4400 Year Old Tomb Found of Hetpet, High Ranking Priestess to Hathor

Newsweek Magazine Online

TOMB REVEALS RARE PAINTINGS IN NEW EXCAVATION

BY JANISSA DELZO ON 2/3/18 AT 11:48 AM

An ancient Egyptian tomb, dating back more than 4,000 years, was discovered by archaeologists about 12 miles outside of Cairo, the country’s capital. The finding marks the first discovery to be announced in 2018, Ahram Online, an Egyptian news organization, reports.

The tomb is thought to have belonged to “Hetpet,” a high-ranking female official, Egypt’s Antiquities Ministry announced. The mud-brick tomb is in good condition and features various paintings of Hetpet, who was a priestess to Hathor, the goddess of fertility.

“The tomb has very distinguished wall paintings, in a very good conservation condition, depicting 'Hetpet' standing in different hunting and fishing scenes or sitting before a large offering table receiving offerings from her children,” according to the ministry.

Some of the scenes also show performances, as well as, one monkey collecting fruit while the other one dances. Paintings like this have been found before, but not often.

“Such scenes are rare... and have only been found previously in the (Old Kingdom) tomb of 'Ka-Iber' where a painting shows a monkey dancing in front of a guitarist not an orchestra,” Mostafa Al-Waziri, leader of the archaeological mission, told Agence France-Presse.

The tomb, which was found near the Giza Pyramids, also has a shrine; however, no mummy was found.

Archaeologists began excavating the site last October, but didn’t reveal their findings to the public until Saturday, The Associated Press (AP) reports. Al-Waziri believes there are other ancient artifacts waiting to be uncovered near the site.

“This is a very promising area. We expect to find more,” Al-Waziri said, according to the AP. “We have removed between 250-300 cubic meters of layers of earth to find the tomb.”

“What we see above the earth’s surface in Egypt doesn’t exceed 40 percent of what the core holds,” he added.

Link to Twitter Feed video in article.

Link to BBC video from a shorter article in The Week contains scenes of the tomb paintings; that article indicates that Hetpet was a high ranking official and closely connected to the Royal Palace and the tomb dates to about 2400 BCE. 

Archaeologists Perhaps Closing in on Lost Satellite Pyramids of Queen Ankhnespepy II

From Newsweek

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN PYRAMIDION FOUND NEXT TO LARGEST OBELISK HINTS AT EXISTENCE OF QUEEN’S LOST CHAMBER

BY DANA DOVEY ON 10/13/17 AT 12:23 PM

The discovery of a 4,000-year-old pyramidion found near the excavation of the largest Old Kingdom obelisk fragment may be the first evidence of the existence of satellite pyramids for Queen Ankhnespepy II, the most important Egyptian queen of the sixth dynasty.

Juan R. Lazaro - Photo by Juan R. Lazaro source
Profile of Ankhnespepy II, wife of Pepy I mother of Merenre Pepy II,
from Saqqara, Pyramid complex of Queen Ankhnespepy II, Funerary
Temple. Saqqara. Imhotep Museum.

The pyramidion itself is a striking archaeological find, but its location is even more intriguing. The pyramidion was found very close to where French-Swiss archaeologists, led by Philippe Collombert of the University of Geneva, recently uncovered a 4,300-year-old obelisk last week. At eight feet tall, the obelisk, a tall stone pillar placed at the entrance of burial pyramids, is the largest fragment of an obelisk from the Old Kingdom ever found. The obelisk is inscribed with the title and name of Queen Ankhnespepy II, suggesting it stood before the queen’s pyramid.

The queen’s burial chamber was discovered in 1963 and her pyramid uncovered in 1998. However, archeologists are still searching for her satellite pyramids, tiny pyramids usually found next to the pyramid of a king or queen. The recently uncovered pyramidion was found where near where archaeologists believe we can expect to find the queen’s satellite pyramid. According to Collombert in a statement from the Ministry of Antiquities's official Facebook page, this pyramidion is the first evidence of the existence of satellite pyramids.

“We are 90 percent sure that this pyramidion will lead us to the satellite pyramid,” Collombert tells Newsweek. “But we also expect the satellite pyramid to be almost completely destroyed, because all this area of the necropolis was used in later times as a quarry for good limestone, for centuries.”

As of yet, the true purpose of satellite pyramids is not clear. They are too small for burials and researchers aren't sure what other function they may have served. 

Queen Ankhnespepy II was married to Pepy I, and when widowed she married her nephew Merenre, the son of her deceased husband and her sister. From her marriage to Merenre she gave birth to King Pepy II, who ruled Egypt from about 2332 through 2283 B.C. However, Ankhnespepy II ruled in his place until he came of age. Although she did not ascend as high as the position of Pharaoh, her important position as Queen-regent meant that upon her death, Queen Anknespepy was given a large burial pyramid and an equally large obelisk.

The pyramidion was found south of King Pepy I’s pyramid, in Saqqara necropolis, a vast ancient burial ground 19 miles south of Cairo. The pyramidion measures about 4.2 feet high and 3.6 feet long on its sides. Collombert believes the pyramidion would have once sat on top of the satellite pyramid he and his team are searching for. Although it is now partially destroyed, archaeologists think the pyramidion was once covered with a metal foil, of either gold or copper.

Collombert says (in French) that he and his team will continue to reveal further evidence about the satellite pyramid's location and keep us updated in the search for this ancient mysterious chamber.

