179, the exquisitely painted Eighteenth Dynasty tomb of Nebamun. I can't be thankful enough for Dr. Gábor Schreiber (†) for inviting me to be part of this project. We will gradually increase the number of hieroglyphs in the months to come, hunting for superb details and one-of-a-kind features from all periods of Egyptian art.

Our criteria are simple: it should be a spectacularly painted hieroglyph, preserved in pristine shape and photographed (with preferably a little bit of context) in high resolution (and by this we mean HIGH resolution!). If you find one that is worthy of our attention, please, upload it to our database. Try to include as much context information as possible; we'll help you with providing categories to choose from. You don't have to fill in all the fields, but the more the better. Once uploaded, your contribution will be revised by us and become part of the database.

Including your name is vital for more than one reason: the contributors who upload the most unique, most spectacular painted hieroglyphs will be honored on the website. Plus every six months, the contributor who uploads the most relevant hieroglyphs will receive a gift, courtesy of digitalEPIGRAPHY, to help his/her digital documentation work.

So, the race is on for helping us populating the database!

This post was originally released as part of digitalEPIGRAPHY's growing Instagram collection. If you'd like to see our latest photos as soon as we post them, please follow us on Instagram.

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