28 May 2021 - Tutankhamun's Burial Chamber Found

 

Tutankhamun's Burial

 Chamber Found

 

G'day folks,

In November 1923, a team led by British archaeologist and Egyptologist Howard Carter discovered the tomb of the Egyptian boy king Tutankhamun. This would go on to become the most famous discovery of a pharaoh's tomb, and make Tutankhamun perhaps the most famous pharaoh.

After chipping his way into the tomb in November (using a chisel his grandmother had given him on his 17th birthday), Carter and his sponsor Lord Carnarvon spent the next several months meticulously cataloguing the items inside the tomb's antechamber.

On February 16, 1923, Carter discovered that the antechamber did in fact lead to Tutankhamun's burial chamber when he opened the sealed doorway inside, and glimpsed the sarcophagus of the pharaoh.

Over the years, many legends have emerged around the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb, most famously the so-called curse of the pharaohs: that those who disturbed the tomb were doomed to an early death. 

Among those who died not long after the discovery was the financial backer of the project, Lord Carnarvon, who died in April 1923; A. C. Mace, a member of the excavation team, who died in 1928; Archibald Douglas-Reid, a radiologist who x-rayed Tutankhamun's mummy, died in 1924; and even Howard Carter himself, who died in 1939.

Clancy's comment: I wonder if this burial site did contain a curse?

I'm ...

 

 

 

 

 

24 May 2021 - KING TUT'S REVENGE

 

KING TUT'S REVENGE

 

G'day folks,

February 16, 1923 — It’s a discovery that would have made Indiana Jones envious: on this day archaeologist Howard Carter opened the sealed doorway leading to the burial chamber and sarcophagus of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings.

A few weeks earlier, after making a "tiny breach” in the top left hand corner of the tomb doorway, he was asked by his patron Lord Carnarvon if he could see anything.

Carter replied: "Yes, wonderful things" and added: “As my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist: strange animals, statues, and gold – everywhere the glint of gold."

Some people believe that by opening the tomb, which had remained undisturbed for nearly 4,000 years, Carter unleashed the “Curse of the Pharaohs,” which is said to herald catastrophe for anyone who disturbs the mummy of an Ancient Egyptian person.

Certainly, some six weeks after Tutankhamun’s tomb was opened, Lord Carnarvon, who had paid for the expedition, was dead. He had been bitten on the cheek by a mosquito and made matters worse by shaving over the bite, causing an infection, blood poisoning, pneumonia and death.

 

At the time of Carnarvon’s demise in a Cairo hotel, the lights went out across the city and in England the earl’s saluki pet dog, Susie, howled and herself fell down dead.

Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, was a devoted spiritualist and claimed to have a direct line to Ancient Egypt. He thought doctors were being naive in declaring that the mosquito bite led to Carnarvon’s death.

He believed the earl died because he had desecrated the pharaoh’s tomb and unleashed the Curse of Tutankhamen.

Sceptics point out, however, that Carter, who was the first to enter the tomb, lived on happily until 1939 when he died of lymphoma in London at the age of 64.

In fact, of the 58 people who were present when the tomb and sarcophagus were opened, only eight died in the following decade.

Perhaps the curse of ‘King Tut,’ as he became known, had lost its potency after 4,000 years.

Clancy's comment: Mm ... interesting.

I'm ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

10 May 2021 - LUXOR TEMPLE, EGYPT

 

LUXOR TEMPLE, EGYPT

 

G'day folks,

This temple is Located on the east bank of the Nile River in Luxor, in the ancient city of Thebes. 

 

The Luxor Temple was built in 1,100 and 1,600 BC during the reigns of several pharaohs - Amenhotep III (1390-52 BC), Tutankhamun (1336-27 BC), and Horemheb (1323-1295 BC), and then added to by Rameses II (1279-13 BC). The temple was dedicated to the three Egyptian gods Amun, Mut, and Chons, and is considered the largest and most important site in ancient Egypt. The Luxor temple served as a place of worship for nearly 3,500 years and was also the center of the festival of Opet (ancient Egyptian festival of the second month of the lunar calendar). 

 

According to Egyptian legends, the Luxor Temple was “the place of the First Occasion,” where the god Amun experienced a rebirth. Today, the massive Great Colonnade Hall is one of the most vital remains of this vast temple complex.

 

Clancy's comment: The age of these temples is gob smacking. 

I'm ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5 May 2021 - TEMPLE OF AMADA, EGYPT

 

TEMPLE OF AMADA, EGYPT

 

G'day folks,

The Temple of Amada is one of the oldest temples in Egypt and was first constructed by Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose III of the 18th dynasty, sometime around the 15th century BC. 

 

Dedicated to the gods Amun and Ra-Horakhty, the temple is considered to be one of the earliest examples of Egyptian temple architecture in the area of the Middle Nile. While it was originally constructed on the east bank of the Nile, the Temple of Amada was moved in the 1960s and '70s to a higher site on Lake Nasser to protect it from flooding. 

 

One of the most significant features of the temple is a relief along with two important inscriptions describing the military feats of the pharaohs who built it - Tuthmosis III and his son Amenhotep II. While the temple is quite small and dilapidated, it is still quite fascinating and vibrant from inside.

 

Clancy's comment: Imagine moving a temple this old?

I'm ...

 

5 December 2020 - INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT ANCIENT EGYPT

 

 

 

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT

 ANCIENT EGYPT

 

G'day folks,

 

Ancient Egypt is one of the most outstanding and extraordinary civilizations to have ever existed on Earth. 

Thanks to the abundance of records and relics, many of which continue emerging to this day, we’re lucky to know so much about this ancient culture, their history, and even everyday life.

