The six foot one Pharaoh who could be the world’s oldest case of Gigantism

The supposed remains of Sa-Nakht, a pharaoh of ancient Egypt, maybe the oldest known human giant, a new study finds. Myths abound with stories of giants, from the frost and fire giants of Norse legends to the Titans who warred with the gods in ancient Greek mythology.

However, giants are more than a just myth; accelerated and excessive growth, a condition known as gigantism, can occur when the body generates too much growth hormone. This usually occurs because of a tumour on the pituitary gland of the brain.

As part of ongoing research into mummies, scientists investigated a skeleton found in 1901 in a tomb near Beit Khallaf in Egypt. Previous research estimated that the bones dated from the Third Dynasty of Egypt, about 2700 B.C.

Prior work suggested that the skeleton of the man — who would have stood at up to 6 feet 1.6 inches (1.987 meters) tall — may have belonged to Sa-Nakht, a pharaoh during the Third Dynasty.

Previous research on ancient Egyptian mummies suggested the average height for men around this time was about 5 feet 6 inches (1.7 m), said study co-author Michael Habicht, an Egyptologist at the University of Zurich’s Institute of Evolutionary Medicine.

Ancient Egyptian kings were likely better fed and in better health than commoners of the era, so they could be expected to grow taller than average. Still, the over-6-foot-tall remains the scientists analyzed would have towered over Ramesses II, the tallest recorded ancient Egyptian pharaoh, who lived more than 1,000 years after Sa-Nakht and was only about 5 feet 9 inches (1.75 m) tall, Habicht said.

In the new study, Habicht and his colleagues reanalyzed the alleged skull and bones of Sa-Nakht. The skeleton’s long bones showed evidence of “exuberant growth,” which are “clear signs of gigantism,” Habicht said.

These findings suggest that this ancient Egyptian probably had gigantism, making him the oldest known case of this disorder in the world, the researchers said. No other ancient Egyptian royals were known to be giants.

“Studying the evolutionary development of diseases is of importance for today’s medicine,” Habicht said.

In the early dynasties of Egypt, short statures were apparently preferred, with “many small people in royal service,” Habicht said. “The reasons for this preference are not always certain.”

Still, because the alleged remains of Sa-Nakht were buried in an elite tomb, there may have been no social stigma attached with gigantism at the time, the researchers said.

The scientists detailed their findings in the August issue of the journal The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.

Smuggled Old Kingdom Statue Returned to Egypt

According to an Ahram Online report, an Old Kingdom statue depicting the priest Nikau-Ptah has been returned to Egypt from an art gallery in the Netherlands.

The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, in collaboration with the Egyptian Embassy in Amsterdam and the concerned authorities in the Netherlands, succeeded in repatriating an ancient Egyptian statue of an Old Kingdom priest Nikaw-Ptah that was stolen and illegally smuggled out of the country of Egypt.

The statue has arrived safely in Egypt and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has handed it over to the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

Shaaban Abdel-Gawad, the general supervisor of the Repatriation Antiquities Department, explains that the statue was put on sale at the annual European exhibition of fine arts, Tefaf, in Maastricht, Netherlands.

He added that the statue was illegally excavated and was not from the collection of any museum or archaeological site of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.

He pointed out that the statue is legless and features the priest standing and wearing a short skirt. His name is engraved on his right hand.

Sunken Ship, Ancient Greek Graves Found at Underwater Ruins in Egypt

CAIRO (Reuters) – Divers uncovered the unusual remnants of a military vessel in the ancient submerged city of Thônis-Heracleion – once Egypt’s greatest Mediterranean port – as well as a funerary complex indicating the presence of Greek merchants, the country said on Monday.

The city, which controlled the entrance to Egypt at the mouth of a western branch of the Nile, dominated the area for centuries before the foundation of Alexandria nearby by Alexander the Great in 331 BC.

Destroyed and sunk along with a wide area of the Nile delta by several earthquakes and tidal waves, Thônis-Heracleion was rediscovered in 2001 in Abu Qir Bay near Alexandria, now Egypt’s second-largest city.

The military vessel, discovered by an Egyptian-French mission led by the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology (IEASM), sank when the famed temple of Amun it was mooring next to collapsed in the second century BC.

A preliminary study shows the hull of the 25-metre flat-bottomed ship, with oars and a large sail, was built in the classical tradition and also had features of Ancient Egyptian construction, Egypt’s tourism and antiquities ministry said.

In another part of the city, the mission revealed the remains of a large Greek funerary area dating back to the first years of the 4th century BC, it said.

“This discovery beautifully illustrates the presence of the Greek merchants who lived in that city,” the ministry said, adding that the Greeks were allowed to settle there during the late Pharaonic dynasties.

“They built their own sanctuaries close to the huge temple of Amun. Those were destroyed, simultaneously and their remains are found mixed with those of the Egyptian temple.”

The mummified ‘giant finger’ of Egypt: Did giants once really roam on Earth?

A 15-inch long human finger has been found in Egypt and pictures of it are being released for the very first time.  BILD.de broke this story, and it is spreading like fire all over the Internet. 

According to BILD.de, the pictures of this finger were taken by a researcher named Gregor Spörri in Egypt in 1988.  The mummified finger would be considered to be human except for the fact that it is way, way too large to have come from a human hand. 

As mentioned earlier, the giant finger is 15 inches long.  It is projected that the person that this finger came from would have been more than 16 feet tall!  You can see more pictures of this amazing find on BILD.de.

As you can tell from the picture above, the fingernail is clearly visible.  This truly is a remarkable specimen.  So is this really a finger of a giant that once lived in Egypt?

Unfortunately, this finger is not housed in a museum in Egypt.  The researcher that took the pictures reportedly had to pay “an old man from a grave robber dynasty” 300 dollars to see it and take pictures of it.

So unfortunately this discovery cannot be independently verified at this time.  Hopefully, all of this publicity will flush this finger back out into the public so that authorities can examine it. 

This is potentially an incredibly important part of our history and it would be a shame if these photos are the only evidence we ever get to see of it.

But when it comes to giants, we already know that there is so much other evidence out there.  Recently I wrote about the Nephilim mummy that was found in Peru and about the giant footprints and giant skeletons that have been found all over the world.

But a mummified human finger from a giant in Egypt would be absolutely mind-blowing.  It would be a direct challenge to everything that is commonly accepted about the ancient history of Egypt.

Hopefully, all of this will spur more digs and more research.  The era when the Great Pyramid was constructed in an era that is shrouded in great mystery. 

Humanity is only now developing technology that would allow us to construct a similar structure today.  Nobody really knows for sure who built the Great Pyramid or how it was constructed.

There is just so much about ancient Egypt that we simply do not know.  Hopefully, the floodgates will open and much more evidence will emerge soon.