Note: this topic is from . One of *those* topics.
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Posted on 08/28/2010 4:55:35 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
...in 1992, a young American graduate student, John Coleman Darnell, and his wife and fellow graduate student, Deborah, decided to take a very different tack. The couple began trekking ancient desert roads and caravan tracks along what they called "the final frontier of Egyptology." Today, John Darnell, an Egyptologist in Yale's Near Eastern Languages and Civilization department, and his team have succeeded in doing what most Egyptologists merely dream of: discovering a lost pharaonic city of administrative buildings, military housing, small industries, and artisan workshops. Says Darnell, of a find that promises to rewrite a major chapter in ancient Egyptian history, "We were really shocked."
Umm Mawagir, as the city is now known, flourished in the Western Desert from 1650 to 1550 BCE, nearly a millennium after the construction of the Great Pyramid at Giza. This was a dark, tumultuous period of Egyptian history. Entire villages lay abandoned in the Nile River Delta, victims, perhaps of an ancient epidemic. Taking advantage of the turmoil, Bedouin groups from Syria and Palestine edged westward under the leadership of wealthy merchants, gaining control of the delta. Meanwhile, far to the south, Sudan's powerful Kerma kingdom expanded into southern Egypt. In the wake of these incursions, Egypt's pharaohs presided over a diminished realm whose capital lay at Thebes, in present-day Luxor.
For decades, Egyptologists thought the foreigners roamed the Western Desert at will, controlling the lucrative caravan trade. But the discovery of Umm Mawagir, in concert with finds from the more westerly Dakhla Oasis, says Darnell, reveals clearly how the Theban dynasty succeeded in extending its power and military might more than 100 miles into the hostile desert, building an entire city, and controlling a vital crossroads of trade routes.
(Excerpt) Read more at yalealumnimagazine.com ...
Could also be the world’s first image of an erect penis, showing that the patriarchy has always been around, creating a hostile environment. /s
Note: this topic is from . One of *those* topics.
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funny story.
current archaeology suggests that the sahara desert was well watered savannah until about 5000 years ago when the rains stopped abruptly
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/abrupt-climate-change/End%20of%20the%20African%20Humid%20Period
Note: this topic is from . Just a ping msg update, and re-ping because #19 is a nice link collection.
“distance was not a problem” Stephen Lekson
2017:
A joint Yale and Royal Museums of Art and History (Brussels) expedition to explore the the ancient Egyptian city of Elkab has uncovered some previously unknown rock inscriptions, which include the earliest monumental hieroglyphs dating back around 5,200 years.
These new inscriptions were not previously recorded by any expedition and are of great significance in the history of the ancient Egyptian writing systems, according to Egyptologist John Coleman Darnell, professor in Yale's Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Yale, who co-directs the Elkab Desert Survey Project.
“This newly discovered rock art site of El-Khawy preserves some of the earliest — and largest — signs from the formative stages of the hieroglyphic script and provides evidence for how the ancient Egyptians invented their unique writing system,” says Darnell.
The newly discovered panel of signs features images 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. This arrangement of symbols is common in later Egyptian representations of the solar cycle and with the concept of luminosity.
Recent finds suggest that the ancient “lost army of Cambyses” has been found. 50,000 went in and none returned, eh”
https://www.seeker.com/the-quest-for-cambyses-lost-army-1764732816.html
Heh, that’s from 2009, FR has more recent stuff than that. :^)
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/lostarmy/index
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