Free Republic

CAIRO (Reuters) - Dutch archaeologists have discovered the tomb of the Pharaoh Akhenaten's seal bearer, decorated with paintings including scenes of monkeys picking and eating fruit, Egyptian antiquities officials said on Wednesday. The tomb belonged to the official named Ptahemwi and was discovered during a Dutch team's excavation in the Sakkara area, the burial ground for the city of Memphis, the state news agency MENA said, quoting chief antiquities official Zahi Hawass. Akhenaten, the 18th-dynasty pharaoh who ruled Egypt from 1379 to 1362 BC, abandoned most of the old gods and tried to imposed a monotheistic religion based on worship...

Some had names like "Slayer of his Foes" and accompanied the pharaoh into battle. Thousands more were hunted as a ritual of bravery and strength. But only one apparently served as an eternal guardian. A French archaeologist says his discovery of the first preserved lion skeleton in an ancient Egyptian tomb demonstrates the exalted reputation enjoyed by the King of Beasts more than 3,000 years ago. "It confirms the status of the lion as a sacred animal," Alain Zivie reports in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. Zivie's research team discovered the lion's remains in 2001 as they excavated the...

The identity of his mother has long been a mystery, although she is not believed to be Akhenaten's Queen Nefertiti. Some theories suggest the boy king's mother was one of his aunts. "Maia is none other than princess Meritaten, the sister or half-sister of Tutankhamun and the daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti," Zivie said. He said his conclusion was based on the carvings of Tutankhamun and Maia on the walls of Maia's tomb. "The extraordinary thing is that they are very similar. They have the same chin, the eyes, the family traits," he said. "The carvings show Maia sitting on...