Posted on 12/29/2007 8:01:23 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Mark Borda and Mahmoud Marai, from Malta and Egypt respectively, were surveying a field of boulders on the flanks of a hill deep in the Libyan desert some 700 kilometres west of the Nile Valley when engravings on a large rock consisting of hieroglyphic writing, Pharaonic cartouche, an image of the king and other Pharaonic iconography came into view. Mr Borda would not reveal the precise location in order to protect the site... "The consensus among Egyptologists is that the Egyptians did not penetrate this desert any further than the area around Djedefre's Water Mountain. This is a sandstone hill about 80 kilometres south west of the Dakhla Oasis that contains hieroglyphic inscriptions. Its discovery in 2003 by the German explorer Carlo Bergmann caused a sensation as it extended the activities of the Pharaonic administrations an unprecedented 80 kilometres further out into the unknown and waterless Western Desert. The find we just made is some 650 kilometres further on!! Egyptologists will be dumbstruck by this news." ...Maltese Egyptologist Aloisia De Trafford from the Institute of Archaeology (University College London)... facilitated a preliminary decipherment of the text via Joe Clayton, an ancient languages specialist who lectures on hieroglyphic writing at Birkbeck College at the same university... "It turns out that the script we found states the name of the region where it was carved, which is none other than the fabled land of Yam, one of the most famous and mysterious nations that the Egyptians had traded with in Old Kingdom times; a source of precious tropical woods and ivory. Its location has been debated by Egyptologists for over 150 years but it was never imagined it could be 700 kilometres west of the Nile in the middle of the Sahara desert."
(Excerpt) Read more at independent.com.mt ...
Yam straight this is hugh. I think they deciphered some of the letters and they made out Corriganankhamun who was notorious for never asking for directions.
I think we could start a pyramid scheme for punners. I know the pharoah, having a terrible nightmare, woke up, screaming, “I want my mummy!” When the Sahara dried up, they were getting their just deserts. Of course, the Egyptians were prone to gambling, they liked to play pharoah. They may have been in a state of de nile, about their gambling. Then again, they could have taken a river cruise, a senile tour. They actually had a form of radio, and the news commentator was a talking dog, who was a star. An that is really sirius.
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Thanks for the Egyptian Pingeroo!
“M” will get a kick out of this
I guess they clearcut the forests like John Edwards (private 18-hole golf course and tennis courts, indoor swimming pool, indoor full basketball court, and the rest of his 30,000 square foot moansion on hundreds of formally “pristine” C woodlands), burned energy at a rate of 30 average homes (algore’s Tennessee mansion), and used water and fuel like John Kerry (9 mansions [with 7 “tax-exempt foundation” vehicles each!] here and abroad plus 2 exec jets, 3 luxury yachts/boats, and a “NIMBY” wind power free Cape Cod view!)
Good graphic potlatch!
No pictures at the site. I’ve never heard of ‘the fabled land of Yam’ before.
Strangely - to me - sandstone sounds somewhat like limestone. I would think of it as being soft and amazed that it would preserve hieroglyphics after all this time.
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Shifting desert sands cover and protect many remains of huge dinosaurs in the African deserts
They may have discovered the fabled ancient Land Of Sweet Potato Pie
Tut Tut Tut!
Yes I know dry sand can preserve things, look at all that has been buried in the sands of Iraq.
But we talk of ‘shifting sands’ and I’m still amazed they are preserved.
et tu tut tut, heh.
Happy New year to you too! Put me on your ping list if you have one.
Perhaps this quote:
Captain Renault: What in heaven's name brought you to Yam?
Rick: My health. I came to Yam for the waters.
Captain Renault: The waters? What waters? We're in the desert.
Rick: I was misinformed.
nah.... that might be going a little too far . . .
I had been thinking of starting one... yeah, a ping list... I’ll make that my New Year’s resolution.
Canine help it that none were provided? ;’) HNY!
Just a second, I didn’t quite hear your response. It’s my own fault, too, every January 1 I ring in the new year by cranking up the stereo. Always the same song, too, “Alexandria’s Ragtime Band”.
Okay, that was excellent, and what a way to end the old year. :’)
:’) This whole experience gave me an idea for a science fiction short story, set on Earth, but with the “aliens built the pyramids” angle; the title, Starship Tubers. Okay, maybe that one took the long way around...
Good Dog!
There are carvings and paintings older than that which have survived in inhabited areas, so there’s not much impediment to having this one.
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