Issue 157 of Ancient Egypt Magazine has been published, The Past reports, with a contents list that runs from festivals for the dead in New Kingdom Thebes to the fort where the Rosetta Stone was found. The new issue was announced on 22 October 2026 and gathers seven features that range from early Egypt to the medieval period, taking in religion, daily life, the history of Egyptology and the archaeology of the desert.
First on the list is a feature titled The Beautiful Festival, which is concerned with celebrating the dead in New Kingdom Thebes. It appears alongside a piece on personal adornment in early Egypt, a subject that turns attention to the earliest stages of Egyptian history and to the ways people chose to decorate themselves.
Everyday life and its risks are the focus of Birthing on the bricks, which, according to The Past, looks at the dangers of pregnancy and birth in ancient Egypt. Taken together with the festival feature, the issue moves between the great public occasions of the Theban calendar and the most personal moments in a family's life.
The history of the discipline itself is represented by a profile of Ricardo A Caminos, whom the magazine presents as the unsung hero of Egyptian epigraphy. Epigraphy, the careful recording and study of inscriptions, is the groundwork on which much of the reading of ancient Egyptian texts depends, and the feature sets out to give Caminos his due within that tradition.
Two further pieces are rooted in particular places. Ain Khadra is explored through the archaeological landscape around a Western Desert spring, while another feature visits Fort Rashid, identified in the contents as the find-spot of the Rosetta Stone. The fort feature offers readers a look at the setting of one of the best-known discoveries in the history of Egyptology.
The issue also reaches well beyond the pharaonic age. A feature titled Medieval death on the Nile tells the saga of the fifth crusade, a reminder that the magazine's interest in Egypt extends across the country's long later history as well as its ancient past.
Hierolyte covered the previous number, issue 156, in August. Readers who enjoy the epigraphy and Rosetta Stone features may also like to try reading inscriptions for themselves with the Hierolyte app. The full contents of issue 157 are listed on The Past.