Ancient Egyptian Forum

Osiris II · Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2004 4:00 pm Post subject: Tomb Found in Cairo

I just got this information from another board I'm on. Thought the members here may like to see it...

Builders Find Ancient Tomb in Cairo Suburb
Sun Aug 1, 2004 10:33 AM ET
CAIRO (Reuters) - Builders laying the foundations for a mosque in
northeast Cairo found a tomb dating from the Pharaonic period intact
but submerged in ground water up to the ceiling of the tomb,
official sources said Sunday.
The tomb contains an unopened basalt sarcophagus, slivers of gold
dedicated to the ancient Egyptian gods Isis and Horus, and
inscriptions showing the tomb belonged to a man called Ankh Khansu
Derat Hor, the official news agency MENA said.

It also has the four Canopic jars in which ancient Egyptians tried
to preserve the liver, stomach, lungs and intestines.

The head of the Supreme Council for Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, said
the tomb dated from the New Kingdom, which lasted from the 16th to
the 11th century BC.

"The walls of the tomb are beautifully inscribed, with reliefs, so I
think it could be an important person. The problem is the water
table," he told Reuters.

Egyptian archaeologists are thinking of ways to move the whole tomb
to higher ground, out of the water, he added.

At a separate site at the ancient town of Akhmim in southern Egypt,
while digging foundations for a religious school, workers found
remains of an ancient temple and pieces of a giant statue of the
pharaoh Ramses II, MENA said.

Ramses II, who ruled the country for much of the 13th century BC,
was one of ancient Egypt's most prolific builders.

The full statue would be 40 feet tall and the head alone weighs
about two tons, it added.

The antiquities authorities plan to clear a modern cemetery to allow
for more excavation work, it said.

© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.

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PharoahKel · Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2004 8:49 pm Post subject:

WOW! thats amazing!
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Yea, Im gonna need you to come in on Sunday...

Sekhmet · Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2004 11:32 pm Post subject: Re: Tomb Found in Cairo

Hey Osiris II, thanks for the post! With each new tomb discovery more information is gained. How wonderful!
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[img]http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:ygpdGun0X_wJ:www.temoata.org/temoata/lotus.jpg[/img]
how beautiful the lotus flower is! selected 4-4-04

Osiris II · Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 3:02 pm Post subject:

Hawass has stated that the SCA is looking at plans to drain and move the tomb to higher ground, but he is well-known for making intemperate remarks or "wishy-washy" stances on various subjects, so we will just have to wait and see what happens.
Draining and moving the tomb will be a big job--not only the physical labor, but the expense will be staggering.

PharoahKel · Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 3:15 pm Post subject:

Man, it is gonna be really expensive, but what I wouldnt give to be on the crew that brings it out of the water. Very Happy

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Yea, Im gonna need you to come in on Sunday...

Tadukhipa · Posted: Wed Aug 04, 2004 5:11 am Post subject:

So all the flooding that seems to happen these days is because of that one dam, right? I mean, this tomb's already survived thousands of years, why would it chose now to get destroyed? (And how many other things have been destroyed by these floods?)
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*Tadukhipa*

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PharoahKel · Posted: Wed Aug 04, 2004 12:37 pm Post subject:

I know, right! Can you imagine how many things have already been destroyed and how many more there are to find?
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Yea, Im gonna need you to come in on Sunday...

bel · Pharaoh Joined: 25 May 2003 Posts: 501

Has a brand new book out.. unfortanately I forgot the title something of the sand's. It is mostly composed of the Giza Plateau as this is where he spend's a great deal of his time. Anyway's I checked it out of the library and it was an interesting read. They have had to do some major renovation's because of the heavy traffic and disrespect to the pyramid's. Unruly children! Sekhmet recommended that I check out a book about Om Seti which I did and it seem's that the water table is also destroying Seti's temple.