Important 5,200 Year Old Pictoral Symbols Discovered in Elkab Desert Region of Egypt

A rock panel featuring depictions of a bull’s head on a short pole followed by two back-to-back saddlebill storks with a bald ibis bird above and between them.MINISTRY OF ANTIQUITIES

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN WRITING: NEW SYMBOLS REVEAL DEVELOPMENT OF HIEROGLYPHICS

BY JOSH LOWE ON 6/22/17 AT 7:17 AM

The elegant pictorial writing system of the ancient Egyptians—known as hieroglyphics—has fascinated generations of archeologists. Its precise origins are uncertain. One ancient Egyptian legend holds that the god Thoth handed the gift of writing to a few chosen scribes. A more prosaic modern theory suggests that they derived from rock pictures produced by prehistoric hunting societies wandering the desert.
Now, a new discovery may hold some clues as to how carved images evolved into a formal writing system. According to a Facebook post by the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, a new rock inscription site discovered around 60 km south of Luxor in the village of El-Khawy “helps in understanding the development of a system of graphic communication that sets the stage for the appearance of true hieroglyphic writing.”
Now, a new discovery may hold some clues as to how carved images evolved into a formal writing system. According to a Facebook post by the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, a new rock inscription site discovered around 60 km south of Luxor in the village of El-Khawy “helps in understanding the development of a system of graphic communication that sets the stage for the appearance of true hieroglyphic writing.”
The inscriptions date back around 5,200 years and each individual sign is about half a meter in height. “This is the first time that anyone has seen them on such a massive scale,” Darnell said. He said the team was “absolutely flabbergasted” by the size of the discovery.

According to Yale, they are significant not only for their unique size, but also because they show that even in its very earliest phases, the use of hieroglyphic writing was widespread and not confined to the offices of dusty bureaucrats as some had previously argued.

“This also suggests that there is a much more expansive use of the early writing system than is indicated from other surviving archeological material,” Darnell said.

The researchers found the inscriptions in the northern desert landscape of Elkab. This area, along with a city called Hierakonpolis across the river, were extremely important settlements in ancient Egypt, Darnell said.

What Is Egypt Covering Up?

Holy Hathor. Check out this series of articles and YOU tell me if you don't think the Egyptian authorities are keeping this discovery ALL to themselves.  Good luck, dudes, trying to keep this one under your hats.  Bet the local antiquities raiders are already busy at work.  What do you suppose the odds are that the Egyptian government has plenty of armed troops guarding the" million mummies" site??? Ha!  Where is Zahi Hawass when we need him? 

At Live Science:

Million-Mummy Cemetery Unearthed in Egypt
by Owen Jarus, Live Science Contributor   |   December 16, 2014 07:43am ET

TORONTO — She's literally one in a million.

The remains of a child, laid to rest more than 1,500 years ago when the Roman Empire controlled Egypt, was found in an ancient cemetery that contains more than 1 million mummies, according to a team of archaeologists from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

The cemetery is now called Fag el-Gamous, which means "Way of the Water Buffalo," a title that comes from the name of a nearby road. Archaeologists from Brigham Young University have been excavating Fag el-Gamous, along with a nearby pyramid, for about 30 years. Many of the mummies date to the time when the Roman or Byzantine Empire ruled Egypt, from the 1st century to the 7th century A.D. [See photos of the million-mummy cemetery]

And then this:

Fayoum antiquities official denies 'million mummies' reports
Head of Fayoum antiquities says that the million figure was a research estimate only
[I'm gagging on this one!]

Nevine El-Aref , Friday 19 Dec 2014

A local antiquities official told Ahram Online that news reports about "a million mummies" discovered by an American archaeological mission working close to Fayoum were false.

Ahmed Abdel-Aal, the head of the Fayoum antiquities authority, told Ahram Online that the million figure is an estimate, presented in research presented to an academic colloquium in Toronto last month by mission head Kerry Muhlestein, and not a concrete number.

Abdel-Aal said that the mission had been based in the Fag Al-Gamous area for 34 years, and during that time had stumbled upon torn textiles, and late period and Roman remains of human skeletons. “No mummies were found except one discovered in 1988 inside a wooden anthropoid coffin with a gilded mummy mask," he said.

Archaeologist Affifi Rohayem told Ahram Online that this kind of burial was common during the Roman period.

“I think the burials found in Fag Al-Gamous is one of those necropoli, but the mission does not know much about it,” he added.

The Egyptian antiquities ministry said earlier on Friday that it had decided to halt cooperation with the Brigham Young University mission because it had "published false news" and had broken the law by speaking directly to the press about a discovery without first getting ministry clearance.

***************************************************************************

Right...

… which resulted in the loss of the mission’s dig permit, apparently:
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/9/40/118343/Heritage/Ancient-Egypt/Egypt-antiquity-ministry-slams-US-mission-after-mi.aspx
http://luxortimesmagazine.blogspot.ca/2014/12/mummy-curse-strikes-again-msa-stops-byu.html

While Explorator's comment implies that BYU's permit to dig has been cancelled (are the archaeologists and field crews being expelled or have they already been expelled from the country?), the articles it points to do not confirm that this is what, in fact, has happened.

So, what do you think?  I know what I think (isn't it clear?)

What Would YOU Do...

Scenario:

You are an average Egyptian citizen in today's Egypt.  You are barely scraping by.  You have been through seemingly endless "revolutions" of governments and ruling systems but you know what, when it comes down to you, it pretty much has stayed the same.  You are still screwed no matter what you do.

So, you happen to live in a tiny little house on top of part of a temple.  You go exploring one night, digging down beneath the surface.  Dig dig dig.  You get 20 feet down and lo and behold, an entirely new world opens up before you.  Well, not exactly, since you have to remove the dirt bucket-full by bucket-full, and make sure your equally hungry (and greedy) neighbors don't get suspicious.  Hmmm....

Would you turn away from the potential for discovering countless treasures you could possibly to the Black Market dealers, accepting 10 cents on the dollar?  Or would you stand up and be a "patriot" and say "Oh no, these are treasures for the Egyptian state!  These priceless artefacts belong to our people as a whole.  I shall travel to Cairo tomorrow and report this important discovery to the Ministry of Antiquities."

So you travel to Cairo and report the find underneath your home.  The government comes with bulldozers and kills your home, meanwhile not offering you any kind of compensation because, hey, it's all for the good of the homeland, right?  You, nonetheless, comfort your now homeless and penniless family with the thought that you did what was right.  In the long run, surely, it was right. Those priceless antiquities will now be duplicated by the government and replaced with cheap imitations while the REAL artifacts reap the government ministers MILLIONS of dollars, all safe and secure in secret Swiss Bank Accounts.  And meanwhile, you and your family starve.

Yeah.  What would YOU do?

As much as I ABHOR, absolute ABHOR, the plundering of cultural treasures for filthy lucre, I DO understand the motivations behind the plundering of ancient archaeological sites.  Who, in the end, is more corrupt, heh?

