Post: #1

Engraving at the entrance

Story from PBS.com here:

Quote:A team of Czech archaeologists announced Sunday the discovery of an ancient Egyptian tomb that they believe belongs to a previously unknown ancient Egyptian queen, according to the BBC.

While excavating the funeral complex of Pharaoh Neferefre in the Abusir region southwest of Cairo, the team unearthed the tomb of Queen Khentakawess III, whose name and rank were inscribed on the walls. Experts believe Khentakawess is the wife or mother of Neferefre, a Fifth Dynasty ruler who lived 4,500 years ago.

Egypt’s Antiquities Minister Mamdouh Eldamaty said in a statement to Agence France-Presse that this was the first time any mention of the queen had been found.

“This discovery will help us shed light on certain unknown aspects of the Fifth Dynasty, which along with the Fourth Dynasty, witnessed the construction of the first pyramids,” he said.

In addition to the identity of Khentakawess III, about 30 artifacts made of limestone and copper also were found.

The leader of the expedition, Miroslav Barta, a faculty member at the Czech Institute of Egyptology, highlighted the continued opportunity for archaeological discovery in Egypt.

“This is another significant discovery in the last few years (that) have repeatedly confirmed that the Abusir necropolis provides a number of unique sources for the reconstruction of major epochs of ancient Egyptian history,” Barta said in a statement, according to CNN.

Meanwhile, a Spanish-Italian archaeological team called the Min Project made the announcement last week that they had located an ancient replica of the Tomb of Osiris, a mythological site in ancient Egyptian culture.

The site features several chambers and passageways, as well as a large carving of Osiris, the Egyptian god of the underworld. The tomb’s age is estimated between 750 B.C. and 525 B.C., due to its architectural similarity to Osireion, a tomb located at the temple of Seti I in Abydos.

The discovered mausoleum

More reporting here:

Quote:A team of archeologists led by Miroslav Barta from the Czech Institute of Egyptology have recently discovered a tomb near Cairo that belonged to a previously unknown ancient Egyptian royalty. The tomb likely belonged to a queen who lived 4,500 years ago, during the Fifth Dynasty. The inscribed walls of the tomb revealed it to be the resting place of Khentakawess III, believed to be the wife of Pharaoh Neferefre, also known as Raneferef. The Pharaoh only reigned for a few years before dying in his early 20s.

According to a press release, the researchers believe that the discovery of the apparent queen’s tomb is quite remarkable because it has yielded new information during that part of the Fifth Dynasty.

The tomb is believed to belong to the queen due to its location near Pharaoh Neferefre’s tomb. His pyramid was among one of the first built in Egypt, and (likely due to his early demise) the pyramid appears to have been built in a hurry. It contains odd features and has widely been dubbed “the unfinished pyramid.” It hadn’t been previously known whether or not the king had been married or what her identity might have been, but this discovery helps fill in some of those historic gaps.

Another clue that supports Khentakawess III being Neferefre’s queen is that the walls of her tomb are inscribed that she was “Wife of the King” as well as “Mother of the King.” Though Neferefre was succeeded by his brother, it is plausible that he and Khentakawess were the parents of Menkauhor Kaiu, who became pharaoh 24 years after Neferefre’s death. Familial lineage during this time is extremely unclear, though the timeline and her title of being “Mother of the King” does appear to fit.

Quote:Buried with her highness were small statues, travertine funereal vessels, and copper utensils; about 30 pieces in all. Unfortunately, some of the artifacts in the tomb were lost to grave robbers a long time ago. These pieces may have contained other clues about the nature of the queen’s life, lineage, and death.

These sorts of discoveries spark my interest and imagination. The slow, but careful piecing together of such a long-standing, distinguished civilization is utterly fascinating to me.

Post: #2

Very nice thread, Wickulus.

Seeing news like this reminds me just how insignificant the individual man is, when set against the limitless expanse of historical time.

Post: #3

Quintus's first thoughts may have been of the ephemeral nature of life, but mine was "Hey, it's one of Tuthmosis's bitches!"

Post: #4

I just hope Quintus doesn't start referring to me as Eelus...

