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Throughout their history the ancient Egyptians recorded making voyages to a place called the 'Land of Punt'. To the Egyptians it was a far-off source of exotic animals and valuable goods. From there they brought back perfumes, panther skins, electrum, and, yes, live baboons to keep as pets. The voyages started as early as the Old Kingdom, ca. 4,500 years ago, and continued until just after the collapse of the New Kingdom 3,000 years ago. Egyptologists have long argued about the location of Punt. The presence of perfumes suggests that it was located somewhere in Arabia, such as Yemen. However...

From axes to swords to chariots, see the weapons that helped make ancient Egyptian warriors formidable.The Egyptian military became one of the ancient world’s greatest fighting forces during the New Kingdom period (1550 B.C. - 1070 B.C.), but it did so using borrowed weapons technology. For much of its early history, Egypt relied on simple stone maces, wooden-tipped spears, axes and bows and arrows to fight off neighboring Nubian and Libyan tribesmen. Then came the Hyksos, an invading army from Syria that conquered Egypt around 1650 B.C. with vastly superior weapons like speedy chariots and powerful composite bows. During the...

An ancient Egyptian "garbage dump" discovered within a temple honoring the powerful female Pharaoh Hatshepsut is piled high with offerings to a fertility goddess, archaeologists report.Archaeologists unexpectedly found the rubbish heap in a tomb within the 3,500-year-old Hathor cult complex, a three-temple complex that sits within the Hatshepsut Temple at Deir el-Bahari (also spelled Deir el-Bahri), near Luxor. Even though the dump was hidden in an early Middle Kingdom tomb, many of the artifacts in the dump date to the New Kingdom, which includes the 18th, 19th and 20th dynasties...Many of these artifacts are votive offerings — special objects, like...

Moses was a prophet and a leader according to Abrahamic religions, but many scholars view him as a legendary figure rather than a real historic person. They do concede that a Moses-like figure could have existed in history, so is it possible to track this person down through historic records? It is the view of this writer that this is very possible and that in fact the Moses figure can be traced as that of the primary confidant of none other than Egyptian pharaoh Hatshepsut. The trail begins with Th Exodus.

Moses was a prophet and a leader according to Abrahamic religions, but many scholars view him as a legendary figure rather than a real historic person. They do concede that a Moses-like figure could have existed in history, so is it possible to track this person down through historic records? It is the view of this writer that this is very possible and that in fact the Moses figure can be traced as that of the primary confidant of none other than Egyptian pharaoh Hatshepsut. The trail begins with Th Exodus.

Who is the Queen of Sheba? In the Bible we are introduced to an unnamed queen from the land of Sheba who travels to Jerusalem to meet King Solomon (see 1 Kings 10; 2 Chronicles 9). Accompanied by many attendants and camels, the Queen of Sheba brings a large quantity of spices, gold and precious stones with her. She is drawn to Jerusalem because of Solomon's fame, and she tests the king with hard questions. Solomon is able to answer them all. Impressed by Solomon's wisdom -- and by the riches of his kingdom -- she proclaims, "Your wisdom and...

Consisting of two irregularly shaped limestone fragments that have been glued together, the object had been kept in storage for over twenty years and was requested for the handling session based only on an old black and white photograph. The front side depicts the head of a figure whose face is unfortunately missing, with the remains of a fan directly behind. Traces of hieroglyphs are also present above the head. The iconography of the piece indicates that it represents a ruler of Egypt, particularly with the presence of the uraeus (cobra) on the forehead of the figure. Who is this...

n the northern region of ancient Egypt, a large obelisk has been found, which is said to be the biggest ever discovered. The stone quarries in Aswan house, which is an unfinished obelisk, has mad scientists pull their hair out and cause a permanent denial for historians. A discovery like this is likely to split the academic community in two. Archaeologists are now arguing that the female pharaoh who where also known Hatshepsut, did actually sanction its construction. Of course, modern engineers, who are clearly in massive opposition, say that the Dynastic Egyptians did not have the type of technology...

Southern Arabia is 1,200 miles south of Israel. Naturally, skepticism about the reality of trade between South Arabia and Israel in ancient times seems justified. Yet the Bible documents this trade quite extensively -- most famously in the supposed affair between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. And the land of Sheba is referred to two dozen times in the Hebrew Bible. Without addressing the historicity of the personal relations between Solomon and the queen of this South Arabian kingdom (or queendom?), I think it can be shown that the international trade between Judah and southern Arabia very probably...

Cut in the rock and consisting of two rooms, the walls of which are covered with poorly preserved decoration and hieroglyphic inscriptions: a team of archaeologists working under the auspices of the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology of the University of Warsaw started research in the ancient temple at Gebelein in Upper Egypt. This place was already known to the local authorities, but so far no archaeologist has studied it. Previous researchers could have been discouraged by the poor condition of the decorations. This year's results of Polish research were surprising... Detailed studies of reliefs and inscriptions, made by Daniel...