October 29, 2014

Giza men arrested after digging up ancient temple under house

Men carrying out illegal excavation work found the remains of an Egyptian temple from the reign of New Kingdom King Tuthmose III

Seven residents of a Giza district have been arrested after they illegally excavated the area beneath their home and found the remains of an ancient Egyptian temple.

The huge limestone blocks, engraved with hieroglyphic texts, date from the reign of the New Kingdom's King Tuthmose III, and were found in the Hod Zeleikha area of Al-Badrasheen district.

The find was made two weeks ago, according to Major General Momtaz Fathi, an aide to the interior ministry and a director in the tourism police.  A unit from the tourism and antiquities police heard of the illegal excavation work and arrested the seven men – two of whom are Palestinian, Fathi said. [Does it make a difference if one is Palestinian or one is Egyptian when it comes to illegal digs, since they are ALL Muslims???  I mean, really, darlings, what difference does it make to them, since allegedly their one true "God" is "Allah," whose origins (before the old "switcheroo") go back to a Moon Goddess?]

The police also found diving costumes, oxygen cylinders and diving masks with the detainees. [Okay, what does that have to do with any illegal excavation your home in Giza -- A FRICKING DESERT?]

Antiquities Minister Mamdouh El-Damaty said that the unearthed blocks are genuine and belong to a huge temple from the reign of King Tuthmose III.

Seven reliefs and two marble columns were unearthed along with a huge red-granite armless colossus of a seated person, El-Damaty.

The items have been brought to the Saqqara site for restoration and further study, the minister said, adding that the Hod Zeleikha area has now been declared an archeological site and under the control of the ministry in order carry out more surveys nearby and unearth more of the temple.


What really gets me is how MUCH these "policemen" resemble Egyptians depicted in ancient tomb drawings:

Take away the guns and the long pants.  Egyptians haven't changed at all over 7000 plus years, physically.  But they buy the bullshit, don't they.  Well, a man has to do what a man has to do to make some money and survive. Never mind the wife and kids back home, and you keep repeating the same ridiculously losing cycle over and over and over again.  Whatever.

Previously Unknown Pharaoh and Dynasty Discovered at Abydos

Mystery pharaoh and his tomb identified in Egypt

Charlene Gubash

Jan. 15, 2014 at 5:42 PM ET

 

CAIRO — A previously unknown pharaoh and his burial place have been unearthed amid the tombs of other Egyptian kings, and archaeologists say the find could lead to still more royal discoveries.
The pharaoh's name, Senebkay, was found inscribed on the wall of a burial chamber that's part of the Abydos archaeological site, near the southern city of Sohag. Fragments of the name appeared on one list of Egyptian kings and queens, but no other trace of Senebkay had been found until now, said Ali Asfar, head of antiquities for the Egyptian government.

"This was the first time in history to discover the king," Asfar told NBC News on Wednesday.
He and other archaeologists say Senebkay lived roughly 3,650 years ago, during the second intermediate period of ancient Egyptian history. That was an era when several rulers vied for power — setting the stage for the rise of Egypt's New Kingdom around 1550 B.C.

Ancient Egyptian Secret Tomb Revealed

Oooh, I love when this happens :)

Of all places, this article is from Faux News:

Ancient Egyptian secret tomb uncovered

Published October 22, 2013

FoxNews.com

 

Excavations at Abusir Archaeological Cemetery at Giza have revealed the tomb of Shepseskaf ‘ankh, Head of the Physicians of Upper and Lower Egypt who dates to the Fifth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom of Egypt. [Note: Fifth Dynasty dates approximately 2465 BCE - 2323 BCE]. 

The entrance to the tomb of one of Ancient Egypt's top royal physicians.
(Arab Republic of Egypt Ministry of State for Antiquities Affairs)

The physician's final resting place is "huge" for its time, vice head of the Ancient Egyptian Sector Ali ALasfar described. The limestone tomb is approximately 69 by 45 feet long and 13 feet high.

A large false door inside the chapel where the tomb was found carries the names and titles of the owner.  "Priest of Khnum" and "Priest of Magic," in addition to other titles are written on the eastern part of the tomb and show how the deceased physician was one of the most important royal physicians in Ancient Egypt.

This is the third tomb belonging to a physician to be discovered in Abusir Cemetery.

***********************************

Next up, Faux News reveals that Shepseskaf'ankh was burned at the stake, beheaded, and then quartered and drawn for practicing "magic" and "bowing down before false idols" instead of following the tenets of the Bible according to Michelle Bachmann.  Yes, she was ALIVE back then, bwwwwaaaahhhhh!  Pay no attention to the fact that so-called christianity, a blasphemous take on the teachings of Jesus Christ, did not come into existence until more than 2,300 years later. 

For more information on the 5th Dynasty:

Egypt: History - Pharaonic Dynasty V (Fifth Dynasty) (from Tour Egypt, always an excellent resource)

More on Tomb of Egyptian Princess Discovered at Abusir

This article fills in missing details from the prior article I posted, along with a very nice photograph that gives a good overview of the excavation, the four pillars marking the entrance to the Princess' tomb and the tombs of the high officials dug into a side "wall."  There is a mystery:  Why was Sheretnebty buried in this spot, and not with the rest of the royal family? From Live Science

Tomb of Ancient Egyptian Princess Discovered in Unusual Spot

Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Managing Editor
Date: 07 November 2012 Time: 10:55 AM ET

The tomb of an ancient Egyptian princess has been discovered south of Cairo hidden in bedrock and surrounded by a court of tombs belonging to four high officials.

Dating to 2500 B.C., the structure was built in the second half of the Fifth Dynasty, though archaeologists are puzzled as to why this princess was buried in Abusir South among tombs of non-royal officials. Most members of the Fifth Dynasty's royal family were buried 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) to the north, in the central part of Abusir or farther south in Saqqara. (Saqqara holds a vast burial ground for the ancient capital Memphis and is home to the famous Step Pyramid of Djoser.)

The researchers aren't sure whether the remains of the princess are inside tomb, as the investigation is still in progress, Miroslav Bárta, director of the mission, told LiveScience. Even so, they also found several fragments of a false-door bearing the titles and the name of Sheretnebty, the king's daughter.

