Posted on 07/15/2020 3:01:04 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The discovery was made in Dashur, an archaeological site 90km south of Cairo, where the tattered remains of Pharaoh Amenemhat III's Black Pyramid can be seen today. The huge mortuary temple that originally stood adjacent to this pyramid is believed to have formed the basis of the complex of buildings with galleries and courtyards called a "labyrinth" by famed ancient Greek historian Herodotus. With no visible remains, the story was thought to simply be a legend passed down by generations until Egyptologist Flinders Petrie uncovered its "foundations" in the 1800s, leading experts to theories the labyrinth was demolished under the reign of Ptolemy II, and used to build the nearby city of Shedyt to honour his wife Arsinoe.
(Excerpt) Read more at express.co.uk ...
The Egyptians... told me that the first man who ruled over Egypt was Min, and that in his time all Egypt, except the Thebaic canton, was a marsh, none of the land below Lake Moeris then showing itself above the surface of the water. This is a distance of seven days' sail from the sea up the river... Now if the Nile should choose to divert his waters from their present bed into this Arabian gulf, what is there to hinder it from being filled up by the stream within, at the utmost, twenty thousand years? For my part, I think it would be filled in half the time. How then should not a gulf, even of much greater size, have been filled up in the ages that passed before I was born, by a river that is at once so large and so given to working changes?
...One fact which I learnt of the priests is to me a strong evidence of the origin of the country. They said that when Moeris was king, the Nile overflowed all Egypt below Memphis, as soon as it rose so little as eight cubits. Now Moeris had not been dead 900 years at the time when I heard this of the priests; yet at the present day, unless the river rise sixteen, or, at the very least, fifteen cubits, it does not overflow the lands. It seems to me, therefore, that if the land goes on rising and growing at this rate, the Egyptians who dwell below Lake Moeris, in the Delta (as it is called) and elsewhere, will one day, by the stoppage of the inundations, suffer permanently the fate which they told me they expected would some time or other befall the Greeks.The Histories: Book II Euterpe[may be a dead link, emphasis added]
Herodotus
tr by George Rawlinson
Looks like a quilt I have tucked away somewhere.
Thank-you for posting this. It is the first I’ve ever heard about it and find it fascinating.
The politics of the Egyptian government denying access and study of it is frustrating to say the least.
...To my dismay, there is now a canal running near the Hawara pyramid and right through the area of the labyrinth. I attempted to enter the pyramid, but before I could get very deep, the passage was entirely blocked by mud and water (as can be seen in the accompanying photo of the limestone lined entrance to the pyramid). Surely whatever remains of the labyrinth, buried deep below the surface, is now also flooded by the elevated water table.
My pleasure.
Now -- is "a little ways above the Moeris" -- to the north? ...or to the south -- UPstream on the Nile?
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Wooops! I just did a Google Earth search for "Black Pyramid, Egypt". It's ~21 miles NE of the north edge of the Moeris depression -- but there are definitely large, complex structure remains between the pyramid remnants and the Nile valley escarpment! Be back when I've done some image post-processing...
TXnMA
First, a GE ("Google Earth") grab -- including coords of the approx center of the rectangular ruins:
...and, the same area, post-processed with one of my custom convolution filters that has worked fairly well for enhancing faint lines -- both N-S & E-W:
Definitely something there -- a >200 meter square area covered with complex rectangular ruins...
Doesn't sound like the right location; too far from the lake. But -- do you think it's worth the effort of further processing?
BTW, Re Ben Lurkin/s #9 map_ I think I've already located the "Usertesen II Pyramid"...
TXnMA
Nice
The canal is named Donny Osmond?
Its named Bahr Yussef = Josephs Canal. Donny played the role, but didnt just dream it up.
My favorite.
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