A photo from open sources Civilization in the Nile Delta existed an enormously long period of about 5 thousand years. To us far from history and living in 2014, it’s hard to imagine such a temporary interval. It is striking that in one of the burials found in the Egyptian province of Deir al-Bahari, forty mummies lay Pharaohs: this is equivalent to as if standing in one place the coffins of all the rulers of the Slavic lands – the Kiev princes, kings and Soviet general secretaries.
Or another fact. Next to the famous Valley of the Kings (the traditional burial place of the pharaohs in ancient Egypt) is a village where several generations of villagers at the beginning of the twentieth century earned a living exclusively by plundering graves. Impossible imagine how much science has lost thanks to their “efforts”. No wonder the history of Egyptian civilization in the Nile Valley became a fertile field for human imagination and the creation of myths. Someone is trying to get to the truth, while someone is using a shortage knowledge to satisfy one’s vanity or cynical earnings. We have collected some examples of the most striking stories, concerning Ancient Egypt, and found out that theirs is true, and that – fiction.
Pharaohs: nonexistent tomb curses
For the entire existence of the science of archeology, not a single discovery gained such wide recognition and glory as the find of the tomb Pharaoh Tutankhamun in 1922. The height of the hype around her came for 1926: in just three months, the tomb was visited by 12.3 thousand tourists, and the laboratory – 270 groups of curious. Newspapers, typing tales of mysterious tombs, stopped be content with dry facts and began to appear in publications more fiction.
Ominous inscription. Real noise rose after the death of the Lord Carnarvona – Companion and like-minded discoverer of the tomb Howard Carter. The lord died of an insect bite. Newspapers “suddenly” found that in the tomb on the wall allegedly there is an inscription: “Death with quick steps will overtake the one who violates the peace of Pharaoh. ” subsequent years, several participants in the excavation died and their relatives. By 1930, only Howard Carter survived. A when the telegraph carried the news that a certain Mr. died in America Carter, then everyone decided it was Pharaoh who threatens the archaeologist from Sveta. Carter and several other prominent scientists could not stand it: they drew public attention to the fact that some of the dead were already deep old people, others were seriously ill with fever in Egypt yet before the opening of the tomb, and some of the sad list at all related to this story. And, most importantly, there is no tomb no inscription with a curse! German colleague Carter Georg Scheindorf supported a colleague: “In an ancient Egyptian funeral ritual there is no concept of a curse at all. The ritual requires only to express deceased respect. ”
DO NOT RELAX. It would seem that everything became clear 90 years ago. However, the story of the pharaoh’s curse comes to life from time to time in media. It comes to someone’s head that the priests used to protect graves radioactive substances are then specifically bred into burial chambers are a special type of toxin-producing fungus. AND always with more thorough and unbiased research the next “curse” is cast off as an idle fiction.
Photos from open sources of
Discoverer. Carter examines the sarcophagus Tutankhamun.
TUTANHAMON-PLANERIST: Sakkar mystery
In 1898, in one of the tombs near the Egyptian village Saqqara (next to it is the oldest necropolis of the capital Of the Ancient Kingdom – Memphis) was found inconspicuous at first glance subject – a bird with wings spread, as if in flight. A 14 cm long wooden figurine was shabby and only in some places on it are leftover paint. Now it’s hard to say – either the bird wasn’t finished for some reason, or the paint was just peeling off. The find is dated II century. BC .. – this is the era when Egypt lost independence and, being under the rule of the Persians, was conquered by Alexander the Great.
ALMOST A PLANE. The figure got into the Cairo Museum and lay there in storerooms until 1969, until it caught the eye of a certain gentleman Halilu Messiha. In countless publications on the subject of “Sakkar bird” walks the definition of “scientist Messiha.” But this is not entirely true: real Khalil Messiha is a doctor by profession and an Egyptologist at the call of the soul. A here his relative, by a happy coincidence, was aircraft engineer and balloonist. He drew attention to some nuances of the figure. For example, vertical tail elements, which is typical for aircraft and gliders (in birds, as you know, the tail is horizontal). Have a wooden the birds, like the aircraft, had no legs. Alerted wings – they had an airplane profile that is not found in birds. The brothers tested the bird in the wind tunnel – it turned out that it has all the properties of a good glider. For cleanliness experiment, researchers built a model of a larger figure size and launched into the air. She showed a good carrying capacity and speed.