"By this unique discovery we open a completely new chapter in the history of Abusir and Saqqara necropolis," said Bárta, who heads the Czech mission to Egypt from the Czech Institute of Egyptology of the Charles University in Prague.

Bárta and colleagues think the ancient builders used a naturally existing step in the bedrock to create the princess' court, which extends down 13 feet (4 meters) and is surrounded by mastaba tombs above it. A mastaba is a type of ancient Egyptian tomb that forms a flat-roofed rectangular structure. A limestone staircase descends from north to south along the burial court; four limestone pillars that once supported roofing blocks hold carved hieroglyphic inscriptions reading: "King's daughter of his body, his beloved, revered in front of the Great God, Sheretnebty."

The four surrounding tombs were cut into the rock of the south wall of the court and of a corridor that runs east from the southeast corner of the court. The two tombs in the south wall, dating to the time of Djedkare Isesi, the seventh ruler of the Fifth Dynasty, belong to Shepespuptah, the chief of justice of the Great House, and Duaptah, an inspector of the palace attendants. The other pair is situated along the corridor, with one belonging to an official named Ity.

"We are very fortunate to have this new window through which we can go back in time and to follow and document step by step life and death of several historically important individuals of the great pyramid age era," Bárta said in a statement.

5th Dynasty Tomb of Egyptian Princess Discovered

Exciting news!  Wonder how long it will be before the Islamists now in power in Egypt sell the REAL artifacts on the illegal antiquities market?  The original article has several photographs of impressive sculptures and statues, unfortunately mostly photographed out of context and not always specifically identified with a particular tomb.  Better save them now, I expect they may soon disappear, just like the antiquities depicted in them. 

Pharaonic princess's tomb found near Cairo, Egypt
(Update) November 2, 2012 by Maggie Fick    

Czech archaeologists have unearthed the 4,500-year-old tomb of a Pharaonic princess south of Cairo, in a finding that suggests other undiscovered tombs may be in the area, an official from Egypt's antiquities ministry said Saturday.

This Oct. 11, 2012 photo released Friday, Nov. 2, 2012 by Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, shows details of hieroglyphic inscriptions on one of four limestone columns in the recently discovered antechamber to the tomb of a pharaonic princess, in the Abusir region, south of Cairo, Egypt. Egyptian Minister of Antiquities, Mohammed Ibrahim said Czech archaeologists have unearthed the tomb of Shert Nebti's, a pharaonic princess, daughter of King Men Salbo, dating from the fifth dynasty (around 2500 BC) along with four other tombs of "high ranking officials."
(AP Photo/Egypt's Supreme Council Of Antiquities)

Mohammed El-Bialy, who heads the Egyptian and Greco-Roman Antiquities department at the Antiquities Ministry, said that Princess Shert Nebti's burial site is surrounded by the tombs of four high officials from the Fifth Dynasty dating to around 2,500 BC in the Abu Sir complex near the famed step pyramid of Saqqara. "Discoveries are ongoing" at Abu Sir, El-Bialy said, adding that the excavation was in a "very early stage" and that the site was closed to the public. Inscriptions on the four limestone pillars of the Princess' tomb indicate that she is the daughter of King Men Salbo. [Who?  Don't see him on the King List...]

"She is the daughter of the king, but only her tomb is there [does this mean her remains aren't there?], surrounded by the four officials, so the question is, are we going to discover other tombs around hers in the near future? We don't know anything about her father, the king, or her mother, but hope that future discoveries will answer these questions," El-Bialy said.

On Friday, Antiquities Minister Mohammed Ibrahim said that the antechamber to the princess' tomb includes four limestone columns and hieroglyphic inscriptions. The current excavation has also unearthed an antechamber containing the sarcophagi of the four officials and statues of men, women, and a child, he said in a statement.

 The Czech team's discovery marks the "start of a new chapter" in the history of the burial sites of Abu Sir and Saqqara, Ibrahim added. The archaeologists working at the site are from the Czech Institute of Egyptology, which is funded by the Charles University of Prague. Their excavation began this month.

 The discovery comes weeks after the Egyptian government reopened a pyramid and a complex of tombs that had been closed for restoration work for a decade. Egypt's vital tourism industry has suffered from the country's internal unrest in the wake of the 2011 uprising that toppled autocratic leader Hosni Mubarak. A delegation from the International Monetary Fund is currently in Egypt for negotiations over a $4.8 billion loan aimed at bolstering the country's ailing economy.

[Well, the economy wouldn't be ailing if the Islamists weren't in power.  American tourists especially aren't going to be returning to Egypt in droves any time soon - not when unemployed government supported "protesters" are out daily being videotaped and broadcast on the nightly news and the internet screaming DEATH TO AMERICA!  Yeah, blame Americans for everything, and then expect them to be tourists in your country spending billions of dollars? LOL!]                                            

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Egypt's Old Kingdom Done in by Massive Drought

Who do you blame if, year after year, the Gods and Goddesses refuse to send the life-giving floods down the Nile River from the highlands to the delta?  If, after years of unanswered prayers and supplications and who knows what kind of sacrifices, the waters still do not come, did people lose faith in their Gods, Goddesses, and the rulers who were supposed to be Gods themselves?

How are we in the 21st century going to deal with rains that don't come when we need them, tornadoes and hurricanes of force we have yet to see, and rising oceans that cannot be held back no matter what we build...  Will Africa starve when America cannot produce enough food to even feed it's own people?  What about China?  India?  Australia?

Unless I discover the Fountain of Youth in my backyard I won't be alive to see the worst effects of the climate changes we are currently beginning to undergo.  They are not reversible; regardless of whether you believe what we're experiencing and will continue to experience to a greater and greater degree in the coming years is man-made or just a natural cycle of the Earth/Universe, they are coming and they will get worse, and for a long long time, before things start to get better.  We're not ready for it, of course.  We're still pissing and moaning about causes rather than ramping up population relocation away from coastal areas and vunerable low-lying lands and river valleys; who wants to leave Manhattan, after all?  But Manhattan will be under water 100 years from now.  Think about that.  And stashing away food -- why aren't we doing that?  Our ability to feed ourselves may decrease by 75% in less than 50 years.  And we're doing - zilch.  Certain political groups think that by trying to force the world back to the mores of the 19th century we will somehow save ourselves.  What a joke.  Unfortunately, a deadly joke for future generations.