Post: #5

(02-25-2015 01:53 AM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  Very nice thread, Wickulus.

Seeing news like this reminds me just how insignificant the individual man is, when set against the limitless expanse of historical time.

Many people think that real life is mundane and boring often escaping into the game world of epic stories,civilizations, adventures and so on. Yet when we dig up stuff. It is often fascinating and amazing how such an ancient civilization existed,functioned and how it interacted with the world back then. The stories of individuals and the adventures they went on, epics we never heard of.

Who knows, we may even uncover an advanced civilization that goes beyond all fictional stories currently in existence and known.

Likewise the more we know about such civilizations and the way they functioned the more we may be able to implement technologies, techniques and knowledge into the way we run our civilization greatly, augumenting what we already have or dramatically changing it for the better. How many lost innovations designs and ideas there are?

Possible amazing aesthetics that later civilizations are impoverished of may also be found, new strands of mythology to incorporate into our fantasies and so on.

Post: #6

(02-25-2015 03:51 AM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  I just hope Quintus doesn't start referring to me as Eelus...

Creepulus has a nicer ring to it....

Post: #7

She really hit the wall hard. 2/10, wnb.

Post: #8

Ancient Egypt is fascinating because it didn't change much for thousands of years.

I did a thread on the Tuthmosis family: /thread-38411.html

Post: #9

(02-25-2015 01:53 AM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  Very nice thread, Wickulus.

Seeing news like this reminds me just how insignificant the individual man is, when set against the limitless expanse of historical time.

I agree, I posted these on another thread but things like this remind me of the Ozymandias poems.

Quote:...My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away

Post: #10

(02-25-2015 01:53 AM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  Very nice thread, Wickulus.

Seeing news like this reminds me just how insignificant the individual man is, when set against the limitless expanse of historical time.

Not just Human time but space and space time. Our observable Universe has 100-200 billion galaxies, each galaxies has 100-300 billion Stars. Those numbers are so big it just stop having any real human comprehension.

Post: #11

Man, I remember this bitch from back in the day. She was the black sheep of the family. I hit it, though (that was considered okay back then).

Post: #12

I thought Tuth was Nordic.

Post: #13

(02-25-2015 12:03 PM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  

(02-25-2015 03:51 AM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  I just hope Quintus doesn't start referring to me as Eelus...

Creepulus has a nicer ring to it....

No Hancreepelus?

G

Post: #14

(02-25-2015 01:53 AM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  Very nice thread, Wickulus.

Seeing news like this reminds me just how insignificant the individual man is, when set against the limitless expanse of historical time.

Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

Post: #15

This definitely doesn't deserve it's own thread, as I couldn't find a good video or any good pictures. But an Iron Age Tomb was recently unearthed in southern Germany --

Quote:An Iron Age tomb brimming with treasures fashioned out of gold, bronze and amber was recently uncovered after lying undisturbed by the Danube River for nearly 2,600 years, archaeologists report.

The glitzy hoard adorned and surrounded the skeleton of a woman who likely died between the age of 30 and 40, and it suggests that she was an elite member of the Celtic society that buried her in ancient southern Germany at a hill fort called Heuneburg in 583 B.C., the researchers said.

Moreover, the presence of a petrified sea urchin and ammonite (a type of extinct mollusk) in the grave are intriguing, and suggest that the woman "was a kind of priestess," said the study's lead researcher Dirk Krausse, the archaeologist for the German state of Baden-Württemberg. [See Photos of Treasures Uncovered in the Elite Woman's Grave]

Multiple graves around the woman's burial chamber had been looted over the years, with some looters digging tunnels from tomb to tomb, facilitating the plundering process, Krausse said. The newfound grave is "extraordinary," as it's the "first richly furnished central grave from that period — the first half of the sixth century in Heuneburg — which was not looted in antiquity," Krausse told Live Science.

Immense excavation

People have known about Heuneburg, a prehistoric hill fort near the Danube River, for centuries. The Celtic city-state was likely founded in the sixth century B.C., and it's thought that even the famous Greek Philosopher Herodotus (circa 484 B.C to 425 B.C.) mentioned it while writing about the history of the Danube River, Krausse said.