Here, we venture beyond the usual facts about the pyramids and Tutankhamen and share some equally fascinating facts and misconceptions about Ancient Egypt and its population. Did you know, for example, that ancient Egyptians didn’t ride camels and didn’t have money? Or that Cleopatra was likely not as beautiful as rumoured.

 MUMMIES 

 

 Mummification was a common practice in many civilizations, but it was the ancient Egyptians that turned it into a whole science. Turning a body into a mummy was a long, arduous and very expensive process that only the privileged classes could afford. The majority of people, on the other hand, were simply buried in the desert. This is somewhat problematic, as the ancient Egyptians believed that a person will be able to live in the afterlife only if their body is preserved. But wouldn’t that mean that by reserving mummification only to the rich the simple folk would be denied a life after death? We will probably never know the answer to that question, but archaeologists do point out that, somewhat ironically, the hot desert sands were, in many cases, better at preserving the body than a sarcophagus placed in a cold and mouldy tomb.

 WRITING

 

 

Hieroglyphics is a writing system that can be found in many Ancient Egyptian temples, tombs and, of course, the pyramids, but it turns out that it wasn’t the main way of recording things. This is because hieroglyphs are pictograms, meaning that they are a series of small pictures that form sentences when combined in various ways. You can imagine that inscribing each picture, not to mention a whole text, in this fashion is extremely time-consuming and not very practical. This is why this beautiful pictographic writing system was reserved for historical writing, religious and burial-related texts only, and more mundane matters like trade documents were written in a simplified form of hieroglyphics called hieratic. With time, they simplified the script even more into the so-called demotic writing. All three of these writing systems were used to record the same spoken language, although few people could actually read in Ancient Egypt (over 90% of the population was illiterate).

CLOTHING

 

Many ancient Egyptian customs and customary clothing, in particular, are explained in ancient Egyptian or other historical accounts, but we still don’t know why most pharaohs, even the women, wore false beards. The first pharaoh who wore this type of regalia was Pharaoh Djoser in 27 century B.C., and all subsequent rulers were portrayed in this fashion. Even Pharaoh Hatshepsut, one of the most prominent female rulers of ancient Egypt, often appears with a fake beard. To this day, we’re not sure why this is the case, but it is speculated that the pharaoh’s “uniform”, beard included, signified their connection to the Gods, and this was a big deal, as pharaohs were considered the embodiment of the god Horus and they typically tried to single themselves out of the crowd in any way they could.

Clancy's comment: What an amazing civilization.

I'm ...

 

 

 

 

 

12 November 2020 - MUMMIES RECENTLY DISCOVERED IN EGYPT

 

MUMMIES RECENTLY 

DISCOVERED  IN EGYPT

 

G'day folks,

While most of us were only able to gaze at Egypt’s pyramids online, some major archeological findings accrued in the country, in the midst of the coronavirus crisis. 

 

In May 2020, Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities has announced the unearthing of five limestone sarcophagi (a stone coffin, typically adorned with a sculpture or inscription) and four wooden coffins containing human mummies. These incredible archeological finds were inside a burial shaft stretching nine meters below ground and located in Saqqara, an ancient burial ground about 20 miles south of Cairo. Also excavated from the shaft was an incredible array of small artifacts, including 365 figurines, some inscribed with hieroglyphics. These small statues are called Ushabti, and they were usually buried in Egyptian graves to aid the body in its afterlife. 

Another exciting excavation was that of mummy dating back to Egypt's 17th dynasty, circa 1550 BCE. A joint Egyptian-Spanish archeological mission discovered the coffin in Southern Egypt, in a necropolis called Draa Abul Naga. The mummified young woman is believed to have been around 15 or 16 years old at the time of her death.

Clancy's comment: Amazing that they keep on finding treasures from the past.

I'm ...

19 December 2016 - WHAT WAS THE SUEZ CRISIS?

WHAT WAS THE SUEZ CRISIS?

G'day folks,

The Suez Canal is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez. It was constructed by the Suez Canal Company between 1859 and 1869. However ...

 The Suez Crisis was precipitated by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s decision in July 1956 to nationalize the 120-mile Suez Canal, which had been jointly controlled by Great Britain and France, in part to fund construction of the Aswan Dam across the Nile River, a project that Western countries had refused to finance. More than two-thirds of the oil used by Europe flowed through the strategically vital waterway connecting the Mediterranean and Red Seas, and British Prime Minister Anthony Eden vowed to reclaim the “great imperial lifeline.” 

France, which objected to Nasser’s support of rebels in its colony of Algeria as well as the seizure of the canal built under Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps in 1869, and Israel, which had engaged in sporadic battles with Egypt along their shared border, joined Great Britain in a tripartite invasion that began on October 29, 1956, when Israeli armed forces attacked the Sinai Peninsula. Two days later, under the guise of protecting the canal, Anglo-French forces began bombing Egyptian targets. On November 5, British and French paratroopers and marines began to occupy strategic positions in the canal zone.

The United Nations quickly passed a resolution calling for a cease-fire, and in a rare instance of Cold War alignment, both the United States and the Soviet Union pressured Great Britain, France and Israel to withdraw. The Soviet Union, which had supplied arms and money to Egypt, made ambiguous—and ominous—threats about using nuclear weapons to aid its ally, while the United States wielded its economic power. Furious at not being informed of the attack in advance and fearful of a wider war in the Middle East, President Dwight D. Eisenhower threatened its NATO allies and Israel with sanctions if they did not draw back their forces. 

British and French troops departed Egypt in December 1956, and weeks later Eden resigned his office. Following Israel’s withdrawal in March 1957, Egypt reopened the canal to commercial shipping. The Suez Crisis made clear that the old colonial powers, Great Britain and France, had been supplanted as the world’s pre-eminent geopolitical forces by the United States and Soviet Union.

Clancy's comment: A strategic lifeline ... Until ...

I'm ...