There is a reason for the saying that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.  The lessons of the past are all around us, and our clueless leaders wold rather argue about more tax cuts for the rich (who will also die, they'll just last longer than the poor and the average joes who will quickly run out of resources) than face the hard realities of what is coming, indeed, what is happening right now, all around us.

Climate and drought lessons from ancient Egypt

August 16, 2012

Ancient pollen and charcoal preserved in deeply buried sediments in Egypt's Nile Delta document the region's ancient droughts and fires, including a huge drought 4,200 years ago associated with the demise of Egypt's Old Kingdom, the era known as the pyramid-building time. 
    
"Humans have a long history of having to deal with climate change," said Christopher Bernhardt, a researcher with the U.S. Geological Survey. "Along with other research, this study geologically reveals that the evolution of societies is sometimes tied to climate variability at all scales – whether decadal or millennial."

Bernhardt conducted this research as part of his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania, along with Benjamin Horton, an associate professor in Penn's Department of Earth and Environmental Science. Jean-Daniel Stanley at the Smithsonian Institution also participated in the study, published in July's edition of Geology.

"Even the mighty builders of the ancient pyramids more than 4,000 years ago fell victim when they were unable to respond to a changing climate," said USGS Director Marcia McNutt. "This study illustrates that water availability was the climate-change Achilles Heel then for Egypt, as it may well be now, for a planet topping seven billion thirsty people."

The researchers used pollen and charcoal preserved in a Nile Delta sediment core dating from 7,000 years ago to the present to help resolve the physical mechanisms underlying critical events in ancient Egyptian history.

They wanted to see if changes in pollen assemblages would reflect ancient Egyptian and Middle East droughts recorded in archaeological and historical records. The researchers also examined the presence and amount of charcoal because fire frequency often increases during times of drought, and fires are recorded as charcoal in the geological record. The scientists suspected that the proportion of wetland pollen would decline during times of drought and the amount of charcoal would increase.

And their suspicions were right.

Large decreases in the proportion of wetland pollen and increases in microscopic charcoal occurred in the core during four different times between 3,000 and 6,000 years ago. One of those events was the abrupt and global mega-drought of around 4,200 years ago, a drought that had serious societal repercussions, including famines, and which probably played a role in the end of Egypt's Old Kingdom and affected other Mediterranean cultures as well.

"Our pollen record appears very sensitive to the decrease in precipitation that occurred in the mega-drought of 4,200 years ago," Bernhardt said. "The vegetation response lasted much longer compared with other geologic proxy records of this drought, possibly indicating a sustained effect on delta and Nile basin vegetation."

Similarly, pollen and charcoal evidence recorded two other large droughts: one that occurred some 5,000 to 5,500 years ago and another that occurred around 3,000 years ago.

These events are also recorded in human history – the first one started some 5,000 years ago when the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt occurred and the Uruk Kingdom in modern Iraq collapsed. The second event, some 3,000 years ago, took place in the eastern Mediterranean and is associated with the fall of the Ugarit Kingdom and famines in the Babylonian and Syrian Kingdoms.

"The study geologically demonstrates that when deciphering past climates, pollen and other micro-organisms, such as charcoal, can augment or verify written or archaeological records – or they can serve as the record itself if other information doesn't exist or is not continuous," said Horton.                               

More information: The study, Nile delta response to Holocene climate variability, was published in the July edition of Geology.

Journal reference: Geology Provided by United States Geological Survey

*******************************************************************************

The comments at the end of the article (online at website) are very interesting.  I excerpted one, below:

Shelgeyr Aug 16, 2012
Rank: not rated yet

There are (largely undocumented, possibly neolithic) ruins in Egypt located too far south to really be considered part of the known ancient Kharga/Baris/Khysis area, and yet they occur within vast portions of the western desert, even away from the caravan routes.

The Kharga Aquifer used to underlay this entire region.Examples (use Google Maps/Earth and zoom in):

24.518203,30.704738 (ancient well next to ruins)
24.523928,30.704624 (only the outlines remain)
24.484776,30.706138
24.476984,30.704746
24.455565,30.692710

These remnants are by no means exclusive; ruins run all throughout this region.


Hmmm...  Perhaps the Egyptians called the west the Land of the Dead because it did become, indeed, the land of many dead after the drought of 4,200 years ago -- thus, an actual allusion to an historical memory, not just a metaphorical or religious reference! 
 

MAJOR Egyptian Find: King Den Funerary Boat!

French archaeological mission discovers 3000BC funeral boat of King Den northeast of Giza Plateau, indicating earlier presence at the Archaic period cemetery

Ahram Online, Wednesday 25 Jul 2012

First Dynasty funerary boat discovered at Egypt's Abu Rawash

"A plaque [plank?] of the boat." Copied from the article online.

During routine excavation works at the Archaic period cemetery located at Abu Rawash area northeast of the Giza Plateau, a French archaeological mission from the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology in Cairo (IFAO) stumbled on what is believed to be a funerary boat of the First Dynasty King Den (dating from around 3000BC).

The funerary boat was buried with royalty, as ancient Egyptians believed it would transfer the king's soul to the afterlife for eternity.

Unearthed in the northern area of Mastaba number six (a flat-roofed burial structure) at the archaeological site, boat consists of 11 large wooden planks reaching six metres high and 150 metres wide, Minister of State for Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim said in a press release sent to Ahram Online on Wednesday.

The wooden sheets were transported to the planned National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation for restoration and are expected to be put on display at the Nile hall when the museum is finished and opens its doors to the public next year.

The IFAO started its excavation works at Abu Rawash in the early 1900s where several archaeological complexes were found. At the complex of King Djedefre, son of the Great Pyramid King Khufu, Emile Chassinat discovered the remains of a funerary settlement, a boat pit and numerous statuary fragments that bore the name of Fourth Dynasty King Djedefre.

