Posted on 05/09/2014 1:34:37 PM PDT by Red Badger
Archeologists have found a tomb dating back to around 1100 B.C. south of Cairo, Egypt's Antiquities Ministry said Thursday.
Antiquities Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said that the tomb belongs to a guard of the army archives and royal messenger to foreign countries. Ibrahim said the Cairo University Faculty of Archaeology's discovery at Saqqara adds "a chapter to our knowledge about the history of Saqqara."
Ola el-Egeizy of Cairo University said the tomb contains "very nice inscriptions" of the funerary procession and the afterlife of the deceased.
The tomb was found near another one dating back to the same period belonging to the head of the army that was discovered in the previous excavation season. That tomb was larger but much of what remains is mud bricks as "most of its stone blocks were stolen and many of them are in museums all over the world," said el-Egeizy. Because of the blocks, archaeologists had long known that the tomb existed though it was not uncovered until recently.
Saqqara was the necropolis for the ancient Egyptian city of Memphis and site of the oldest known pyramid in Egypt.
Egypt's vital tourism industry has suffered in the wake of the 2011 uprising that toppled autocratic leader Hosni Mubarak.
An Egyptian conservator works at the site of a newly-discovered tomb dating back to around 1100 B.C. at the Saqqara archaeological site, 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of Cairo, Egypt, Thursday, May 8, 2014. Antiquities Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said Thursday that the tomb belongs to a guard of the army archives and royal messenger to foreign countries. Ibrahim says the Cairo University Faculty of Archaeology's discovery at Saqqara adds "a chapter to our knowledge about the history of Saqqara." Saqqara was the necropolis for the ancient Egyptian city of Memphis and site of the oldest known pyramid in Egypt.(AP Photo/Amr Nabil)
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-05-tomb-dating-bc-egypt-images.html#jCp
Fascinating.
GGG Ping!..............
The claims of ‘oldest known pyramid’ are pure speculation based upon assumed timelines that are not proving accurate. The Great Pyramid at Giza may be more than ten thousand years older than reported, and the Sphynx could date to 20,000 BC and has been recarved thousands of years after it was first made.
It may have been re-carved multiple times to suit the current ruling dynasty...............
I can’t believe they are discovering tombs at Saqqara. They have exploring it since the 1800s but it seams like every year a new discovery is announced.
Dr Shoch has shown that the weathering in the pit created when it was originally carved out of the bedrock is water weathering, so the pit has to be at lest as old as the end of the last Ice Age, ~10,000 years ago. west is convinced it was originally carved as the head of a lion and positioned to be gazing at the constellation of Leo rising on the horizon, which would mean dating by precessional changes. I am guessing it is two cycles back (~30+ thousand years ago).
Would the constellation Leo have been called ‘Leo’ by ancient Egyptians?...................Seems to me it is a Greek/Roman name from their mythology..................
I do not know the name Egyptians would call the constellation, but the constellations have been identifed for a very long time in human History. Whatever ancient Egyptians called a lion would be the name identifying the constellation.
One other note: the original carving may have been of a FEMALE lion, too!
Not necessarily. The constellation we call Orion was called Osiris by the ancient Egyptians and was called The Heavenly Shepard by the ancient Babylonians.................
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