The ancient city of Gezer has been an important site since the Bronze Age, because it sat along the Way of the Sea, or the Via Maris, an ancient trade route that connected Egypt, Syria, Anatolia and Mesopotamia. The city was ruled over many centuries by Canaanites, Egyptians and Assyrians, and Biblical accounts from roughly the 10th century describe an Egyptian pharaoh giving the city to King Solomon as a wedding gift after marrying his daughter. .... The site has been excavated for a century, and most of the excavations so far date to the the 10th through eighth centuries...

In many bodies Austin saw evidence of stress from the hard climb – today it's a thousand stone steps – from Deir el-Medina to the Valley of the Kings and back again. As Austin found, incidence of arthritis in the knees and ankles of the men at Deir el-Medina was significantly higher than for working populations from other Egyptian cemeteries. The bones also revealed clues that corroborate other scholars' findings that severely disabled Egyptians were well cared for. "I found the remains of a man who died at the age of 19 or 20 and was born without a useful...

The original page used client side image maps, and that was pretty, but a little search and replace turned it into a usable (I hope) table of links. Enjoy. FR Lexicon·Posting Guidelines·Excerpt, or Link only?·Ultimate Sidebar Management·HeadlinesDonate Here By Secure Server·Eating our own -- Time to make a new start in Free RepublicPDF to HTML translation·Translation page·Wayback Machine·My Links·FreeMail MeGods, Graves, Glyphs topic·and group·Books, Magazines, Movies, Music

Hamburg - Archaeologists believe they have found the Queen of Sheba's palace at Axum, Ethiopia and an altar which held the most precious treasure of ancient Judaism, the Ark of the Covenant, the University of Hamburg said Wednesday. Scientists from the German city made the startling find during their spring excavation of the site over the past three months. The Ethiopian queen was the bride of King Solomon of Israel in the 10th century before the Christian era. The royal match is among the memorable events in the Bible. Ethiopian tradition claims the Ark, which allegedly contained Moses' stone...

Clues to the origins of the Queen of Sheba legend are written in the DNA of some Africans, according to scientists.Genetic research suggests Ethiopians mixed with Egyptian, Israeli or Syrian populations about 3,000 years ago. This is the time the queen, mentioned in great religious works, is said to have ruled the kingdom of Sheba. The research, published in The American Journal of Human Genetics, also sheds light on human migration out of Africa 60,000 years ago.According to fossil evidence, human history goes back longer in Ethiopia than anywhere else in the world. But little has been known until now...

The queen of Sheba was once one of the most powerful leaders in the world but there are few clues left anywhere about this woman who ruled a rich and powerful nation somewhere in Africa -- perhaps, as some archeologists maintain, in what is now southwest Nigeria. Now, in what may be the site of her last home and gravesite, a University of Toronto professor is trying to unearth the queen's story -- partially told in the Old Testament -- as well as honouring her in the form of a new Nigerian museum and interpretive centre. "Each year both Muslim...

Harvard University educated archaeologist and president of the Paleontological Research Corporation, Dr. Joel Klenck, states an array of archaeological discoveries evidence a crisis during the reign of the Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose II... in the Eighteenth Dynasty. An inscription by the succeeding Pharaoh Hatshepsut... in her Underground Temple at Speos Artemidos states that Egypt was "ruined" and "had gone to pieces" before the beginning of her reign. Hatshepsut's inscription also states that a population of "vagabonds" emerged from former Asiatic populations that once controlled northern Egypt and caused this ruination. Hatshepsut notes these vagabonds were responsible for "overthrowing that which had...

Bonn scientists shed light on the dark secret of Queen Hatshepsut's flaconThe corpus delicti is a plain flacon from among the possessions of Pharaoh Hatshepsut, who lived around 1450 B.C., which is on exhibit in the permanent collection of the Egyptian Museum of the University of Bonn. For three and a half millennia, the vessel may have held a deadly secret. This is what the Head of the collection, Michael Höveler-Müller and Dr. Helmut Wiedenfeld from the university's Pharmacology Institute just discovered. After two years of research it is now clear that the flacon did not hold a perfume; instead,...

SAQQARA, Egypt - Egyptian archaeologists have uncovered the "missing pyramid" of a pharaoh and a ceremonial procession road where high priests carried mummified remains of sacred bulls, Egypt's antiquities chief said Thursday. Zahi Hawass said the pyramid — of which only the base remains — is believed to be that of King Menkauhor, an obscure pharaoh who ruled for only eight years more than 4,000 years ago. In 1842, German archaeologist Karl Richard Lepsius mentioned Menkauhor's pyramid among his finds at Saqqara, calling it the "Headless Pyramid" because its top was missing, Hawass said. But the desert sands covered Lepsius'...

The scenes carved into a wall of the ancient Egyptian temple at Deir el-Bahri tell of a remarkable sea voyage. A fleet of cargo ships bearing exotic plants, animals, and precious incense navigates through high-crested waves on a journey from a mysterious land known as Punt or "the Land of God." The carvings were commissioned by Hatshepsut, ancient Egypt's greatest female pharaoh, who controlled Egypt for more than two decades in the 15th century B.C. She ruled some 2 million people and oversaw one of most powerful empires of the ancient world. The exact meaning of the detailed carvings has...