Under the direction of Pierre Lacau, the IFAO continued its excavation work and found new structures to the east of the Djedefre pyramid. However objects bearing the names of First Dynasty Kings Aha and Den found near the pyramid indicate an earlier presence at Abu Rawash.

First Intermediate Period Tomb Discovered

Glad to see this, and glad to see that at least in this report, they're being discreet about the location.  I mean, nothing like inviting looters to come right down and visit your camp, right!

May 28, 2012
Archaeology: Ancient tomb unearthed in Upper Egypt

Cairo, 28 May (AKI) - Archaeologists have discovered an 4,000-year-old tomb in Upper Egypt containing a sarcophagus inscribed with ancient funeral texts as well as ritual objects, Egypt's archaeological treasures minister said Monday.

"It is the first time in many years that such a well-preserved tomb has been unearthed, " said Muhammad Ibrahim.

The tomb dates from ancient Egypt's First Intermediate period (2181-2055 BC) and is an unusual find, as very little archaeological evidence survives from this period.

Ritual objects made from alabaster copper, terracotta and other materials were found in the tomb, located in the Deir al-Barsha archaeological area, in al-Minya province, 245 kilometres south of Cairo.

The dig was coordinated by the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium.

Lady Ka-Nefer-Nefer Can Stay in the USA

From The Washington Post
Federal judge rules 3,200-year-old Egyptian mummy mask can remain at St. Louis Art Museum

By Associated Press, Updated: Thursday, April 5, 5:40 PMAP

Lady Ka-Nefer-Nefer - looking pretty
good for being 3200 years old.  Got to
get me some of that khol.

ST. LOUIS — A St. Louis museum can keep hold of a 3,200-year-old mummy’s mask, a federal judge has ruled, saying the U.S. government failed to prove that the Egyptian relic was ever stolen.
Prosecutors said the funeral mask of Lady Ka-Nefer-Nefer went missing from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo about 40 years ago and that it should be returned to its country of origin. The St. Louis Art Museum said it researched the provenance of the mask and legitimately purchased it in 1998 from a New York art dealer.
U.S. District Judge Henry Autry in St. Louis sided with the museum.

The U.S. government “does not provide a factual statement of theft, smuggling or clandestine importation,” Autry wrote in the March 31 ruling.

“The Government cannot simply rest on its laurels and believe that it can initiate a civil forfeiture proceeding on the basis of one bold assertion that because something went missing from one party in 1973 and turned up with another party in 1998, it was therefore stolen and/or imported or exported illegally,” the judge wrote.

A message left with Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities was not returned.

The 20-inch-long funeral mask of painted and gilded plaster-coated linen over wood with inlaid glass eyes was excavated from one of the Saqqara pyramids, about 16 miles south of Cairo, in 1952. Ka-Nefer-Nefer was a noblewoman who lived from 1295 BC to 1186 BC.

U.S. government investigators suspect the mask was stolen sometime between 1966, when it was shipped to Cairo for an exhibit, and 1973, when the Egyptian Museum discovered it was missing.
The art museum bought the mask in 1998 for $499,000 from a New York art dealer, and it has been on display at the museum in Forest Park ever since.

U.S. Attorney Richard Callahan said a decision on whether to appeal has not been made.

“We’re just looking to make sure we haven’t missed the tiniest bit of circumstantial evidence,” Callahan said. “We’re back to the drawing board and studying it.”

Museum officials have said they researched the mask’s ownership history before buying it and had no indication there were questions about how it arrived in the U.S. The museum’s research showed the mask was part of the Kaloterna private collection during the 1960s, before a Croatian collector, Zuzi Jelinek, bought it in Switzerland and later sold it to Phoenix Ancient Art of New York in 1995. The art museum purchased the mask from Phoenix Ancient Art.

St. Louis Art Museum attorney David Linenbroker said the museum is confident the ruling will mean that the mask can remain permanently in St. Louis.

“We don’t have any interest in possessing a stolen object,” Linenbroker said. “We’ve been facing all this innuendo for years.”

He said the legal process provided an opportunity for someone to prove the mask had been stolen, but no one did.

“We’re confident we’re the rightful owner,” Linenbroker said.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Ten Egyptian Looters Die in Illegal Dig Collapse

From Yahoo News/AFP
Earlier today
10 die in Egypt while digging for ancient treasures

Ten people were killed when the soil caved in on them as they were illegally digging for ancient treasures under a house in a central Egyptian village, police officials told AFP on Monday.

The 10, including four brothers, were buried alive when the walls of the dig collapsed in the village of Arab al-Manasra, north of the historic city of Luxor.

Rescue services were working to recover the bodies, the official said, adding that two people were also injured in the incident.

Ambitions of making money quickly have incited many to turn to illegal archaeological digging, particularly in antiquities-rich locations such as Luxor, Aswan and Cairo.

"We have to work on many levels to stop these get-rich-quick schemes, where people are digging for an illusion," Mansur Boreik, head of the Luxor antiquities department told AFP.

17th Dynasty Senakht-en-Re Confirmed as Pharaoh

How fascinating that we continue to learn wonderful new thing about ancient Egypt!

From Discovery News

All Hail The New King

Analysis by Rossella Lorenzi
Wed Mar 7, 2012 04:14 PM ET

Cartouche containing name
of Senakht-en-Re.

A new king has been added to the long list of ancient pharaohs, the Egyptian Minister of State for Antiquities, Mohamed Ibrahim, announced this week.

The king's name, Senakht-en-Re, emerged from the engraved remains of a limestone door found by a French-Egyptian team‭ ‬in the Temple of Karnak complex on Luxor’s east bank.

The archaeologists, led by French Egyptologist Christophe Thiers, of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), unearthed a fragmented lintel and an imposing door jamb during routine excavation at the temple of Ptah.

Belonging to an administrative structure dating to the enigmatic 17th Dynasty (about 1634-1543 BC) the limestone remains featured hieroglyphics which indicated that the door was dedicated to Amun-Re.
‭
"They also revealed who ordered the construction of this structure. It was the pharaoh Senakht-en-Re," said a CNRS statement.

Mentioned in only three documents written one or two centuries after his reign, ‬Senakht-en-Re is regarded as one of the most obscure kings of the 17th dynasty.