Osiris II · Posted: Wed Aug 04, 2004 3:36 pm Post subject:

The dam at Aswan has been a mixed blessing to Egypt. It has caused a severe rise in the ground-waters, which is hastening the destruction of the monuments--the water causes salts which percolate through the limestone most buildings have used. The salts get between stone and plaster, causing the plaster--and any painting--to flake off. It also acts on the stone itself, wicking into the stone from the ground, forming "salts" that cause the carvings to flake and fall off.
The river no longer floods the land, so farmers have to use a lot of chemical fertlizers, which "bleed" off into the Nile, contaminating the river, and into ground water. The silt, once carried by the Nile down through the land, now builds up behind the dam. In future centuries, the lake behind the dam will progressivly fill with silt, making the dam unecessary.
In this age of terrorizm, a bomb or rocket destroying the dam would virtually wipe out Egypt! A wall of flood water would race through the valley and not stop befor it reached the Med. sea.
On the plus side, it has supplied electrical power to virually all of the country. Land used for farming has been increased. The controlling of the yearly flood has protected many villages that before the dam would suffer flooding every year.
Massive efforts are being used to create more land for the big increase in population Egypt has experienced in the last 20 years, and this has been greatly helped by being able to use the water from the lake formed behind the dam.

bel · Pharaoh Joined: 25 May 2003 Posts: 501

is good like you said and not so good in other's. Thank's so much for that post Osiris II ... it was great! I would personally LOVE to visit Egypt as I consider it a part of my home but not necessarily at the cost of modernization. As the world turn's today I wouldn't feel very safe traveling over there even though I am assured that it is safe (my ex live's in Kuwait); I don't even feel comfortable in the USA since the Bush administration has taken a hold of the world's supply of oil reserve's! Why just look at 9-11 ... traveling in America is now a prison for us in the State's as is Corp. America. I don't like any part of it.
It would be a terrible thing for somebody to bomb Egypt. I really don't foresee something like that happening because of the relation's of Egypt w/the rest of the world at large. It is also unfortunate that we cannot spend more time on the preservation of Antiquity's before we worried about the pollution and long term effect's of modernization!

Si-amun · Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2004 5:24 pm Post subject:

Egypt is safe now. When I was there last year it was filled with tourist police so I wouldn't be worried. In Middle Egypt there is a really heightened police presence (especially at Abydos), where you are escorted to and from the Temple by half a dozen armed guards. The temple is also filled and surrounded by armed policemen. It feels a bit tense, but better to be safe than sorry.
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Thou dost appear beautiful on the horizon of heaven, oh living Amun, he who was the first to live.

Osiris II · Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2004 5:45 pm Post subject:

That really isn't the way I like to see Egypt. Armed guards? Escort to the tombs? Tense but ok? Sorry--all of those things are a real "downer" to me.
The last time I was there, in 2003, it was--tense--in the bigger cities, such as Cairo or Alexandria. But once you got into deeper Egypt, military personnel seemed to disappear--you were free to go just about anywhere! And that was at the height of the Iraqi situation.
I have some friends that live in Beni Suef. They told me not to go to Middle Egypt--particularly Assuit. The said "only crazy people live there!" Needless to say, I didn't!
The Egyptian people were wonderful--every where I went, I would meet helpful people who would go out of their way to be of assistance. For example, when I went to Abu Sir, I had a guide that took me around the site, showing me the various mastabas and pyramids. After we had spent several hours climbing around things to see and photograph, he took me to his home, introduced his mother (a wonderful woman!) and served me tea.
All in all, it was a really great trip. I saw all of Egypt, from Alexandria to Asswan. Can't wait to go again...

bel · Pharaoh Joined: 25 May 2003 Posts: 501

One afternoon recently while surfing the web I came across this info. The world juwst isn't the same anymore....

www.cnn.com/WORLD/9711/17/egypt.noon.update/index.html

It isn's safe anywhere anymore like I said, not even in the US of A.

Dark_Meryetamun_28 · Posted: Fri Aug 06, 2004 3:48 pm Post subject:

9/11 could have told you that. Sick people in this world.
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Si-amun · Posted: Fri Aug 06, 2004 7:27 pm Post subject:

I was not offending, or insulting the people of Egypt, who I found to be far more accomodating than any European or American. The people were great but there was a large armed presence in Middle Egypt esepcially. When we sailed from the City of Luxor to the town of Qena a machine gun was fixed to the back of our cruise ship in the danger of a sniper (again). Egypt cannot not afford another Dier-el-Bahari, since 1997 the tourist industry has been rebuilding, however slowly.
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Thou dost appear beautiful on the horizon of heaven, oh living Amun, he who was the first to live.