Posted on 12/08/2001 2:51:43 PM PST by blam
Thursday, 26 July, 2001, 12:12 GMT 13:12 UK
Disaster that struck the ancients
The pharaohs of the Egyptian Old Kingdom had built the mightiest legacy of the ancient world - the pyramids at Giza. But after nearly a thousand years of stability, central authority disintegrated and the country collapsed into chaos for more than a 100 years.
What happened, and why, has remained a huge controversy. But Professor Fekri Hassan, from University College London, UK, wanted to solve the mystery, by gathering together scientific clues.
His inspiration was the little known tomb in southern Egypt of a regional governor, Ankhtifi. The hieroglyphs there reported "all of Upper Egypt was dying of hunger to such a degree that everyone had come to eating their children".
Dismissed as exaggeration and fantasy by most other Egyptologists, Fekri was determined to prove the writings were true and accurate. He also had to find a culprit capable of producing such misery.
Stalactites and stalagmites
"My hunch from the beginning was that it had to do with the environment in which the Egyptians lived." Fekri felt sure the Nile, the river that has always been at the heart of Egyptian life, was implicated.
He studied the meticulous records, kept since the 7th Century, of Nile floods. He was amazed to see that there was a huge variation in the size of the annual Nile floods - the floods that were vital for irrigating the land.
But no records existed for 2,200BC. Then came a breakthrough - a new discovery in the hills of neighbouring Israel. Mira Bar-Matthews of the Geological Survey of Israel had found a unique record of past climates, locked in the stalactites and stalagmites of a cave near Tel Aviv.
What they show is a sudden and dramatic drop in rainfall, by 20%. It is the largest climate event in 5,000 years. And the date? 2,200 BC.
As Israel and Egypt are in different weather systems, Fekri needed evidence of some worldwide climate event to link this to the collapse of the Old Kingdom. And the evidence came out of the blue.
Geologist Gerard Bond, of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, US, looks for climate evidence in the icebergs of Iceland. As they melt on their journey south, they leave shards of volcanic ash on the ocean floor.
Dry lake
How far they travelled before melting tells him how cold it was. Cores of mud from the ocean floor revealed to him regular periods of extreme cold - mini ice ages - in Europe every 1,500 years, and lasting 200 years. And one mini ice age occurred at 2,200 BC.
Fekri Hassan: Looked at lake-bed cores
Gerard's colleague, Peter deMenocal, looked at climate records for the rest of the world at exactly the same time. From pollen records to sand, the story was the same - a dramatic climate change from Indonesia to the Mediterranean, Greenland to North America.
Scientists were confirming everything Fekri believed - severe climate change causing widespread human misery 4,200 years ago, misery we are only now learning about for the first time.
Back in Egypt, Fekri wanted to put the last piece of the puzzle in place. He wanted direct evidence of this severe climate change in the Nile. And he found it drilling cores in a large lake that had been fed by a tributary of the Nile in ancient times.
He discovered in the critical period, as the Old Kingdom collapsed, the lake had dried up completely - the only time in the whole history of this lake that this had happened. At last, Fekri felt he had proved that the writings on Ankhtifi's tomb were really true. It was nature that had driven people to desperation.
LostTribe was booted quite a while ago, and good riddance, IMHO.
Disaster that struck the ancientsProfessor Fekri Hassan, from University College London, UK, wanted to solve the mystery, by gathering together scientific clues. His inspiration was the little known tomb in southern Egypt of a regional governor, Ankhtifi. The hieroglyphs there reported "all of Upper Egypt was dying of hunger to such a degree that everyone had come to eating their children". Dismissed as exaggeration and fantasy by most other Egyptologists, Fekri was determined to prove the writings were true and accurate. He also had to find a culprit capable of producing such misery. He studied the meticulous records, kept since the 7th Century, of Nile floods. He was amazed to see that there was a huge variation in the size of the annual Nile floods - the floods that were vital for irrigating the land. But no records existed for 2,200BC. Then came a breakthrough - a new discovery in the hills of neighbouring Israel. Mira Bar-Matthews of the Geological Survey of Israel had found a unique record of past climates, locked in the stalactites and stalagmites of a cave near Tel Aviv. What they show is a sudden and dramatic drop in rainfall, by 20%. It is the largest climate event in 5,000 years. And the date? 2,200 BC.
by Jessica Cecil
Thursday, July 26, 2001
i hadn't noticed i responded to an old posting
CAN'T ANYONE WRITE SENTENCES BETTER THAN THIS MONSTROSITY ANYMORE??
< /compulsive grammarian>
Um...
Fekri, dismissed as exaggeration and fantasy by most other Egyptologists, was determined to prove the writings were true and accurate.
There. Better?
I would urge you to read Peter Thompkins book "Secrets of the Great Pyramid" for a different perspective. The monument to an egotistical ruler is probably not the reason for the construction.
At the very least, they serve as geodesic markers. There were probably astronomical function as well.
Do you see the point people are trying to make here? Not to criticize you, but to show that these two fragments should never come together in one sentence
What did post 62 say that was so bad?
I am curious about what you found so bad about that sentence? It seemed concise to me.
But then again I can't spel gud and the only grammar rule I know is that a preposition is not something you end a sentence with.
Disaster that struck the ancients = Liberals
Dismissed as exaggeration and fantasy by most other Egyptologists, Fekri was determined to prove the writings were true and accurate.
...it is literally telling us that Fekri is being dismissed as an exaggeration and fantasy. Since Fekri is apparently going around talking and writing, one would have to think that he's not a figment of anyone's imagination. In the sentence as written, the "dismissed" clause modifies "Fekri" and not the intended word "writings." A correct sentence would read,
Fekri was determined to prove that the writings, dismissed as exaggeration and fantasy by most other Egyptologists, were true and accurate.
See what I mean?
very nice explanation- thank you!
The Israelites did not freely give their services to build those monuments.
Something else you don't know; the Egyptian "getgo" was an empire that lasted for SEVERAL THOUSAND YEARS!
Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. I admit to not knowing what I was talking about. I was young! I made a mistake!! I'm sorry!!!
Five years is a long time ago already!!! I've paid my debt to freeperdom. I've moved on. I'm sorry!!
Time to forgive and forget! It's Christmas! Can't we all just get along??!!
Aye-yi-yi!!!
To see what was happening around this time of tumult, a visit to wikipedia might help. They have a great search mechanism by century:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centuries
LOL!
Mace,
I wasn't trying to be too harsh on you and there is nothing to forgive you for! What's five years in thousands of years? I'm not counting!LOL
Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to You and yours.
>>>Building huge, unimaginably expensive monuments to the egos of leaders is no way for a society to prosper.
Taj Mahal, a repeat performance. The leader bankrupted the country and was reputedly overthrown. Public spending gone wild!
>>> Fekri, dismissed as exaggeration and fantasy by most other Egyptologists, was determined to prove the writings were true and accurate. There. Better?
No. Too many miles between subject and verb. Unless there's a mistake, why don't you focus on content?
>>>Unless there's a mistake, why don't you focus on content?
Oops, I missed the dangling participial phrase. Still, putting it between subject and verb doesn't fix it. It needs rewritten, but the meaning is clear enough. Maybe "Fekri's claims" instead of "Fekri."
Grammar, used to correctly structure a sentence, directs attention to content, and eliminates confusion.
Can I stop chewing the rugs now? LOL
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