No objects or monuments had ever been found bearing his name, and his tomb has yet to be discovered.

"We knew nothing‭ of this pharaoh - ‬until now. These remains are the first contemporary document of this king ever discovered in Egypt," the CNRS said.

According to the hieroglyphics, Senakht-en-Re had the monumental gateway built from limestone blocks transported from Tora (the modern Helwan, south of Cairo).

At that time, the town was under the rule of the Hyksos. Known as the "rulers of foreign countries" (probably of Asiatic roots), they infiltrated Egypt and came to dominate the Nile valley for over a century during the Second Intermediate Period (1664-1569 B.C.).

They were expelled from Egypt by Kamose, the last king of the 17th dynasty and his brother Amhose, the first king of the 18th dynasty.

According to the Minister of State for Antiquities, the finding is "a groundbreaking discovery" for the history of the 17th dynasty. Indeed, the succession of kings of this dynasty and the lenght of their rule remain uncertain.

Ibrahim told the Egyptian daily Ahram Online that the excavation will continue.

"The Temple of Karnak, which has not yet been fully excavated, no doubt still contains many secrets," he said.

Image: Unearthing the door jamb; details of the inscribed limestone. Credit: CNRS.

Tomb of Nehmes Bastet, Singer, Found in Egypt

I love her name!  Here's the story from the BBC:

16 January 2012 Last updated at 11:08 ET

Egyptian tomb holds singer Nehmes Bastet's remains

Archaeologists working in Egypt have discovered the tomb of a female singer in the Valley of the Kings.

The tomb was found by a team from the University of Basel in Switzerland who came across it by chance.

The woman, Nehmes Bastet, was a temple singer during Egypt's 22nd Dynasty (approximately 945 - 712BC), according to an inscription in the tomb.

The coffin found in the tomb contains an intact mummy from almost 3,000 years ago.

Professor Susanne Bickel of the University of Basel told the BBC that the coffin was opened on Monday and she was able to see the "nicely wrapped" mummy of the woman who was buried in the tomb.

The opening of the coffin was carried out by Prof Bickel and her Basel colleague, field director Elina Paulin-Grothe, together with the Chief Inspector of Antiquities of Upper Egypt, Dr Mohammed el-Bialy and inspector Ali Reda.

Prof Bickel said that the upper edge of the tomb was found on the first day of Egypt's revolution, on 25 January 2011. The opening was sealed with an iron cover and the discovery was kept quiet.

Last week, after the start of this year's field season, the feature was identified as a tomb - and one of the very few tombs in the Valley of the Kings which have not been looted.

'Painted black'

Elina Paulin-Grothe said that the tomb was not built for the female singer, but was re-used for her 400 years after the original burial, according to AP.

There are other non-royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings, Prof Bickel said, which mostly date from the 18th Dynasty (1500 - 1400BC).

The woman in the coffin was the daughter of the high priest of Amon, Egypt's Antiquities Minister Mohammed Ibrahim told AFP.

The discovery was important because "it shows that the Valley of the Kings was also used for the burial of ordinary individuals and priests of the 22nd Dynasty", he added.

Egyptian news site Ahram reports that the wooden sarcophagus was painted black and decorated with hieroglyphic texts.

This tomb is only the second found in the Valley of the Kings since the discovery of Tutankhamun in 1922, and is referred to as KV64 in the naming system used to label tombs in the valley. It is one of a cluster of tombs without any wall decoration found near the royal tomb of Thutmoses III.

A tomb found in 2006, known as KV63, had seven coffins in it but none of them contained any mummies - it seems to have been used as a burial cache.

3,300 Year Old Leather Chariot Trappings Rediscovered (!)

Unbelievable - the Cairo Museum doesn't even know what the hell it has in its own collections!

As reported at nature.com:
Ancient Egyptian chariot trappings rediscovered

Forgotten drawers in Egyptian museum yield 'astonishing' leather find.

Jo Marchant

23 November 2011

 

The beautifully preserved leather trappings of an ancient Egyptian chariot have been rediscovered in a storeroom of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Researchers say that the find, which includes intact harnesses, gauntlets and a bow case, is unique, and will help them to reconstruct how such chariots were made and used.

A painted box from Tutankhamun's tomb depicts the Pharaoh on a chariot chasing Nubians.

Kenneth Garrett/National Geographic/Getty Images

The ancient Egyptians used chariots — typically with one or two riders and pulled by two horses — for hunting and warfare as well as in processions. They are frequently shown in ancient Egyptian art, and several examples of the wooden frames survive, including six dismantled chariots found in King Tutankhamun’s tomb, dating to around 3,300 years ago.

But researchers knew little about the leather trappings and harnesses used with such chariots, as leather decomposes quickly if any moisture is present. Barely any leather survives on the chariots from Tutankhamun’s tomb, though some fragments are known from chariots found in other tombs, such as that of Yuya and Thuya, Tutankhamun’s great-grandparents.

Accidental treasures
Then in 2008, André Veldmeijer of the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo, who specializes in the study of ancient leather, saw a black-and-white photograph of some intact chariot trappings in a 1950s book on ancient technology¹.

They were labelled as being held in the Egyptian Museum, but when Veldmeijer asked the curator, Ibrahim El Gawad, he knew nothing about them. But a few months later, El Gawad came across the trappings by accident, lying forgotten in a series of drawers in a back room of the museum.

Veldmejier says that El Gawad called him to the museum and showed him “layer upon layer” of leather. “It’s a gorgeous find,” he says. “What was in the picture, that’s not even half of what’s in the museum. It was astonishing.”

The trappings are 90–95% complete, according to Veldmeijer, and include the leather casing that would have covered the wooden chariot, as well as harnesses, gauntlets, and a bow case and quiver. Wear marks and details of the stitching are still visible, and the intricate red, green and white design — the only known example of its type — is still bright after more than three millennia.

Chariot ride

Veldmeijer is now working with Salima Ikram, an Egyptologist at the American University in Cairo, to conserve, catalogue and study the trappings as part of the Egyptian Museum Chariot Project. That includes attempting to open out the fragile pieces — which had been folded to fit into the museum drawers — and protecting them with acid-free packing material. They will report their first results at a dedicated conference to be held in Cairo next year.

