With all the mysteries of ancient Egypt, people can’t get enough of the information. That is why it gets even more interesting to study and learn their ways. And if things get a little too uncomfortable or weirder to some extent, it doesn’t matter. The whole point of knowing bizarre stuff is what makes ancient Egyptian history amazing.
Henry David Thoreau wasn’t impressed by the Pyramids. In his classic book, Walden, he wrote, “As for the Pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs.” — Christopher Ryan Ph.D.
White Pyramids
After the Great Pyramid of Giza was completed way back more than 2000 BCE, the finished aesthetics are different from the current ones we see today. In those years, after its construction, it gets plated with a smooth surface of polished limestone. It beautifully gleamed on the sun, giving it a brighter white look if viewed in different angles meters away from the pyramid. But after the massive earthquake that hit the tomb in the 1301 CE, it lost many of its casting stones. So as impressive as it may look today, the things we see in the outer layer of the Great Pyramid of Giza is merely its core structure and not the finished project. So we can all agree that there is no way we can witness the real gleaming look of one of the magnificent establishments ever built in history.
There are 3000-year-old granite obelisks all over the temples of Egypt. Covered in gold or electrum, their tips catch the sun’s rays at dawn. — Laura Betzig Ph.D.
Sunken City
One of the greatest cities of Egypt, Thonis-Heracleion, remained lost for over a thousand years. But not until it was re-discover in the water only 23 years ago. The town was the major trade center that links other countries into the market such as ancient Egypt, Greece, and broader Mediterranean. But after some severe flooding way back the end of the 20th century, the ground of the city succumbed to liquefaction of soil. It made the soil-clay turned into a liquid form that made the city collapsed. Some archeologist that works on excavating project on the lost city found an area of preserved pillars of hieroglyphics, which are in good condition by the way. There are also statues of Greek rulers and gods that depict the fashion of Egyptian pharaohs as well.
In the fiercely egalitarian bands of our ancestors there was no place for vast power differences between individuals because such power differences threatened the survival of the entire group. Only much later on in history, in the last few millennia, as communities grew with the advent of agriculture, that such differences in wealth and power arose. — Mark Van Vugt Ph.D.
The Female Pharaoh
It was almost a thousand years that no one remembered “The Female Pharaoh.” Hatshepsut is one of the successful pharaoh’s that rule the kingdom of Egypt that nearly no one recognizes. But that is not until her story gets uncovered in one of the temple walls that were discovered in the 19th century. It was around 1478 BCE when Hatshepsut came to the throne. During her reign in the ancient Egyptian era, there was great peace and prosperity in the whole kingdom. She even over soars incredible beneficial trade routes and built tons of construction projects. But later after her death, there has been a campaign of eradicating anything of her contributions to history. That is where statues of her were never found, and her name appears scraped off of all the walls of constructed buildings under her ruling.
Ancient Egypt surely promises a lot of great things in the knowledge of history. And like you, I am amazingly enthusiastic about it too.