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Scientists have uncovered the shocking truth about 12 severed hands buried in ancient Egyptian burial pits.They determined that the remains — all right hands — were mostly from men, with possibly one female, and may provide evidence of the grisly 'gold of honor' ritual.The discovery offers physical proof of an ancient practice in which Pharaoh's warriors presented the severed right hands of their enemies in exchange for a prestigious reward: a collar of golden beads.Before the unearthing of these cleanly severed hands, the 'gold of honor' ritual was known only through Egyptian tomb inscriptions and temple reliefs dating back to...

When Manfred Bietak, an archaeologist at the Austrian Academy of Sciences who has led digs at Tell el-Dab’a for decades, first saw the remains, he immediately thought of the trophy-taking ritual. According to ancient accounts, Egyptian warriors presented the hands of slain enemies to the pharaoh, who rewarded them with gold necklaces or golden pendants in the shape of flies...The care also suggests the hands were removed after death, not hacked from living prisoners. They were probably severed after rigor mortis–a tightening of the tendons in the hours after death–had passed, Gresky argues...Fingers are among the first parts of the...

In the Second Intermediate Period (18th-16th centuries B.C.E.), towards the end of the Middle Bronze Age, the West Asian (Canaanite) Hyksos controlled Lower (Northern) Egypt. In the 16th century, Ahmose I overthrew the Hyksos and initiated the XVIII dynasty and the New Kingdom of Egypt. Recent archaeological discoveries at Tel Habuwa (also known as Tell el-Habua or Tell-Huba), a site associated with ancient Tjaru (Tharo), shed new light on Ahmose's campaign. A daybook entry in the famous Rhind Mathematical Papyrus notes that Ahmose seized control of Tjaru before laying siege the Hyksos at their capital in Avaris. Excavations at the...

Was Saul real king of Israel? January 4, 2003 1:06 am By RICHARD N. OSTLING Scholars debate history from Bible AP RELIGION WRITERTORONTO--Judging from a session at 2002's key gathering of Bible scholars, King Saul and King David aren't dead yet. So to speak.A lengthy session on non-biblical evidence for the first kings of ancient Israel occurred during the convention of the Society of Biblical Literature, held in November.These are often called years of "crisis" in Old Testament history. Traditionalists say the Old Testament reliably records ancient Israel's history or, more liberally, is substantially historical, though with problems and mistakes.These...

A 3,500-year-old inscription on a stone block found in Egypt is what archaeologists say the oldest weather report of the world. The inscription on a six-foot-tall calcite stone, called the Tempest Stela, describes rain, darkness and "the sky being in storm without cessation, louder than the cries of the masses," according to Nadine Moeller and Robert Ritner at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute who have translated the 40-line inscription. The stela's text also describes bodies floating down the Nile like "skiffs of papyrus." "This was clearly a major storm, and different from the kinds of heavy rains that Egypt...

An inscribed stele erected at Thebes by Ahmose, the first Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty, documents a destructive storm accompanied by flooding during his reign. Fragments of the stele were found in the 3rd Pylon of the temple of Karnak at Thebes between 1947 and 1951 by the French Mission. A restoration of the stele and translation of the text was published by Claude Vandersleyen (1967). In the following year (1968), Vandersleyen added two more fragments, one from the top of the inscription and a small piece from line 10 of the restored text, which had been recovered by Egyptian...

A team of archaeologists excavating a palace in the ancient city of Avaris, in Egypt, has made a gruesome discovery. The archaeologists have unearthed the skeletons of 16 human hands buried in four pits. Two of the pits, located in front of what is believed to be a throne room, hold one hand each. Two other pits, constructed at a slightly later time in an outer space of the palace, contain the 14 remaining hands. They are all right hands; there are no lefts. "Most of the hands are quite large and some of them are very large," Manfred Bietak,...

Egypt's top archaeologist said Tuesday that two Egyptian citizens were rewarded for turning in two pieces of antiquities they found while each was redecorating his house in the northern Menoufiya governorate. "The Egyptian Ministry of Culture decided to give each citizen five thousand Egyptian pounds (970 US dollars)," said Zahi Hawass, Head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA). Hawass stated that the two pieces belong to Ancient Egyptian King Ahmose of the 26th dynasty. After asserting the authenticity of the pieces, the SCA took the pieces to start their restoration process. Hawass added that both pieces are made of...