“The trappings should help us to understand more about chariot construction and use, which in turn will be important for our knowledge of ancient Egyptian warfare and elite display,” says Susanna Harris, an expert in ancient textiles and animal skins at University College London. She adds that the results may also have implications for the study of chariots in other societies for which there are no surviving examples. “For example there are chariots in the wall paintings and iconography of Crete (Minoans) and mainland Greece (Mycenaeans) dating to this period but no preserved chariot leather there,” she says.

The Egyptian Museum project is in its early stages but the researchers are already gaining new insights into how the chariot was used. For example, Ikram has identified a leather strap that she thinks acted as a safety belt. “It would have fitted around the driver’s bum to stabilize him, and to stop him from falling out,” she says.

Veldmeijer also hopes to identify the type of leather used, as well as studying the stitching and skin-processing methods and how the leather was cut and assembled.

One mystery yet to be solved is where the chariot trappings come from originally. Museum records state that they were bought from a Greek antiquities dealer called Georges Tano in 1932, but it isn’t known where he found them. To have survived in such good condition they were presumably discovered in a tomb, and the style suggest a time around that of Tutankhamun. [The fact that we don't know and probably won't ever know clouds our knowledge.  This is the type of destruction of history that is the legacy of antiquities looters and smugglers.]

El Gawad thinks that they belonged to Tutankhamun's father, the rebel pharaoh Akhenaten, but Veldmeijer believes them to date from slightly later, possibly belonging to one of Tutankhamun’s successors.

(Journal citation and references at nature.com)

Qurta, Egypt Rock Carvings Expand Our Knowledge of Ancient Man

From the Vancouver Sun
Long-forgotten Canadian find shakes up understanding of ancient humans
By Randy Boswell, Postmedia News
November 18, 2011

A Canadian archeologist is being credited — nearly 50 years after the fact — with discovering a prehistoric petroglyph site in southern Egypt that is now being described as a "Lascaux-on-the-Nile" because of its similarity in age and style to France's world-famous, cave-wall gallery of Stone Age cattle, deer and horses.

The inscribed Egyptian images of extinct wild oxen, hippopotami, fish, gazelle and other animals — now firmly dated to a time in the late Pleistocene era at least 15,000 years ago — are being hailed as the oldest rock art in North Africa and as a pivotal discovery in the evolution of artistic behaviour by ancient humans.

Prehistoric petroglyph site in southern Egypt discovered by Canadian archeologist Philip Smith in a 1962-63 expedition.
Photograph by: Handout, Yale University

It has taken nearly a half-century for experts to obtain a reliable age for the animal figures, which number close to 200 and are found etched into a sandstone cliff high above the banks of the Nile River at Qurta, about 600 kilometres southeast of Cairo.

That's where the young Canadian scientist Philip Smith — a University of Toronto archeologist from Fortune, N.L. — was working in 1962 and 1963 as part of a federally sponsored series of "rescue" digs aimed at preserving traces of ancient Egyptian settlements before their potential destruction from the building of the Aswan Dam.

Smith, who went on to a distinguished 40-year career at the University of Montreal, was probing an archeological site from thousands of years before the Egyptian pyramids were built when he "accidentally" discovered the carvings at Qurta.

Now 84 and long retired from archeological field work, Smith told Postmedia News on Thursday that he remembers scrambling up the cliffs to take a photograph of a dig site on the plain below when he suddenly spied scores of animals carved into the rocks.

"They were everywhere on the rock," Smith said. "But we weren't able to date it directly. At that time there was no way of dating art on the cliffs themselves."

He recalls, though, that he "speculated that it was certainly pre-pharaohnic — before the pharaohs — and probably pre-neolithic, before the introduction of agriculture. But, of course, I wasn't able to go much further back than that."

A lengthy article about the work of the Canadian Prehistoric Expedition in Egypt appeared in a 1965 issue of the Canadian Geographical Journal, forerunner of today's Canadian Geographic. Descriptions and pictures of the prehistoric rock art at Qurta were published at the time, but Smith was never able to pin down a solid date for when the carvings were made — and conventional wisdom about the evolution of art in the ancient world held that paleolithic Europe was almost certainly the seedbed of advanced human creativity.

Years passed. Then decades. No further study of the Qurta animal engravings was carried out, and even knowledge of their whereabouts was lost to a younger generation of scientists.

Then, about five years ago, Belgian archeologists working on paleolithic sites in Egypt found evidence of prehistoric rock art at a different site and began a broader study that turned up the Canadian research at Qurta from the early 1960s.

That led to the latest research on the Qurta carvings, to be published in the December edition of the journal Antiquity by a team of scientists from Belgium and the U.S.

They used a process called "optically stimulated luminescence" to test the wind-blown sediments accumulated on the etchings to determine the last time the most deeply buried grains of sand were exposed to sunlight.

Their study pegs the creation of the artwork at between 15,000 and 19,000 years ago. That places the Egyptian carvings in roughly the same timeframe as the famous cave paintings of animals at Lascaux and other Ice Age sites in Europe.

"The paleolithic rock art at Qurta reveals that the well-known cave art of the late Pleistocene in Europe was not an isolated phenomenon," study co-author John Coleman Darnell, a Yale University professor of Egyptology, states in a summary of the study. "Qurta puts North Africa firmly in the world of the earliest surviving artistic tradition, and shows that tradition to have been geographically more widespread than heretofore imagined."

The paper to be published in Antiquity suggests the fresh understanding of the Egyptian artwork first identified by Smith could force a major rethinking of the origins of art and the connections between Stone Age people in Europe and North Africa.

"Whereas it would be premature to speculate on any implications of this in terms of long-distance influence and intercultural contacts," the authors conclude, "it is clear that the Pleistocene age of the Qurta petroglyphs — as demonstrated by the present study — along with their degree of sophistication, similar to that of European Ice Age art, introduce a new set of challenges to archeological thought."

Smith, whose other work at ancient aboriginal digs in the U.S. and at paleolithic sites in Spain and France continues to generate interest among today's archeologists, said he's equally pleased his Egyptian find is still yielding new insights today.

"It is," he said, "very gratifying."

(c) Postmedia New