PHARAOH-AVIATOR. The publication of the test results caused a sensation. Which versions did not appear. Khalil Messiha, for example, admitted the possibility that the Egyptians knew how to fly into the air long before Montgolfier, the Wright brothers, or Mozhaisk. Enthusiast noted: “The Egyptians often made smaller models of what surrounded them in everyday life, and put them in graves – this chariots, boats, animal figures. Why not assume that somewhere under the sands are fragments of a full-size glider of the era Pharaohs? ”
Opponents believed that, most likely, we are talking about children’s toy or weather vane. They could be mounted on the ships of the pharaohs for determine the direction of the wind.
German historian William Deutsch generally stated that the pharaoh Tutankhamun died in … a plane crash. Allegedly detailed study the mummy says that Tutankhamun (and other pharaohs) at the time death had numerous fractures and injuries, and this is a direct evidence of death after falling from a height. Conclusion scientist: Pharaoh crashed on an aircraft. “Maitre” makes an amazing conclusion: ballooning from the Nile Valley spread to Tibet, India, Mexico, Asia Minor, China and Guatemala. True, about the historian himself William Deutsche has no information – only links to works on crashed Tutankhamun. In a word, the character is dubious.
However, in the history of the “Sakkar bird” there are actually entertaining moments. So, the artifact once exhibited at the Cairo Museum was removed from the exhibition: they say, why should he gather dust at the stand, if no one conducts new research figures.
Photos from open sources of
Miracle bird. The legendary little thing from Saqqara endowed with excellent aerodynamics.
RA BOAT: Egyptians – Discoverers of America
Today is the myth of the pharaohs who in ancient times crossed Atlantic and gave rise to the great civilizations of the local aborigines alive only in the yellow press. Confirmations of the Egyptians’ stay New World is not found. But trying to prove such a contact is curious that entered the “golden fund” of travel along with swimming James Cook and the Odyssey of Jacques-Yves Cousteau.
FROM ONE POINT. In the second half of the 20th century in historical science a trend such as diffusionism has become popular. The bottom line: civilization originated in one particular place and then spread all over the world. Diffusionists believed that the place origin has become a triangle between the Middle East, Egypt and interfluve of the Tigris and Euphrates.
Norwegian Thor Heyerdahl was also a diffusionist. He proved the theory simple – repeated the routes of the ancients. The first attempt that brought him glory, was sailing across the Pacific Ocean on a Kon-Tiki raft (attempt prove that the Indians once crossed the Pacific and mastered Polynesia). After that, Heyerdahl set out to test the possibility contact of the inhabitants of the Nile Valley and the natives of America. Boat contours the Egyptians assumed the possibility of walking on the sea. True, they built them from papyrus – obviously unsuitable for shipping material. IN 1969-1970 Heyerdahl builds large boats from papyrus and trying to cross the Atlantic, starting off the coast of Morocco. But the boat “Ra” fell apart. True, not because it was made from papyrus, and because of miscalculations in the construction: Heyerdahl inaccurately repeated design depicted on Egyptian papyrus and frescoes. But march on “Ra-2”, during the construction of which all errors were taken into account, was successful – the ship reached Barbados. Turns out that theoretically, the Egyptians could reach the shores of America. But how stated above, no evidence of the presence of the Egyptians in the New There is no light.
Heyerdahl’s experiment had one more goal: typing for him holding a team of representatives of different races, nationalities and religious preferences, he showed during the Cold War era that people can and want to live in peace.
Photos from open sources of
Across the ocean. Papyrus boat “Ra” passed from Morocco to Barbados
Time Egypt Life Mummies Birds Aircraft Tutankhamun Pharaohs