However, it wasn't until 1950 that researchers began modern excavations of the site, which sits just north of the Alps. But those digs didn't uncover everything.

In 2005, archaeologist Siegfried Kurz, who died in 2014, found a golden brooch brooch in a plowed field. Kurz later led a small-scale excavation of the grave, which was located in an area known as the Bettelbühl necropolis. The grave contained a young child, likely a girl between the age of 2 and 4, who was burried next to a larger grave that had a burial chamber made out of timber, the researchers said.

Concerned that another plow, or other agricultural activity, would harm the larger grave, the researchers excavated the entire 88-ton (80 tonnes) section — which they dubbed Keltenblock — in 2010. A crane carried Keltenblock to the laboratories at the archaeological state office of Baden-Württemberg.

Golden Treasures

The large grave held myriad treasures: intricate jewelry made of amber, gold and bronze; piles of furs and textiles; an ornament made out of boars' horns and bronze jingle bells that would have adorned a horse's chest; carved boxwood objects; bracelets carved from black stone; and a belt made of bronze and leather.

Quote:The jewelry and the belt covered the 5-foot-3-inch (1.62 meters) tall skeleton of the elite woman. On the opposite side of the chamber, researchers found the skeleton of what was likely a woman, measuring just 5 feet 1 inch (1.57 m) tall. The woman, whose remains were buried with just a few pieces of bronze jewelry, may have been a servant, Krausse said. [In Photos: Ancient Tomb of a Celtic Prince Uncovered]

At the feet of the second individual sat a 1.3-foot-long (0.4 m) bronze sheet decorated with circles. A computed tomography (CT) scan of the sheet showed the remains of an iron horse bit, which gave researchers the idea that the sheet may have been a chanfron (also spelled chamfron) — a piece of metal that covers a horse's forehead.

If the bronze sheet is a chanfron, it's the first one on record to be found in Heuneburg and only the second known from this period north of the Alps, the researchers said.

Given that the grave has both the chanfron and the ornament made from boars' tusks that would have covered a horse's chest, it's likely that the elite woman had a strong connection with horses, Krausse said.

Waterlogged wood

The floor of the chamber was lined with oak and silver fir planks. By dating the wood and examining its tree rings, the researchers determined that the trees were felled in the fall of 583 B.C.

This date firmly places the grave with the Hallstatt culture — a name that has been given to the people who lived in central Europe during that time, the researchers said.

It's rare for timber to survive 2,600 years, but the grave's contents persisted because the Danube River routinely flooded, and clay in the soil around the grave helped keep the water inside the burial site. Just like the ocean can preserve a wooden shipwreck, the water from the Danube preserved the timbers and most of the grave's organic contents, with the exception of the textiles and furs (which were in bad shape) and some of the grave's iron and bronze objects, the researchers said.

However, the surviving objects are especially revealing. The elite woman's jewelry is similar to the jewelry that was worn by a young girl whose remains were discovered in 2005, and whose grave was just about 6.5 feet (2 m) away from the elite woman's grave. The similarity in their jewelry suggests that the girl and the woman were buried during the same time period, the researchers said. [In Photos: Boneyard of Iron Age Warriors]

Moreover, the style of the elite woman's jewelry and chanfron matches that seen in cultures south of the Alps, including Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Sicily, Krausse said. Other excavations suggest that the gold filigree was made at Heuneburg, showing that artisans there were influenced by styles in cultures south of the Alps, Krausse said.

"By knowing this new grave, we see the context between the region south of the Alps and this city at the Danube River," Krausse said. "They were much closer, there was much more traffic and interrelations between these areas than we thought before."

The findings were published in the February issue of the journal Antiquity.

Editor's Note: This article has been updated to correct the record on who discovered the 2005 grave of the young girl. A team led by archaeologist Siegfried Kurz, who died in 2014, found the brooch in a plowed field and later led a small-scale excavation of the grave. Previously, the story incorrectly said that the farmer who plowed the field discovered the brooch.

Post: #16

Probably unearthed by a pensioner with a metal detector.